I know I've been saying the Sundays are not included in Lent — and that is true.  But How could I let Easter go by without a devotion?  First, our scripture for the day:

Scripture Lesson John 20:1-18
Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, ‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.’ Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went towards the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples returned to their homes.
But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ She said to them, ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.’ When she had said this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?’ Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’ She turned and said to him in Hebrew, ‘Rabbouni!’ (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, ‘Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” ’ Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

I had seminary-pal who used to phone me every Easter in the wee-hours of the morning and when I picked up the phone he would gleefully declare, “Jesus is loose!” and hang up.

Thankfully in the age of smart phones these joyful declarations are made more often by text message.  Even now I get early-morning  “Jesus is Loose!” messages from  former parishioners scattered around the country.

Perhaps it seems a silly thing to gleefully wake one another with this declaration. . . but that is the core of the gospel — That God is still loose among us:

† loose in the back-alleys of a hurting world, †loose and unfettered by even death —
† loose bringing hope to the hopeless,
† loose bringing joy to the sorrowful,
† loose restoring health to the infirm,
† and loose giving purpose to our lives as disciples.

Every hour of every day is an opportunity to declare by what we say and do that we know that “Jesus is loose” and that we are invited to join him in the redemption of a hurting world.

Before I conclude with the final prayer of this devotional series I'd like to say a few things to each of you.  First, thank you for making the journey with me this Lent.  I do pray that these devotions have been helpful to you and have both challenged and blessed you along the way.  I am grateful for the notes of encouragement many of you have written to me in recent months.  Your kindness means the world to me and I thank you for reaching out and letting me know that you were touched by a devotion. — PHL Easter 2025

NRSV JOHN 19:38-42, THE BURIAL
After these things, Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, though a secret one because of his fear of the Jews, asked Pilate to let him take away the body of Jesus. Pilate gave him permission; so he came and removed his body.  Nicodemus, who had at first come to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds.  They took the body of Jesus and wrapped it with the spices in linen cloths, according to the burial custom of the Jews.  Now there was a garden in the place where he was crucified, and in the garden there was a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid.  And so, because it was the Jewish day of Preparation, and the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.

“Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.  We should like to skip the intermediate stage.  We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.
Yet it is the law of all progress that is is made by passing through some stages of instability and that may take a very long time.  And so I think it is with you.
Your ideas mature gradually. Let them grow.  Let them shape themselves without undue haste.  Do not try to force them on as though you could be today what time - that is to say, grace - and circumstances acting on your own good will, will make you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new Spirit gradually forming in you will be.  Give our Lord the benefit of believing  that his hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.
Above all, trust in the slow work of God, our Loving vinedresser.”
[Pierre Teilhard De Chardin]

Have you ever reflected on the mystery of Holy Saturday?  Maybe it is because I have grown up in a world focused on instant gratification, but the delay between Jesus’ death and resurrection has long been a source of curiosity for me.  Why wait?  Why not instantly reveal the risen Lord in glory?
Some years ago I had a mentor tell me that the Christian church in America was, “hopelessly triumphalistic.”  I was taken aback by that comment.  The words, “hopeless” and “triumphal” don’t often appear together, do they?  But then my mentor explained what he meant.  He told me about attending endless numbers of Sunday services where there was no room for ignominious defeat.  Everything was focussed on triumph.  Every Sunday was “Easter.”  Every service was dedicated to the proposition that faith leads to victory.  My mentor challenged me, “what does someone who is struggling hear when the only story they ever encounter in worship is one that tells them that faithful people are victorious?”  “Even Jesus, on his way to victory, had a little ‘tomb-time,’” my mentor said.

Some years later I descended into a deep and lasting depression.  I could not worship my way out.  I could not pray my way out.  I could not reason my way out.  Like it or not, I was in a very dark place and as far as I could tell, I was there to stay.  I didn’t like it.  I restlessly looked for a way free, but to no avail.  And then, another friend sent me the Teilhard De Chardin quote and it occurred to me that maybe my task was to quit struggling to free myself and begin asking questions like, “What is the lesson God will teach me here?”  “In what way can the darkness shape me as a disciple of Jesus?”  And, “How is my current circumstance inviting me to trust more deeply in God’s love, and trust less in all of my triumphal self-sufficiency?"

Historically the church has leaned forward in its theological understanding of Holy Saturday.  In the Great Easter Vigil (often celebrated the night of Easter-eve) we begin to joyfully anticipate the resurrection miracle we will declare with the coming of dawn.  We have often baptized those new to the faith On Easter-eve in anticipation of their full participation of worship and Holy Communion Easter morning.  When I think of that, I am awed by the implications.  We baptize people into his death (Holy Saturday) that they might rise with the new life of Christ (Easter sunrise).  If Baptism is so carefully oriented not only to the new life, but by the tomb from which the new life is birthed, perhaps I am called in all of my life to live in the divine mystery of death and rebirth, tomb-time and Easter.

NRSV GENESIS 22:1-14, THE TESTING OF ABRAHAM
After these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.”  He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.”  So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac; he cut the wood for the burnt offering, and set out and went to the place in the distance that God had shown him.  On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place far away.  Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; the boy and I will go over there; we will worship, and then we will come back to you.”  Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together.
Isaac said to his father Abraham, “Father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” He said, “The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?”  Abraham said, “God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So the two of them walked on together.  When they came to the place that God had shown him, Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order. He bound his son Isaac, and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood.  Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to kill his son.
But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven, and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.”  He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.”  And Abraham looked up and saw a ram, caught in a thicket by its horns. Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son.  So Abraham called that place “The LORD will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the LORD it shall be provided.”

This is a hard story, no doubt about it.  In truth I have never much cared for the story of the binding of Isaac.  That he is spared in the end has never quite gotten me past the barbarity of the moment when the knife is raised above Isaac and Abraham is poised to murder his son.  
A few years ago when I was studying this passage I had two interesting observations pointed out to me.  The first is that after this day, if Isaac and Abraham speak to one another, scripture does not record it.  Father and son appear to go their separate ways.  The second is like the first - but even more stunning when you consider the closeness of Abraham to God.  After this time when Abraham felt that God was demanding Isaac’s life, scripture does not record any further conversation between Abraham and God.  It seems that I am not the only one who found this day deeply troubling.

As a father with two children of my own, it is unimaginable what the loss of one of them would mean. In the Genesis story, of course, another way is found.  The ram is substituted for Isaac, and father and son both escape the disaster that seemed to be inevitable.  They both escape with their lives but, no doubt, walk from the sacrificial scene emotionally and spiritually shaken.
Today is “Good Friday.”  An odd name for such a day as this.  The name derives from the Middle English words, “God’s Friday,”  the day in Holy Week when we remember the crucifixion of our Lord.  

There are certain parallels between the Genesis story and the events of Good Friday.  Isaac is the only child of Abraham and Sarah: Jesus is God’s only son.  Isaac carries the wood for his own altar: Jesus carries the cross on which he will hang.  Isaac shows remarkable trust in his father as they approach the mountain with no sacrifice in hand: Jesus shows remarkable trust in the garden when he prays, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet not my will but yours be done.”

The stories are not completely similar, however.  On Good Friday there is no ram substitution — only the scapegoating of the Son of God.  On Good Friday there is no last-minute stay of execution — but the full fury of our rejection of God is played out to its inevitable and violent conclusion.  On Good Friday the father and son do not walk away shaken, but unscathed — the Son dies and the Father’s heart is so broken that the earth quakes and day becomes night (indicators that creation itself is returning to chaos).

It is  a hard story, a wretched tale, and we must resist the urge to clean it up and soften its details.  What is the task for people of faith today?  I believe that it is to take in this story of Christ’s forsakenness in all of its sorry detail; to live with the harsh reality of the consequence of our refusal to love and claim God faithfully; to ponder our own culpability in the things which break the heart of God and bring premature death to God’s children; to join with the earth itself, shuddering and quaking in bereavement at the death of God’s beloved.  Let us descend with Christ through this crucible into the very heart of God.

NRSV JEREMIAH 31:31-34 A NEW COVENANT
The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.  It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt--a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD.  But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.  No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the LORD,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

The book of the prophet Jeremiah can seem like a lot of bad news.  God speaks bluntly to us about our failure to be steadfast, loyal and loving toward God.  Even so, Jeremiah has its passages of consolation too.  Today’s passage is one of them.  “The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant, with [God’s people],” we read.  A new covenant — this time written directly on our hearts.  It is as if God looked at the covenant given to Moses and written on the tablets of the law and then considered that it would be even better to write the law “within them.”  What are we to make if this?  Once again we find God deeply committed to us and willing to start over, re-establish the relationship on new terms, “remember [our] sin no more,” and move forward together.  

Sometimes I meet Christians who say to me, “God is unchanging.  God is sovereign.  God does not make mistakes.”  I think I know what they are anxious about.  They fear that if we suggest that God is trying something new in order to improve God’s relationship with us, that it implies that God didn’t know what God was doing the first time, or maybe was not powerful enough to make the first thing work.  But to assume that omniscience and omnipotence are only definable by “being right” and “staying the course” is to severely limit the power and knowledge of God.  God’s power is made perfect in weakness.  It’s one of the great mysteries of our faith.

I had a seminary professor, Dr. Bob Ramey, who taught me that “kindness is better than being right.”  At church we often remember that little bit of wisdom.  When we are arguing over some ministry decision we keep in mind that kindness is better than being right.  When we are correcting one another in Christian love, we recall that kindness is better than being right.  When we are engaged in ministry in Kenya, or Louisiana, or at the Shelter, and we are thinking judgmental thoughts — we discipline our hearts by remembering that kindness is better than being right.  Maybe, in sovereignty, God looked upon God’s people in compassion, and chose to be kind by trying again to bridge the chasm of our apostasy.  God could have simply said, “I was right when I gave them the law of Moses, and I’ll wait till they adopt it sincerely as their own.”  But thanks be to God that compassion moved God to re-establish the covenant in an even more intimate way.

In John 13:34 Jesus gives us yet another “new commandment.”  A new commandment, mandatum novum, is where we derive the title for Maundy Thursday.  In his farewell address to us, our Lord assures us that when we abide in him we will discover that he and the Father abide in us.  He then reminds us that the world will be able to see that God is in us to the degree that we “love one another.”  Could there be any more direct instruction to us in how to become mature in faith and bound to God than to participate in God’s deep love for us and for our neighbors?  I think not.  Let us search our hearts diligently.  Let us discern the handwriting of God written upon them.  Let us seek God — letting love be our guide — and we will not be disappointed.

I hate to admit it . . . But the truth is that, had I been with Jesus in Bethany that day, I would likely have been found among those complaining about the woman who anointed Jesus.  I suspect that the complaint about the money would have been, for me at least, a smoke-screen covering up my real complaint - which was that she had made a spectacle of herself in this very public display of affection.   Very unseemly - don’t you think?

Perhaps you’ve heard the definition that a “fanatic” is anyone who loves God/Jesus/a sports-team more than you do.  I know that I find fanatics off-putting.  And yet, here we have Jesus taking the side of this unseemly, fanatical woman.

I wonder sometimes if my own fear of being seen as a fanatic by someone else has kept me from finding a really passionate love for the God I claim to follow?  I am so careful to have a respectable kind of piety that I never tap into the rivers of emotion and trust which run deep and which hold the best potential for transformation of my life.  So, this Wednesday of Holy Week I and going to cut loose and love unabashedly. I’m going to risk being seen by others as a little too much in the hope that I might find the kind of love this woman displayed with her alabaster jar and her tears.

“Even the wind & the waves obey,
Why can’t I?  Why can’t I?
Where is my faith - is it lost at sea?
Lord help me be like the wind and the waves”

[Lyrics from the song Wind and the Waves by David Phelps]

Matt. 14:22 NRSV  Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds.  23 And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone,  24 but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them.  25 And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea.  26 But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out in fear.  27 But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”
Matt. 14:28   Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.”  29 He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus.  30 But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!”  31 Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”  32 When they got into the boat, the wind ceased.  33 And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

As we make our way further into Holy Week I am curious about Peter.  In many ways Peter is the over-achieving disciple;  first to declare Jesus the Messiah, the “rock” upon which Jesus declares that the church will be built, first to jump ship and begin walking to Jesus that stormy night on the sea of Galilee.  And yet, he is also the disciple who tries to dissuade Jesus from going to Jerusalem, who quickly finds himself drowning out at sea after a failed attempt to walk out to his Lord, and he will be the one who infamously denies knowing Jesus three times while his Lord is under arrest and at trial.

He is the living example of what the apostle Paul will later describe as “treasure in an earthen vessel.”  It is precisely Peter’s good impulses and passionate trust in Jesus coupled with his obvious cluelessness and timidity in the face of trouble which endears him to me (and to many other people of faith down through the ages).  In Peter I find a disciple to whom I can relate — because, of course, I too am a rather chaotic mixture of light and shadow, of trust and fear, of courage and cowardly impulse.

It is important to note that through it all Jesus never appears to give up on Peter.  He clearly loves him to the end.  And even when, in the post-resurrection meeting on the beach, Jesus chides him for failing to remain committed to the ministry which was given to him, you can see that Jesus is once again embracing Peter in mercy and grace.

So why is it that even the wind and the waves obey Christ, and we find it so hard to obey?  I suspect that we all might have a different answer to that question - but that is the question for us on Tuesday of Holy Week.  Will we obey?  Will we remain true to the end?  Will we have so much confidence in God and the power of God’s love to redeem that we will take courageous risks to remain faithful?

Luke 18:18   A certain ruler asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  19 Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.  20 You know the commandments: ‘You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; Honor your father and mother.’”  21 He replied, “I have kept all these since my youth.”  22 When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “There is still one thing lacking. Sell all that you own and distribute the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”  23 But when he heard this, he became sad; for he was very rich.  24 Jesus looked at him and said, “How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!  25 Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” 26   Those who heard it said, “Then who can be saved?”  27 He replied, “What is impossible for mortals is possible for God.”

This moment in the teaching of Jesus always unnerves me — I think because I have always had a rather uneasy relationship with wealth.  On the one hand, I dream of wealth and covet the security and convenience, and sense of peace I imagine wealth might buy me.  So, I pursue wealth like a lot of other people I know.  On the other hand my family history is littered with the wreckage of lives lived in pursuit of wealth in a way that justified the worst kinds of human depravity.

For decades I have been engrossed in the hobby of preserving my family's history.  Having deep roots in South Carolina and in Georgia, it will come as no surprise that I have found slave-owning plantations in the family history.  Indeed, a few years ago I conducted a wedding just outside of Charleston, SC at the gorgeous Middleton Plantation.  My father’s mother was a Middleton of the Charleston Middletons.  I have read the slave registers of those whose lives and blood were poured out in labor on that plantation (and other plantations in my family history) and the thought of it sickens me.

But I need not go back to the 1850s and 1860s to find evidence of the cost of the pursuit of wealth.  It is easy enough for me to find in my own life.  Back when I was first feeling the Spirit of God prompting me to a new life — around my twenty-second year — I was already deeply committed to wealth-accumulation.  A friend and I had started a business and were importing goods from Taiwan, and Malaysia, and Mexico, and selling them at an obscene profit.  When I first felt God asking me to question my head-long chasing after the almighty-dollar, my response was to make a deal with God.  I said to God, “If you will leave me alone from Monday to Friday so I can keep getting rich (without the guilt I am feeling about it), I’ll spend my Saturdays helping others who are less fortunate than myself, and I’ll worship on Sundays.”  It seemed like a perfectly reasonable deal to me.  It was only later that I came to know how perilous it is to try to wheel-and-deal with God — within a year of that “deal” I was attending seminary.

Today is the Monday of Holy Week.  Jesus is heading to the hardest days of his life and he is wondering if any of the disciples will stick by him.  It all boils down to this;  what do they really want more than anything else?  Like the rich young ruler who had wanted to live a God-glorifying life so long as it did not require him to relinquish his first-love, we too are asked as we make our way into Holy Week, “Are you willing to let go of the things you covet the most in order to be fully present to those in need and to fully follow the one who has entered Jerusalem?”

It will be hard for us to choose God’s kingdom over the enticements of this world.  It always has been.  We will each need to find a place of peace and balance between living as good stewards of the gifts God has entrusted to us, and on the other hand, allowing our accumulation of those gifts to enslave us.  Years ago I was talking to a monk at Mepkin Abbey.  I had sought Father Christian's counsel about life.  I suppose I must have said a lot about money because he concluded our time together saying, "Your wealth will not make you happy, but it will keep you comfortably in your unhappiness.” I have wondered about what he said many times.  I wonder about the ways I allow my wealth to keep me just comfortable enough that I never get sick enough of my lukewarm discipleship and get busy truly committing to the life that really is life.

Psa. 125:0   A Song of Ascents.
1 Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion,
which cannot be moved, but abides forever.
2 As the mountains surround Jerusalem,
so the Lord surrounds his people,
from this time on and forevermore.
3 For the scepter of wickedness shall not rest
on the land allotted to the righteous,
so that the righteous might not stretch out
their hands to do wrong.
4 Do good, O Lord, to those who are good,
and to those who are upright in their hearts.
5 But those who turn aside to their own crooked ways
the Lord will lead away with evildoers.
Peace be upon Israel!

This Psalm (as are all the Psalms of Ascent) is dated to the period of Exile or perhaps just after Exile. That impacts its imagery and meaning. This poem of confidence about the enduring quality of Mount Zion and of Jerusalem sounds different when we understand that it is being written from a foreign land and under the subjugation of an enemy.

I am struck by the third verse:
3 For the scepter of wickedness shall not rest 
on the land allotted to the righteous,
so that the righteous might not stretch out 
their hands to do wrong.

There is some discussion about what this cryptic comment means, but I am swayed by the simple explanation that these exiles (and even those left behind but dispossessed of the land they once owned and controlled) are struggling to not respond to the violence and injustice which has come to them with a symmetrical response. You know what I mean. . . “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” That is symmetrical response.

The alternative is to surprise everyone, friend and foe alike, by responding asymmetrically. That is what Jesus instructs when he teaches:

Matt. 5:38   “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ 39 But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; 40 and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; 41 and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. 42 Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.
Matt. 5:43   “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.

As I make my way to the horrors of Good Friday and consider how deeply divided people are in my own nation, I find myself wondering, “What might happen if Psalm 125:3 were to take hold? What if violence was met by peace, hostility with patience, enmity with earnest prayers for the perpetrator’s well-being?” Of course, in a world dominated by the worldview of realpolitik this talk of asymmetrical response sounds like silliness . . . but it sounded like silliness in 5th century BCE Israel in the poetry of the psalmist, and it sounded like silliness in 1rst century CE Judea on the lips of our Lord.  So, as silly as it sounds, I will be trying very hard as I walk the paths of my life in a way that responds to others in grace — even, and perhaps especially when that requires an asymmetrical response.

Psalm 126 — A Song of Ascents.
1 When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,
we were like those who dream.
2 Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
and our tongue with shouts of joy;
then it was said among the nations,
“The Lord has done great things for them.”
3 The Lord has done great things for us,
and we rejoiced.
 
Psa. 126:4    Restore our fortunes, O Lord,
like the watercourses in the Negeb.
5 May those who sow in tears
reap with shouts of joy.
6 Those who go out weeping,
bearing the seed for sowing,
shall come home with shouts of joy,
carrying their sheaves.

In recent years I have been wondering about the theology of time. Time figures importantly in theology and in the biblical witness too. A brief example to illustrate — isn’t it interesting the God takes time to create? It takes time for God’s creative process to unfold and that suggests that all of creation becomes what it is supposed to be through time. One doesn’t have to be particularly clever to then wonder, “If all of creation takes time to become what God desires it to be — perhaps I too am becoming all that God created me to be in time.”

Many of us know the wonderful quote:

“Above all, trust in the slow work of God. We are quite naturally impatient in everything to
reach the end without delay. We should like to skip the intermediate stage. We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.
Yet it is the law of all progress that is is made by passing through some stages of instability and that may take a very long time. And so I think it is with you.
Your ideas mature gradually. Let them grow. Let them shape themselves without undue haste. Do not try to force them on as though you could be today what time – that is to say, grace – and circumstances acting on your own good will, will make you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new Spirit gradually forming in you will be. Give our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.
Above all, trust in the slow work of God, our Loving vinedresser. Amen.”
Pierre Teilhard De Chardin

Psalm 126 also seems to be sensitive to the question of time. First of all, (though I do not want to get into it here) the tense of verbs in Hebrew poetry is notoriously slippery and there is a robust discussion about verses 1-3 of Psalm 126 with the traditional translations wanting to render the verb tense as a past-perfect and newer scholarship arguing for a verb tense which is future imperfect (i.e. “When the Lord restores the fortunes of Zion, we should be like dreamers . . .” trans. Robert Altar). What does intrigue me, however, is the tacit acknowledgement in the poetic constructions of the Psalm that we move through time from one state to another — and that it is in time that we come to new places of joy and prosperity.
Take for example verses five and six. I will alter slightly the NRSV translation to make the poetic constructions of the Hebrew obvious — something the NRSV sometimes obscures in its word-ordering.
5 May those who sow in tears
with shouts of joy, reap.

You see the chiastic construction:
sow – tears
    
Shouts of joy – reap
AND
6 Those who go out weeping,
bearing the seed for sowing,
shall come home with shouts of joy,
carrying their sheaves.

You see the poetic parallelism:
go out – weeping – bearing seed
        
come home – singing/shouting joyfully – carrying sheaves.

There is a natural sequence, a tidal dance, a waxing and waning of life which shows up in these poetic lines. Life consists of labor (sowing, going out to work, bearing, carrying) and recreation (singing, shouting). We know both sorrow and joy, weeping and singing glad songs. Though I would not want to take these sequences too tightly, as if the processes were fixed, I do know in my bones the truth that it is far more fun to reap my garden’s harvest than it was to plow the soil, plant the seeds, and weed the garden all Summer.

So how does this connect to our journey through Lent? These months spent in anticipation of the joys of Easter include a lot of seed-planting, weeding, and tilling of the soil of my soul. I’m not too proud to admit that a tear or two has already been shed over my rediscovery of my hard-heartedness or other unloveliness within me. But I (we) go out with our bags full of seeds and a desire to keep a Holy Lent, and we do the hard work of planting, sowing, and weeding now —  trusting that in time God will be merciful to deliver a fruitful harvest about which we can joyful shout.

Psa. 131:0   A Song of Ascents. Of David.
1 O Lord, my heart is not lifted up,
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me.
2 But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.
 
Psa. 131:3    O Israel, hope in the Lord
from this time on and forevermore.


Once again, I find the subtle shifts in translation made by Robert Alter to be compelling. He renders verse 2 as:
“But I have calmed and contented myself
like a weaned babe on its mother —
like a weaned babe I am with myself.”
Alter’s translation thus avoids the silly mis-translation of nephesh as “soul.” As my old testament mentor, said many times to me, “Nephesh is never ‘soul.’ Hebrew people had no concept of the body/soul distinction! That is a Greek thing.” But more than that I like Alter’s translation because the phrase, “like a weaned babe I am with myself,” both preserves the poetic parallelism of the Hebrew and it is clearer in English too. The point is that the psalmist is internally content. He/she is with themselves and they are calmed as in a way parallel to a babe calmed with/on its mother.
I love this psalm for its tight simplicity. One simple thought. One compelling image.
The thought — I am humble. I do not let hubris rule my life and guide my impulses.
The image — a newly weaned babe who is, perhaps surprisingly, at peace with its new identity (weaned child).

But let me not get ahead of myself. A word about the nature of pilgrimage as a liminal movement is needed. Lately I have been wondering about a series of words. They are these:

Someone — No One — Someone Else/New.

I was first drawn to this set of words as I read the epic-novels of George R.R. Martin — popularly shortened to the Game of Thrones, and in particular, the narrative arc of Arya Stark. Arya, finds herself wildly displaced from her family of origin and literally on the other side of her world and in the service of the Many-faced God. Throughout her novitiate she is asked repeatedly, “Who are you?” She persists in claiming, “a girl is no one,” eschewing the definite article and even the pronoun “I” in her pursuit of becoming no one and then a “many-faced” person. She has intuited that the path to becoming some one new is through the wilderness of being no one.

This movement from being Somebody, to Nobody, to Somebody new is found all over scripture once you have the eyes to see it. For example, The “someone” of Jacob, becomes the “no one” of being estranged from his family and traveling through the wilderness, and he becomes “someone else/new” in his encounter with God at the Jabbok river. The “someone” of Saul becomes the “no one” of being knocked from his mount and blinded, only to become “someone else/new” in the person of Paul.

The thing is, if scripture is to be trusted, everyone resists the movement from being someone to becoming no-one. That is articulated over and over by the prophets who understand that whatever future is possible for the people of God — it is only going to be found through the crucible of exile. It foreshadows the primary narrative for Christians whose Lord is the “someone” of Jesus, who has to become the “no one” of crucified criminal before he finds new life as the “someone new” of the resurrected Lord.

But “what is the connection of all of this to Psalm 131?” you might rightfully ask. The connection is this. Our hubris makes it very hard to practice the kind of honest self-assessment which leads to becoming “no one.” Pride wants to deny our need to become no one in pursuit of becoming someone new. And this denial of the need to die to our old self precludes the possibility of our becoming the new self which is our truest-self. Henri Nouwen has written of this more eloquently than I can so let me quote him briefly. He is writing about the discipline of Solitude when he writes:

In solitude I get rid of my scaffolding: no friends to talk with, no telephone calls to make, no meetings to attend, no music to entertain, no books to distract, just me— naked, vulnerable, weak, sinful, deprived, broken— no-thing. It is this nothingness that I have to face in my solitude, a nothingness so dreadful that everything in me wants to run to my friends, my work, and my distractions so that I can forget my nothingness and make myself believe that I am worth something. But that is not all. As soon as I decide to stay in my solitude, confusing ideas, disturbing images, wild fantasies, and weird associations jump about in my mind like monkeys in a banana tree. Anger and greed begin to show their ugly faces. I give long, hostile speeches to my enemies and dream lustful dreams in which I am wealthy, influential, and very attractive— or poor, ugly, and in need of immediate consolation. Thus I try again to run from the dark abyss of my nothingness and restore my false self in all its vainglory. The task is to persevere in my solitude, to stay in my cell until all my seductive visitors get tired of pounding on my door and leave me alone. The “Isenheim Altar” painted by Grünewald shows with frightening realism the ugly faces of the many demons who tempted Anthony in his solitude. The struggle is real because the danger is real. It is the danger of living the whole of our life as one long defense against the reality of our condition, one restless effort to convince ourselves of our virtuousness. Yet Jesus “did not come to call the virtuous, but sinners” (Matthew 9: 13).
[The Way of the Heart: The Spirituality of the Desert Fathers and Mothers, by Nouwen, Henri J. M.]

The psalmist is rejecting the false-self, propped up through hubris, in favor of a relationship with God which recognizes the need to be comforted, encouraged, calmed by God as we become someone else/new. The movement from “no one” to “someone new” is a movement of trust in the possibility that the “dreadful nothingness” through which we journey is not the last word — but is, in fact, the path of becoming someone new. The journey of faith through the season of Lent is a good time to pay attention to the cycles of being someone called to become no one in trust that in the end we will discover that we are becoming someone new.

In the late fall of 2017 and through the start of 2018 I wrote a series of blog-posts about the “Psalms of Ascent,”  a collection of Psalms which have traditionally been associated with pilgrimage to Jerusalem.  I will be recycling a few of those posts as devotions in the next few days.  I hope that these explorations of the Psalms will be a blessing to you.

Psa. 133   A Song of Ascents. [altered slightly from NRSV by PHL]
1 How very good and pleasant it is
when kindred live together in unity!
2 It is like the precious oil on the head,
coming down upon the beard,
on the beard of Aaron,
coming down over the collar of his robes.
3 It is like the dew of Hermon,
which comes down on the parched land.
For there the Lord ordained his blessing,
life forevermore.

I have made slight revisions of the NRSV translation. They are as follows:
Verses 2a&b and 3b all use the same verb which is to “come down.” It is the same verb used to describe the mission of Moses to “come down” to Egypt and confront Pharaoh. It is used in other Psalms as well as in the prophets to speak of both snow and rain coming down to nourish the earth and also God coming down in power to make things right. Notably, it is also used to describe the descent of the manna in Numbers 11:9. The NRSV, by translating the verb as “running down” in verse 2 and as “falls” in verse three obscures the poetic parallelism of the Hebrew and I have altered the translation to preserve it. Further, I am convinced by Robert Altar’s justification of translating the emendation of the word tsiyah “parched land”, over the Massoretic text tsiyon “Zion,” in verse 3. When you consider that Mount Hermon is not in Zion it makes sense to me to prefer the ancient variant on the text which offers “parched land.” Dew from Hermon would not travel to Zion, but it would easily drift down the slopes of the mountain and moisten the surrounding “parched land.”

Now that those textual concerns are out of the way, let us turn to the poetry of the Psalm. The oil and the dew are both blessings which come down like the goodness and pleasantness of unity in community. Unity in community is often elusive. Any group of people, even pilgrims, who spend a bit of time together will begin to feel struggle of this. To bear with those others who trouble you is an important aspect of Christian discipleship.

In my own experience, the greatest danger to Christian community is “Truth.” Perhaps that will surprise you. But I join Deitritch Bonhoeffer in the sentiment that it is the disciple who is convinced that he or she is “in the truth” who does the most to destroy Christian community. They are so convinced that they are right that it blinds them to the demands of love which might build community. Bonhoeffer warns of this powerfully in his book Life Together.

“He enters the community with his demands, sets up his own law, and judges the brethren and God Himself accordingly. . . and finally [he becomes] the despairing accuser of himself.”

John Calvin in writing his commentary about Psalm 133 says the following:
“We are to set ourselves against those turbulent spirits which the devil will never fail to raise up in the Church, and be sedulous to retain intercourse with such as show a docile and tractable disposition. But we cannot extend this intercourse to those who obstinately persist in error, since the condition of receiving them as brethren would be our renouncing him who is Father of all, and from whom all spiritual relationship takes its rise. The peace which David recommends is such as begins in the true head, and this is quite enough to refute the unfounded charge of schism and division which has been brought against us by the Papists, while we have given abundant evidence of our desire that they would coalesce with us in God’s truth, which is the only bond of holy union.”

I find Calvin’s remarks so very disappointing. He begins well, spurning the “turbulent spirits” which come from the devil . . . but then falls prey to the falsehood that he can only remain in community with those who “would coalesce with us in God’s truth, which is the only bond of holy union.” If that were so, then how does Jesus remain in community with a bunch of disciples who clearly did not understand God’s truth? Jesus is bound to them in community not by truth, but by love. His love for them over-rides all other obstacles to community.

When pilgrims set out in pursuit of God, it does not take long before we each are given the opportunity to “bear with one another’s faults, and so fulfill the law of Christ” [Galatians 6:2]. Someone else will have inconvenient needs, or irritating habits, or frustrating impulses . . . and it is then that we are to recall “How every good and pleasant it is when kindred dwell together in unity.” The first step to building that unity is for each pilgrim to give up the desire to change others in preference for cultivating an authentic love for the others. Thomas Merton has written powerfully about this kind of love:

“The Beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.”
– No Man Is An Island

So, I will be praying about my own commitment to dwelt together in unity, and I will be seeking the blessings of love and understanding both for myself (and my foibles) as I seek to accommodate the foibles of others. I will repeat the mantra that I am meant to love the person in front of me — instead of constantly wanting that person to be some other version of himself or herself.

Ours is a wordy world. With text-messaging, phone calls, radio, TV, YouTube, Twitter, & Facebook — our lives are immersed in words written, received, spoken, & heard. During a recent day of air-travel I began to notice how I was surrounded by words. Monitors everywhere declaring arrivals & departures; TVs blaring the latest cable-news; my phone dutifully alerting me to push-notifications from a dozen different applications; and much more. It was hard to stay focused on anything or anyone with the constant interruption created by the onslaught of words.

It was not always so. In 1450 CE Gutenberg improved printing in Western Europe with metal moveable type. At the time the literacy rate in Europe is estimated to be less than 5%. By 1500 CE (just fifty years later) 40,000 titles had been published (and roughly 2 million books had been created out of these titles). When Martin Luther initiated a Reformation of the church in 1517 he did so at a time when the rapid increase is literacy was reshaping how people came to faith. By the time he posted his 95 Theses in Wittenburg, the literacy rate had already more than doubled to 10%. When John Calvin first published the Institutes of Christian Religion the literacy rate had doubled again to 20%, and by Calvin’s death in 1564 it was roughly 30%. The particular stream of Christian faith from which my tradition grows is, not surprisingly, enamored with the Word. But for 1500 years prior to that, the Christian faith was a faith lived without the constant presence of a wordy religion. Prior to the 16th century, ours was a faith that trusted in what the believer could see.

Now, in a world wall-papered with inane and vapid words, the earnest person of faith must cultivate a deeper and more sympathetic way of encountering God in the words of scripture. Our approach has to let go of a posture that seeks to master the content of a text (and by extension its subject too), in favor of cultivating a practice of reading which allows the text to master us. Or to say it another way, to allow God, through the words of scripture, to master and shape us. One of the most successful approaches to this way of reading holy texts is Lectio Divina or “sacred reading.” It is a contemplative approach which honors the text’s ability to speak to us and both challenge and invite a change in us. To learn to read (or be read by) a text in this way requires practice, discipline, and time. But few of us will have encountered this contemplative approach to reading in school. The texts of our educational endeavors have been engaged in a way where where mastery of content is king. So, to shift our posture and let the text have its way with us is typically a new and learned technique. Many, however, have had their faith deepened and their sense of God’s claim upon their life powerfully renewed and clarified through Lectio Divina.

In her book Eyes of the Heart: Photography as a Christian Contemplative Practice Christine Valters Paintner begins by making a similar observation about our “visually overstimulated world.” On a recent pilgrimage to the deserts of New Mexico, I encountered for the first time the stunning artistry of Georgia O’Keeffe. Her paintings of the landscapes around Ghost Ranch NM are truly master-works. While on pilgrimage to Ghost Ranch and its environs I also read a quote from O’Keefe.

“Nobody sees a flower really; it is so small. We haven’t time, and to see takes time—like to have a friend takes time.”

Paintner suggests that there is a parallel process to Lectio Divina which works for vision and she promotes it as she describes photography as a contemplative practice of Christian faith. She uses the Latin phrase Visio Divina to suggest a kind of sacred vision which allows us to “see” things beyond what our senses typically notice.

I am put in mind of the stunning photography of Thomas Merton who spent decades carefully photographing things as ordinary as windows, vines, and chairs — but with a Zen-like simplicity and a careful attention to form and content. They were photographs which captured (as much as one can capture) the discipline of Visio Divina.

To see some of Merton’s photographs go to: http://www.merton.org/hiddenwholeness/

A few years ago I sat in St. Margaret’s Chapel in Edinburgh for about half and hour praying. During my thirty minutes of prayer, approximately 500 people stepped into that small enclosure, looked about for 2 to 3 seconds, often snapped a quick photo and stepped out. I have also been on a bus which arrived at the Parthenon and everyone leaped out to begin snapping pictures without even taking the time to wonder at the marvel on the hill above us. These photo-taking sessions are akin to the way many skim over their Bible readings — not expecting to have an encounter, and not desiring to be changed.

However, I have also been in places where it was clear that the persons behind the camera lens were engaged in the pursuit of the holy. They were trying to see and know something true and beautiful in a way not unlike my approach to God’s word in scripture. So, as for me, I will be taking a camera on my journeys in search of God. It is just a tool. It can be mis-used, and it can be a distraction (just like the many books full of words which I am prone to carry). But it can also be an instrument of the Spirit which helps me begin to ask questions like:
“what am I looking for?”
and “what is it that I am seeing?”
and “what is it that God is wanting to show me right now in this place?”

As we make our way ever-closer to the events of Holy Week I want to begin reflecting on our journey of faith more broadly using the metaphor of pilgrimage to explore discipleship.  Pilgrimage is characterized by tidal shifts between orientation, disorientation, and reorientation. These moments happen daily (sometimes hourly) as we phase between living our faith on the solid ground of certitude, then to embracing the uncertainties of wilderness wandering, and as we come to renewed confidence in the “one triune God, the Holy One of Israel, whom alone we worship and serve.” [from A Brief Statement of Faith]

I use the “Pilgrim’s Compass” in my journey with God. It is meant to help me daily orient (and reorient) my life in relationship to the God who loves me. The very idea of a compass reminds me that I do not journey alone ("compass" derives from Latin words for "step together"). And further, that I am engaged in the task of orienteering — learning to read the map and notice the details of the surrounding terrain so as to make progress in getting where I desire to be.

Prior to the invention of the magnetic compass (something only perfected in the West in the late 12th century CE), maps tended to have a wide variety of “orientations.” That is to say, many maps did not have “N” for “north” at the top because there was no reliable way to ascertain a true-north heading. Though the subtlety of a magnetic reading came late to the process of orienteering, other natural objects were often used — none more frequently than the rising sun. The position of the rising sun was a (relatively) precise and fixed position. It was recognized, of course, that the sun dipped southward (at least in the Northern hemisphere) as you made your way to the Winter Solstice and that it moved incrementally back closer to a true east as you approached the two equinoxes. All of those considerations aside, it was still a helpful daily way to orient your map. You would arise with the sun, and orient you map toward it.

As far back as the third century the Bishop of Carthage (St. Cyprian) noted, “Christ is the true sun and the true day…”(quote from St. Cyprian's On The Lord's Prayer) And John Calvin, perhaps aware of Cyprian’s earlier work, includes in his prayers attached to the catechism of the church of Geneva the following lines:

“MY GOD, my Father and Preserver, who of thy goodness hast watched over me during the past night, and brought me to this day, grant also that I may spend it wholly in the worship and service of thy most holy deity. Let me not think, or say, or do a single thing which tends not to thy service and submission to thy will, that thus all my actions may aim at thy glory and the salvation of my brethren, while they are taught by my example to serve thee. And as thou art giving light to this world for the purposes of external life by the rays of the sun, so enlighten my mind by the effulgence of thy Spirit, that he may guide me in the way of thy righteousness . . . As I ought to make progress, do thou add daily more and more to the gifts of thy grace until I wholly adhere to thy Son Jesus Christ, whom we justly regard as the true Sun, shining constantly in our minds.”

So, this suggests a pattern. We begin and end our days with an intentional orientation and reorientation of our life toward Christ, who is our “true sun and true day.” This pattern, of course, is the ancient pattern of prayer, first given in the Shema Yisrael:
Deut. 6:4   Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. 6 Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. 7 Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. 8 Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, 9 and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

On our pilgrimage journey, we arise and orient ourselves. And at day’s-end we reorient through the practice of the examen and in prayers anticipating that, as St. Cyprian so eloquently wrote:
“Likewise at sunset and the passing of the day it is necessary to pray. For since Christ is the true sun and the true day, when we pray and ask, as the sun and the day of the world recede, that the light may come upon us again, we pray for the coming of Christ, which provides us with the grace of eternal light…”

As we make our way through the weeks of Lent, and practice the disciplines which help us to “keep a Holy Lent,” we keep alert to the possibility that we will encounter the God we follow in the course of our journey.  There are places which become saturated with the worship of God and the prayers of the faithful.  They are not magical.  We cannot conjure God by visiting them and praying in any certain way.  Nevertheless, we might trust that a place which has been home to so many people of faith and in which so many ardent prayers have been made, is as good a place to pray as any, and might be better than most.  The sanctuary at Cary Presbyterian Church, is such a place for me.  In the early afternoon when my mind is weary of thinking and my fingers weary of typing, I sometimes go to sit in the sanctuary and listen for God.  I do not stay for long - perhaps 10 or 12 minutes - but I go to simply be present to God and to seek to hear in the magnificent silence of the worship space a word which comes from out of the silence.  We can, of course, pray any time and anywhere we like.  God is not confined to our places of worship.  And yet, I feel a richness, a solid rock of trust in God when I encounter places where people have worshiped for many years.  I feel connected to them as my prayers are woven into their prayers.  In my recent book about pilgrimage I wrote of another such place:
  

“Sometimes a place becomes a place of encounter. Many pilgrimage destinations are places where people over many years have felt an encounter with God occurring. The site becomes a place of pilgrimage because it seems to be a place where the veil between the ordinary and the holy is very thin. After a time, the place becomes immersed in the prayers of millions of people of faith who have visited and prayed over thousands of years, and those prayers too have a way of sanctifying the place. On a recent pilgrimage to the Holy Land, I found myself with a free day in Jerusalem. I walked to the Church of Saint Anne, a small church with a long history. It is dedicated to Anne the mother of Mary, mother of Jesus. The ancient story is that the church is built over a grotto where Mary is said to have been born. The historicity of this claim is uncertain. However, I sat in St. Anne’s for hours on my free day in Jerusalem. I prayed, I journaled, and I watched as countless pilgrims came and went. St. Anne’s marks the beginning of the Via Dolorosa, so nearly every pilgrim to Jerusalem finds their way to St. Anne’s, if only for a brief glimpse inside before beginning the walk of the way of sorrow. As I sat quietly amid the churn of hundreds of pilgrims coming and going, I was keenly aware of the many prayers that had been offered to God in that space since its creation in the early twelfth century. By the time I left hours later, the historicity of the claim about the church being over the place where Mary was born had become totally incidental to me. What was undeniably real, faithful, beautiful, and true was that the place was made holy by the faithful people who came and offered something of themselves to God in that sanctuary—as I myself had done.”

Lang, Paul H. The Pilgrim's Compass (pp. 64-65). Presbyterian Publishing. Kindle Edition.

As we make our way toward the Day of Resurrection one of the things we might do with more intentionality is to wonder about the sacred spaces in our life.  Do we treat those spaces with the reverence due to a place where we are about to have an audience with the Almighty?  When I visit Cistercian monasteries in order to be alone with God I am always touched by the reverence the monks give to the place of worship.  Each enters and departs by pausing, turning to the altar and making a slow and deep bow.  I have never asked my Cistercian friends about their reverence of the worship space, but I find it to be a beautiful expression of their confidence that they are with God when the enter that room.

If you have been in the Pastor’s Class at Cary Presbyterian Church, or actually in any lesson I have taught in recent years you will know that the question of what is “true” is one I have pondered at great length over the last decade.  I will save my more convoluted discourse on epistemology for some day you take me out for a cup of coffee.  It is enough here in a Lenten devotion to acknowledge that we should hold those truths, which to us are self-evident, with some gentle humility.  We should do that for several reasons.  First, we are long past the place in history where people of faith in God can make truth claims about metaphysical realities expecting others to passively accept our starting assumptions — so holding our truths with a gentle humility is simply a way of acknowledging that if we want to have real conversations about things of essential value, we cannot make our claims as a de facto starting place unless we simply want to be in an echo-chamber of like-minded people.  But more importantly, I think we should hold them in gentle humility because that is the model we so often have in Jesus.  As noted in a prior devotion, Jesus invites us to “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”

Jesus did demand that people choose unambiguously the one they would serve.  But when it came to describing what that serving would mean, he used metaphors which point away from hardened and settled assumptions and which direct us toward something far more organic and messy.  Once again we draw from Jesus’ “final discourse” which I mentioned in yesterday’s devotion.

John 14:1-7 [NRSV]   “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life…”  Think about that for a moment.  The “truth” is a person.  It is not a list of claims to which I must subscribe, it is not something easily understood and set aside, and it certainly isn’t something that remains static and unchanging.  Jesus tells the disciples that he is the truth. I have known a lot of persons in my 56 years and one thing I can say with confidence is that knowing a person means being in a more or less constant state of surprise by discovering that I do not yet know them fully.  There is always more to discover about another person, and there are always things about our perception of them which need correction.  My wife, Sarah, and I have been married nearly 32 years and I am only now discovering some things about her I never knew before.

Some years ago the Presbyterian Church felt compelled to publish a statement of our current Christology.  To my way of thinking it is one of the better theological documents we’ve published.  It holds, in a delicate balance, the need to state what we believe unambiguously, while at the same time showing a proper humility about limits of what we can claim to know.  Here is a brief portion of the paper:

"Jesus Christ is the only Savior and Lord, and all people everywhere are called to place their faith, hope, and love in him. No one is saved by virtue of inherent goodness or admirable living, for “by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God” [Ephesians 2:8]. No one is saved apart from God’s gracious redemption in Jesus Christ.
Yet we do not presume to limit the sovereign freedom of “God our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” [1 Timothy 2:4]. Thus, we neither restrict the grace of God to those who profess explicit faith in Christ nor assume that all people are saved regardless of faith. Grace, love, and communion belong to God, and are not ours to determine.” [excerpt taken from Hope in the Lord Jesus Christ, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Office of Theology and Worship: 2002].


I can think of another time when Jesus was asked about the truth.  Can you think of it?  Those of us on our way to the events of the Passion should recall it.

John 18:33   Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?”  34 Jesus answered, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?”  35 Pilate replied, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?”  36 Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.”  37 Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”  38 Pilate asked him, “What is truth?”

The incarnation of God’s love in Jesus brings to us the truth to which it is a witness, in the form of the person — Jesus.  We would do well to ponder why God chose such a messy and unfixed form of reality as a person to bear witness to the truth.  This devotion is already so heavily influenced by the gospel according to John, it seems only right to conclude with John’s description of the incarnation:

John 1:14   “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.”

The mission statement for The Pilgrimage ministry is:
“For Christians hearing the call to go deeper —
The Pilgrimage creates a community and provides tools
and experiences through which we learn to hear the call of God
and respond in faith, journeying together with friends
on the path to a Spirit-led and joyful life.”

What we are aiming for, in the end, is a community of friends on the path to a Spirit-led and joyful discipleship.  In my experience, congregations which have found the source of their joy, and who do whatever their mission turns out to be, joyfully — those are the healthy congregations.  It is easy to think of our faith as something we hope will make us devout, or pious, or right in our thinking.  But those are not the only — and may not even be the most important — aspects of our discipleship.  In the gospel according to John there is a long section in which Jesus speaks to the disciples one last time before the events of the Passion begin.  Scholars refer to it as the “final discourse.”  In the heart of that discourse Jesus speaks to the disciples about how he will make their joy complete:

John 15:9-11 [NRSV] As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.  If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.  I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

In the very next chapter he assures them that, though he will depart from them for a time, he will return and their hearts will rejoice.  Therefore they need not fear that the joy he has given them can be taken from them.  Then he repeats the promise of 15:9-11.  We can see that at the very heart of his final instructions to his disciples, Jesus is focussed on the promise that they have joy — even in the midst of the very real troubles that are about to unfold.  It seems to me that if my discipleship does not produce joy, I need to at least ask if I am doing it right.

Presbyterians have in our constitutional documents for the church the observation that “truth is in order to goodness.”  In essence the implication is that if what we hold and believe is true it will have the tendency to promote the fruits of the Spirit.  Those fruits, listed by the apostle Paul in Galatians are: Gal. 5:22-23   “… the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness,  gentleness, and self-control.”  Here again, right out of the gate “joy” is listed as one of the gifts the Spirit grants us.

It is a good sign when you find laughter to come easily; when the arrival of your friends, family, or colleagues brings up in your spirit a quick smile and a lighthearted joy.  In my experience nothing dampens my access to joy faster than when I put myself in the role of someone tasked with telling others what to do and how to be.  Casting judgements about my neighbors almost never brings me to joy.  At best it gives me a momentary and darkened glee (because, of course I always am prone to see myself reflected in a superior way when judging others).  But on a good day, when I am able to remember that nothing good ever comes from measuring myself with the yardstick of someone else, I can live joyfully.  I can do that trusting that God and I are at work on my own redemption and trusting that God is at work with them in their redemption too.  It is not mine to determine the breadth and depth of God’s saving-grace.

We pilgrims are meant to be joyful witnesses to the love of God as we make our way along the journey of this life.  Lent provides a liturgical season in which we can focus more intently than ever on living as Jesus’ joyful disciples.

When I think about remaining steadfast and loyal, my thoughts turn to Jesus’ disciples.  In particular, I think of Peter who boasts confidently that we will never deny Christ, and then before the cock-crows he has denied knowing Jesus not once, but three times.  It is easy to profess loyalty when there is no costs for our allegiance.  But how soon that loyalty fades when times get risky!  After Jesus is crucified, Peter and some others go back to their old work, fishing.  Jesus appears and the gospel according to John describes what happens this way:

John 21:4 [NRSV]   Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus.  5 Jesus said to them, “Children, you have no fish, have you?” They answered him, “No.”  6 He said to them, “Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish.  7 That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the sea.  8 But the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, only about a hundred yards off.

John 21:9   When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread.  10 Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.”  11 So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred fifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn.  12 Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you?” because they knew it was the Lord.  13 Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish.  14 This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.

John 21:15   When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.”  16 A second time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.”  17 He said to him the third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.  18 Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.”  19 (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, “Follow me.”

It is interesting to notice that the word “steadfast” is used more than one hundred times in the NRSV Bible.  In the Hebrew Bible it is found only paired with the word “love.”  That is the NRSV’s way of rendering the Hebrew word Hesed.  Hesed is a long-term, reliable, committed, and loving relationship.  What God offers over and over is this loving relationship of persistent fidelity.
That God loves us is something that is settled truth.  But the question which remains is, “do we love God?”  That is the question Jesus keeps posing to John on the shore, “Do you love me?”  If you do, then “follow me.”  Our Pilgrim Prayer urges that we show the same loving and persistent loyalty to God. We, who are making our way to Jerusalem and our remembrance of the crucible through which the earliest disciples were forged, would do well to wonder about the depth and breadth of our love for God.  Is it steadfast?  Are we loyal even when the hard days come, as they will to every disciple?

We are told to “remember” more than 200 times in the Bible.  Perhaps we are reminded in scripture to remember because we are so often prone to forget:  to forget who we are; whose we are; and what God wants from/for us.  As pilgrims in the season of Lent there is another aspect of this remembering which we might see.  Lent, historically, was a time for catechesis.  Those wishing to enter fully into the community of the church would spend the weeks of Lent in instruction about the faith and would be baptized and take first communion on the Day of Resurrection (Easter).  Those of us already members of the family of faith might take time during Lent to remember what we have learned about God and about our own discipleship as we follow Christ to Jerusalem.

One of the most powerful passages of scripture, which I sometimes jokingly suggest every Presbyterian should be made to read once a year, is the eighth-chapter of the book of Deuteronomy.  After forty years of wandering and as they approach entry into the promised land, Moses pauses to give instruction.  In essence he has been counseling them about how to build a workable human community through a neighborliness which is both just and loving.

Deut. 8:1[NRSV]   This entire commandment that I command you today you must diligently observe, so that you may live and increase, and go in and occupy the land that the LORD promised on oath to your ancestors.  2 Remember the long way that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments.  3 He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.  4 The clothes on your back did not wear out and your feet did not swell these forty years.  5 Know then in your heart that as a parent disciplines a child so the LORD your God disciplines you.  6 Therefore keep the commandments of the LORD your God, by walking in his ways and by fearing him.  7 For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with flowing streams, with springs and underground waters welling up in valleys and hills,  8 a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey,  9 a land where you may eat bread without scarcity, where you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron and from whose hills you may mine copper.  10 You shall eat your fill and bless the LORD your God for the good land that he has given you.

Deut. 8:11   Take care that you do not forget the LORD your God, by failing to keep his commandments, his ordinances, and his statutes, which I am commanding you today.  12 When you have eaten your fill and have built fine houses and live in them,  13 and when your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied,  14 then do not exalt yourself, forgetting the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery,  15 who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, an arid wasteland with poisonous snakes and scorpions. He made water flow for you from flint rock,  16 and fed you in the wilderness with manna that your ancestors did not know, to humble you and to test you, and in the end to do you good.  17 Do not say to yourself, “My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.”  18 But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, so that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your ancestors, as he is doing today.  19 If you do forget the LORD your God and follow other gods to serve and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish.  20 Like the nations that the LORD is destroying before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the LORD your God.

God desires for us to live in peace and in plenty, in a land of justice and neighborliness.  If we are to receive these blessing from God we must do our part by not forgetting or falling away from the life to which God invites us.  As Deuteronomy chapter eight suggests — the irony of our situation is that it may be that precisely when we have received the most blessings from God that we are most vulnerable to a kind of amnesia which fails to appreciate that everything we have and all we are come as gifts from God.

I have spent a fair amount of time in airports lately and I love to people-watch when I’m in the terminal.  Amid the chaos of people coming and going there are also the moments of loving connection — particularly when a plane arrives and its occupants make their way to baggage-claim.  Almost always there are loved ones waiting eagerly to embrace those who have come home.  Only seldom do you see something as distant and awkward as a handshake.  No these moments of reunion are almost always accompanied by a loving embrace.
Yesterday (Sunday March 27) the gospel lesson was Luke chapter 15 — a parable about a child who left with his inheritance and after squandering it all in dissolute living turned back home in trepidation.  Luke tells us that when:

“ . . . he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger!  I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you;  I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.” ’  So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.

The God we find throughout the Psalms is often described in ways that emphasize God’s close contact with us.  Psalm 32:8 finds God saying “I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you.”  Psalm 139 speaks of a God who hems us in, behind and before, and lays God’s hand upon us. In the Epistle of James we find this exhortation (James 4:8 NRSV], “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.”  When the prophet Isaiah finally turns the corner and begins to give news of comfort and hope in Isaiah chapter forty, the image is of a mighty warrior God who will accomplish the rescue of the people in exile, but Isaiah immediately appends another image to that of mighty warrior — God is like a shepherd who tenderly carries the lambs when necessary —

“Is. 40:11 [NRSV] He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.”

When we pray, “Lead me Lord, by your loving embrace,” we are acknowledging the ways that God comes near to us and envelops us in God’s love.  One way of thinking about our time in prayer is that we go to be with God and rather than talking, we simply rest in God’s grace.  It is a form of prayer that eschews wordiness in preference of the power of simply being close to someone we love.  Indeed, one of the Psalms of Ascent (Psalms that have been used by pilgrims for millennia as they ascend to Jerusalem) gives us a description of this way of praying.  In Robert Alter’s beautiful translationPsalm 131:1-2,

A song of ascents for David.
LORD, my heart has not been haughty, nor have my eyes looked too high, nor have I striven for great things, nor for things too wondrous for me. But I have calmed and contented myself like a weaned babe on its mother– like a weaned babe I am with myself.

As our pilgrimage through Lent brings us ever closer to the trauma of Good Friday and the mystery of the Holy Saturday, and the power of the Day of Resurrection, we do well to rest in God’s loving embrace.  It is there that we grow in confidence that in life and in death we belong to God — and that makes all the difference!

My favorite singer-songwriter, David Wilcox, has a song which begins, “I know that compassion is all out of fashion and anger is all the rage. . .”  It is sadly true that anger and rage keeps many of us separated from one another into ideological camps of partisanship on both the left and the right.  Compassion is a virtue that is  in short supply.  It is even sadder to realize that the refusal to acknowledge and enter into the suffering of others (particularly of our enemies) betrays the deep level of hypocrisy of people of faith.

The God we worship and say we follow is a God who relates to creation in willing vulnerability.  The inevitable emotional pain that is experienced in the life of God results from his committed relationship with his rebellious creatures.  Scripture paints a vivid picture of this suffering God throughout its pages (see Gen. 6:5-6; Hos. 9:15; 11:8-9; Isa. 49:15; 63:9, 15; 66:13; Jer. 18:7-10; 31:20; Pss. 78:40-41, 58-59; 103:13;  1Cor 1:18-25; 1Pet 2:24; Mat 17:12; Luk 22:15; Rom 8:17; et cetera).  The very word “compassion” derives from “com” = with “passion” = suffering.  To have compassion is to suffer with those toward who we have compassion.

Compassion is not, however, the spontaneous response we typically feel to pain and discomfort.  We run away, or at least turn away rather than entering into the suffering.  And yet, how are we to know this God who suffers for our sake, if we are unwilling to suffer along with God as we work for the redemption of all things?  As uncomfortable as it is and as tempting as it may be to deny the suffering, or to avoid being entangled in the suffering of others, it is clear that we will not make any significant progress on the journey of our discipleship until we accept that our faith is more about cultivating compassion than it is about escaping the troubles of this world through some self-serving and comfortable salvation.  The apostle Paul writes:

[Romans 8:14-17 NRSV] For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

We are children of God and “joint heirs with Christ — if in fact, we suffer with him…”  It is hard to imagine it lined out any more plainly than that.  And yet, ours is an age in which the gospel of our Lord has been misshapen to serve the goals not of suffering with those who suffer, but to the accumulation of more and more wealth and influence.  The so called “prosperity gospel” which can be heard nearly any Sunday from some pulpits would have us believe that our faith insures us against troubles and assures us of prosperity and wealth.

Pilgrims on the way to the events of Jesus’ suffering in Holy Week, pray “Lead me Lord so that I may cultivate a compassionate heart.”  We hope to enter fully into the troubles that befall our Lord, to know of his suffering in the depths of our being, and we pray for the courage to not deny him, not run away from his suffering, and to remain among those who may be glorified precisely because we are willing to reject anger and rage and instead show compassion in a hurting world.

At Cary Presbyterian Church we are focused on generosity.  That focus will connect to our generosity in offering our gifts back to God: financially, our time, and our talents too.  We want to learn to be more generous because it is easy to see how generous God is.  Beyond time, talent, and money, there is another aspect of generosity which is essential to faithful discipleship.  That is to be of generous spirit.  Having a generosity of spirit largely plays out in how we relate to and serve others.  Generosity of spirit is what turns our service to others from grudging obedience into joyful engagement.

To be generous of spirit is to embody many of the descriptions which Paul gives for “love” in his letter to the Corinthians.  We learn to love others without insisting on our own way, without harboring secret glee at the downfall of our enemies.  We grow in our capacity to love others patiently, and to love bearing, hoping, believing, and enduring much that might previously have caused us to be callous.  Generosity of spirit means that we cease to be calculating people, always wondering “what is in it for me?” or “how much will this cost me?”  We become more and more like the sower in Jesus’ parable who scatters the seed generously knowing that not all of it will land on fertile ground [see Matt 13:18-23].

We are able to be generous in this way because we have ceased to be interested in the relative merit of those around us.  We stop judging them, stop assigning to them a value.  Generosity of spirit allows us to cultivate be ability to see others as God sees them. Paul writes:

[2 Cor. 5:16-19 NRSV]   From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.

Our movement from grace to gratitude and from gratitude to generosity of spirit is ultimately part of a larger movement aimed at shaping us in compassion as we will see in tomorrow’s devotion.  It is enough today to commit ourselves to stop being parsimonious in our interactions with those who need us, and to further set as our goal that we grow in joyful generosity toward all.

Living in a posture of gratitude may be the single-most elemental thing a person can do not only to relate well to God, but also to find the peace and joy which God desires to give you.  Moving from grace to gratitude is a natural progression.  Once we have experienced the depth of God’s grace, we turn in glad admiration, wonder, and gratitude to our Creator in order to “Praise God from whom all blessings flow.” While the call to be grateful and give thanks happens throughout scripture (Psalm 107 comes to mind) there may be no more eloquent invitation to living this way than what we find in Paul’s letter to the Colossians:

[Col. 3:12-17 NRSV]   As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.  Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.  Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.  And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful.  Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.  And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

In that brief passage Paul calls the church to be thankful twice and “with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.”  I am indebted to brother David Steindl-Rast for much of what I think I know about gratitude in the life of faith.  (See his book Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer).  As a monastic, brother David awakes each day and the first prayer is a prayer of gratitude — that he awoke.  We can easily take for granted the miracle of life itself.  Beginning our day with a simple prayer of thanksgiving that we have been given another day in which to live in wonder and joy at the surprises which God provides is a fundamental discipline which leads us to a deeper discipleship.

The way to cultivate the awareness of surprises which lead to gratitude try this simple discipline.  Expect nothing.  Allow yourself to be joyfully surprised that the water in the shower is warm, that the lights come on when you flip the switch, that your car starts when you turn the key.  Rather than taking these things for granted, allow yourself to tune into the many little things which really are astonishing if you think about it.  I am typing this devotion on a computer which does what it does for reasons I do not fathom.  It will be delivered to you over a vast network of servers and arrive on your electronic devices in 23 US states, and four countries.  These are truly wonders to me and if I quit taking them for granted I am immediately filled with a sense of awe at how good my life actually is.

We pray as pilgrims in the season of Lent that God lead us by grace to gratitude.  That grace is made clear to us in God’s choice to suffer greatly at our hands, to be wounded, and to be killed.  God’s love for us is a costly love and that cannot be ignored in the face of the events of Holy Week which is coming soon enough.  And yet, for all of our brutality and deathliness, God’s love triumphs over death.  The tomb of Jesus’ death becomes the womb of his resurrection.

[First Corinthians 15:54-55 NRSV]
“Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
55 “Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”

We are amazed by a grace that claims and saves wretches like us, and in response we live as God’s grateful people.  That gratitude is not only the proper attitude in terms of responding to God’s many blessings, it is also the key to our living a joyful and peaceful life as disciples of Christ.

Though the life of someone who recognizes their calling to be a pilgrim each day is a life ordered by a number of spiritual disciplines (prayer, study, worship, service, and holy listening to name only a few), it is nevertheless true that everything good which is worth having comes fundamentally by means of grace.  Our disciplines can (and do) help us, but all of the most beautiful and transforming things come as gifts.

And there is more.  Knowing that, in the end, we rely on grace rather than merit allows us to put away self-justification and the harsh judgements of others which naturally follow from self-justification.  We are set free to serve others and love others without the need to judge them because grace has taught us that God loves and serves us without undo consideration of our merit, therefore we learn to do unto others what God in God’s grace has done for us.

Finally, grace is the great antidote to despair.  The thing about a world built on a meritocratic system is that in the end in all depends on us.  Given that, apart from God, we are a mess . . . such a system necessarily ends in despair because we cannot finally fix the insoluble troubles which plague us by sheer grit and determination.  Accepting grace is to accept that we need help with the great work of redemption and we need not despair at our slow and uneven progress because God can and does act in ways that are not reducible to a closed natural system which can only be described as logical and predictable.  God keeps surprising us with life where death should prevail, abundance when we have reduced our expectations to those of scarcity.

Grace is God’s great tool for molding and shaping us into the sorts of creatures who are, in the end, children and if children of God then also heirs along with Jesus Christ.  Our calling is to not only worship and reverence Christ, but to become like him.  The New Testament speaks of this often:

[Ephesians 2:4-9 NRSV] God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—  and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,  so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.  For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—  not the result of works, so that no one may boast.

AND

[Gal. 4:4-7 NRSV] But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children.   And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”  So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.

The theological concept of theosis is too much to address in detail in a simple daily devotion, but knowing that we are called to be like Christ would be overwhelming if we were to attempt it apart from grace.  We have important contributions to make to our growth as disciples, but in the end we trust more in God’s grace than we trust in our own merit.

Perhaps one of the poems of Saint John of the Cross will serve as a segue between yesterday’s devotion about the hope of finding our true home and today’s wonderment — the yearning of a hungry heart.

“On a dark night
Kindled in love with yearnings
Oh, happy chance!
I went forth unobserved,
My house being now at rest.”
-Saint John of the Cross

For Saint John of the Cross, having his house “at rest” is the context from which he was able to embark on his dark night of the soul.  Even when his house was at rest, he nevertheless experienced profound yearnings kindled in love.  Those yearnings drew him into the journey which shaped his soul.

This stanza of a Pilgrim Prayer ends with the hope that we will be led by the “yearning of a hungry heart.”  We most often associate progress in our lives with the satisfaction of yearning, or the answering of a question, or the attainment of some status.  But those who walk the path of the Spirit know that it is also by our yearning that we come to know what is truly good, lasting, and beautiful.  The theologian Belden Lane writes beautifully about the ache of longing in the prologue to his book, Ravaged by Beauty:

“To learn desire one necessarily sits at the feet of those who are thirsty.  The satisfied never make good teachers.  It isn’t mastery of truth, but a relentless longing for it that qualifies those who become trusted guides for others.  Mark it down as a rule: the desert alone possesses the secret knowledge of water . . . ‘only what we deeply long for do we ever really know…’”

It is true that only those things we deeply long for become the things we really know.  It is the yearning and the hunger which keep us connected to someone long enough to have our relationship tested and found resilient.  Our yearnings and hungers can draw us to the God who loves us if we listen for the voice of God in them with care and attention.  My friend and mentor Ben Johnson (who credits Joan Chittister for prompting his thoughts on the subject) wrote:  

“In the end we are all yearning for what cannot be seen.  Yearning is, in fact, a sign of the spiritual life even if it is unnamed.  Those who do not yearn for God do not know God.  But yearning for God requires us to allow the Life within us that is also the energy of the universe to connect us to Life everywhere, in every one, at all times, always.”

This Lent as we practice our disciplines of fasting, prayer, service, and devotion to God, we would do well to ask, “For what do I feel the deepest yearning?”  In what way is my yearning connected to the presence of God in my life and how might my yearning show me the way to faithful, obedient, and joyful discipleship?

The fifteenth chapter of the Gospel according to Luke is all about lost things; a lost sheep, a lost coin, and lastly about lost sons.  We often think about the sons being lost, and both of them are lost in their own ways . . . but you can also understand the story as a story in which the two sons have lost something precious.  They have lost their sense of “home.”  

Luke 15:11[NRSV]   Then Jesus said, “There was a man who had two sons.  12 The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.’ So he divided his property between them.  13 A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living.  14 When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need.  15 So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs.  16 He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything.  17 But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger!  18 I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you;  19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.” ’  20 So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.  21 Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’  22 But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.  23 And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate;  24 for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate.

Luke 15:25   “Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing.  26 He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on.  27 He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.’  28 Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him.  29 But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends.  30 But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’  31 Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.  32 But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’”  

It is telling that when the younger boy, who has left home looking for a more interesting or more fulfilling life in a distant country, “came to himself” he immediately gets up to return to his father’s house.  It has taken a lot of foolishness and the consequent hardships that go along with foolishness, but the boy finally knows where he belongs.  Meanwhile, the older brother has traded in his sense of belonging for a sullen obedience which makes his father’s house a prison — “all these years I have been working like a slave for you,” he spits out.  He too has lost home — and without even leaving it — by choosing to sulk in self-pitying resentments.

We are all of us a little bit of both of these boys — the foolhardy and the resentful too.  This petition of our Pilgrim’s prayer is that our Lord will help us to find our true home.  Perhaps there is a geographic aspect to this searching, but as pilgrims we know that we are also on the journey of an inner spiritual odyssey which hopes to finally lead us to our home with God — a home which isn’t located by GPS navigation so much as it is by a careful pattern of listening for the guidance of the Holy Spirit and a willingness to follow.  Jesus points us to the path upon which we may walk and be truly at home, “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.” [John 14:23 NRSV]