Leaving Lenten Journey Notes

In his book, The Lenten Labyrinth, Edward Hayes has this rabbinical parable:
The disciples of a rabbi came to him, and they asked him about the zaddik, zealous people who work themselves into a frenzy to reach ecstasy and religious enlightenment. So he told them this story:

Once a king created a maze of complicated passageways. He then sat in the center of the maze and told his followers to come to him. Those who came were two types. The first group entered the maze with sledgehammers and crowbars. They forced their way to the center. The second group came in very quietly and gently, wandering around the maze. Whenever they came to a complicated, twisted turn, they wrote out a little message and left it there for those who were to come after them.
     The rabbi said that those in the first group were obsessed with the command  of the king to come to him. Those of the second group, conversely, had faith in the great mercy of the king. They had faith that the king would magnetically draw them to himself.

There are a couple of things in this story that are relevant to me on my Lenten journey. The first is that God is not concerned with the intensity of my  journey as he is with the intention of my journey. Like the travelers with the  sledgehammers and crowbars, it is easy to want to rush the journey and get to the center as soon as possible and by any means. But that is to forget that part  of the purpose of the journey is the journey. It is following the maze, stopping  at the corners to get our bearings, resting along the way, trying to understand  and navigate the twists and turns. It is easy for me to want to short-circuit  the journey and rush to the center, breaking down walls, climbing over barriers,  even rushing passed those who are plodding along. And all the while I forget that  the discipline of the journey has something in itself to teach me – patience,  humility, to slow down, to accept the opportunity to acknowledge my confusion  and limited knowledge and understanding of the meaning of the journey. It is an  opportunity to grow.
     The story also reminds me of the importance of sharing with others who  are also on this journey. Sharing a note with those who come after me is a form  of encouragement and also a reminder that I am not alone on this journey of life  and spiritual growth. Maybe we can see this as an invitation to leave actual  notes, “Lenten Journey Notes”, of encouragement for those who come after us this Lenten season. These notes could be left on the bus, the subway, under a pillow, on an office desk or posted on a fridge or bulletin board. They could even be digital notes, posted on friend’s Facebook pages, encouraging them on their journey. They would be little messages of hope and encouragement for others who, like us, are on the journey and sometimes find themselves caught up in the confusion and challenges of life.
     The Lenten journey is not to the swift, but to the steady and the  faithful. It is not a race to see how fast we can navigate the Lenten path.  That, of course, is not really possible, forty days are forty days. But how we  walk that path is up to us. We can rush through our devotional times and our  prayers to get them out of the way or we can think about what we are saying and  what we are attempting to promise. We can pause and rest and reflect on what  seems to be happening to us as we make our journey. And as we journey, we are  reminded of the great mercy of the one who calls us to himself. Blessings.

"Tired"

I have been reflecting on the story in John 4 of Jesus and the woman at the well in Samaria. And since this is Lent, I was wondering what it might have to say to us on our Lenten journey. And there it was. In verse 6, it says, after telling us that Jesus had come to the Samaritan city of Sychar, that “Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.”
      I think it is easy, if we try to take with any seriousness our Lenten journey, to get tired and need to rest. That is why this passage speaks to me. Jesus was wearied from the journey. I think it is really good news that Jesus felt tired, which is something you and I have also felt and that that tiredness is connected with a journey. It is good news because he stopped and rested.
      It is hard for us in our hectic, time-conscious, result-oriented society to rest. We are all so busy. It seems that all of life’s traffic lights are stuck on green. And this can happen, even on the spiritual journey.
      There never seem to be any red lights that allow us to stop, except when we’re sick and are forced to rest. I spent almost all of last week resting because of the flu. It wasn’t always a pleasant rest, but it did cause me to slow down and it did help me to get better. It even helped me on my Lenten journey because it gave me more time to think about what I had been reading and opened me to hearing a bit more of what God wants to say to me. Of course, that was in the later stage of the week, when I got passed the “I want to die” stage. But like a red light, I was forced to stop and rest and reflect.
       Edward Hayes writes: “In this Lenten season—when, once upon a time, it was scratchy hairshirts, black fasts, meatless meals, long evening services in church—maybe there is a new, painful Lenten penance, worse than needles under your fingernails. The new penance is to stop. That’s right, do nothing, just stop.”
       The point I draw from this story about Jesus as I reflect on my Lenten journey is that it is okay to rest on the journey, to find a bench or a chair or a quiet corner and rest. We need to stop both to rest and catch our breath, but also to reassess the direction of our lives and their pace. Resting allows us to see whether or not the direction we are heading is the right one for us in the light of God’s desire and intention for our lives. Resting allows us to recalibrate and retune our lives for the ongoing journey of life.
      May you journey well and may you rest often on the way. Blessings.

"The Uncommon Sense of the Gospel"

One day Lucy was chasing Charlie Brown, shouting, “I’ll get you, Charlie Brown. I’ll catch you, and when I do, I’m going to knock your block off!”

   Suddenly Charlie Brown screeched to a halt. He turned around and said, “Wait a minute, Lucy. If you and I, as relatively small children with relatively small problems, can’t sit down and talk through our problems in a mature way, how can we expect the nations of the world to—“

   Then POW! Lucy slugged him. She said, “I had to hit him quick. He was beginning to make sense!”

In some ways, this reminds me of Jesus’ story. Some of his contemporaries decided to ‘hit him quick” with the cross, because Jesus was beginning to make sense! And the “sense” was upsetting their routine and their world. Jesus’ lifestyle and words were a reminder that this world, while important, isn’t ultimate; that religion that really answers the deepest questions of the human heart is more than ritual, that life-transforming faith is more than a simple acknowledgment of some truths; that family, in fact all relationships, while at the core of what brings happiness and meaning to human life, is not the ultimate relationship, but that a personal relationship with God occupies that place.

Jesus lived and taught and related in a way that, while difficult, proves itself to be true. And because of that; narrow minds and set lives and established priorities were being upset and so they “hit him quick” with the cross.

Lent is an invitation to walk in Jesus’ way. It is a challenge to make time for Jesus in our busy lives and to look at our existence in the light of what Jesus said, did and is. And it isn’t uncommon for us to start to feel uncomfortable. I certainly do. Many of the Bible passages for the season of Lent upset me by turning my comfortable world upside down. They remind me how many areas of my life I have made “off limits” to God’s claim of ownership. Or I try to rationalize the demands of Jesus and say they don’t really apply to me or the world in which I live. And because I do, I see so little growth towards contentment and wholeness in my life. But slowly, God gets to me and I come to realize that these are simply excuses, avoidance, my various ways of “hitting him quick” before I am converted by the uncommon sense of the Gospel message.

Many years ago when the great Japanese Christian Toyohiko Kagawa was on a speaking tour, he was asked by a college student to define “prayer”. Everyone present fully expected him to give a highly theological explanation, but he surprised them by defining prayer with one word—surrender.


As I get older and I look at my vocabulary of faith, my attempts to understand and explain the Christian faith, “surrender” is one of the key words; right up there next to grace, faith, love, mercy, compassion, and hope. Surrender means obedience to the God’s will, collaboration with God’s purposes, submission to God’s leading, identification with and commitment to God’s cause. Submission is trust.


The Lenten journey reminds me of this need for surrender. And if I can hold off on my desire to silence Jesus and what he is saying to my heart, and am willing to surrender, I find that my life is different and I am richer in the things that really matter, especially peace and compassion.

We have just entered the third week of Lent and the journey can begin to weigh on us and even make us question whether or not to keep on. Let me encourage you not to give up. If you have, you can start again. Share your tiredness or your questions with a friend. Ask him/her to pray for you. But if you continue to put one foot in front of the other and maintain the journey, I’m pretty sure that you will begin to see just how much sense following Jesus really makes.


Peace

Finding Hope Again

The trees in my neighborhood are telling me it is spring. The cherry blossoms are in bloom and other trees are doing their best to blossom and bloom.

      The word “Lent” means “spring”. Spring is a time of hope and change. So much is in bud, and our hope in God is not only an expectation for change to happen in the world, but for change to happen to us. The journey of Lent, with its steady march to Good Friday and Easter is an invitation to imagine that things can be different, better, more whole. Like Jesus, we must embrace the darkness and know that escape from bondage comes where we learn to trust in God’s grace and desire for our lives.

      Lent is a time for us to relearn or retrain ourselves to remember that when we trust and let go, our vision expands and we see things on a larger canvas. For some of us, this might be the first time in our lives that that has happened.

There is a story of loss and renewal that can tease us into looking at what needs to be changed or torn down in our lives in order to see.

A pilgrim was walking along a road when one day he passed what seemed to be a monk sitting in the field. Nearby, men were working on a stone building.

“You look like a monk,” the pilgrim said.

“I am that,” said the monk.

“Who is that working on the abbey?”

“My monks,” said the man. “I am the abbot.”

“Oh! That’s wonderful,” the pilgrim said. “It’s so good to see a monastery going up.”

“We’re tearing it down!” the abbot said.

“Tearing it down!” the pilgrim cried. “Whatever for?”

“So we can see the sun rise at dawn,” the abbot said.

This little story is a reminder that to lose something is often to renew it. If we look closely at our lives, as Lent invites us to do, we find that we have lost much in the course of our lives – a sense of wonder, a keen awareness of God’s love and mercy, our sense of direction and purpose in life. And yet, Lent teaches us that in losing there can be finding. As we spend time in silence and self-reflection, the growing sense of loss that we feel can actually help us to find those things that we have lost. This is especially true of hope.
       Today as I read the news, I was overcome with a sense of heaviness – mothers who murder their infants, brothers who kill their siblings, men and women and children massacred by a mad man, the growing pain of men and women looking unsuccessfully for work, again and again.
       It is easy to lose hope. But Lent and the paradoxical good news of Good Friday and the joy and victory of Easter tell me not to give up on hope. Not just because I need hope, which is true, but because God has not given up on this world, God has not given up on me. The good news is that in the midst of the pain and darkness of our world, God is present. And if we listen to the voices around us and those that echo down through history who walked the Lenten path to the cross and through to the Easter message, we see that what is true in their lives can also be true in ours. God is alive and God is active in our world and God wants us, through our loss and pain, to learn how to hope and live and help and serve and pray and be.
       And often for that to happen, we need to share our journey with those around us in the community of faith. I am reminded of something that the preacher and humorist Vance Havner once said: "Christians, like snowflakes, are frail, but when they stick together they can stop traffic.” The Lenten journey is a personal journey, but is not a solitary journey. As we walk together and share together, we find that what we have lost can be found. That what was old and dying, can be renewed and made to live again.
       May God renew you on this Lenten journey and especially give you his hope.

Just Twenty Minutes

Maybe during this Lenten season you have made a commitment or an effort to work on your spiritual life. Here is a practical suggestion. There are 144 ten-minute segments every day. Let me suggest that if you aren’t  eeping a regular devotional time that you consider giving two of the daily 144 segments over to your  relationship with God. That is just twenty minutes each day. They can either be together or maybe one in the morning and the other in the evening, just before turning in for the night. You could use them for praying,  reading the Bible, or reflecting on God’s presence in the day’s (or previous day’s) experience. If you could cultivate that habit, those ten-minute reflections will most likely fill you with a growing sense of a peaceful gratitude and confidence and enable you to praise God in the joys and kindle your awareness of God in the difficult places in your life.


Here is a suggested way to enter into a meditative practice as you set aside these times.

1.     Make the decision-- write it down, tell someone else if necessary -- that you will set aside a daily period for reflection. It is good if you can aim at the same time every day.

2.     Find a quiet place, where you probably will not be interrupted.

3.     Get comfortable, but sit erect. There really is a connection between posture and our ability to focus and pray.

4.    Take some time to settle down and get focused. Breathe in deeply twice, then exhale. Repeat.

5.     Read the passage of Scripture that you have chosen or that has been chosen for you in a devotional guide. It shouldn’t be a long passage. Read slowly, there is no rush. In some cases you might want to read it a second time. If you don’t know where to start or what to read, check with your pastor or a Christian friend or someone you know can point you in the right direction. While reflecting on scripture is critical for growing in our relationship with God and for keeping us on track, you can use these times simply to reflect on how God has or is revealing himself in your day or to bring your day into the presence of God.

6.     If you have chosen a Bible passage, as you read, focus on a word or a phrase or an image or a thought that speaks to you. If nothing speaks to you at this time, fine. But as you make this time an intentional meeting with God, you will find that God will be speaking to you through the text and your reflections on it or will
bring things to your mind that you can reflect on in God’s presence.

7.   What from yesterday or this day’s experiences can you bring into God’s presence and into your prayers?

8.     As you go throughout the day, try to occasionally recall a word or phrase or image from the Bible  passage, allow it to help de-stress your day.

Since today is St. Patrick’s day, let me share with you a prayer by David Adams written in the Celtic tradition. I have often found it helpful as I pray. 

 

Awaken me, Lord

To your light,

Open my eyes

To your presence.

Awaken me, Lord

To your love,
Open my heart
To your indwelling.

Awaken me, Lord

To your life,
Open my mind
To your abiding.

Awaken me, Lord

To your purpose,
Open my will
To your guiding.

“Doing What I Can”

One of the texts that often surfaces during the season of Lent is Isaiah 58:6-7: "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of  injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter; when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?” This passage is part of a longer text (Isaiah 58:1-14) that describes false and true worship. It reminds us that in a season where we talk a lot about fasting and self-denial that God is looking for something positive from us –love and compassion. Now, that doesn’t mean that self-discipline and fasting and self-denial do not have their place. Often they are necessary to get us to stop and look at our lifestyle and those things that we have become addicted to that  keep us from growing in our relationship with God and one another. But what God really hopes we will learn during this time is to love – to love God, love ourselves, and love others.
     I am pretty sure that these words and the whole of the passage would not have been a big hit with most of Isaiah’s temple going audience; especially, with those who were going through the motions of religion and focusing on the externals or the pious  actions  hoping to get God’s attention. In fact, it is words like this that many scholars feel probably got Isaiah killed.
     In this passage  and the whole chapter, Isaiah doesn't beat around the bush, he says clearly that God prefers another kind of fasting, another kind of religion – one which changes our actual lifestyle and not just punishes our body. There is a very clear demand here for social justice, non-aggression, freeing the oppressed, letting go of malicious speech, sharing our substance with the hungry, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless, among other things. This is no privatized faith – no “just Jesus and me” religion. It reminds us very much of Jesus’ words in Matthew 25: 31-46.
     The purpose of all spiritual disciplines is to create space in our lives for God and to allow God’s  will to be done in our lives and through us in the world. They enable us to know the spirit of Christ and to be tuned in to his heart.


Dr John Henry Jowett, a great British preacher of a generation ago, told the story of a young servant girl who had no formal education, yet was deeply spiritual. She had a strong sense of compassion, a concern for people.

When Dr. Jowett visited with her one day and asked how she spent her days, she said, “My work is very demanding, and I don’t get much time off, so I can’t serve the church as much as I would like. But I have come up with a plan that lets me do what I can.”

“What is that?” asked Dr. Jowett.

She replied, “Well, I always take the daily paper to bed with me at night.”

Dr. Jowett was puzzled. “Tell me about that. I don’t understand.”

“Well,” she said, “I read the page with the birth notices, and I pray for the babies that have been born; then I read the marriages, and I pray that they may be happy and true; and next I read the deaths, and I pray that God’s comfort may come to those sorrowing homes.”

That young girl had discovered the spirit of Jesus and was tuned in to his heart. Why? Because she had learned caring and compassion; and Jesus called compassion, love, caring the most significant sign of discipleship. In John’s Gospel, he said it like this: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples” (John 13:34-35). Jesus not only taught compassion, he lived it. As you read the Gospels, over and over again you can see the heart of Jesus immediately zeroing in on the neediest person in the crowd.
     One of the things that strikes me about this story is the simplicity of the young girl’s caring. She didn’t engage in “great works”, she just cared and this caring led her to prayer and doing what she could. What about us? Compassion is touching someone with a warm word; lifting someone’s spirit with a genuine smile; it is engaging in concrete actions, standing by someone who is standing alone. Compassion/love is a tangible expression of having come to know God. 1 John reminds us: “We love because [God] first loved us” (1 John 4:19).


     Maybe this is something that we can work on this Lent.


Blessings.

Adventure and Hope

The word “adventure” implies risk, stepping out of one’s comfort zone, and  maybe fear and danger. People we often describe as “heroes” are not people who are not afraid, but those who overcome their fear. They confront, name, and move beyond their fears. For people of faith, “holy heroes”, while afraid, are people who know they are not alone. They accept God’s promises that they will not be abandoned or forsaken; they know that they live in God and that God goes with them into the risks, through the fears and danger. And because God goes with them, they have nothing to ultimately fear. They are free to risk the adventure. Those who choose not to live in a growing, maturing, honest relationship with God, rarely live out adventures. For many people their life is encompassed in a small circle of existence. They live on a little treadmill: getting up and going to work or school, coming home and going to bed; getting up and going to work or shool again—an endless cycle ( or at least it seems like it). There are many variations of this treadmill existence, but you get the idea. It isn’t going anywhere and it is devoid of any real adventure or growth.
      To break free of this treadmill doesn’t necessarily mean we stop going to work or school or throw off the routines of our lives, but it means that we have to create time and space to break free, to go on a journey. The journey doesn’t  necessarily have to be physical one, although sometimes that or pilgrimage is  what we should do. Often the journey that is needed is an inner one – one that  involves prayer and silence and reflection.
      Often when we find ourselves stuck in a rut or wandering in a maze, instead of breaking out (or scaling the walls), or undertaking the journey of prayer, we sit down. Lost in the maze of our lives, we peek around the corner, fearful of what might be out there ahead of us. Not too long ago 90% of the population,  when asked the question: “What are you living for?” replied, “I’m waiting for something significant to happen!”
      “Waiting.” People are waiting for various things: to get through school, to find a job, to find a partner, for children to grow up and leave home, elderly parents to die, a new job or a raise or a change of responsibility to further my career and, hopefully, improve my life. People wait for many things, especially waiting for something significant to happen in their lives. They are bored or exhausted or confused or wandering. What are you waiting for?
      It is easy, when we are waiting, to excuse ourselves from responsibility: “If only I didn’t have this problem, or this job, or this person were out of my life….” But that really doesn’t help. There will always be something to wait for. There will always be some excuse that we can offer for why it is better to wait than to act. The problem is making that thing you say you are waiting for  an excuse that keeps you from moving forward, that keeps you from making life the adventurous journey it was intended to be. And part of the adventure, maybe  the most important part is taking a chance on God and the future.
      We are all on a journey. The basic human journey is that from the cradle to the grave. But there are many other aspects the journey. If that journey has lost its adventure, its excitement, maybe it is because we have forgotten that as followers of Jesus, we are not on this journey alone. God is with us and we have one another. But maybe the journey has lost its adventure and excitement  because we have lost sight of our destination. Maybe we can no longer envision  all the love, joy, peace and excitement that will be ours when we finish our  earthly journey and which can be experienced to  significant degrees in this life as foretastes of what is to come.

      This is where Lent comes in. It is a call to remember, to reflect, to  recommit, to restart. These forty days before Easter call us to remember  who we are created to be and redeemed to become in Christ; to  reflect on the ways that we are living our lives that turn them into treadmills rather than adventures; to recommit ourselves to move beyond waiting and excusing to moving forward – to restarting them. We journey  in hope and the hope that sustains us is the hope poured into our lives and  world by the resurrected Christ who joins us on the journey and shows us by his life how to live life as an adventure. Peace

"Eyes to See"

There is a story that comes to us from the Middle Ages:

A person came to one of the great cathedrals that was being built and stopped at three stone masons who were carving away. The pilgrim asked them all the same questions: “What are you doing?”
          The first mason said, “Chipping stone, as you can see.” The second mason said, “I am making a living. I’m providing food and shelter for my family.” And the third mason said, “I am building a great cathedral!”


The Apostle Paul writing to the followers of Jesus in Corinth said: “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s spirit lives in you” (1 Corinthians 3:16). In other words, we are living stones, all of us. We are the temple. We, individually and collectively, are a dwelling place for God. It is sometimes hard to believe that and often it is because we fail to see. It is easy for us to seek the temple somewhere “out there”, away from where we are, in some idealized state, when in reality Paul is saying that we are God’s temple and we are to give some attention and care to what we do with this temple. I am not discounting the reality of a new heaven and new earth and the truth and fullness of God’s presence that is to come that the seer of Revelation tries to describe in his final chapters, but only that here and now we are God’s temple and the question is “What are we doing with that reality?”


In the story above, the three masons had an answer to what they were working on. And the first two were correct in their limited assessment. But it was the final mason who was able to see his work (and life) in a larger context. The same should be true of our lives, of the temple that we are building. How do you view your life’s work: as part of the building up of a great cathedral—the church, the Body of Christ, the Kingdom of God—or simply as a means to making a living? An important Lenten challenge is learning to see, to see our lives and whatever work we do as being part of the great and divine design to re-create, transform the world in a way that glorifies God and enriches the lives of all of God’s creation. Maybe as you make your journey this Lenten season, you will learn to see your life in this way and discover how every twist and turn that is a part of your life can be useful material in the building up of God’s temple.

Blessings.

Used and Inconvenienced By God

Here is another poem by Sue Garmon (in Brennan Manning’s Souvenirs of
Solitude, p. 166-167). See if you can find yourself in it. I can.

Lord, I don’t know why
I’m so surprised
when you take me literally.
I said to you, so often,
“Use me, Lord.
Make me your instrument.”
And you took me at my word,
and things began to happen.

I suddenly discovered
that it isn’t always
easy
or pleasant
or even comfortable
to be used by you.
I began to find out things
about myself
that I didn’t like. 

I discovered that I didn’t mind
being used by you
so long as I wasn’t inconvenienced;
so long as I wasn’t asked to give
what I wasn’t willing to share;
so long as it didn’t hurt too much.
I began to learn
that being an instrument
requires an awful lot of humility. 

Forgive me, Lord,
for my lack of humility;
for my dearth of charity.
Continue to teach me
what it means to be used by you.
And, using me,
keep teaching me
to know myself.

Do you see yourself in that prayer? I do. Like many followers of Jesus I have often said, especially in the “high” of a moving worship experience or in response to a striking awareness of the great needs of the world – “Use me, Lord.” Like St. Francis I have prayed, “Make me an instrument of your peace…”  And then, when God begins to work in my life and use me, I have discovered that offering myself to God isn’t always pleasant or easy or convenient. It isn’t  always convenient to love,  especially my enemies. It isn’t easy to deny myself  and take up my cross and follow Jesus. I am too comfortable and satisfied with being number one, thank you. It is sometimes inconvenient and uncomfortable to reach out to the person that others are ignoring or don’t want to have anything to do with. It isn’t always very comfortable or convenient to take a moral stand and speak the good news of the Gospel and live the values of the Kingdom of God around my co-workers or classmates or friends.

Yes, we discover that being an instrument for God’s service in the world requires a lot of humility. It means facing who we are and committing ourselves to what God wants us to become. It is an ongoing process. We will most likely not get it right all the time. But the reality is that if we try, we will be changed for the better as we offer ourselves to be used by God and are open to what God wants to teach us, especially in the way of humility and love. And if we keep on, we will discover our true selves, the selves we are in Christ and that God, through the Holy Spirit, is reshaping us to be. And so, in spite of the inconvenience and discomfort, the fear and the stretching involved, we press on. And as we do, it is good to know that we can be honest with God and that God will continue to love us and teach us and reveal to us his grace and care.


Peace.

“Delight and Joy”

In his book Souvenirs of Solitude (2009:143) Brennan Manning has this interesting statement: “It is important to recapture the element of delight in creation. Imagine the ecstasy, the veritable orgy of joy, wonder, and delight when God makes a person in His own image – when God made you.” This statement is amazing, and not just because in one sentence we have the words “God”, “ecstasy” and “orgy”, but because it is a reminder of how precious each human being is; how important each and every single person is to God, and should be to us. This is the source and ground and basis for all human rights; for the challenge and responsibility to be engaged in society and the world, supporting one another and opposing all those things that threaten to dehumanize and desecrate human life.

 

Many people somehow feel that they can trample on this dignity and honor in the name of a “just” cause;  whether it is right-to-life, union-organizing, reining in spending, fighting terror, etc. People demonize those who oppose them and sometimes do it in the name of God. 

 

Some Christians are fond of asking “What Would Jesus Do?” in a given situation. That question presupposes that we know what Jesus’ did and what Jesus’ values are. How did Jesus treat the poor and dispossessed? How did Jesus treat women and children? How did Jesus oppose unjust forces? How did Jesus deal with zealous, hypocritical religious people who said one thing but acted in a way that didn’t reflect their pronounced faith? What did Jesus say about possessions? What did Jesus put at the top of his priority list? 

 

 

Only when we have done our homework and understand the heart and mind of Jesus can we ever hope to know what Jesus would do when faced with dictators bombing innocent people; when faced with tens of millions of people who are forced to go without medical insurance and care because they can’t afford it or have been turned down by insurance companies because of “pre-existing conditions”; when the rich get richer and the rest of the people are excluded from the bounty of God’s good earth; and the list goes on.  

 

 

All of this for me comes back to that fundamental, basic truth – we are all made in the image of God and although that image is marred and distorted and sometimes hard to see, we are all people of worth and dignity. And if we understand that, we won’t shout down the other or seek to shame the other or mistreat or belittle or triumph over the other in ways that make us question the other’s value and dignity. To do that is to thumb our noses at God. 

 

 

In his book If Christians Were Really Christian, Rev. John Killinger relates a true story that happened to him one Thanksgiving morning. His church had had a great worship service earlier in the day. After the service he and some others were standing around in the courtyard enjoying their fellowship and talking about the service when a thin, shabbily dressed, unshaven man approached hesitantly from the direction of the park across the street and asked if they had any food. He looked awful. He had dried blood on his face and clothing. He wasn’t wearing any shoes; his feet were wrapped in plastic bags. “I have AIDS,” he announced. He lost his job when he first got sick, and his parents wouldn’t let him come home. He hadn’t had a meal in days. Someone had beaten him up in the park the night before and stolen his shoes. 

 

 

Killinger and the others with him didn’t have any food, but they did have some coffee and gave it to him with plenty of sugar and cream to provide some nourishment. While the coffee was heating, Killinger telephoned an AIDS shelter, where they got a promise of a bed and were told there would be a hot meal waiting for him.  

 

 

While Killinger was on the phone arranging all of this, the young man was with Killinger’s wife. The man noticed that she was wearing a lacquered amulet as a necklace. “That’s beautiful,” he said. “May I touch it?” 

 

Emboldened when she said yes, he not only held and admired it but said he hadn’t been hugged or kissed in a long time. Would Killinger’s wife give him a hug? She did, and a kiss as well. He cried, and so did she.

 

Later, when they had put the man in a taxi and sent him to the shelter, Killinger and his wife drove home, thinking how different the day now felt from earlier. It wasn’t the same kind of Thanksgiving Day they had experienced before.

As they entered the house the phone was ringing. One of the leading ladies in the congregation spoke to Killinger’s wife.  “I saw what you did, hugging that awful man” she announced. “Such behavior was a disgrace to your husband and to our church. I want you to know I intend to call several people and tell them about it.”

Killinger and his wife couldn’t believe it. That poor, lonely man – and this church member’s shrill, self-righteous indignation.

 

 

Yes, everyone deserves our respect and compassion. And Christians should know that. This IS what Jesus would do.

But there is another question – Have I really appreciated the wonderful gift that I am? That might sound arrogant or self-serving to some or something less than humble. But each and every one of us is a gift – a gift which God gives to himself and a gift which God gives to others. Do you realize how special you are? If you did, you would not only be more grateful and caring, you would live in awe.

 

I want to come back to that word “orgy – “Imagine the ecstasy, the veritable orgy of joy, wonder, and delight when God makes a person in His own image – when God made you.” (Brennan Manning). Yes, while it does have the sexual overtones, “orgy” can also mean “excessive, extreme indulgence in an activity” (The Concise Oxford Dictionary). For me this sounds an awful lot like “grace”. We see it in the actions of the father in Jesus’ parable of the two sons (Luke 15:11-32). We hear it in Paul’s words when he describes the riches of God’s grace that have been “lavished” on us in Christ (Ephesians 1:8). “An orgy of joy”, “an excessive, extreme indulgence.” This is a picture of God intently focused on the creation of each human being as individual, particular, precious. That is God’s view of you and of every other human being. And God’s love is such that
no one receives less love than another. And that, my friends is delight and joy.

Blessings.

Noise, Boredom, Emptiness

We are always filling our world with noise. Noise that comes from telephones,
the TV, the IPod, the crowds in the street, the cars, the hum of the florescent
light, our own words spoken not so much to communicate, as to fill the silence.
We can’t always control this noise, but often we can. I get up in the morning
and make my way to the kitchen for my coffee and along the way I turn on the
radio to get some music. Yes, it is classic music, but I think I turn it on to
fill the silence. Other times I sit in a room and listen while people clear
their throats or cough or fidget, anything to make a sound to fill the silence.



Some people are afraid of silence, just as they are of empty spaces or being
alone. Anthony Bloom, a writer on the spiritual life, has written these probing
words: “Settle down in your room at a moment when you have nothing else to do.
Say “I am now with myself,” and just sit with yourself. After an amazingly short
time you will most likely feel bored. This teaches us one very useful thing. It
gives us insight into the fact that if after ten minutes of being alone with
ourselves we feel like that, it is no wonder that others should feel equally
bored! Why is this so? It is so because we have so little to offer to our own
selves as food for thought, for emotion and for life. If you watch your life
carefully you will discover quite soon that we hardly ever live from within
outwards; instead we respond to incitement, to excitement. In other words, we
live by reflection, by reaction….We are completely empty, we do not act from
within ourselves but accept as our life a life which is actually fed in from
outside; we are used to things happening which compel us to do other things. How
seldom can we live simply by means of the depth and the richness we assume that
there is within ourselves. (Beginning to Pray, 1970: 68)



Is that true? Is it true that there is an emptiness within me that is like a
great vortex sucking things from around me into it so that somehow I won’t feel
so bored? Maybe. I am often surprised, but probably shouldn’t be, when I see on
Facebook or hear in a conversation someone, usually a student, saying that they
are bored. Usually this happens because there is no school or assignments they
have to do. But it is also true of adults. We are bored when there are no
external stimuli, when there is no activity or noise or other people. Have we
become some incapable of experiencing the depth and richness within ourselves
that we have to live by reflection or reaction? As Michael Casey puts it: “There
is no one at home in us except the flickering images we receive from outside” (A
Guide to Living in the Truth, Ligouri/Triumph, 2001:261)



The noise often keeps us from facing that truth about ourselves. But it can
also keep us from hearing and meeting the needs of the people around us. We need
them to eliminate the boredom, to excite us, to keep us from being bored. And in
so doing, we use them. We don’t really relate to them or hear them or care for
them. That’s what can happen when we don’t have a center or live out of the
depth and richness that is within us.



But maybe the real problem is that the noise with which we surround ourselves
is really there to keep us from listening to God. And because we don’t listen,
we aren’t connected to the One that can give our lives that center, that
richness, that depth that enables us to overcome our boredom, live fully in the
world, and relate meaningfully to the people and world around us. Without that
all important listening to God, that connection, we are bored, whether we
recognize it or not.



Henry Nouwen reminds us that “Boredom is a sentiment of
disconnectedness….Life presents itself as a random and unconnected series of
activities and events over which we have little or no control. To be bored,
therefore, does not mean that we have nothing to do, but that we question the
value of the things we are so busy doing….The great paradox of our time is that
so many of us are busy and bored at the same time. While running from one event
to the next, we wonder in our innermost selves if anything is really happening.
While racing to keep up with our tasks and obligations, we are not so sure
that…it would make any difference if we did nothing at all. In short, while our
lives are full, we feel unfulfilled.” (Making All Things New, 1981: 29-30)


The season of Lent (which begins on March 9) is a time for getting connected.
It is a time for pausing to reflect, evaluate, refresh, and learn to live again.
It is a time to experience the richness and depth of a relationship with God
that makes us aware of the richness and depth of life. When that happens, we
don’t fear being alone, we don’t fear silence, we don’t need to fill our lives
with activities or things or use people to be fulfilled. We find that
satisfaction welling up from inside of us. We then are able to experience life
in all its fullness and relate meaningfully to the things and people around us.
Boredom is beaten back. Peace.