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