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 39—Majestic Submission

Lean closer. Listen. The city hums. The occasional motorcycle from the new spring crop rumbles by. The furnace hums. Purple finches squabble over bird seed at the feeders. Cars pass. Maddy, the dog, twitches and whimpers in her dreams on the sofa. Railway locomotive diesels throb through the coulee. Life goes on around me. Most people are enjoying a holiday. Most are oblivious to what we Jesus followers are up to on Good Friday just as they must have been in Jerusalem when Jesus drank the cheap sour wine, said "It is finished" and gave up his spirit. Life went on all around as "he poured himself out to death" (Isa 53:12); so many oblivious, then and now, to the final fight to the death for their souls and ours.

Lean even closer. Listen. Nothing seems to have changed.

I don't feel the anguish that Jesus felt. My life is not in danger. I can't crank the feelings up at will. But that's not the point. It really is finished. The point is to listen to the words of Holy Scripture, and to remember and to honour Him for—to give him worth for who He is and what He completed. I remember at an Evangelical Association city wide Good Friday service a few years ago, now retired Pastor Mark Bolender called what Jesus did, "majestic submission."

When I lean close and bow, my all too frail, willful and sinful humanity is brought into distressing relief when compared to His majestic innocence and submission.

And yet, I keep leaning in—listening. What makes Good Friday so very good is the way that through that majestic submission, "God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." (2 Cor 4.6)

My heart cannot but glow in the face of such knowledge.

From Night Prayer:

Almighty God,
as we stand at the foot of the cross of your Son,
help us to see and know your love for us,
so that in humility, love and joy
we may place at his feet
all that we have and all that we are;
through Jesus Christ our Saviour.
Amen.

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 34—for Such a Time as This

My times are in your hand. (Ps 31.15) 

I prayed in Evening Prayer yesterday. There’s another important reminder that comes from taking the time to lean into Lent each year. Try as I might to organize my time for efficiency and productivity, my calendar is actually God’s. It was God who chose when I was to be born, knows how long my time on earth will be and what I’m for. Like Esther, I was born who I am and when, exactly and specifically, for “such a time as this” (Esther 4.14) and no other. My times are, indeed, in God’s hand, so taking some of that time to step aside and lean in to Lent is to

call upon the Most High God, the God who fulfils his purpose for me. (Ps 57.3)

When I do that God’s purpose for me is much more likely to happen. God has I plan for me, I don’t know what it is—that’s the point—otherwise I’d probably try and improve on it. I’d best just keep leaning in to Lent if I want to know what’s good for me.

There are also some things I do know about what I’m for. I was created to worship the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. I was created to obey him and to follow Jesus. So, I go to church and participate in a worshipping community.

I also know my purpose is to pray for and serve others—especially others whose times are difficult.
Organized praying using daily prayer liturgies help me to keep placing my times in God’s hands.

For example, the Church of England offers an abbreviated form of Daily Prayer which “provides a framework for a daily Quiet Time and Bible Study” called Prayer During the Day which includes these prayer points during Passiontide:

¶ The suffering Church
¶ The oppressed peoples of the world
¶ All who are lonely
¶ All who are near to death
¶ All who are facing loss

If ever there were people who need to know their times are in God’s hands, it would be those living through such hard things. Perhaps my Lenten leaning prayers at just such-a-time-as-this will help them to know it.

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 31—with Hezekiah, the Righteous Rodent

Today I got to lead chapel with Hezekiah, the Righteous Rodent, at Medicine Hat Christian School. What a lovely bunch of children—all of them, from the grade niners trying to look as if they are too old for such whimsy, to the wide-eyed kindergarteners wriggling on the gym floor.

The school theme at this time is “Image Reflecting: being made in the image of God.” Hezekiah asked if there was anybody there made in God’s image. The kindergarten kids were the first to get their hands up, without hesitation, girls and boys, faces shining, absolutely convinced, obviously recipients of good teaching. Hezekiah thought, “Wow! God must have lots of faces.”

After talking a little about how girls and boys are made in God’s image and likeness (and how he is not, but a rather a cheese loving “creeping thing" —still loved and blessed but not human), Hezekiah went on to ask who is the “radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature” (Heb 1.3). Again, the answer came quickly—Jesus.

Growing up and growing older is hard on that childlike brightness, optimism and surety. Childhood’s wonder and natural, playful acceptance gets eroded by sin—my own and others’—peer pressure and making my way in the world.

Leaning into Lent helps. An obedient, childlike doing what I’m told in honest self examination, penitence, prayer, fasting, almsgiving and reading and meditating on the Word of God will reveal any of my oppressive grown-up inhibitions and temptations to

occupy myself with things
      too great and too marvelous for me. (Psalm 131:1 ESV)

Instead, the Lenten spiritual disciplines, faithfully worked, can calm and quiet my soul like a child’s (Ps 131.2) releasing a wide-eyed, shining faced and rejuvenated trust in Jesus.

Gene+

Leaning Into Lent: Day 30—Blood of Christ, Inebriate Me

Jesus speaks of difficulty, impossibility, leaving family behind and the first coming last in the St James Devotional Guide Matthew 19 (vv23-30) reading this morning. Hard, sacrificial, impossible things. And yet, I prayed in Morning Prayer:

May we walk this day in the way of the cross
and always be ready to share its weight,
declaring your love for all the world.

That’s a Lenten leaning I hadn’t thought of. Being ready for some of the weight of the cross of Jesus to lean on me. Heavy. Difficult. Impossible without God. I thought I’d be doing all the leaning and Jesus would be doing all the supporting.

More blood this morning, too. In the shorter Prayer During the Day liturgy for Passiontide, this:

Soul of Christ, sanctify me,
body of Christ, save me,
blood of Christ, inebriate me,
water from the side of Christ, wash me.
Passion of Christ, strengthen me.
O good Jesus, hear me:
hide me within your wounds
and never let me be separated from you.
From the wicked enemy defend me,
in the hour of my death, call me
and bid me come to you,
so that with your saints I may praise you
for ever and ever.
Amen.                          Anima Christi (14th century)

Blood of Christ, inebriate me. Now there’s another difficult, seemly impossible thing. I can’t imagine getting tipsy on the blood of Jesus—for blood to be a joy—to be that blood thirsty. And yet…

Kathleen Norris, in her book, The Cloister Walk (New York: Riverhead Books, 1996) writes of Diane Glancy, a poet, who “loves Christianity because it is a ‘blood religion’” (p154). And in Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith (New York: Riverhead Books, 1998) she quotes Rubén Martínez who

cheerfully describes himself as "not just a cultural Catholic, mind you, but a flesh-eating, blood-drinking practitioner of the faith" (p113-114).

I drink blood, too—well, sip it, actually. On Sunday mornings. Sometimes when I had to consume a little too much left over consecrated wine after the celebration of the Eucharist, I felt slightly inebriated. But that's not what the prayer is about. It's about another "impossible" thing—being glad hearted (Ps 104.15) enough to lose my inhibitions so that the weight of the cross leaning on me will declare to the world the love of Jesus.

Gene+

Leaning Into Lent: Day 29—There Will Be Blood

The Church of England’s Daily Prayer in Lent has a set of prayers and canticles which resonate with the penitential feel of the season. At first they are fresh and new. After twenty eight days I was just getting to the stage where I felt as if I had squeezed about as much juice from them as I could. Just as I was resigning myself to having to hunker down into more serious Lenten discipline, and as Daylight Savings kicked in, so did Passiontide in the CofE’s calendar!

Things are fresh again. Just in time. Still have to hunker down, but not out of boredom. For the remaining days of Lent, the cross looms larger and there will be blood.

For example, the Morning Prayer Canticle, A Song of the Lord’s Gracious Deeds, from Isaiah 63, asks,

1 Who is this that comes from Edom, •
coming from Bozrah, his garments stained crimson?
2 Who is this in glorious apparel, •
marching in the greatness of his strength?
3 ‘It is I, who announce that right has won the day, •
it is I,’ says the Lord, ‘for I am mighty to save.’
4 Why are your robes all red, O Lord, •
and your garments like theirs who tread the winepress?
5 ‘I have trodden the winepress alone, •
and from the peoples no one was with me.’
6 I will recount the gracious deeds of the Lord, •
the praises of the Most High;
7 All that God has done for us in his mercy, •
by his many acts of love.

…mighty to save, blood stained and alone sounds like Jesus. But then I noticed that the Canticle skips a couple of verses of Isaiah’s biblical text between verses 5 and 6. Isaiah wrote:

            3 …I trod them in my anger
      and trampled them in my wrath;
                  their lifeblood spattered on my garments,
      and stained all my apparel.
            4 For the day of vengeance was in my heart,
      and my year of redemption had come.
            5 I looked, but there was no one to help;
      I was appalled, but there was no one to uphold;
                  so my own arm brought me salvation,
      and my wrath upheld me.
            6 I trampled down the peoples in my anger;
      I made them drunk in my wrath,
      and I poured out their lifeblood on the earth.” (Isaiah 63:3–6 ESV)

What’s that about? The blood on the robes didn’t come from Jesus. On the face of it, it looks like inappropriate proof-texting and editing in the Canticle, but as I’m reflecting on it, I realize that leaning into Lent is not like leaning into a nice soft pillow. Leaning into Lent forces me to face up to the hard, sharp, bloody reality of sin—my own and in the world around me.

Passiontide brings me face to face with the reality of God’s righteous wrath, expiation, propitiation and the hard, sharp, death-dealing, bloody, yet life-giving work that had to be done by Jesus to put things right.

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 27—Turning It Up

Jesus, God the Father said, is “my Son, my Chosen One, listen to him” (Lk 9.35 ESV). Lenten disciplines are excellent spiritual ear incliners for listening to Jesus.

The night before last I went with my son and some friends to an Ian Fletcher Thornley concert in Calgary. I mentioned it in my earlier Leaning Into Lent: Day 19—Blown Wide Open post. He is a brilliant guitarist and composer. The trouble was, for my old ears anyway, the band’s wall of sound was too much. Even with ear plugs (not hi-tech ones, granted), it was so loud it caused my ears to “break up” like an overloaded speaker. I couldn’t discern individual instruments properly or hear the lyrics. It was muddy and overwhelming.

I was fascinated to hear that it was loud but not too loud for my younger companions. They thought it was a good mix. So the problem was obviously mine—the product of the too loud a volume portion of my mis-spent youth. It was hard listening so I wanted to lean away. Sigh.

Holy Lent listening to God can be hard, too. Up to now in my far from consistent or faithful life of listening to the Lord, I’ve never been blasted like I was at Thornley’s concert the other night or like Isaiah was when the foundations of the thresholds shook and house was filled with smoke (Isa 6.4—that must have been quite a concert). I’ve never needed spiritual ear-plugs. I’ve had the opposite problem. I need things louder. I need the Lord’s sound man to turn it up and do a clean mix for me to hear anything at all and even then, most often God’s word comes to me in something like Elijah’s mere whis of a whisper on Mount Horeb (1 Kings 19.12 ESV).

The thing is, if God did decide to let loose with the lights and smoke and all, it would be much, much bigger than any concert and would, no doubt, blow my ears out and me away. In his mercy, God’s audio comes divinely attenuated in a mysterious and minimalist mix which is exactly tuned for my old ears. My job is to lean close and keep listening, whether I think I hear anything or not. God, the Father, said so.

Gene+

Leaning Into Lent: Day 26—More or Less…

Leaning into Lent orders my leanings aright. Observing the Lenten spiritual disciplines helps me to trust in the LORD with more and more of my heart so I will lean less and less on my own understanding. There are benefits. As I acknowledge the LORD in more and more of my ways; for example, in my relationship with my wife, in making time available for spiritual disciplines and service, in my sexuality, in church-going, in my finances; the straighter he will make my paths. As I trust in and fear (in the healthy Biblical sense) the LORD in every aspect of my life, not relying on any wisdom which appears to come from what I see with my own in-a-mirror-dimly (1 Cor 13.12) eyes, while turning away from evil, it will be healing to my flesh and refreshment to my bones (Prov 3:5-8).

What, specifically, in Daily Prayer builds that trust in the LORD so I can lean less on my own understanding?  These, in Morning Prayer, for a start:

In the darkness of our sin,
your light breaks forth like the dawn
and your healing springs up for deliverance. (Opening Prayer of Thanksgiving)

Full of compassion and mercy and love
is God, the Most High, the Almighty.
Lord almighty and God of our ancestors, •
you who made heaven and earth in all their glory:
All things tremble with awe at your presence, •
before your great and mighty power.
Immeasurable and unsearchable is your promised mercy, •
for you are God, Most High.
You are full of compassion, long-suffering and very merciful, •
and you relent at human suffering.
O God, according to your great goodness, •
you have promised forgiveness for repentance
to those who have sinned against you. (From The Song of Manasseh)

And in Evening Prayer:

In the darkness of our sin you have shone in our hearts
to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God
in the face of Jesus Christ. (Opening Prayer of Thanksgiving)

He has mercy on those who fear him, •
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm •
and has scattered the proud in their conceit,
Casting down the mighty from their thrones •
and lifting up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things •
and sent the rich away empty. (The Magnificat—The Song of Mary)

These excerpts provide a potent list of saving acts that God has done, is doing and will do. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is most worthy of our trust.

Gene+

Leaning Into Lent: Day 25—Unless…

Millstone Image from here

Jesus said unless I turn and become childlike I will never enter the kingdom of heaven (Mt 18.3). The spiritual disciplines of an Holy Lent are designed to dismantle my prideful, “adult” delusions of grandeur revealing my true healthy, humble, God-given childlike self.

What would I be like if I was childlike? I would play more and be joyful. I would be mischievous. I would be dependant on others for food, clothing, shelter, protection and learning about what is right and wrong. I would be growing and learning exponentially. I would be innocent.

Holy Lent disciplines help with all that. Self examination and penitence help with the mischief, innocence and knowing what is right and wrong. Prayer establishes God’s place in my life and my dependent place in his. Fasting also reminds me of my dependence as does Almsgiving, which also teaches me to share and be playful (or cheerful—2 Cor 9.7) in generosity. Reading and meditating on the Word of God grows me and teaches me.

Jesus goes on in the next few verses to describe a blessing and a warning to my adult self concerning my responsibilities towards children.

Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me (Mt 18.5)

May my Lenten discipline make me more open and welcoming to children, especially in church. But,

Whoever causes one of these little ones to sin…(Mt 18.6)

…the consequences are not good. What are some ways I could cause a little one to sin? I could teach them by my example that such things as worshipping God in church, forgiving and loving my neighbour and tithing, are optional—good if I have the time, but not necessary. I could teach them that it doesn’t matter what they believe as long as they are “spiritual” and believe something. I could teach them in word and deed that what the Bible calls sin, is not.

Or I could just tie a millstone around my neck and try and drag it to the nearest body of water.

Gene+

Leaning Into Lent: Day 24—Out of Hiding

I read this in A Song of Entreaty, from Psalm 143, in Evening Prayer yesterday:

3 My spirit faints within me; •
my heart within me is desolate.
4 I stretch out my hands to you; •
my soul gasps for you like a thirsty land.
5 O Lord, make haste to answer me; my spirit fails me; •
hide not your face from me
lest I be like those who go down to the Pit.

I don’t feel as if my spirit is fainting or failing, that my heart is desolate, or that I’m gasping at the moment. Thanks be to God. But these verses remind me that there are those who do feel that way so I can pray for them. Neither do I feel like God has hidden his face from me even though I don’t feel his presence most of the time and I’m hardly ever aware of what God is up to at any given moment. After all, as I also read, in one of the Psalms for the day:

The hidden purpose of the Lord is for those who fear him •
and he will show them his covenant. (Ps 25.13)

The fact is, God’s ways and thoughts are so far and away higher than mine (Isa 55.9), that to my tiny mind God is pretty well always hidden. The five dollar word for that is inscrutable.

Observing a Holy Lent, however, isn’t so much about God being hidden as it is about me being so. When Adam and Eve heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day after they had sampled the forbidden fruit, they hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees. So the Lord God had to call, “Where are you?” (Gen 3.8-9) and that has been his call ever since.

I sin and I hide in the weeds. Self examination, penitence, prayer, fasting, almsgiving, reading and meditating on the Word of God lifts my head above the weeds so I can say, “Here I am,” and we can walk and talk together again.

Then, if there is ever any hiding to be done. The Lord God can do it for me and keep me safe.

Keep me as the apple of your eye.
Hide me under the shadow of your wings. (From Ps 17 in Night Prayer)

Gene+

Leaning Into Lent: Day 23—Never Again

These are good lines to pray:

In the tender compassion of our God •
the dawn from on high shall break upon us,
To shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, •
and to guide our feet into the way of peace.

They’re from The Benedictus in Morning Prayer. With my Lenten self examination comes the realization that the darkness in which I dwell is not as dark as that in which some others do—Iraqi and Syrian Christians, for example. Death’s shadow seems to be leaning over others more closely than over me.

Those lines remind me of others in a song my son wrote and recorded with a friend under the name Bluff: Never Again.

Hey, son
You’re falling down
It's ripping out
My heart again 

What's with this
Horror in the
Corridors of the place we're in 

Spirits broken
Religion spoken
Bodies they're piling high.  

One day comes
Dark horizons
Good men stand up go inside 

Dark souls come
sorrow laden
Deal the world her final blow

The song is the cry of two young fathers’ hearts concerned about the savage and deathly dark shadow religious extremism casts over the future and their young families.

How shall I respond from a Holy Lent observed? I don’t walk away and ignore it like the good men in the song who stand up and go inside—unless, of course, it is to pray I go there. And I pray without losing heart (Lk 18.1). The Anglican offices such as those offered by the Church of England are brilliant for that. So are the ones in our own Canadian Book of Common Prayer and Book of Alternative Services (the texts of which are both online here). I can lean on them in my devotions because I know nothing important will be missed. I also know, as the song goes, that one day,

When it's alright
I'll come out again
Right at the end

And all shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well, no matter what.

Gene+

Leaning Into Lent: Day 22—Leaning into the Curves

This is a painting in progress by one of my brothers, Devon, of a motorcycle racer leaning into a curve at high speed (see more, along with works by my other brother Don, my nephew Dean and my son Anthony at PackwoodART).

Those of you who have ridden a motorcycle, or a a bicycle for that matter, will know that there is some leaning required in order to negotiate bends or corners. In fact, if you’ve ever ridden a motorcycle or motor scooter with a nervous pillion passenger behind you who tries not to lean on corners, you know how destabilizing and even dangerous that can be. Effective cycle or scooter leaning comes from learning to “feel” for what’s going on as I move and the confidence to know I’m not going to fall over and bite the dust.

I have also learned that when I’m moving, I can safely lean further over than I can when I’m stationary. If I’m in motion, leaning actually helps me to negotiate curves and bends with ease, enjoyment and even exhilaration.

Leaning into Lent is the same. It gets me moving in my spiritual walk, helps me negotiate the twists and turns safely and without falling over and hurting myself or anyone else.

So, this morning I leaned into The Benedictus praying:

Guide our feet into the way of peace

In Evening Prayer’s opening hymn I ask the Lord to help me negotiate the treacherous hairpin corners of darkness and perplexity:

Lord Jesus, think on me,
nor let me go astray;
through darkness and perplexity
point thou the heavenly way.

And in the Collect I asked for divine help in leaning into “the way of the cross,” that I “may find it none other than the way of life and peace.”

It is a race I’m running (Heb 12.1) and so are you. But I’m not travelling anywhere near as fast as the racer in Devon’s painting. And, like the painting, I’m not finished yet. I don’t know that I’ll ever have to travel as fast or lean over quite as far as the racers do, but if I do, I know it will be exhilarating—only I’ll be as safe as houses.

Gene+

Leaning Into Lent: Day 21—Lent, Collectively

Prayer is one of the six spiritual disciplines of an Holy Lent so I thought I’d step aside from the Daily Office for a day and review what we’ve prayed in our Sunday Collects (in The Book of Alternative Services) since Ash Wednesday—a collective assessment at the half way point of Lent.

Each Collect has an introduction which makes an important theological statement about the Christian faith. To believe and appropriate them strengthens us. Here they are so far:

ASH WEDNESDAY
God despises nothing he has made and forgives the sins of all who are penitent.

FIRST SUNDAY
Jesus, God’s son, was tempted as we are but did not sin.

SECOND SUNDAY
Jesus was revealed in majesty and suffered death on the cross.

THIRD SUNDAY
alone we have no power to help ourselves and that weakness can be discouraging.

After declaring those truths, this is what we’ve asked of the Almighty and everlasting God, our Gracious Father of Mercy so far:

Create and make in us new and contrite hearts,
that we, worthily lamenting our sins
and acknowledging our brokenness,
may obtain of you, the God of all mercy,
perfect remission and forgiveness. (Ash Wednesday) 

Give us grace to discipline ourselves
in submission to your Spirit,
that as you know our weakness,
so we may know your power to save (First Sunday) 

Give us faith to perceive his (that is, Jesus’) glory,
that being strengthened by his grace
we may be changed into his likeness, from glory to glory (Second Sunday) 

When we are discouraged by our weakness,
strengthen us to follow Christ,
our pattern and our hope (Third Sunday)

Lord willing, so far this Lent, we will be receiving perfect remission and forgiveness, grace, and knowledge of God’s power to save. We will also be changing into the likeness of Jesus from glory to glory as we are being strengthened, all through Jesus Christ our Lord who lives and reigns with God, the Father, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Gene+