Leaning Into Lent: Day 40—Digging Deeper

There. Forty days. It’s all gone quiet. Spear heads wiped clean, hammers and nails put away until the next time. Jesus’ body is safely in a tomb, stone rolled into place. His seditious, maddening talk and histrionics silenced, his magic tricks stilled by rational politics.

I love the way Professor John Stackhouse describes it in The Subversiveness of Easter:

Then he is buried. Gone. Out of sight, out of mind.
Like a ticking bomb.

Heh, heh.

Tomorrow we celebrate, but before that, I wonder what the forty day attempt at observing a Holy Lent has done in me. I certainly don’t feel like I’m about to go down off a mountain, like Moses. Nor do I feel like I’ve just completed a forty day battle with Satan in the wilderness, like Jesus. What has it all achieved?

First an insight from a book. In The Cloister Walk (New York: Riverhead Books, 1996) Kathleen Norris described her time with the Benedictine monks like this:

I should try telling my friends who have a hard time comprehending why I like to spend so much time going to church with Benedictines that I do so for the same reasons that I write: to let words work the earth of my heart. (p144-145)

That’s what’s happened to me, too. God’s words in Scripture and Daily Prayer have worked the earth of my heart these forty days. A holy rototiller.

Finally, an insight from THE book. Back on Day 24 the second reading in Morning Prayer was Hebrews 10 which is about how Jesus’ sacrifice was bodily, once and for all and which includes this verse:

Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said,  “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me” (Heb 10.5)

The writer is quoting Psalm 40.6:

Sacrifice and offering you have not desired, but you have given me an open ear. 

…the original Hebrew literally means, “ears you have dug for me.”

Most of the time Leaning into Lent is the unspectacular, earthy spiritual work of making myself available and attentive so God’s words can work the earth of my heart as he digs my ears clear, so I can hear the bodily risen Jesus more clearly, love him more dearly and follow him more nearly. Year after year.

Gene+

Leaning Into Lent: Day 38—Feet

I am always a little uncomfortable about allowing my feet to be washed on Maundy Thursday. I’d rather be the washer than the washee. Peter may have felt something similar when he tried to avoid having his feet washed by Jesus in John 13, one of the readings for today from the St James Devotional Guide. But he was missing the point. The foot washing Jesus was doing was not so much about hygiene as it was about holiness. Same for me.

Every year when I invited the people I served to come and have their feet washed on Maundy Thursday (always in an Anglican decently-and-in-order sort of way by which the custom was all may, none must, some should) I did so, as according to the words in The Book of Alternative Services,

that I may recall whose servant I am by following the example of my Master (p305). 

Holiness, not hygiene. As a result of that simple, moving rite one year, I received this note from an elderly woman saint in the parish:

Lent is one of the Church seasons when I quietly reflect on Jesus’ journey to the cross and his crucifixion. Maundy Thursday seems to me to be almost as sorrowful a day as Good Friday. The foot-washing ceremony is something I never took part in. This year as Maundy Thursday approached several of my friends told me what a powerful service they thought the foot-washing was.  

After a day and night of prayer and meditation, I realized that pride had kept me from the foot washing. Because of my hammer toes and rotten looking feet, I had never wanted anyone to see them. 

At the Maundy Thursday service, I was still ambivalent about having my feet washed. Images of Jesus washing his disciples feet flooded my thoughts and I said to myself, “Do it.”  

As my feet were being washed, a feeling of great humility came over me. As they were being dried, I felt a great desire to wash another’s feet. While doing so, I was filled with ecstasy and great emotion. I felt myself to be in a more spiritual realm. My soul was filled with wonderment and love. I was at the foot of the cross; a more fervent believer than ever before. 

That’s what observing Holy Lent on Maundy Thursday can do.

Gene+

Leaning Into Lent: Day 37—Spy Wednesday

Because His enemies were watching Jesus, looking for an opportunity and pretext to seize Him, this day is traditionally known in the West as Spy Wednesday (Holy and Great Wednesday in the East). It is marked by the great contrast between the betrayal of Judas and the devotion of Mary of Bethany. (Excerpt From: Patrick Henry Reardon. Spring 2016 The Daily Devotional Guide by Patrick Henry Reardon. The Fellowship of St. James. iBooks.)

I’m watching Jesus as I lean into my Holy Lent spiritual disciplines, too. Not to seize him, but to apprehend him. I’m watching how he behaves and listening to what he says, especially when he was under such stress in the week leading up to his crucifixion. I'm not watching to see if I can catch him out, but to see a life well lived.

I see the “great contrast” to which Reardon refers in the St James Devotional Guide reading from Matthew 26; a contrast between the “beautiful thing” the woman did, and Judas’ betrayal. I know I am capable of both, depending on which way I choose to lean.

Judas, the “bad guy,” has been vilified through the ages for his treachery, but at the time, so was the woman who did the beautiful thing. The disciples were indignant and accused her of being wasteful with such expensive ointment. Doing the right thing isn’t always well received.

Knowing the right thing is not always clear, especially when someone is under stress. The disciples quarrelled about who would be the greatest (Lk 22.24-30), they fell asleep when Jesus was praying his agony in Gethsemane (Lk 22.39-46), Peter said he didn’t know Jesus when he was challenged by a servant girl (Lk 22.56), somebody lost it and cut a servant’s ear off (Mk 14.47), Jesus himself cursed an innocent fig tree when it didn’t provide a snack when he was hungry (Mk 11.12-14). It was a traumatic, shambolic time for all concerned.

St Paul catches catches something of the contrasts at play in Wednesday’s reading from the CofE’s shorter devotional liturgy, Prayers During the Day

The message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength. (I Corinthians 1.18, 22-25)

…a veritable maelstrom of foolishness, power, wisdom, weakness and strength swirling around all the participants as the unthinkable stumbling-block that was to be the crucifixion approached.

No wonder no body except Jesus knew what to do.

Gene+

Leaning Into Lent: Day 36—Tuesday in Holy Week Oil Check

Patrick Henry Reardon, in his St James Devotional Guide notes for the day, observes that

In the lectionary tradition of Eastern Christians, the evening services for Monday and Tuesday of Holy Week are called the Bridegroom Service, its name being derived from the following reading from the Gospel according to Matthew. 

The reading to which he refers is The Parable of the Ten Virgins (Mt 25.11-13) in which the behaviour of the wise and foolish ones are compared. The foolish young women took no extra oil for their lamps with them when they went out to meet the Bridegroom. The wise ones did. The Bridegroom was delayed and all the young women, foolish and wise, became drowsy and slept. When he finally did arrive, the foolish young women were dismayed to find their lamps were going out. Because they then had to go to buy oil they missed being admitted to the marriage feast.

We usually hear this passage during Advent when the call is to be ready, lamps full, for Jesus’ return. It works for Lent and Holy Week, too.

The Gethsemane Window in St Barnabas, Medicine Hat

Although drowsiness and sleep doesn’t appear to be a problem for Jesus in the story about the young women, it will be later during his desperate prayer at Gethsemane. “So, could not watch with me one hour?” he said to Peter. Ouch!

Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.  (Mt 26.40-41)

The disciplined self examination, prayer, fasting, almsgiving and reading and meditating on the Word of God of a Holy Lent keeps me awake, temptation resistant, lamp full of oil, and flesh strengthened. It just works.

Gene+

Leaning Into Lent: Day 35—Is It Nothing?…Monday in Holy Week

It’s Monday in Holy Week. This is the day when when

Jesus returns to Jerusalem from Bethany, where he spent the night. In fulfillment of prophecy (for example, Malachi 3.1-5), he purifies the Temple. There is mounting tension between Jesus and those who are plotting his death. (Patrick Henry Reardon, The St James Daily Devotional Guide for the Christian Year, Vol 20, Number 2, Spring 2016)

This the day when Holy Lent’s trajectory starts a descent into darker territory.

Why would anyone volunteer to allow himself to take the spiritual slide into the darkness, injustice, suffering and betrayal of Holy Week? Who wants to lament if circumstances aren’t particularly lamentable, when life is pretty good? Jesus didn’t want to go there. He said as much during his awful night of fear in the garden of Gethsemane. "Take this cup from me!” he pleaded (Mt 26.39, Mk 14.36, Lk 22.42, Jn 12.27). If Jesus, the Son of God, didn’t want to go there, even once, why should I, every year in my Holy Lent?

Not that my Holy Week is any where near what Jesus had to endure. But here’s the thing. A Holy Lent observed, especially in Holy Week, exposes me to what Jesus went through. I’m not required to crank up my feelings and try and squeeze a tear out or throw dust in the air. That wouldn’t be real. But if I can just be present to the Scriptural account of the events and the Daily Prayer liturgies, if I read the words, pray the prayers, listen and lean in to it, open hearted, then I’ll be available should Jesus choose to light something up he wants me to notice. It’s happened in the past—usually when I’m not expecting it, sometimes embarrassingly and in public. It may not happen this year, or next year, or ever again. That’s up to him.

What bothers me is the possibility of falling in with those to which A Song of Lamentation, the opening canticle in Passiontide Morning Prayer, refers

1 Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? •
Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow,
2 Which was brought upon me, •
which the Lord inflicted
on the day of his fierce anger.

I don’t want it ever to be nothing to me.

Gene+

Leaning Into Lent: Day 33—Monkey Mind

Passiontide Morning Prayer includes A Song of Lamentation (a canticle from Lamentations 1) which goes like this:

1 Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? •
Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow,
2 Which was brought upon me, •
which the Lord inflicted
on the day of his fierce anger.
3 For these things I weep;
my eyes flow with tears; •
for a comforter is far from me,
one to revive my courage.
4 Remember my affliction and my bitterness, •
the wormwood and the gall!
5But this I call to mind, •
and therefore I have hope.

Observing a Holy Lent is a disciplined calling to mind of Jesus, all that he has done and still wishes to do through me. The important thing is to let Jesus do the talking.

Yesterday, I referred to Jesus taking the disciples “aside” (from Mt 20.17—the Gospel reading in the St James Devotional Guide) to talk to them on the way to Jerusalem and the cross. I call Jesus to mind, Jesus takes me aside, as he did the disciples, and speaks to me through the spiritual disciplines.

The trouble is, I have hearing Jesus problems. My motives are in a tangle. Having called Jesus, my mind has a tendency to move on to other things. Mine is a “monkey mind” swinging hither and yon, hooting and in constant motion.

Or, I might even have the temerity to call Jesus aside to tell him what I think needs doing. Peter did that once. It didn’t turn out well (Mt 16.22-23).

Scripture, the Daily Prayer liturgies and fasting hunger pangs all call my attention back to what Jesus is saying, if he chooses to say anything. Most days there is a word, a phrase or a verse which lights up. Sometimes he seems silent. No matter. My job is to keep listening and watching. I’d hate to miss it when he does decide to speak.

Gene+

Leaning Into Lent: Day 32—Top Forty

And as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside, and on the way he said to them… (Mt 20.17—reading for today from the St James Devotional Guide)

That’s where I’m headed, too, this and every Lent—to Jerusalem and what awaits there. Jesus uses the forty day disciplines of Holy Lent to take me aside just as he did the disciples all those years ago. On the way he will speak to me.

Why forty? Perhaps because I’m slow or I need to soak that long. Perhaps because forty days is just enough; enough rain to flood Noah’s world, enough etching time for Moses and Ten Commandments on stone tablets, enough wilderness tempting time to build the necessary spiritual muscle for Jesus. Some think the number 40 symbolizes a period of testing, trial or probation in the Bible.  I can see how God might think I need that regularly. Perhaps there are death dealing things I’ve allowed to grow in me that need to be thoroughly rained on and drowned by living water, new things that need to be etched onto the tablet of my heart. Perhaps I need forty days worth of spiritual muscle building or reconditioning. Perhaps it was just the best number—the original top forty—because forty-one days would be one too many and thirty-nine days would be one too few (what does that say about our Anglican Thirty-Nine Articles?…but I digress.). Perhaps forty days are like the tithe—enough to notice, requiring some sacrifice, but doable.

In any case, Jesus is always on the move and my observing a Holy Lent helps me keep my eyes open to see where he’s headed so I can follow. On the way, Jesus is always offering to take me aside to say something I need to hear. Lenten spiritual disciplines help clean my ears out so I can hear what it is.

Gene+

Leaning Into Lent: Day 28—Holding Fast

Jesus says marriage makes a woman and a man into “one flesh” in The St James Devotional Guide’s Matthew passage this morning (Mt 19.1-10). God does the joining. I do the holding fast and resisting any hardness of heart.

Observing a Holy Lent by self examination, penitence, prayer, fasting, almsgiving and reading and meditating on the Word of God helps with that. Honest acknowledgment of my selfish, sinful ways, saying I’m sorry, praying for and with my wife, sacrificial (as opposed to “martyrish”) doing without for her sake that of the family, giving generously of my time and substance and allowing the Bible to set my standards will make me the best husband I can be. My natural sinful tendency to hard-heartedness will be thwarted as I am equipped to hold fast to my wife in a healthy life-giving way which will not oppress, control or smother her. We lean closer together in mutual submission, love and support.

These days, more and more couples are deciding that marriage is out-dated and no longer necessary. They believe that they can hold fast to one another in the strength of their love and that no ritual is necessary to seal the deal. But if they are ever to reach the truest and deepest one-fleshedness, they need divine help. According to Jesus, God the Father is the only one capable of the divine sacramental welding job that results in two separate, delightfully and alluringly different but complementary beings becoming one flesh. The first might do, but the second is infinitely better.

Just so, I can be a mature and devout Christian without observing Lent. But when I do make the effort, I place myself in blessing’s way and in the spiritual disciplines I hold fast to Jesus. As hardness of heart is revealed and softened, God the Father joins us together in one spirit and nothing, not even death, can part us.

A Holy Lent leans me safe into the arms of mother church—the Bride of Christ—her history, life and teaching. We await the Bridegroom’s return together.

Gene+

Leaning Into Lent: Day 1

Rather than giving up something for Lent, or leaning away from something I enjoy, this year I thought I might lean in to some things and write about them instead—in particular, things that light up in my daily prayers and Bible reading, or anything else that the Holy Spirit lights up for me.

First, you should know my sources. I’ll be leaning in to Daily Prayer from the Church of England, except that I am using the St James Daily Devotional Guide as my lectionary. It’s likely there’ll be other sources as I lean this way and that this Lent.

Two things for today:

A Hell of a Way to Start the Day

So said a Benedictine monk once about reading Jeremiah at the beginning of the day which is what Jude and I are doing in Morning Prayer just now. God is not happy with his people.

Thus says the Lord concerning this people:
“They have loved to wander thus;
they have not restrained their feet;
therefore the Lord does not accept them;
now he will remember their iniquity
and punish their sins.” [Jeremiah 14:10 (ESV)]

“They have not restrained their feet” is what caught my attention. Sometimes God requires that we restrain ourselves from heading in certain directions.

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. [Galatians 5:16–17 (ESV)]

The self examination, penitence, prayer, fasting, almsgiving, reading and meditating on the Word of God of a Holy Lent are all designed to help us identify our disordered desires. With God’s help, we can then restrain our feet, walk by the Spirit and lean well away from the danger.

My Heart Has Knees

Morning Prayer in my CofE app this morning has a canticle (a hymn, psalm or other song of praise taken from biblical or holy texts other than the Psalms) from the Prayer of Manasseh in the Apocrypha:

The sins I have committed against you •
are more in number than the sands of the sea.
I am not worthy to look up to the height of heaven, •
because of the multitude of my iniquities.
And now I bend the knee of my heart before you, •
imploring your kindness upon me.
I have sinned, O God, I have sinned, •
and I acknowledge my transgressions.

I’ve always found Manasseh’s prayer moving. I was delighted to discover that my heart has knees as well as eyes (Eph 1.18)! It makes perfect sense to bend them and lean in to the God and Father of my Lord Jesus Christ in grateful penitence.

The Buzz on Deborah and Certain Women

Credit: www.public-domain-image.com

I'm reading about Deborah in Judges at the moment. In Summer 2013—The Daily Devotional Guide, the lectionary I follow, Patrick Henry Reardon writes this about her:

…"Deborah means bee, because it signifies the law like honey in the wax; that is, it contains in the letter the sweetness of the Spirit." Deborah's very name, then, was the key to understanding her.

…and not only that, but:

It was Ambrose, perhaps, who most eloquently expressed this large dimension of the ministry of Deborah. According to the historical meaning of this story (secundum historiam), therefore, in order to stir up the minds of women, a woman judged, a woman set everything in order, a woman prophesied, a woman triumphed, and, intruding herself into the dispositions of battle, taught men to fight under a woman's command. According to this story's meaning as mystery (secundum mysterium), it is the warfare of faith. It is the victory of the Church. 

…and I thought of the women who come to pray for revival time after time, who pray at the city council meetings, who read the Scriptures, plant things and pray in the city parks, who seem to be the ones running every prayer group in town, and the city is filled with the fragrance of the perfume (John 12:3 and 2 Cor 2:14-16).

Sweetly buzzing.

Do, Re, Mi, The Birth of John the Baptist and Music Being the Food of Love

It's the feast day of St John the Baptist. One of the reasons I enjoy The Fellowship of St James Daily Devotional Guide lectionary so much is because of occasional commentarial gems such as this: 

In 1050 a monk named Guido died in his hometown of Arezzo in Italy. Few people nowadays seem to have heard of him, but Guido d'Arezzo is one of the most important names in cultural history. Nearly anyone with even a nursery level education is in debt to Guido d'Arezzo. It was Guido who invented the system of staff notation used in music to the present day. He is also the inventor of solfeggio to designate the notes of the diatonic scale. The final syllable of his name, Guido, provides the first note used in solfeggio—the note do. 

Now, just why are we talking about Guido d'Arezzo on the feast of St. John the Baptist? Well, three hundred years before Guido there lived another monk named Paul the Deacon. This monk is best known for his history of the Lombards, but he also composed liturgical hymns in his spare time. One of those hymns he wrote for today's feast, the birth of St. John the Baptist. Remembering that Latin word order depends very little on logical sequence, we consider the first stanza of that hymn, which goes like this:

Ut queant laxis = "so that your servants" Resonare fibris = "may sing with relaxed throats"Mira gestorum = "of the marvels of your works"Famuli tuorum = "your servants"Solve poluti = "release the stain of"Labii reatum = "their sinful lips,"Sancte Johannes = "Holy John" 

Looking closely at these lines, we observe that if we read the first syllable of lines two through seven in sequence, we get: "re-mi-fa-so-la-si." Each of these syllables in the hymn moves up one note on the diatonic scale. 

When, three centuries later, Guido d'Arezzo worked out the details of his solfeggio, he simply took each note from the first syllable of the lines of Paul the Deacon's hymn for the feast of John the Baptist. The hymn's first syllable, ut, not conducive to being sung by itself, was changed to do, the second syllable of Guido's name. (Respectfully to Julie Andrews, it has nothing to do with a female deer or a needle pulling thread.)

Music to my eyes. The wonderfully whimsical commentator is Patrick Henry Reardon. (“Summer 2013 - The Daily Devotional Guide by Patrick Henry Reardon.” The Fellowship of St. James. iBooks.)

Holiness: More or Less

I continue to enjoy my St James Devotional Guide with its notes from Patrick Henry Reardon. For example, we started Leviticus this morning: 

A dominant motif throughout the Book of Leviticus is the mutual relationship of worship and holiness. In his salvific self-revelation to his people on Mount Sinai, God is experienced as supremely holy. Because of this, he is properly worshiped only "in the beauty of holiness." This is the "holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord" (Hebrews 12:14). To be holy is to belong exclusively to God. Holiness is not cheaply bought. It requires a transformation of one's whole life, the deep reformation of one's lifestyle, and the strenuous eradication of whatever in our souls impedes the working of the Holy Spirit.

EXCERPT FROM

Patrick Henry Reardon. “Spring 2013 - The Daily Devotional Guide by Patrick Henry Reardon.” The Fellowship of St. James. iBooks. 

Exclusive, transformation, deep reformation, strenuous eradication—no easy words there. An uncompromising call to something more. 

The challenge is that we Anglicans live and move and have our being in an ecclesiastical environment where the deep and strenuous is being reinterpreted away and is being replaced by something less; an easier, less costly, more "reasonable" way. 

For example, I can't ever remember reading or hearing anyone arguing for increasing the Biblical tithe as the standard for faithful, Christian stewardship. Arguments, Biblical or otherwise, always advocate less. There is even something called an "Anglican tithe." Five percent. Half a tithe. Incomplete. Less. Theft, according to Malachi. Sigh.

I find a similar trajectory in the sexuality debates. So called "progressive" arguments always promote the loosening and deconstruction of "antiquated" Biblical standards, both hetero and homo. They often base their arguments on the "silence" found in this or that text (Jesus never spoke of homosexuality, for example), or on the theory that the pertinent texts are being misinterpreted because of their culturally primitive context. They always want to allow for more licence, never less. 

Not to mention the atonement…

Jeremiah: One Hell of a Way to Get Your Blood Going in the Morning

I'm reading Jeremiah in my St James Devotional Guide lectionary at the moment. In chapter 25, verse 23, I came across something to add to my Monty Pythoesque Biblical Scenes: 

...Dedan, Tema, Buz, and all who cut the corners of their hair. (ESV, NASB & RSV)

What are the corners of their hair? Was that the original Buz cut? I love those little quirks lurking in the Bible that pop out and give me a chuckle every now and then. It really is a great read, and it's only by reading it over and over that I get to discover these wee gems.

Jeremiah, however, is solid food. Kathleen Norris writes about him in The Cloister Walk (New York: Riverhead Books, 1996):

Listening to Jeremiah is one hell of a way to get your blood going in the morning; it puts caffeine to shame. 31

[A monk said] he was glad to be reading Jeremiah in the morning, and not at evening prayer, when there are more likely to be guests. “The monks can take it,” he said, “but most people have no idea what’s in the Bible, and they come unglued.” 34

A prophet’s task is to reveal the fault lines hidden beneath the comfortable surface of the worlds we invent for ourselves, the national myths as well as the little lies and delusions of control and security that get us through the day. And Jeremiah does this better than anyone. 34

A great way to start the day.

Prayers for Winter

I'm using a new Bible reading and prayer guide this year, The St James Daily Devotional Guide for the Christian Year.

The lectionary (or daily Bible reading guide) therein is ideal. It ensures that some section of the Gospels are read every day, that the entire New Testament (even the uncomfortable bits) is read once a year, the entire Old Testament (even the nasty bits) is read over a two year period and that attention is paid to the seasons of the church year.

I really appreciate this because I have become increasingly frustrated by lectionary preparers' attempts to protect me from Bible passages which may offend me or others. They do us a disservice by denying us the opportunity to grapple with God's living and active Word written and as it impacts life as it really is; a marvelous mixture of joy, sorrow, nobility, injustice, satisfaction, yearning and tragedy.

I even enjoy the "begats." The names, the questions they generate about particular lives lived and why those particular names were recorded, I find endlessly fascinating.

This issue of the St James guide (Winter 2005-2006) has a section entitled, "Prayers for Winter: prayers in light of the ministry of salvation." The title reminds me that my job is not spiritual winterizing or helping people to be comfortable in the winterness of their sin. Mine is a ministry of salvation which is about the warm Gospel of Jesus Christ, spring, the new growth that brings and resurrection.

One of the petitions in the Prayers for Winter is "For those who do not believe, and those who have fallen away, that a saving faith may be kindled in their hearts." The words "saving faith" caught my attention this morning. All kinds of people have faith in all kinds of things, but not all faith saves. There is a winter faith which may well seem to be clear, serene, even beautiful, but which is cold and dormant. And there is faith which leads to warmth, spring, growth and resurrection; saving faith. How do I move from winter to saving? How do I help my friends do that?

Things that make me go, "Hmmm?"