The Third Sunday in Lent - March 23

Complaint and Thanksgiving
Exodus 17:1-7
Psalm 95

I still receive email news from the Diocese of Maine. This prayer was part of a recent newsletter. It comes from St. Margaret’s parish in Belfast, Maine. It was written for the beginning of a vestry meeting. Apparently, their vestry meets on Sundays, because the prayer also refers to a recent celebration of the Holy Eucharist.

Holy Lord,
You gave us more snow last night, and we're not happy. We've had enough, more than enough, of boots and mittens and wooly scarves and hats and puffy coats that clog our lives. We're done already with shoveling pathways and scraping windshields and hauling wood, with slipping on ice and sliding off roads. We've shivered through 40 days and 40 nights - or more - and we're fed up. Tired. Grumbling. And you've given us snow. With the promise of more.

To be fair, you've also delivered an abundance of manna. Today's frigid blast came with a feast lovingly prepared in your name. As we were comforted and filled, you wept for the hungry child you saw crouching by a propane heater in her trailer home in Belfast. You wept for our brothers and sisters huddled without food in the rubble of Aleppo. In this winter of our discontent, we are blessed beyond measure. We thank you, gracious Lord God.

In the cold you've surrounded us with warmth, embraced us with family and friends. You've stretched out your hand in the kindness of strangers who join us along our way, and given us opportunities to stretch out our hands to others. Tonight you've gathered us in a cozy, peaceful place to share our concerns and ideas and plans. You've invited us into a moment of silence so we may listen, and hear your voice. Open our hearts to your vision for us, gracious Lord God. Nourish us with your love, and strengthen us with purpose and hope for the journey ahead. Amen. 

It’s a fun prayer, and certainly speaks to the sort of winter we’ve had here in Chicago, too. But what I really want to emphasize is that this prayer includes both complaint and thanksgiving. Two very different and seemingly contradictory feelings towards God. But they are both there. At the same time. In the same prayer. Complaint and thanksgiving. And the Scriptures, particularly the Psalms, are full of similar prayers. With complaints considerably more dire than the annoyance of a long winter. But still complaint and thanksgiving in the same prayer. Complaint and thanksgiving.

Today’s psalm, Psalm 95 prompted this reflection. Particularly the presence of Psalm 95 during Lent. Psalm 95, at least the first part of it, is known as the Venite and is a part of Morning Prayer. It is joyous and celebratory. It is often described as an enthronement psalm, a song of exultant praise for God as king. It was probably used as a hymn of praise at worship on festival occasions.

It is the last few verses of Psalm 95 that lead to its inclusion in the lectionary today. In those verses, God harshly castigates the people for their doubt and lack of trust at Massah and Meribah… the story we heard in today’s Old Testament lesson.

Old Testament scholar Rolf Jacobson writes:

In ancient Israel, the festival worship included moments that were both celebratory or joyous and castigating or penitential…. 

We have separated that which is penitential and reproving from that which is joyful and celebratory. But in ancient Israel, these theological moves were united in the festival worship. This seems odd to us. Can you imagine Christmas Eve or Easter morning worship with a penitential, reproving sermon? 

Joyous and penitential. Very different, seemingly contradictory, moods expressed in the same psalm, in the same worship experience.

We do tend to separate joy or praise from penitence. We separate Easter from Lent. And, it’s probably fair to say, that most of us only do Lent under duress, because the church requires us to. And we feel like once we’ve endured Lent and “earned” Easter, thanks be to God we’re done with penitence.

I’ve often said that the seasons of the church year are cumulative, but we don’t experience them that way. We do, during Lent, talk about Sundays as little Easters. Maybe we should talk more about Fridays as little Lents throughout the year.

But that’s still separate. Friday and then Sunday. The message of the prayer from Maine and Psalm 95 is to bring together the complexity of our life and faith. To bring to God complaint and thanksgiving, praise and penitence. Arising in a single soul at the very same time.

I suppose we’d like things to be neat and tidy, either/or. But they’re not. Right in the midst of resurrection praise, we still need reproof and penitence. We can and do feel the very different feelings of thanksgiving and complaint at the same time.

Even belief and unbelief can go hand in hand.

There is a story in Mark’s Gospel (9:19-24) of a father with a son who has serious seizures. The father comes to Jesus and says, more or less, “I really don’t believe you can do anything, but if you can, can you help my son?” Jesus heals the boy and the father cries out, “I believe. Help my unbelief!”

The same person, the same soul, can experience belief and unbelief simultaneously. Belief and unbelief all mixed up together at the same time.

We might shy away from bringing the more “negative” of these conflicting feelings to God, thinking that God does not want to hear our complaints. Or that God will turn away from us in our struggles or doubts.

But ancient Israel had it right. Bring all of the complicated and conflicting pieces of our lives and our faith to God in worship. I’m not sure what this might mean for us as a parish in our Sunday corporate worship. But in our private prayers and in the living of our lives, it means to bring to God our complaints and our thanksgivings, our praise and our penitence, our belief and our doubt.

God has promised to be with us always. And that has been the experience of God’s people from the earliest days up to today. God is with us in the negative aspects of our lives as well as the positive. And the more of ourselves we bring to God, the more fully we will encounter and know God. Bringing all of the complexity and struggle to God will enrich and deepen our experience of God in our lives.

Complaint and thanksgiving. Praise and reproof. Belief and unbelief. God is with us.

The Second Sunday in Lent - March 16

Sandhill Cranes and Lent
John 3:1-17

Those of us who listen for the cranes heard them this week. The Sandhill cranes calling overhead. Once you know it, it’s an unmistakable sound. And beautiful. Those of us who live just south of Lake Michigan are in one of the major migration flyways.  The Sandhill cranes are on their way north. Their call, of course, is a herald of spring.

There are other heralds of spring appearing around us. We are particularly eager for them this year. My witch hazel is blooming. Or at least it was beginning to bloom yesterday; it’s just shivering this morning. Bulbs are coming up. Heralds of the coming of spring.

Do you think of Lent as a herald of spring? Is the season of Lent an exciting sign that spring is coming? Does it quicken your heart like the sight of the first crocus peeking through the snow? Or is Lent a trying season that that, well, does happen to coincide with the coming of spring? Some years more than others.

These heralds of spring around us in nature raise our spirits because they are a promise about the future. They are a sure and certain promise of a future that is coming full of beauty and new life and growth. Spring is joyous because of the promise of new life emerging.

The word “Lent” comes from a Germanic root that means springtime. It’s not the formal name of the season. I do remember from high school German that spring is “der Früling.” But “der Lenz” is springtime, the experience of spring, particularly the lengthening of days.

Like spring, Lent is about promise, a promise of new life.

I’ve been thinking about Lent versus Advent. Both seasons of preparation and promise, but they feel very different. And, for me at least, Advent feels more like spring even though it falls in the darkest part of winter. Advent has that eager and excited hopefulness, as we anticipate new birth. Why doesn’t Lent feel that way? I think of two possible reasons.

First, to stretch a metaphor… In Advent we are welcoming a joyous birth, like grandparents whose first grandchild came into the world in that stable in Bethlehem. In Lent it’s more like we are the ones who are pregnant. And I’ve been told that pregnancy is not always comfortable or easy. It requires great perseverance and strength. It’s work. And in a way, we’re the baby, too. Trying to grow and develop into the people God calls us to be. That’s hard work, too.

Switching back to a seasonal metaphor. In Lent we have to do the work of spring. We don’t just watch it unfold around us. We have to clear out the dead growth within us. We have to prepare the soil for new plantings. It’s work. It’s like we have to put all of our own physical and emotional energy into creating the thaw. That’s a lot of metaphorical kilojoules.

Lent is work.

Second, I wonder if the promise of Lent is not often harder to understand and accept than the promise of Advent. A baby being born versus an adult being born again. A baby is such a clear symbol and example of new life. But what is it Jesus is really talking about in today’s Gospel? I gather the Greek word has multiple meanings. It can mean born anew or born from above or born again. That can be hard to understand, hard to accept, hard to believe.

Nicodemus is the poster child for this struggle. He finds it difficult to understand or believe what Jesus offers. Maybe we are more like Nicodemus than we like to admit. He finds it difficult to believe in the born again life that Jesus brings. It has often been noted that Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night. In the dark. He represents all those things about God and our faith that we don’t see clearly or accept fully. The dark places in our belief. The gaps in our faith and trust.

Nicodemus needed Lent. Nicodemus needed the season and the work of Lent. Because Lent is not only a herald of new life to come, the work of Lent is the way forward, the path out of darkness. The words of the Prayer Book call us to the observance of a holy Lent. By “self-examination and repentance”—looking into the dark places within us and asking God to bring healing and light. “Prayer, fasting, and self-denial”—preparing our souls and bodies for God’s planting and new growth. “Reading and meditating on God’s holy Word”—to hear again and again God’s promise to be with us in love.

Spring is coming, and it will come, whether we care or notice. But Lent only exists if we do it. Lent is only real in our observance of it, when we do the work of Lent. And the work of Lent brings spring to our souls. It lengthens the days of our faith. The work of Lent brings light into the dark places within, thaws the frozen places, prepares us to that God can plant seeds for new life.

Just as the chortling of the cranes is a sure and certain herald of the coming of spring, Lent is a glorious herald that Easter is coming. But the work of Lent is also the pathway to Easter. It is the work that prepares us for God’s gift of new life.

In the name of the church, I invite you to the observance of a holy Lent.

The First Sunday in Lent - March 9

Self-examination, Repentance, and Renewal
Matthew 4:1-11

I don’t think I’ve ever heard the First Sunday in Lent referred to as “Temptation Sunday.” But it would fit. Quite a few Sundays in the church year have informal names based upon the Gospel readings appointed for that day. During Easter season, we have “Good Shepherd Sunday.” Last Sunday was “Transfiguration Sunday,” because on the Last Sunday after the Epiphany we always hear a story of Jesus’ transfiguration. On this First Sunday in Lent we always hear one of the accounts of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. Temptation Sunday. A day to think about temptation.

The Prayer Book reminds us that Jesus was “tempted in every way as we are.” He knew and experienced the power of temptation in human life. He was tempted in every way as we are “yet did not sin.” But we do. We do sin. We succumb to temptation all of the time. There may be occasions when we hold out against temptation. But we all fail. A lot. We are tempted, and we sin.

On Ash Wednesday as part of our liturgy, the church invited all of us to the observance of a Holy Lent. The first named quality of a holy Lent is self-examination and repentance. I think many of us jump to prayer, self-denial and meditating on God’s Word when we choose our Lenten disciplines. But the Prayer Book lists self-examination and repentance first.

And I think it’s very important to remember that for Christians, self-examination and repentance are always connected. Neither stands alone. Neither has much meaning on its own. Self-examination without repentance is just a head game. Repentance without self-examination is shallow and insignificant. Self-examination is inextricably bound to repentance.

Self-examination will always uncover sin. Specific, concrete sins. Repentance is the desire for forgiveness and the action of asking God for forgiveness.

The process of self-examination and repentance should be thorough and specific. I’ve recently been reviewing Martin L. Smith’s book on the Sacrament of Reconciliation within the Episcopal Church. Before moving on to very detailed questions for self-examination, he provides these general questions for each of us to consider (Martin L. Smith, Reconciliation:  Preparing for Confession in the Episcopal Church, Cowley, pp. 80-81): 

• What are the big things in your life, and how does your care for God stand in comparison?  
• In your heart of hearts, do you think there are some areas of life where the ways of Christ crucified are futile and unreliable?  
• Are there areas of your life where you have carried on as if God had no say or interest?  
• Where in your life is there fear, cynicism, defensiveness, obsession, fanaticism, hero-worship, or addiction?  
• Have you consented to be dominated or owned by another person or group?  
• Have you turned in upon yourself in narcissistic ways, making yourself the center of all your interests?  
• What are ways in which you are basically a conformist to the unconverted “powers that be” in society, allowing secular pressures to mold your behavior and define your goals and override the Lordship of Christ? 

The invitation to the observance of a Holy Lent also notes that all Christians have a continual need for repentance and renewal of faith. Continual. Over and over and over again. I commend this aspect of the observance of a holy Lent to you. The process of self-examination and repentance.

Today’s Gospel passage also reminds us the importance of baptism to facing temptation. Jesus’ temptation immediately followed his baptism. The whole context for self-examination and repentance is baptism. In baptism we express our desire to follow Christ. But we also begin a life in which we will inevitably fall short.

Baptism is the promise that forgiveness is always available if we seek it.

Forgiveness, reconciliation, renewal and new life are always available if we are penitent. This is what God brings to this process. The third piece. Inseparable from the other two. Self-examination. Repentance. Forgiveness and renewal.

The courage and the yearning to do Lenten self-examination come from the awareness that just as surely as we are all sinners, in baptism we have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever. God’s response to our repentance will always be reconciliation and new life.

A unified process. Self-examination, repentance, reconciliation and renewal. Lent is a wonderful opportunity to enter into this process that leads to new life.

Ash Wednesday

Common Worship on Ash Wednesday

You may or may not be familiar with the recent phenomenon in the Episcopal Church known as “Ashes to Go.” It’s all over the Episcopal blogosphere and is even seeping into mainstream media. I gather Bishop Lee was on WGN this morning, although I didn’t get the change to hear him. Ashes to Go refers to church leaders, lay or ordained, taking ashes out into the public sphere on Ash Wednesday. They offer ashes on street corners or at Metra stations to anyone who would like them. Within Episcopal circles there’s some debate about whether this is a good practice or not. One commentator, somewhat tongue in cheek referred to the “media frenzy” surrounding the debate. People have gotten very defensive and judgemental…

I’ll give you my take on the debate some other time if you’re interested. But it has got me thinking this year about what this service, this community worship service, offers. The imposition of ashes is offered within the context of this service. But what does this service of common worship offer beyond the individual imposition of ashes?

Most fundamentally: Community, the existence of a faith community, and the experience of common worship, are an antidote to the pernicious sin of self-centered individualism. Society and culture tempt and tug at all of us all of the time to define ourselves according to culture’s standards. To become successful or strong or beautiful individuals at whatever costs. It’s a pernicious sin. And community, common worship, and maybe especially the common worship on this day, push back, provide an antidote to the pernicious sin of self-centered individualism.

Within this service, ashes are imposed as “a sign of our mortality and penitence.” Each one of us individually receives the ashes as a sign of our individual mortality and penitence. Remember that you are dust, the church says to each of us. And ashes work as a symbol, powerfully evoking our individual mortality.

But in this service, when we line up side by side, shoulder to shoulder, to receive ashes, we are reminded not only that each of us is ash, but that everyone else is too. Ash is ash. Dust is dust. Everyone gets the same ash. Everyone is the same. Penitence and mortality are totally egalitarian. Everyone gets them in full and equal measure.

When you receive ashes today, think about the person kneeling next to you. Move out of your own head for a bit and think about the others at the rail. You are in exactly the same place. No one person is singularly unworthy or somehow more mortal than anyone else. Nor is anyone person singularly blessed somehow in less need of penitence. The people next to you need your prayers just as you need theirs. They need God’s mercy just as much as you do. No more, no less. Each of us needs God’s forgiveness just as much as the “worst” among us. We are all the same dust.

Remember that you are dust, we say to the rich. Remember that you are dust, we say to the most humble and poor. Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return, we say as ashes are imposed on old and wise and on the youngest and most innocent. Remember that you are dust. The deeply faithful; the negligent and indifferent. Remember that you are dust. The most annoying, and the kind. Remember that you are dust.

We are dust. We are all nothing without God. And nothing any individual can do will change that. The corporate nature of this worship service, reminds us of our total dependence upon God. There are no gradations in mortality and penitence. We are all dust, the same dry dust of the earth.

There’s one more thing that this community worship service teaches us. Noted by a blogger who is a bit skeptical about ashes to go:

“Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return” only makes sense within the context of the Resurrection. Otherwise it is a truly depressing and deadly notion. 

Ashes are deadly, depressing and pointless without the context of the resurrection. That’s good theology.

And we enact that theology in this service when we kneel at the same place to receive communion with the living Christ that we knelt to receive ashes. The same place where we face our mortality, we are connected with eternal life.

And, again, we all kneel. Side by side. We all get the same grace, too. Everybody. The same Body and Blood. Jesus died and was raised for the person next to you at the rail, too. All of them. The Body of Christ, the Bread of heaven… We say those words over and over again today, too. This day, Ash Wednesday, invites humility. But, I urge you, never get so lost in your sense of your individual lowliness that you imagine you are unworthy or less worthy of God’s mercy and grace than someone else. Never think you somehow receive a lesser measure of grace than others. Christ’s body and blood don’t come in partial measures. They are given fully to all.

The Body of Christ. The bread of heaven. The Blood of Christ. The cup of salvation. Given for all.

The Last Sunday after the Epiphany - March 2

Changed from Glory to Glory
Matthew 17:1-9

The event known as the Transfiguration has its own feast day during the summer, August 6. But every year on this last Sunday after the Epiphany, the Gospel reading is one of the accounts of Jesus’ transfiguration. We just heard Matthew’s version. Jesus goes up a high mountain, taking Peter, James and John with him. While they are there, his appearance is “transfigured.”

Transfigured isn’t a word most of use often, but it does have a meaning outside of the Gospel stories. It means to appear more beautiful, more spiritual. To the disciples looking on, Jesus’ figure appears changed to something more dazzling and glorious.

I’m surprised that I hadn’t really thought about this before, but our fictional literature (especially children’s literature) is full of people whose physical appearance changes. Think of all the cartoon superheroes from Superman to Spiderman, the incredible hulk to transformers, werewolves to wonder woman.

I’ve got to think that somewhere out there in the land of weird Christian kitsch, there’s a kids’ Jesus transfiguration action figure who glows bright white when batteries are installed.

But there is at least one big difference between Jesus and Superman. Jesus doesn’t actually change. This is an epiphany story. It is about revelation, not transformation. It’s more about the disciples than Jesus. It’s about the disciples being enabled to see who Jesus always has been. They see a human being filled with the glory of God. A human being whom they have known, talked with, shared meals with totally filled with the glory of God.

Jesus doesn’t change on the mountaintop. But this story is about change. It is about how us, about how regular human beings like us can change.

The Society of St. John the Evangelist, formerly known as the Cowley Fathers, is an Episcopal monastic community for men. These days one of their ministries is a brief daily reflection on a particular word available online of via email. A couple of days ago the word was “change.” And Br. Curtis Almquist wrote this:

The miracle of Jesus Christ’s Gospel is that people can change, and change for the better. Much better. Radically better. 

The collect for the Last Sunday after the Epiphany is also about change:

O God, who before the passion of your only-begotten Son revealed his glory upon the holy mountain: Grant to us that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory. 

We pray that we will be changed to be more like Jesus, to become more glorious. The Transfiguration is our promise of this possibility for us. It is the promise that human beings can be filled with the glory of God. That we, as human beings, can change and become more and more filled with the glory of God.

And there are benefits of this change for us. We may not become like Superman, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, but we will receive gifts that are actually more helpful as we live our daily lives. As we are filled, infused with the glory of God, God’s own peace will grow within us. God’s peace. The peace which passes human understanding. A resource to us as we live in a world filled with tension and conflict. God’s glory brings us a more confident faith to support and guide us in our daily lives. And the fruits of God’s glory shine forth in our ability to live compassionately and as people of hope. To act with God’s compassion towards all of God’s beloved children and to beacons of hope in the dark places of our world.

How does this change happen? How do we become filled with more of God’s glory? It comes through being close to Jesus.

So the promise of the transfiguration is a wonderful promise as we begin Lent. Lent is a time when we take on some intentional disciple we strive to live closer to Jesus. That’s the point of all of our Lenten disciplines. To live closer to Jesus. And the promise of this day, this last Sunday after the Epiphany, is that living close to Jesus will change us. Change us from glory to glory.

The miracle of Jesus Christ’s Gospel is that people can change, and change for the better. Much better. Radically better.