If you blink, you might miss Lent.
Or, at least, you might miss the two-sentence story in Mark’s gospel that teaches us about the event in Jesus’ life that we refer to to establish our own practice of Lent,
our own season of forty days for “wilderness” and prayer, in preparation for Easter.
Mark, who tells all his Jesus stories economically and “immediately”, doesn’t make a whole episode of the story of Jesus in the wilderness. He packs in a few telling details – wild beasts, Satan, and angels – and moves right along. The few details Mark chooses are theologically rich: there’s a direct and personal encounter with the forces of resistance to God, personified as Satan,
and the companionship with the wild beasts and ministering angels are signs of Jesus’ closeness to God – in relationship, and in his own being.
But there’s not enough of it to satisfy our “story” instincts, so the lectionary folks, who choose what scripture we hear each week, have to give us two other episodes of Major Jesus Events (his baptism and acclamation by God, and the start of his public ministry) in order to make what we need to hear today fit our usual sense of story.
As a result, this morning it sounds almost like Jesus’ epic forty day wilderness retreat happens not far and separated from everything else, but in right in the middle of all the busyness and events of life.
Which is, maybe, more like our real lives than the gospel stories usually sound.
No matter how committed you and I are to our spiritual lives, we mostly don’t get forty days off to go on a wilderness retreat (and some of us are delighted not to spend six weeks in the wilderness anyway).
You and I practice Lent – we take our time for reflection, fasting, and prayer – right in the middle of all the busyness and events of our regular lives. You and I, in general, must deal with Satan – with the forces of resistance to God – right in the middle of big personal moments and important or everyday work. We “give up” dessert, or “take on” an extra habit of prayer, or of caring for others, in the middle of birthday parties and cultural holidays and election-cycle news and turning in reports and putting out the garbage.
And maybe that’s how it should be.
Jesus certainly models for us the need to take serious time “away” – whether that’s “away” in a desert retreat, or just “away” from your desk or phone – in order to get deeper into our relationship with God, but Mark shows us that that happens right in the middle of everything. No long lead up and planning, no wind down – just do it.
And one thing I’m noticing this week is part of the “everything” that happens right before Jesus goes to the wilderness. As Mark tells it to us, the Spirit “drives” Jesus to the wilderness right after he rises from the water of his baptism, right after seeing heaven opened and hearing God’s voice proclaiming “You are my Son, the Beloved. With you I am well pleased.”
(Setting aside gnarly theological questions about how God-in-heaven and God-in-Jesus relate to one another when they are both the same God), I find it interesting that Jesus’ wilderness “test” – an experience of trying out the depths of his identity and soul – is essentially launched by the experience of being affirmed as Beloved. As joyfully and delightedly loved by God.
And I wonder what happens to us – to you and me – if we enter Lent this year as God’s beloved children. What happens if we come to our annual encouragement to “self-examination and repentance; prayer, fasting, and self-denial;” and study of scripture, to quote the Prayer Book, not as guilty people who need to do better, not as ordinary unremarkable people, but as God’s specifically beloved children?
I mean, we can be all of the above at the same time, but what if we let the belovedness define us, and our experience of Lent, instead of being defined by the other truths about who we might be and how we live.
It’s easy for me – maybe for you – to treat Lent as a sort of bonus “new year”, with resolutions I make because I want to improve my life, or myself. I want to be better at regular times of prayer, or better at not needing chocolate to feel better.
Most of the time, those choices of what to “give up” or “take on” for Lent carry an unconscious assumption that what I do and am is not “good enough” – either for God, or for myself, or for someone else’s expectations.
But I wonder if starting from belovedness – from the deep truth that I, like you, like Jesus, are God’s beloved child already, before Lent, before improvement, before crucifixion and resurrection and Easter – would start me on different practices of prayer, different habits in my relationship with dessert, or something else altogether.
I wonder if starting from belovedness would mean a whole different experience of “temptation” – if I’d encounter the forces that tug me toward little acts of indifference, selfishness, dishonesty, negligence, and see them clearly as not me – because they so obviously just don’t fit with who I am as child of God.
I wonder if you might encounter the pushes and tugs toward little acts of pride, or achievement, or one-upping a neighbor, or self-indulgence, and find that you just don’t need that, at all, because you are already so deeply and compellingly beloved of God.
I wonder if we, together, might find it more natural to care for and love others (including others we don’t like), because we are so filled up with God’s love for us.
I wonder if you and I might experience the Spirit’s push to get closer to God as a joyful “retreat” from the pressures of the life we are right in the middle of, and not as one more thing to have to take on in the midst of it all. Feel the pull and tug of more time of prayer and thanksgiving as a delight;
experience “self-examination and repentance” as delightful discovery,
and the relief of turning with our wounds and needs and failures to the One who can’t fail us.
I don’t know for sure, but I find I love the wondering.
So I know I’m going to try to shape my Lent this year by paying more attention to God’s love, to work on trusting that belovedness – believing it in my gut, not just my head.
I’m still figuring out if that means I should be having more dessert, or less, but I know it means more giving thanks, more pausing to notice God’s gifts, more taking seriously what it means to be loved – deeply, enthusiastically loved – by God.
Will you wonder with me, this year, in the midst of everything?
Listen now to the Spirit, pushing us into a place of wildness, into our need for right relationship with God. And listen first to the voice of God, quietly thundering from heaven, “You are my beloved child. With you I am well pleased.”
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