Good Friday
Almighty God, we pray you graciously to behold this your
family, for whom our Lord Jesus Christ was willing to be
betrayed, and given into the hands of sinners, and to suffer
death upon the cross; who now lives and reigns with you and
the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Continuing the theme of rolling with the punches this Triduum I had to manage a bit of disappointment on Good Friday as well. I always do the noon service on Good Friday. I love the long slow contemplative three hours and have gotten used to the rhythm that included Veneration of the Cross, the Passion Gospel and Eucharist along with the Solemn Collects (which I will blog about some day...but not yet...they are pretty long and deep and I'd need quite a bit of time.) 

But this is my first year at St. Bart's in the City and they do Good Friday differently. The Eucharist from the Reserved Sacrament is done at 8 am...the noon service is a Traditional 7 Last Words service. Though this is a Jesuit service I tend to associate it with the protestant tradition I grew up with. I find it powerful as well, but I miss Eucharist on this day of all days. So when I got to the church I had a momentary twinge of disappointment that I'd missed the only Eucharist of the day. 

But that only lasted a minute or two. Once I got into the rhythm of what was actually being presented me I found that it was if anything more powerful than the services I was used to. I always have to remember that my attachment to Eucharist is not always so healthy...in the same way that attachment to anything can actually get in the way of the present encounter with God. Once I reminded myself that Christ is eucharistically present in the reading of scripture...and that if I actively prayed the readings that I could participate in the same way in that Presence...then everything was amazing. I did lectio during the readings and silence...and let the sermons wash over me. So much richness...so much meaning. I was truly in a different space when I finished.

I've already blogged about the cross this week...and ultimately, as one of my old rectors said, the crucifixion story says all that really needs to be said without commentary, I just want to make a small comment on the collect for this day. Gone is the theological setting and instead we have a simple and beautiful statement...God...behold your family...yes us. That contentious, diverse, bickering group of siblings all clamoring to get your attention, to seek your favor, to test your limits...this is the family you chose...and we are the ones you sent son/self too. You tried to get our attention. You tried to teach us. You provoked our thoughts. You shook our souls. And when that wasn't enough you realized you had to do an extravagant act of love. It was for us...whether it was required by law, or given as example, or ransom or any of those other theological constructs, the important thing was that it was for us...and it was a supreme act of love. Make us worthy of that act.

Maundy Thursday

Almighty Father, whose dear Son, on the night before he
suffered, instituted the Sacrament of his Body and Blood:
Mercifully grant that we may receive it thankfully in
remembrance of Jesus Christ our Lord, who in these holy
mysteries gives us a pledge of eternal life; and who now lives
and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever
and ever. Amen.

I did something this Holy Week that I haven't done in at least 14 year, perhaps longer. I missed a Maundy Thursday service. I have always taken the Triduum pretty seriously, even as a kid. Even in my wandering periods as a Buddhist or an agnostic, I always ended up making it to all the Triduum serivces. I have always found their elemental nature and their drama deeply affecting. But this year I got confused about dates and took a gig that night. So this year's Triduum has been all about connecting with the events of the week without the full story. It's been about managing my disappointment and taking what God has given me in gratefully. And I must say it's been really powerful.

Each of the services of Triduum have their own unique and beautiful character. The Maundy Thursday service never fails to haunt me. For one thing, I always find night time church services mysterious and beautiful. Something about the darkness outside, the lack of light through the normally brilliant stained glass, The big openness of the dark space above you as you worship, the candles flickering and sending out more light than usual on a Sunday. But besides the enchantment of a night service, Maundy Thursday has a beautiful gentleness to it...a calm before the storm. There is the footwashing, which, though it gives me a twinge of discomfort given the state of my diabetic feet, has the beautiful symbolism of serving and being served. In some churches the priests wash your feet, but in others we take turns washing each other's feet and that is particularly powerful. You get to be prayerfully attentive to an everyday task performed for a complete stranger, and then you get the same experience. 

Then there's the Eucharist itself which is soaked in beauty and a sort of aching regret. You wish that it wouldn't come to an end. There are beautiful hymns and chants for the night, including one of my favorite from Thomas Aquinas, Ubi Caritas. Everything has this really wonderful, almost family meal feel to it.

And then....the lights go dark, the altar is stripped as we sing the Pange Lingua, which is for me the single most powerful chant of all time. The candles go out and everything is removed from the altar area. Gone are the linens, the silver, the candlesticks. You are left with a bare altar that is ritually washed by the priest. The reserved sacrament is removed to a side chapel which most churches decorate with plants and flowers to stand symbolically for the Garden of Gethsemane. Finally, in total darkness, the congregation disperses, some to their homes, some to the chapel to keep vigil overnight with the sacrament. It is stunning and powerful. You realize that no...this wasn't just a simple family meal. It was something deeper and more final...it was a leave-taking.

Our collect doesn't say much about this in a theological way except for the bald facts. This was the ceremony Jesus instituted for us. It is called a sacrament, which acknowledges the catholic side of the Anglican church, but also mentions that we do this in remembrance, which acknowledges the Protestant side. The crux of the collect though is in our own reaction. We prayer for the ability to receive it both as a remembrance, and as a pledge of eternal life. The words are short and simple, but keep the experience of Eucharist open. 

I'm a Eucharistic Christian. I returned to the church because of it. I'm Anglican rather than the Congregationalist I grew up as, because of the Eucharist. To me there is something indescribable about it. It is a living mystery and probably beyond my words to describe. From the first words of the Eucharistic prayer to the final words of the Thanksgiving prayer the whole experience lies for me outside of time. For those moments I am united with all who have ever, and all who will ever take communion...united across national boundaries, boundaries of faith and boundaries of epoch. We, all of us...step outside our usual time and enter for a minute into the eternity that we hope for. 

And for me, the bread and wine in someway also step outside their normal form. They are in a mysterious way no longer bread and wine. Now, does that mean if someone did a scientific analysis of them that they would have changed molecularly? No...but that's the wrong question. A sacrament is the outward symbol of an inward and spiritual grace as the 39 Articles of the Anglican Church state, so to me the grace infused in the act is spiritual, but no less real for that. In fact maybe even more real. Like so many things in Christianity, discussions around the Real Presence in the Eucharist can devolve into quibbling over facts and minutia of belief. It's as if people are uncomfortable with the uncertainty and mystery that is at the heart of this faith and so want to nail it all down...turn faith into a legal contract. But to me that's all barking up the wrong tree. 

We meet God in paradox...in a bush that burns and is not consumed...in water that isn't water but is wine instead...in loaves and fish that mysteriously multiply themselves. These paradoxes and logical contradictions point to the way God often speaks to us in our lives. So bread that isn't just bread and wine that isn't just wine is enough. There's no need to "think" about it more. We let ourselves fully experience the mystery and are deeply grateful for the moment of grace. 

So in the end, I missed all this this year. Instead of immersing myself in this mystery, I played some wonderful music with some of the most talented musicians I know. I missed my Triduum. But as Christ is Eucharistically present in the Bread and the Wine I hold out the possibility that he was also present in the sounds we were making. After all...the Spirit blows where it will....

I just need to be attentive to it where I don't expect it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Holy Week

Sunday of the Passion:  Palm Sunday
Almighty and everliving God, who, of thy tender love
towards mankind, hast sent thy Son our Savior Jesus Christ
to take upon him our flesh, and to suffer death upon the
cross, that all mankind should follow the example of his
great humility: Mercifully grant that we may both follow the
example of his patience, and also be made partakers of his
resurrection; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who
liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God,
for ever and ever. Amen.

Monday in Holy Week
Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but
first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he
was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way
of the cross, may find it none other that the way of life and
peace; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who
liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God,
for ever and ever. Amen.

Tuesday in Holy Week
O God, by the passion of thy blessed Son didst make an
instrument of shameful death to be unto us the means of life:
Grant us so to glory in the cross of Christ, that we may gladly
suffer shame and loss for the sake of thy Son our Savior Jesus
Christ; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Wednesday in Holy Week
O Lord God, whose blessed Son our Savior gave his back to
the smiters and hid not his face from shame: Give us grace
to take joyfully the sufferings of the present time, in full
assurance of the glory that shall be revealed; through the same
Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with
thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.


It has been a whirlwind of a week...last weekend I went away with 115 Brooklyn teens as a blogged about last post....then two wonderful days up at Holy Cross Monastery in West Park, NY, back for a music gig last night and finally church all day today. I've gotten farther and farther behind on Holy Week...but I can't let this week go by without some posting. So I've decided to deal with all the collects of the week in one post...at least Sunday to Wednesday. They are all based around a single theme anyway and I think it will work.

The collects of Holy Week are dominated by the Cross. It is understandable since the crucifixion/resurrection passage is the single most crucial event in Christian history. Without it, Jesus is a very odd moral teacher with some very sound advice...and not a few difficult sayings. The crucifixion/resurrection is what sets him apart from so many other prophets and moral teachers. (In this post I'm not in the least interested in questions of historical accuracy and the Jesus Seminar, as interesting as I find those debates...and I often find myself on all sides of that debate. Ultimately it's the Christian mythos that I am interested in...not mere fact.)

Jesus is not the only god figure to have died and resurrected. There is a form of death and resurrection in both Egyptian and Babylonian mythology. And Dionysus also goes through a death and resurrection as does Mithras. Gods dying and coming back to life are pretty typical of the ancient Near East. But Jesus is different in several ways. First of all, he is a historical personage...flesh and blood...even if he is the Son of God. He isn't even unique as the Son of God as that was typical to call the Emperor Augustus...and Caligula later. But none of those personages rose from the dead...Son of God or not, once they were dead they stayed dead. Not so with Jesus...

So Jesus' death on the cross and resurrection pose something different in the history of religion...and of the world. It's not wonder it took so long for the early Christians to "figure" out what happened...was Jesus another God masquerading as a human? Was he a demi-God like Dionysus? Was he just a really skilled magus? A prophet? It would take three hundred years before anything like general agreement was reached on these issues...and even then there was more hashing out. In fact the debates are still not finished as Unitarians and Muslims can attest.

And then there was the thorny issue of the meaning of the crucifixion...what happened and why did it have to happen? Did Jesus die as some example to us all? Did he ransom us from our bondage to Satan? Did God demand sacrifice because of our sins and did Jesus substitute himself for the death God demanded of us? Was the Cross in some mystical way the way to God? The finer points of Atonement Theology have been debated since the patristic period. I have my opinions on the matter as do many people. But the collects do have a distinct point of view on the crucifixion and it is explored over the first four days of Holy Week.

The collect from Palm Sunday announces the theme. The Lenten collects have been a school in humility and the Palm Sunday collect is the climax of that journey. The Palm Sunday theme will be developed in differing ways all week. The recurring theme is that Jesus' crucifixion was the perfect example of humility.

The orthodox have a theological view on the cross that is quite different from the legalistic views that have dominated both the western Catholic and Protestant theological debates. It is based in the Pauline hymn in Philippians:

Let the same mind be in you that was^* in Christ Jesus,
⁶ who, though he was in the form of God,
   did not regard equality with God
   as something to be exploited,
⁷ but emptied himself,
   taking the form of a slave,
   being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
⁸   he humbled himself
   and became obedient to the point of death—
   even death on a cross.

⁹ Therefore God also highly exalted him
   and gave him the name
   that is above every name,
¹⁰ so that at the name of Jesus
   every knee should bend,
   in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
¹¹ and every tongue should confess
   that Jesus Christ is Lord,
   to the glory of God the Father.

In this passage the crucifixion is not about substitution or ransom...it is about humility. Christ, as God, empties himself of all honor due God and becomes the lowest of humanity, dying the most humiliating death of the Roman world...and through this self-disregard Jesus is able to be both fully human, experience full humanity, while also reaching his full Godhead.

This is the same point that our collect makes. And, as the orthodox hold, the collect recommends the way of the cross. It is not just a single salvation event...but it is a model for our own development and transformation. Walking the way of the cross is extolled in each of the collects. We are reminded of the pain and death Jesus went through, and yet equate this with the means of "life and peace". We are reminded of the shame and horror of this Roman torture, and exhorted to similarly bear our own trials and losses as sacrifices. Indeed, by undergoing this death, Jesus makes all of our human suffering worthy of God.

It always stuns me when people get all bent out of shape about the "insults" to Christianity, real or perceived from the culture. As our collects make clear, you can't insult this religion...as it is a religion in which humility is total and complete. There is nothing that an atheist, an anarchist....or horror of horrors...a liberal can do to Christianity that God hasn't already experienced. And honestly...the "war on Christmas" and other manufactured outrage has nothing to do with Christianity at all.

So why all this humility? Why all the self-emptying? Well...it is useless if it's puffed up humility...of the fake martyr quality that so often passes itself off as real humility. And we are all full of that quality. But what Jesus, Paul, and our collect is asking here is something deeper. For the Self which we empty is the worldly self....the self that has been created since our childhood and is concerned with status, position, achievement, outward appearance. That is the self that empties in death anyway. We are called to accelerate the process, to consciously crucify this self...to give it over to God.

And why? So that we might be changed into His likeness. In the old Athanasian formula: God became man so that Man might become God. This is the theosis of Orthodoxy. We empty ourselves so that we, as partakers of the resurrection, are able to enter into God. And while God's essence will be forever unknown to us, we can fully and more fully be filled with God Energies...deified...so that together we become truly the Body of Christ which we are promised.

This is not the only meaning of the cross....but it is a meaning that I can do something with...and that's enough for me now.

Fifth Sunday in Lent
Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly
wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to
love what you command and desire what you promise; that,
among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts
may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found;
through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with
you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.


In my day job I work as a music specialist with students from kindergarten through high school in a program that combines arts and social group work to develop the next generation of community leaders. We are currently preparing to take 115 middle and high school students away for a three day camping trip to Fishkill, New York. This trip is an intensive rehearsal retreat where our comprehensive arts program prepares for our spring show. For two intense days we dance, sing, act and create visual art which will serve as the basis for our improvisational musical next May.

The amount of artistic work these diverse Brooklyn teens do is amazing. But even more amazing is to see the personal transformations that our members undergo in this short but intense period. The first day we get there they are pretty wild...each one vying for staff attention...personal conflagrations erupting everywhere...and you can barely keep their attention for a minute of instruction. And while they are mostly having a good time, boundaries are tested minute by minute. The middle schoolers see how much they can get away with...the high schoolers swear and try to use bad language...and everybody seems to be involved in some sort of drama of the peculiarly teen sort.

But somewhere around the middle of the second day that begins to change. The kids realize that they are going to conclude the evening performing what they've been working on and they step up their game. A sort of fatigue also sets in...but it's a fatigue that leaves them less willful and even in a way more energized. The trip climaxes in the evening with a share out of the work they've created and something amazing happens...they calm down and their true and uniquely beautiful personalities begin to shine. Astonishing moments of kindness seem to break out all over. The special needs child with Asperger's is loved and accepted by his dance company. The awkward girl is admired by sixth graders who just see her as sweet. And little by little the drama is replaced by genuine love. The group of close friends who've been fighting because they are all seniors and can't really say goodbye to each other are crying and hugging and treasuring every moment they spend together. Bonds are created that will remain in the heart long after these children scatter to the four winds, as happens inevitably every year. It is truly an astonishing thing to watch and a deeply spiritual thing to be a part of. It's worth losing my voice for...and the inevitable nasty cold I get when I get back.

I can't help but think of this experience when I look at this week's collect. So often I feel that what I see in my own classroom is an exact mirror of the state of my own soul as well. The opening of the collect seems to me to be caught up in the image of our initial group meetings...unruly and disordered. And too often that seems to be an exact picture of my own inner state day to day. It's as if I have 115 teenagers inside me all vying for attention and I can't bring them to order. And yet, through the magic of grace, order can be achieved, even if only fleetingly. My students, through a sense of common purpose and personal effort, come to willingly embody the values of our program in a way that is really grace filled. And so goes our collect...we acknowledge the need for that grace so that we can find stability...the still point of the turning world in T.S. Eliot's immortal phrase.

It often seemed unfair to me that God just didn't compel us in his omniscience and power to follow his will, but instead wanted us to have the choice to follow or not. It seemed that it would be much easier without this free will business. But I realize now that in the same way that we teachers in my program want to bring our students by themselves to embrace our culture and values, so God wants the same. It doesn't mean anything if it's forced....indeed it IS too easy. It's cheap grace. Instead God provides us with the means to learn slowly, step by step, that God is the real source of joy and any other source is a pale imitation at best. In fact, with God all other pleasures are completed and made perfect. Joys that aren't found in God aren't really joys at all but are mirages...they are Maya, illusion.

Again...the key is to recognize our own inability to sustain anything on our own. If we come to desire God above all things, it is not through any virtue of our own, or because we are "good people" and deserve God's love....but because God has mysteriously led us in that direction. And when we forget to love God above all things it is not because we are "bad people" and deserve nothing. This grace is beyond deserving and non-deserving. God makes his sun to shine on us all. The challenge is the realize the sun is shining.

Fourth Sunday in Lent
Gracious Father, whose blessed Son Jesus Christ came down
from heaven to be the true bread which gives life to the world:
Evermore give us this bread, that he may live in us, and we in
him; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one
God, now and for ever. Amen.

I love food and I love to cook. Bread is something that I don't bake much because of the time that it takes but that I'm hoping to make more and more in my new lifestyle. I've always loved the process of baking bread...the feel of the dough as you mix it...it's living elasticity in the kneading process...the light an airy texture after the first rise and the way it deflates gently like a hot air balloon when you punch it down. And the smell when it bakes takes me back to early morning communion Sundays in my UCC church, when my mother would bake the symbolic loaf that would sit on the altar along with the cup of grape juice, while the congregation itself got little tiny glasses of juice and cubes of wonder bread. I knew that the real loaf was destined for our dinner table after church...along with the left over grape juice.

My images of bread are not, I'm sure, the images of the first Christians. Not for them the white, pale, and almost tasteless commercial product which passes for bread for most of us. Certainly bread in biblical times was not white. At best it was nutty and full of stone ground kernels of ancient wheat...perhaps more like Spelt than our modern versions. Barley might have been the flour...or perhaps even ancient grains like kamut or emmer... and either leavened or unleavened. Matzhot was probably not used...as, like much of the current Jewish Seder it's origins are in the diaspora. Whatever it's actual appearance or ingredients, it is clear that this simple food is of immense import to Jesus. The images of bread abound all over the Bible...from the manna in the wilderness of the Pentateuch to the loaves and fishes of Christ's miracles...and finally of course the Eucharistic meal.

Bread it fascinating to me. Unless it is unleavened, bread is a living thing until it is baked. The leaven itself is deeply suggestive. A small amount transforms grains that could remain dense and almost inedible into a magnificent light and airy substance. No wonder Christ compares leaven to the Kingdom of Heaven...both have pretty remarkable transformational properties. The other thing is that the process takes a while. Yeast as you first see it is as dead looking as anything could be. Soaking it in warm water wakes it up but it takes a couple of hours to perform it's magic on a loaf of bread. It resonates symbolically with so much in Christianity. The "dead" yeast rising again...in fact we speak of the rising loaf almost as if it took is coming back to life. And yeast also functions as spirit does to us...taking the dead matter of our bodies and enlivening it with a mysterious force. Some days I can almost feel my spirit working on my in just this manner.

So it is no wonder that Jesus, and other biblical figures stress bread as a symbol so much. It is a potent but everyday object. However, as our collect makes clear, Jesus' identity as bread is quite different from our every day loaves.

This collect marks the turning point in Lent. There is a distinct lightening of the mood in the readings for this Sunday, which, though they are still focused on repentance, are much more infused with God's mercy. And this collect itself is more focused on the positive side of God than the other side. We ask that Jesus come down and be the true bread from heaven. This bread is what is meant by "daily bread' in the Lord's Prayer. It is the visitation of Christ to us. Most concretely it happens in the Eucharist, where we ask Christ to become bread for us...and indeed in this collect you can hear some resonances of Eucharistic theology. But sacraments are just a visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace, and as meaningful as they are, they only point to the moon...they are not the moon itself.

I am a Eucharistic Christian. I'm Anglican precisely because of the power of Eucharistic experiences I've had. And yet...as powerful as the sacrament is, I'm aware that my relationship with God is not contained only in that moment. Christ is present eucharistically present in more than just the bread and wine. He is present in the prayerful reading of scripture, in prayer itself, and in every person we meet. Teilhard de Chardin in his brilliant and beautiful meditation, The Mass of the World even proposes that Christ is eucharistically present in Nature...not that God is nature, but that in some deep and mysterious way, God fills nature, much as he fills the bread and wine in communion.

People get scared of this thinking. It smacks of pantheism to some...panenthienism to others. But Christianity, at least as held by the early Church, is panentheist. Church fathers talk of the spirit filling all things...St. Augustine speaks of God being closer to us than our own breath. And the book of John is full of those identity images...I am the Vine, you are the Branches....Abide in me....be one as I and the Father are one. And this version of panenthienism is acknowledged in our collect as well. We feed on Christ "in our hearts by faith" in the beautiful words of the Eucharistic Prayer, so that he may live in us and we in him. We do not actually become God in any of these communions...Christianity is pretty explicit about that (and honestly I don't want to be God...too much responsibility and I'm way too imperfect). But in some mysterious way Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, lives in us...leavens us...rises us as bread dough rises...until we are transformed from the beings we are to the beings we were meant to be...or at least closer. I don't think this transformation ever ends in our lifetimes.

Remember the saying...you are what you eat. Jesus means it literally I think....bon appetite.

Third Sunday in Lent
Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves
to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and
inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all
adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil
thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus
Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy
Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

It is quite appropriate actually that this collect comes at the mid point of Lent. The new disciplines are beginning to loose their luster. Those of us who fast are beginning to tire of whatever we are eating. The pull of the things we may have "given up" is beginning to reassert itself. I know for myself, I really just want to veg in front of the TV with some Mac and Cheese and maybe some Fried Chicken (my desert island food of choice). And the weather...it's not cold and snowy, but yet it's not warm enough to be beautiful. Especially in a late March Easter, the Lenten season really can be pretty bleak.

This collect acknowledges the realities of our situation. For in the opening we realize that we are actually powerless...that we cannot help ourselves. As we are, we are a mass of contradictory impulses, some of which want one thing and some which want the polar opposite. Ask anyone who has suffered with overweight or alcoholism. We are unable to conquer our demons with will power. Most of us don't really even have a single will which can make the attempt. One minute we want to diet, the next we want cake. One minute we feel the deep hurt of those around us who have been hurt by our alcoholism and sincerely want to make amends; the next we are on a binge. Or more mundanely, one moment we want to be channels of grace to all we know; the next we are damning our boss to hell, or dreaming about how to revenge ourselves on our meddlesome co-worker.

One thing that I believe that I know unequivocally, is that everyone is in this position, from the most holy monk down to the homeless drug addict. The degree may be different, but without outside help, all of us are a morass of competing little personalities. Like the demoniac we are possessed by a Legion of personalities, each one thinking it's the "king" of our souls and turning our psyches into a cacophony of competing voices and thoughts. That we don't notice it much is thanks to our unique ability to delude ourselves...to be literally "asleep" to our own inner chatter and contradictory behavior.

So the solution is this...since we have no power in ourselves, we have to attach ourselves to another power...one that does have the ability to help. The joy of God and grace is that it is always available, and there is a power there that we can access and that is greater than anything that we can achieve. We just have to recognize that we need the help and ask for it. In fact...in the moment we literally "wake" up...or come to ourselves as the phrase is related in the parable of the Prodigal Song...there is an amazing rush of power...not a power we can control...or a power we deserve. It is God stepping in the breach...functioning as a "shield and buckler".

And indeed that is how the collect continues. We ask God for defense from adversity....but more importantly for protection from "evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul." This turn of phrase interests me. So often we think of these little "temptation" thoughts as harmless. And actually, coming from a place of Divine Power they are totally harmless. But without that power and self-knowledge thoughts indeed do matter and are deeply harmful. Every sin that can be committed begins as a thought or emotional impulse, which to me is also a thought. We cannot commit an evil act if we cannot conceive of it. So in the very conception lies the seeds of our destruction. And if we tell ourselves that these thoughts are harmless we give them more power.

I recently was diagnosed as a diabetic. It didn't come as a big shock to me but it has been an adjustment. Mostly I am taking the lifestyle changes as spiritual as well as physical challenges. But the food thing is a real struggle sometimes. I'm quite in love with good food...especially good Southern food, which of course is diabetes in a can. The seriousness of my health issues make it no joke anymore to follow a diet. But I can say that, especially late at night, I live in a pretty constant state of temptation. Thoughts of sweets dance through my head...and even thoughts of binging on "legal" food like All Bran. Since diabetes is controlled as much by how much you eat as what you eat...and I need to slim down seriously...even legal binges are pretty devastating to my blood sugar.

In earlier times these kinds of thoughts might develop strength. As I entertain them more and more they begin to get stronger...moving from fleeting images of food to little internal monologues about the innocuous nature of the impending binge. Then earnest thoughts about how I have to go downstairs to take out the trash...and before you know it I've eaten half an apple pie. But such binges are no longer an option for me.

I've decided this time that I'm really totally powerless over these little thoughts, and that they are actually evil. They may originate in all sorts of psychological states, but in actual practice they function exactly like the demons in the Temptation of St. Anthony....or like the Daughters of Maya in the story of the Buddha under the Bodhi Tree. And evil is not too strong a word for them....for their aim is evil; it's too tempt me back into familiar patterns and habits, patterns and habits that have proved self-destructive and could eventually prove deadly. I have to call them out as I see them. This is in a sense the "spiritual warfare" that so many of our Evangelical brothers and sisters talk about...and they have a point.

So this collect is an especially powerful one for me. It is one that I think I will pray with regularity, even after this week is done. Because the only really help I can ask for comes from God. God can give me the strength to ignore the voices of temptation. Indeed, when I pray...especially when I do centering prayer...I have an opportunity to let go of those voices. Contrary to popular opinion and the voices of some religious conservatives, Contemplative prayer does not make your mind a blank. In fact there are thoughts going through your mind all the time as you pray. But the beauty of Centering Prayer for me is that it helps me learn how to lay aside those thoughts. By learning how to effortlessly let them in and out of my mind I learn that they can have no power over me...and that when I am sitting with my God I am safe from them. It is not my own effort at work here. God quite literally wraps me up in Godself and those little evil voices turn into a quiet murmur. "I" don't think about them anymore because "I" am doing something much more beautiful and interesting.

So indeed, there is an answer...and that answer is Biblical. You cast your burdens on God and on Jesus. It sounds "old time religion" of me, but it's true. God will take is all up. He won't fix all your problems. God still wants us to grow and develop and that growth can only happen as we struggle with our own demons. But God doesn't give us more than we can handle. As St. Paul assures us in this week's Epistle lesson, God will not let us be tempted beyond our strength...and with the temptations He provides us with the means of escape. And that escape is the Cross of Christ.

Second Sunday in Lent
O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious
to all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring them
again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and
hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ
your Son; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

"If the first Sunday in Lent is about temptation then the second is about the call to faith." That is how I began my last blog post about this collect. And re-reading it I think that it is true. This Sunday is about Abraham and his righteousness in both Old Testament and Epistle readings. We see Abraham move his family on the promise of an unseen God. We see him trust in the rather ridiculous promise from a worldly standpoint that he and his barren wife would have children. And we see his willingness to sacrifice that same son without question to a God who seems cruel and capricious. And parallels are drawn between Abraham and Jesus...Jesus as the perfection of that sacrificial attitude. Jesus, willing to go to an even darker place than Abraham...to the gates of Hell itself. Clearly this "unchangeable truth" isn't something easy or always pleasant.

But I think what interests me this time around in this collect is the first petition. Be gracious....That phrase has such medieval connotations now. Kings are gracious. Ladies are gracious. You can have gracious manners. But the collect is aiming at something much deeper than that. For in the wording is an understanding that we do indeed have no power in ourselves to remain steady on our path. We may have the best intentions in the world but those intentions curl around on themselves so easily and we find ourselves doing the very thing we vowed not to do. We have "undulations" in C. S. Lewis's phrase from The Screwtape Letters. We have spiritual mood swings that make it nearly impossible for us to stay on the unbelievably demanding course that God asks of us. The situation would be completely hopeless is not for Grace. Because at the time we need it, help is always available. It's only a breath away, if we only open ourselves to it.

Grace is an utterly mysterious and equally utterly palpable force in our lives. I am more and more convinced that absolutely nothing in my life comes to me but for it. It's hard to remember this in the moment. When I have a really good class with my students I can inwardly crow about what a gifted teacher I am...but those gifts are just that...gifts. Such as I have, they are not mine but rather bestowed on my by my God. Indeed, one of the things that we discover if we try contemplative prayer is how rare true contemplation is...and how mysteriously bestowed upon us it is. And yet Grace is around us....ever present. We are literally swimming in a sea of Grace, in which God is continually bathing us. If we can get outside ourselves and the circumstances of our day to day lives we can see this. But for most of this it is hard to live like this continually. I know for myself, the best I can get is to feel blest on a sunny morning as I'm walking to work. But let a car fail to yield to me when I'm crossing the street, and all that splendid grace becomes instantly invisible.

The grace of seeing our failings is just as mysterious, even if at the time it feels less beautiful than contemplation or joy. But it is just as much a gift of God. Compunction, the ability to feel the full weight of our sins and of the ways we have failed and strayed from our intentions, and from God's intentions for us, is a grace just as everything else is. It can be deeply painful, seeing ourselves and all of our myriad inner contradictions all at once. The Russian esoteric thinker G.I. Gurdjieff said that without preparation, a man would go mad if he saw all his inner contradictions at once. So we are equipped with inner "buffers" which allow us to function quite well, without real self-knowledge. And when we are ready, appropriate forces from outside give us the strength and ability to see some of these inner contradictions clearly, which allows us the opportunity to amend our lives. I believe that what Gurdjieff was describing was akin to compunction, which can only come about through the grace of God. Left to our own devices, we would never see the shocking totality of our inner landscape and would lull ourselves into a false sense of our own virtuousness. Thank God that we are not left to that and that with Grace, God allows us to grow and mature as people of faith.

 

So yes...this week's collect is a call to radical faith...not faith triumphant or militant, but radical trust. But these is also an acknowledgement that we cannot find this faith, or stick to it, by ourselves. It takes openness to Grace for this to happen. But just as contemplation, or joy or all the good things God gives us are only a breath away...so too with compunction. If we ask...we shall receive. We just need to be prepared to receive what we ask for.

First Sunday in Lent
Almighty God, whose blessed Son was led by the Spirit to be
tempted by Satan; Come quickly to help us who are assaulted
by many temptations; and, as you know the weaknesses of
each of us, let each one find you mighty to save; through
Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with
you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

So there it is right at the outset...one of the "hard" words for most contemporary liberal Christians. Temptation, like sin and repentance is not particularly popular in our culture. But unlike sin, temptation has been tamed. It's been co opted by Madison Avenue. We are told to "give into temptation" in myriad ads about chocolate, cookies and even fiber bars. Temptation becomes an island in an inane reality show, or an all inclusive resort. It is made to seem such a little thing.

And yet it is given a major place in the gospels. The first two things that all the synoptic gospels agree upon is the Baptism of Jesus by John, and then his successive temptation in the wilderness. Just this sequence suggests how important a concept temptation is. After the glorious decent of the Holy Spirit on Jesus you'd think he'd be ready to begin his ministry in some triumphant gesture. That's what one of us modern people would do. But no...he disappears for forty day, living in the desert without food or drink. And at the end of it he is tempted by the devil.

Here's another hard word for us moderns. The devil doesn't have much truck with us or we with him in the modern world. He seems hopelessly medieval. And yet he represents in the temptation stories so much that we value in modern life. He tempts Jesus with food...physical needs met, then with extravagant gestures or "specialness"...the angels themselves would swoop down and keep him from falling off a high place. And finally, worldly power beyond Jesus' wildest dreams. Father Thomas Keating in his book Invitation to Love likens these three temptations to the major concerns of our False Self...Safety and security (the bread), affection and esteem (jumping from the parapet) and power and control (the kingdoms of the world). So Jesus in these forty days is showing us that it is indeed possible not to give in to our False Selves, and that in resisting these temptations, great or small, we are taking a giant step toward God and the serving of God's purpose in our world.

So temptation isn't a little thing at all...it is the means by which the Devil, who is present in our False Self just as truly as God is present through the Holy Spirit in our True Self. Or at least the Devil uses the False Self system as the earpiece by which he communicates with us. Therefore there are no "little" temptations. C.S. Lewis in his masterpiece The Screwtape Letters depicts Hell as a fiendish bureaucracy in which little demons are constantly barraging us with suggestions which don't seem so bad in themselves but which serve to separate us from God and our fellow humans. This is a very clever but pointed picture of our inner life. The myriad little temptations which we succumb to yank us away from our intention, so that without realizing it, we even end up doing the exact opposite of our original intention.

Scholasticism in the Roman Catholic church has left us with, among other things, a cataloging tendency when it comes to sin...some are venial and some are mortal. I think that the above picture shreds that scholastic tendency. All sin is venial and all sing is moral. Even the most serious sin is venial when sincerely repented of, and even the most trivial sin is mortal when it's accumulation leads us in the opposite direction of our original intention. The situation would be hopeless...except, as the collect suggests, the answer doesn't lie with u.

For God's grace is such that it can bridge the gap that develops between us and God...that space is never less than a breath away. Just turning to God, aware of how powerless we are over our own passions can help restore the balance in our lives. For God ardently wants us back. All we need to do is turn again...as Thomas Keating says to "change the direction in which you are looking for happiness." It is so easy to fall back into old patterns, even though we know that the old patterns have not helped us in the past and hold no hope for our future. God's path is new...and is always new. It is unfamiliar to us, even though we have "known" it from a young age. It is counter cultural and counter psychological, yet to choose it changes everything.

Happiness lies here...we just have to choose it.

Ash Wednesday

Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have
made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent: Create and
make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily
lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness,
may obtain of you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission
and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives
and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever
and ever. Amen.

Ok...gonna try this again cause I was such an amazing success last time....

Like any good Episcopalian I went to church tonight to get "ashed". It's a tradition in the church that I didn't grow up with but which has become meaningful to me. But holy days like this do seem to bring out the crazies in New York. All of a sudden everyone becomes a preacher. And the hellfire and brimstone sermons become more frequent.

So on the subway home this man was preaching of God's awesome love and the devil's snares. He was confronted by a young woman who wanted to ask him to relax on the devil part. They both got into a shouting match that ended with him calling her Satan's minion and then spitting on her, accompanied by the foulest language possible. She was not innocent either and in fact started the swearing first. It was also obvious that he was pretty unstable and despite the pleas of other passengers she continued to prod and poke at him. It is the kind of incident that is classically New York...and in fact probably one of the things tourists flock to this city to see. One could shake one's head and take a bit of an ironic pose about it and then go on about your business. One could secretly tape it and put it on YouTube...it's the stuff that viral videos are made of.

But for me it was sad...a sad missed opportunity for all involved including myself, to really reflect the endless love and mercy of God. For if we really believe the opening of this Ash Wednesday Collect,. then indeed God hates nothing he has made...street preachers, antagonists, jaded and bemused New Yorkers...then all of the players in this little drama were God's children. And in fact each of them were teaching a message about humility and how difficult it is to for any of us to achieve.

First there is the street preacher. He obviously was a sincere man who had been blessed with a deep conversion experience. He was passionate about the love that he'd found with God and deeply wanted to share it with the subway car...whether or not we asked for it. But his experience of God was limited...and he was deeply attached to it, as it were the whole of God. When confronted by the woman, he could not see past his own viewpoint and ultimately had to turn her into a demon to keep himself together. As he argued with her he kept saying about all the "good he was doing and the media attention he was getting." He was so wrapped up in his own message he forgot to ascribe any of his "good" to God, where all good comes from.

The woman had her own issues. She was obviously fed up with his often obnoxious volume and frequent allusions to the devil. But she was enjoying her role as antagonist too much. Rather then ignoring an obviously unstable person, she kept twisting the knife in father until he broke and spit at her. I was at one point afraid it was going to get really violent.

I kept wondering what would happen if he could just see her as the voice of God for him right there and then...if he could accept that maybe the way she was provoking him was telling him something valuable about himself and his own unresolved issues...his arrogance and lack of humility. Maybe he was telling her something about her own normalcy and lack of passion...and maybe that her complacent certainty was not quite the thing either. And maybe they were telling all of us jaded New Yorkers that there these moments that make us uncomfortable might be the moments where we can find real lessons. Maybe it was a challenge for us not to the players in this drama as Maury characters or reality tv, but rather as Jesus himself, live and in person, right in front of us on the R train.

What does this all have to do with the Ash Wednesday Collect? We, to me these moments of strangers rubbing up against each others corns are moments of missed connection. And missed connection...missed mark is really what sin is. It is are failing to live up to the radical nature of God and the radical message of Jesus. And that message is that God is love and Love is everywhere. And that doesn't just mean those who are easy to love. God is present in the angry, the petulant, the borderline, the mentally unstable...and we almost ALWAYS miss it.

But the good news is that, again, God hates nothing he has made. and that means that in our failure to respond with compassion, we are not condemned, but loved. We can try again, determine to live out the love we profess with our faith...and we will most certainly fail. I know I do time and time again. But the good news is that God doesn't seem to demand that we get it perfect...just that we try, sincerely...that we humble ourselves enough to realize that we are no better than the people whose instability amuses us...or frightens us. The adversary isn't the devil...it's another human being who is just as sad lonely and confused at heart as we are if we are honest. And God loves us both...he doesn't take sides.

So far from being a depressing thing, as this collect looks on the outset, it is actually full of hope...which springs out of it's pretty dark penitent language. And as we start the Lenten Journey, hope can only be a good thing.

Holy Lent to all!