2nd Sunday of Lent, 2021 - Dying to Live

Walking the Lenten journey is traditionally a time of self-discipline. We commonly make a commitment to give up something we enjoy. Common sacrifices are chocolate, coffee, sweets, Facebook, etc. (I personally like to give up rhubarb since I don't enjoy it anyway.) The idea is that we give up something for God. When our desire for the surrendered object stirs - which it always does - we use that desire as a reminder to turn our attention to God. It has become popular in recent years to take on something new rather than to give up something. 

Whether we are giving up something or taking on something, the result of the commitment is always the same: struggle. Any attempt to create a new pattern produces struggle. It is an inescapable part of our human condition. At some point, we inevitably struggle to live out our commitment. At some point, we have to exert effort to do what we said we would do. At some point, we have to become very intentional with the discipline. And at some point, we generally fail. We fail to do what we said we would do. 

The point of failure is an important - even essential - part of the process. It presents a time of decision. Will we re-embrace our commitment, returning to it, or will we abandon it? Will we continue to pursue change or will we settle back into the comfort of the way things were? 

Our struggle to live out our commitment and our failure to do so are the heart of the Lenten discipline. They bring to our attention the central issue of the Lenten journey: our willingness and ability to depend upon God. 

It seems to me there is more to our Lenten struggle than meets the eye. On the surface, the struggle is about change. It is about doing something new. It is, in our minds, about self-discipline and self-effort. But beneath the surface, our struggle is about our ego. Specifically, our struggle is about crucifying our ego so that it dies. 

Jesus taught, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?" (Mark 8:34-37). 

We tie our discipline of giving up something to the phrase in this text "deny themselves." But Jesus spoke of something far different from giving up something we enjoy for Lent. He spoke of a way of life. The way to life, he said, was the cross. The way to life was dying. Jesus spoke of dying to live. 

Dying to live - therein is the heart of our struggle. And not just of our Lenten struggle, but of our spiritual journey. 

The cross was a Roman instrument of death reserved for insurrectionists. They crucified those who challenged the authority of Rome. To take up our cross is to reject the ways of the world. It is to reject merit-based thinking that deals in deserving. It is to reject the way of domination in which power is used for personal benefit at another's expense. It is to reject hierachical ways of thinking and living. It is to reject us-them thinking that divides the world into those like me and those who are not. It is to reject fear-based, anxiety-driven living. It is to reject the self-serving, self-reliant spirit that underlies the ways of the world because it is inherent in our human condition.

To take up our cross is to follow Jesus. 

To take up our cross is to learn from Jesus the ways of God. It is to embrace grace-based thinking and living. It is to use power to serve others, seeking their good, even at great cost to self. It is to view and value, accept and embrace all as beloved children of God. It is to embrace the spirit of a servant in the core of my being. 

To take up our cross is to join Jesus in living the ways of the Kingdom. 

And taking up our cross means dying to our ego. We cannot live the ways of God that Jesus taught out of our ego-based identity. That sense of who we are must die if we are to live out of a servant spirit. That's what Jesus meant when he spoke of saving and losing our life. 

Our ego-based identity is our sense of who we are that was shaped by the world. It is a sense of self that is based on achieving and performing. It is a sense of self fashioned out of conforming to the expectations of others, particularly the expectations of the community in which we grew up (the world). It is a sense of self chiseled out of measuring up to (or failing to measure up to ) the standards and codes and laws of that social environment. It is a sense of identity that is based on comparisons. We compare ourselves to others, particularly to those who are not like us and to those who fail to measure up as successfully we do. 

Our ego-based identity is driven by deep-seated fear and anxiety. We are afraid of being rejected and abandoned, of being inadequate and not measuring up, of being no good and less than, and of being hurt. We are particularly afraid of being inadequate. If we are inadequate, if we don't measure up, then that means we are no good. If we are no good, we will not be valued. If we are not valued, then we will not have a place in our social environment. We will be rejected and abandoned. Pain and hurt will be our lot. Deep-seated fear and anxiety shore up our fragile ego-based identity. 

Our ego-based identity is a merit-based identity. It is patterned after the ways of the world. It is crafted through self-effort and self-reliance. 

Ego-based identities are on full display in the lives of young children. They call out "look at me, Mommy" and insist "I can do it myself!" Even at this young age, their lives are being shaped by the attention and approval of others, based on what they can do through their own self-effort. Such ego-based identities are fed as the various social environments through which they pass recognize and reward those who achieve while ignoring and shaming those who do not. As we get older, we learn to be more subtle with our ego-based identities less we be criticized for being arrogant or too full of ourselves. We learn to push our ego-based identities underground while continuing to feed them and live out of them. Out of sight, out of mind ... that is, until we walk the Lenten journey and encounter the struggles of our Lenten discipline. The struggles of our Lenten journey point to the limits of our ability and self-effort. Deep down, our Lenten struggles are really with this ego-based identity, crafted through our self-effort and self-reliance by conforming to the expectations of the world.  

Jesus taught this ego-based identity, fashioned after the thinking of the world, has to die if we are to live. We have to discover a new identity. 

This new identity, this new sense of who we are is our true self. It is who God created us to be, not who the world created us to be. It is our unique self ... the self that no one else can ever be. It is who we are deep within. It consists of our gifts and abilities coupled with our passions and interests ... all of which are gifts given to us when God fashioned us in our mother's womb. It is the self we discover when we let go of the ego-based self we crafted through self-effort and self-reliance. It is the self that is released when we follow Jesus. It is the self that blossoms when we give ourselves to living the ways of the Kingdom. 

The Lenten journey we walk, with its struggles and failures, is not really about self-discipline. It is far more than giving up something or taking on something. Such things only feed the ego-based self. At it core, the Lenten journey is about dying to the ego-based self ... so that we might live. The Lenten journey is about dying to live. 

1st Sunday of Lent, 2021

Make me to know your ways, O Lord;
teach me your paths.
Lead me in your truth, and teach me (Psalm 25:4-5).

It seems to me the psalmist captured the spirit of the Lenten journey. The spirit of Lent is one of teachableness - the willingness to learn and, thereby, grow.

Teach me - make me to know your ways - lead me in your truth. Over and over, the psalmist prayed for the LORD to help him learn the ways of God.

A teachable spirit recognizes that God's ways and our ways are different ... not just different, radically different. (See Isaiah 55:8-9.) Our self-centered, self-serving spirit is the polar opposite of the self-giving, servant spirit of God that was revealed in Jesus of Nazareth. We use power (in its many forms) for our own benefit, often against others, while God uses power to serve others. God uses power to bring forth life and nurture it to maturity.We naturally live out of merit-based, if ... then thinking. God relates to us out of grace and forgiveness. Our merit-based, if ... then thinking leads to us-them thinking in which we divide the world into tribes of those like us and those who are different. Our relationships become transactional as we barter acceptance in exchange for conformity to our ways of thinking and doing things. Grace-based thinking teaches us to embrace each and every person as a beloved child of God. Anxiety and fear drive how we look at life and how we relate to others. Joy and peace permeate the ways of God. Scarcity thinking governs how we pursue, accumulate, and hoard things while Jesus taught us to trust the generosity of God and the abundance that life offers. Knowing and living God's ways do not naturally flow from our hearts and minds. They must be learned ... intentionally pursued. 

God's ways are not our ways. We walk the Lenten journey with the awareness they must be learned. 

Such a teachable spirit goes against our nature. I am reminded of Peter's (along with the other disciples') resistance to  hearing what Jesus had to say about the suffering that awaited him in Jerusalem (Mark 8:32; 9:32). What Jesus taught did not match their understanding of the messiah. It did not feed the desires they had attached to that understanding. (See Mark 9:33-37; 10:35-45.) Their struggle to understand is the dominant theme of Jesus's journey to Jerusalem after which the Lenten journey is patterned. They struggled to understand because what Jesus taught went against how/what they thought. He taught the self-giving, servant ways of God.

The disciples' struggle is our struggle. I am struck by how much of our religious life that we call "Christian" is nothing more than our innate human thinking and relating dressed up in religious garb. I am struck by how little those of us who call ourselves Christian reflect the grace, forgiveness, compassion, generosity, and glad welcome that Jesus taught and lived. We have created God in our likeness, according to our desires, rather than allow the Spirit to recreate us in the likeness of Christ. 

Underlying the teachable spirit the psalmist expressed is humility. Humility is the acknowledgement that, no matter what I know, there is always more to learn. There is always more to God and God's ways than I can grasp. In other words, what I believe is not the standard that defines truth. 

We live in a religious environment that emphasizes belief. We argue over the right position (read: "biblical" position) to take on issues. We divide into groups based on agreement in what we believe. We  demonize and attack those who do not think like we do. This over-focus on belief fosters a not-so-subtle "I'm right, You're wrong" arrogance - the opposite of the spirit of humility. This arrogance is seldom recognized, much less named. Consequently, it is a barrier to the teachable spirit the psalmist exhibited. Rather than being open to new understanding, we judge what we hear based on how it conforms to what we already believe. 

The psalmist's prayer reminds us that learning the ways of God must be translated into living the ways of God. The psalmist spoke about a path to walk, that is, a way of life to be lived. The psalmist prayed for guidance in walking that path: "lead me." 

Ultimately, learning the ways of God is about being changed. We don't learn so that we can know; we learn so we can do. What we believe (orthodoxy) must be translated into a change in how we live (orthopraxy). Our objective - and God's objective for us - is to live a life patterned after the character of God. We, like Jesus, are to be the in-the-flesh embodiment of the character of God in our world. We are to live the ways of God just as Jesus did. 

I a reminded of the Spirit's work in our lives. The Spirit teaches us the ways of God (John 14:25-26). The Spirit guides us in how to put those ways into practice (Acts 13:1-4). The Spirit empowers us to do what we cannot do in our own strength (Acts 1:8). 

The psalmist has much to teach us about the Lenten journey. We walk the journey with a teachable, humble spirit that is open to learning the ways of God Jesus taught. We walk the journey knowing what the Spirit will teach us will challenge what/how we currently think. We walk the journey with a commitment to not just learn, but to allow what we learn to change us. We walk the journey with a commitment to grow in the likeness of Christ. 

May such be true of us this Lenten season ... and every season of our lives!

Transfiguration Sunday, 2021

Six days later ... 

Today is Transfiguration Sunday for those of us who follow the liturgical calendar. It is the Sunday before Ash Wednesday; the Sunday before the Lenten journey begins. 

The text for Transfiguration Sunday - Mark 9:2-9 - offers us guidance for the Lenten journey.

The biblical writer tied the transfiguration experience to what happened a week before. He began his account of the transfiguration with the words "six days later." Those earlier events help us understand what transpired on the mountain. 

The week before, Jesus and the disciples were on retreat in the region of Caesarea Philippi, north of the Sea of Galilee in the mountains near the headwaters of the Jordan River. The retreat marked a significant shift in their relationship. For the first time, they openly began to talk about Jesus being the long-awaited messiah. Peter was the one who first said it out loud in the group. In response to Jesus's question, "who do you say I am?", Peter answered, "You are the Messiah." Jesus immediately began to build on that understanding. For the first time - but not the last time - he began to talk about what he would experience in Jerusalem: suffering, rejection by the religious establishment, death at the hands of the authorities, and resurrection. Of course, what he said blew the disciples' mind. What he said was going to happen was the polar opposite of what they expected to happen. Peter, again, put into words what they were all thinking. He rebuked Jesus for even thinking such things, much less saying them out loud. Peter and the others could not, would not accept what he was saying as true. The excitement and joy of talking openly about Jesus being the Messiah quickly gave way to confusion laced with fear, questioning looks at one another, and guarded conversations. 

Such was the backdrop to the transfiguration experience.

What took place in the transfiguration was for the benefit of both Jesus and the three disciples. The experience with Moses and Elijah was for Jesus's benefit. The voice from the cloud was for the benefit of the disciples.

The experience was, for Jesus, akin to his baptism experience. It was a time of affirmation and encouragement. At his baptism, as he began his public ministry, the vision Jesus saw and the voice he heard affirmed his understanding of his identity. He was indeed the Messiah and he was the Suffering Servant. The two roles were one and the same. (He was the first in Hebrew history to link the two roles together.) Now, as he faced the reality of all that his identity involved, he once again received affirmation and encouragement from heaven. His conversation with Moses and Elijah (representing the Law and the Prophets) offered him reassurance of his understanding that death was not the end. Resurrection would follow. His experience of transfiguration allowed him to taste the glorified life that awaited him. 

Peter, James, and John were overwhelmed by what they saw. It was as though a veil had been pulled back, allowing them to see the spiritual dimension of life that infuses the physical realm. Not knowing how to respond, Peter offered to build booths for Moses, Elijah, and Jesus so they could celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. (The Feast of Tabernacles commemorated the wanderings in the wilderness after the Exodus.) That's when the cloud, representing the presence of God, enveloped them. The voice spoke to them: "This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!" The words affirmed what they had just recently begun to say out loud. Jesus was indeed the Messiah. The phrase "This is my Son" is from Psalm 2, the coronation song sung at the anointing of the king. The phrase affirmed that Jesus was the messianic king.  But the words also affirmed what Jesus had taught them. He was the Suffering Servant who would experience abuse before being killed. The phrase "the Beloved" is from the servant songs of Isaiah. The words of affirmation gave way to a command: "listen to him!" Be willing to hear and accept what he is teaching. Quit holding onto your old thinking. Accept the new way of thinking he is trying to teach you. 

Both dimensions of the experience provide us guidance as we walk the Lenten journey.

Jesus's experience calls us to see with different eyes. It calls us to see beyond the surface. It calls us to recognize the spiritual dimension that infuses our physical lives. We get caught up in and consumed with the physical. We become so preoccupied with making a living, making ends meet, and making a go of it that we are blind to the spiritual dimension of life where the essence of life is found. 

The Lenten journey invites us to see with different eyes. It calls us to pay attention to the spiritual dimension of our experience. It calls us to look for God in the everyday. 

And the Lenten journey calls us to listen. It beckons us beyond old ways of thinking shaped by our what's-in-it-for-me mentality. It calls us to surrender old attitudes nurtured by that old thinking. It calls us beyond our innate resistance to the ways of God. It calls us to nurture a teachable spirit that is open to new ways of thinking and understanding. It calls us to allow the character of God and the teachings of Jesus to shape how we think. It calls us to grow and change as the Spirit recreates us in the likeness of Christ.

The Lenten journey invites us to listen. 

Following the transfiguration experience, Jesus and the disciples made their way to Jerusalem where they would celebrate the Passover . . . and where Jesus would be arrested, killed, and three days later be raised from the dead. During that six weeks journey to Jerusalem, Jesus continued to teach his disciples about what he would experience when they got to Jerusalem. But they struggled to hear, to understand, to accept what he was saying. 

Their six weeks journey to Jerusalem is the pattern for our forty day journey through Lent. During our journey, may we be willing to hear what they could not hear. May we see with different eyes. May we be willing to listen. 

(During the season of Lent, I will post brief reflections each day, Monday through Saturday. The reflections - which we call Lenten Riffs - have been written by my colleagues and friends, the Reverend Jennifer Long of Corning, NY, the Reverend Mike Trautman of Ferguson, MO, and myself. The three of us do a podcast each week in which we discuss the narrative lectionary text of the week.) 

By This Time

 Disappointment and grief permeate every line in the text. It is a lament.

 The biblical writer – probably a pastor closely tied to the original audience – had expected  … wanted … hoped for more from his congregation. But he had come face to face with an undeniable reality. His people were stuck spiritually. Or, better, they were stunted spiritually.

 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic elements of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food; for everyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is unskilled in the word of righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, for those who faculties have been trained by practice to distinguish good from evil (Hebrews 5:12-14).

Their spiritual development was stunted. They had made little or no progress on their spiritual journey. They were spiritually immature – stuck in the stage of spiritual infancy.

Looking at how long they had been Christians, one would think they would be able to articulate their faith. They had been involved in Christian community long enough that one would expect them to have something to share with others. Indeed, their pastor thought they should be able to communicate their faith. “You ought to be teachers” (Hebrews 5:12).

But, instead, they still needed someone to teach them. They were like infants, still taking, giving nothing in return. They needed milk … that which was simple, not deep. They were only interested in that which satisfied their desire in the moment … in someone providing what they wanted … in being content. They needed someone to teach them the most basic things about the spiritual life – the ABC’s of living in relationship with God.

The pastor had more he wanted to teach them – things about Jesus … things that would deepen their love of Jesus … things that would give them greater freedom in their relationship with God … things that would help them be spiritually strong … things that would empower them to deal with life’s difficulties from a posture of faith … things that would train them to make a difference in the lives of others in the name of Jesus … things that would lead them in living the Christ-life.

But they could not understand what he wanted to teach them. Not knowing the basics of the spiritual life, they could not go deeper in it. Even more, they had become “dull in understanding” (Hebrews 5:11). They were no longer open to hearing spiritual truth. Not only did they struggle to understand spiritual truth, they did not want to try. They did not want to think. They did not want to move beyond where they were. They were content with what they knew and believed. Their stunted spirituality blocked their ability to learn the ways of God.

This text - which grew out of a pastor’s pain - reminds us … 

• The spiritual life is a journey and about making progress on that journey. 
• The essence of this spiritual journey is growth and development that leads us into Christ-like maturity and a transformed life.
• We make progress on the journey by allowing spiritual truth to shape our lives. The pastor spoke of the mature as those who had been “trained by practice.” They grew as they sought to put into practice the truth they learned.

The text also offers a word of warning: we can get stuck and stagnant on our spiritual journey. We can become stunted spiritually. Time alone does not produce spiritual growth. Knowledge alone does not produce spiritual growth. Spiritual growth occurs as we put into practice the spiritual truths we learn. It requires intentionality and focus and effort. (Bible study that does not lead to a change in how we think and how we live actually can contribute to spiritual stagnation.)

The spiritual stagnation which this pastor identified – stuck in spiritual immaturity - is, I fear, a common condition. I have seen symptoms of it in my ministry. I’ve seen it when church members become angry and upset over a style of music or a change in the order of service. I’ve seen it in resistance to anything that calls for a change in “how we have always done things.” I’ve seen it in the inability to think theologically. I’ve seen it when church members’ reactions reflect their political position more than the teachings of Jesus. I’ve seen it in the marrying of the Christian faith with national pride. I’ve seen it in how we rationalize why we don’t do what Jesus taught. I’ve seen it in rigid moral postures that do not align with what Jesus did or what he taught. I’ve seen it in the unrecognized arrogance of “I’m right, you’re wrong,” “the Bible says” positions. I’ve seen it in the emotional reactivity that is quick to divide people into us-them camps. I’ve seen it in lifestyles that are a religious version of our culture rather than a reflection of the Kingdom of God.

I’ve seen it way too much … and I grieve.

(It seems to me this condition is the product of a man-centered, heaven-oriented theology which, in turn, leads to the way we do church … but that’s a topic for another blog).

After his words of disappointment and lament, the pastor urged his readers, let us go on to maturity (Hebrews 6:1). His words are more than a call. They offer hope. Being stunted spiritually does not have to be a permanent condition. We can move beyond being stuck in spiritual immaturity … if we choose.

Let us go on to maturity!