Lectionary meditation: Lent 4

1 Samuel 16:1-13, Psalm 23, Ephesians 5:8-14, John 9:1-41

"Sleeper, awake!
Rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you." - Ephesians 5:14b

If you grew up in the 70s or 80s you might have the same reaction as I to this passage. Sleeper, awake! My mind flashes first to the startling blue eyes of Paul Atrides and I hear the words: "The sleeper has awoken!" Yes, Frank Herbert's beloved epic: Dune. I grew up watching the movie version, both repulsed and fascinated by the characters; and I sat in trembling awe of Shihalude.

In Herbert's world Paul's eyes were opened by the water of life, and he saw the world as it truly was for the first time. That sight gave him power, it made him a man who lived in the world but was not of the world. The change, those startling blue eyes, was outward and visible, but it was the inward invisible change that mattered. It was the inner transformation that changed his life, and the course of the world. He became one with the great worm, he became a god-bearer.

Does Dune seem a strange topic for a lectionary meditation or sermon? Perhaps, yet often our fiction is the place where we wrestle with the deepest of truths. Our fiction has become modern myth. What ancient peoples explored in religious story we spin into tales of star ships and alien worlds. But the issues we seek to master, the knowledge we seek to impart are much the same.

This week God speaks to us of sleepers, and of sight. In the old testament reading God chides Samuel for his human sight, for judging the sons of Jesse by human standards. Samuel sees their strength, or their handsome mien, or their proud carriage and he makes certain assumptions. Had Samuel made the choice he would have anointed the human choice, the eldest son in all his worldly strength. But God sees the inner power of men and he chooses David, the youngest. Fair of face perhaps, but certainly not the intimidating kingly man his older brothers might have seemed.

Samuel trusts the voice and vision of God. He closes his own human eyes and becomes alive, awake with the knowledge of God. Only then does he see David, and know him. Just so the gospel story this week where sight and blindness, sleepers and those who have awoken merge and shift. Jesus turns the world on its head. Herbert would say, perhaps, that he makes the desert bloom.

In the days of this story those born disabled, either blind or deaf or dumb, we assumed accursed by God. Everyone knew that such a one suffered for the sins of their parents, or sins they themselves committed before their birth. They were pitied, outcast, and ostracized. Their families even felt the brunt of such treatment for surely the blindness of their child pointed a finger of blame into the heart of their own lives. Yet Jesus tells us such a thing is anathema to God. He makes mud, bathes the blind man's eyes, and gives him sight.

Mud, it is resurrection is it not? We are dust, and to dust we shall return. But Jesus makes the dust of the earth moist and alive with water and breath, for such is spit. The Christ, is remaking creation to heal the hurt of humanity. Christ indeed offers a second birth into a world where our eyes have been opened; where the startling brightness of our souls can shine forth from those newly opened eyes; where, like the blind man, the world may not even recognize us, so transformed have we become.

In the movie re-imagining of Dune the world, represented by the Emperor and House Harkonen cannot accept this new thing that is happening. They cling blindly to their old weapons. They hide behind walls and canons and instruments of death. But of course life breaks in from that frightening desert, regardless. It overwhelms the old blind ways. And we, who are watching, sit on the edge of our seats though we know there can be only one outcome. The desert, the awakened, life must prevail.

The Pharisees, the priests, all the people of that town see with human eyes. They see with the eyes of Adam and Eve, opened to perceive sin. Christ offers another kind of sight, a grafting of our sight with God's. Christ offers grace and the awakening it brings. But those in this story that represent the established order of the world see only their own fear, only the laws given for human weakness. Offered the water of life they refuse it and turn instead to violence and intimidation. Driving out, at last, the miracle in their midst.

It is, in the end, the same story we can find at the heart of Dune. It is a story about choice, the choice to see different, the choice to awaken to a new way of being, the choice to accept the divine spark we all carry. What Jesus offers is not easy. He makes resurrection from dust, but the healing he offers does not insulate us from danger or fear. It does not turn the once blind man's life into paradise. In fact, awakened and sighted the healed man ends up back where he began. And yet Christ finds him again. Those who see with human eyes reject and cast out, but God searches out again and again.

There is the hope for us, that our eyes might be opened, that we might be awakened to God's presence in our midst. And that we might know that no matter what God will ever seek us out and find us.

"Sleeper, awake!"

Lent? (Expanded reprint)

This post was borrowed from my discernment journal and has been edited and expanded here, thanks for a good friend for her wise insights.

It doesn't feel like lent. Maybe it was missing Ash Wednesday. Maybe its the hectic schedule, or the fact that the snow outside reminds me more of Christmas or Epiphany than Lent. Whatever it is I feel like Lent has wandered off into the snow and gotten lost.

My Lenten study books (too many of them) are sitting unread in the reading pile. My yoga is not getting done. About all I've managed this first week is to keep my head above water, or perhaps that should be snow.

What is it about the liturgical seasons that makes us feel as if life should alter subtly as we enter into them? We expect the bated breath of expectation in Advent, for life to slow down a bit, darken a bit, hush a bit. We expect the buoyant exultation of Christmas to carry over into our whole lives. And we expect Lent to put the brakes on our world, to give us space to breath and reflect. And of course it doesn't work that way. Lent is just the name for these forty days that to most of the world are nothing more than a slice of winter. The world around us hardly notices and if we are not careful we hardly notice as well.

It is of course my own busyness that keeps Lent off there in the shadows waiting to work on my soul. It is of course about balance, time management, setting priorities. And the irony is that much of the busyness are things I added in an attempt to keep that "holy Lent" we all strive for. Good intentions. Perhaps we give up sugar, or online shopping. Perhaps we're "adders" who instead of giving up take on a new practice. Maybe we promise to do morning prayer every morning, or (like me) to do yoga when I first rise. We pick out study books for Lent, good meaty things that will surely teach us more about God. In short we set out on the path of good intentions toward a destination of self improvement. Is it any wonder Lent doesn't resonate and we're left feeling a little cheated. God isn't cheating us, we're cheating ourselves.

God's one desire is for us to turn our lives toward God's self. To refocus ourselves over and over again on God. Instead we devise complicated "plans" that create more and more inner clutter.

That does not get us off the Lenten hook. That doesn't mean we get to wander through life doing whatever pops into our heads at the moment. But it does mean we need to let go of the guilt when the study plans don't work out, or we eat that chocolate bar, or we just can't rise early enough to do yoga. We need to release that guilt and sit quietly with God. And when we are quiet we need to ask ourselves, and that still small voice within, how we can best draw closer to the One who is waiting for us?

When our lives our overflowing with "should," what to do? What to do when it all is important? I know what the answer should be...

Lectionary Meditation Tuesday of 1 Lent

John 2:13-22 (NRSV)
13 The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money-changers seated at their tables. 15Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. 16He told those who were selling the doves, ‘Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a market-place!’ 17His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me.’ 18The Jews then said to him, ‘What sign can you show us for doing this?’ 19Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ 20The Jews then said, ‘This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?’ 21But he was speaking of the temple of his body. 22After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

I entered Lent with a great many plans, as so often happens they didn't work out the way I'd expected. Lent this year feels very un-Lenty (if you will indulge the word). I am not feeling penitent, nor contemplative. I find myself feeling every day, normal, entirely less spiritual than you might expect. My careful Lenten plans lie in ruins at my feet. Now I could feel guilty, or I could acknowledge that the best laid plans of all of us are often no match for life. I can acknowledge that I'm not the one in control and instead enter quietly into Lenten discernment, where is God calling me deeper into communion?

What is happening this Lent was unexpected. I normally read about half of the daily lectionary since I switch every other night between Compline (with the daily office readings) or a long meditation session. But this first week of Lent I have found myself reading the daily office Gospel reading even when I can't find time for the daily office. And I have found myself entering into those readings more deeply than ever before. The reading above was from Tuesday. It is a familiar story, as so many of them are, but I am different now than I was the last time I heard it, or indeed than any time I have heard it before.

The words that sounded with profound truth for me were one simple sentence:

21But he was speaking of the temple of his body.

Yes, this is a foreshadowing of the resurrection and surely that is what the original author intended. But I could not help but hear the words we use to send LEVs out with their charge: "We who are many are one Body..." I could not help but hear "The Body of Christ, the bread of heaven" as the wafer touched my hands and my eyes met those who spoke them. For when we speak those words, priest or LEM, we not only name the gift we share with our brothers and sisters we name our brothers and sisters. We acknowledge the one who kneels before us as the Body of Christ.

What I heard in the Gospel that night was hope, not hope for resurrection of the physical body of the historic Jesus two thousand years ago but for the resurrection of the Church. I heard the protest of human beings who have always done their flawed best to build a suitable home for God, and who have always failed.

20The Jews then said, ‘This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?’

And I heard Christ say that yes, despite all our failures God indeed has a temple here on Earth in which to dwell: within each of us, within the Church. I heard that God has built God's own temple, one that cannot be destroyed. One that God will raise up in resurrection again, and again, and again. I heard hope.

Lectionary Meditatation: Deeper Meaning

I am reading The Mystical Sense of the Gospels and working my way through it ever so slowly. It is a gentle teacher, prodding here, enlightening there, speaking to the deep quiet well within me that recognizes and longs for the indwelling of God; and always encouraging a deeper reading of scripture. Perhaps because of that mystical beginning the daily office readings for yesterday struck a deep resounding cord. The Psalm began like gentle balm (118) with the mantra like repetition of the words "God's mercy endures forever." And then the gospel story (Mark 6:30-46) opened up like a blooming lotus, the fragrance of a new and deeper meaning washing over me.

30 The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught. 31 Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, "Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest."

32 So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place. 33 But many who saw them leaving recognized them and ran on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. 34 When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.

35 By this time it was late in the day, so his disciples came to him. "This is a remote place," they said, "and it's already very late. 36 Send the people away so they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat."

37 But he answered, "You give them something to eat."
They said to him, "That would take eight months of a man's wages! Are we to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat?"

38 "How many loaves do you have?" he asked. "Go and see."
When they found out, they said, "Five\u2014and two fish."

39 Then Jesus directed them to have all the people sit down in groups on the green grass. 40 So they sat down in groups of hundreds and fifties. 41 Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to his disciples to set before the people. He also divided the two fish among them all. 42 They all ate and were satisfied, 43and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces of bread and fish. 44 The number of the men who had eaten was five thousand.

45 Immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. 46After leaving them, he went up on a mountainside to pray. - Mark 6:30-46

It is a familiar story is it not? And yet the daily reading frames it in such a way that I saw it entirely anew last night. It is a story, a parable, about many things but one of them is this: Jesus has commissioned his disciples and preachers and healers. They have been sent out to do the work of the church, to declare the Good News and bring comfort and healing to those in need. Now they have returned and Jesus immediately recognizes that the work they have done is draining work. As full as they are of joy at their success, as excited as they might be, and as much need as there still is in the world he gives them permission, no he requires them, to take time apart to rest.

And as so often happens to those who serve, the rest is interrupted. The good intentions are lost, there is yet more need, it will in fact never end. And yet these preachers, teachers, and healers are dry. The need is more than they can fill. They have but a little to give (those few loaves of bread and fish) and the needs of the people who have come are indeed vast. They despair. They likely feel tired, worn out, and utterly inadequate. But God takes their offering as meager as it is and makes it enough, more than enough. And then Christ sends them away to find rest (ensuring their rest by staying to dismiss the crowd himself). And if the message needs to be hammered home any harder, he sets off as an example to us all to renew himself in prayer.

The story had never opened to me in quite the way it did last night. It was a story I had dissected and researched and written about more than once. But last night the gospel turned and became a personal thing, a meaning hidden deep within that rose up and enveloped me when I needed it. It is a comforting reminder of our humanity, our need for quiet rest, and our inability to do it all alone. I sat in the flickering light and offered up my friends, my family, my whole heart to God in prayer because often that is all we can do. When we have exhausted all the actions, when our planning has failed, or when we are simply tired or overwhelmed by need there is only prayer.

The Gospel reminds me of my CAP SAR training where we learned we could not help others if we were not ourselves rested and healthy. The lesson here is the same, though it is prayer that refreshes us. We need more than sleep, food, and physical rest. We need emotional and spiritual space as well. To expect more of ourselves, or those who serve us than Christ is of course foolish. I hope that lent will be for those who labor a time apart for prayer, rest, and renewal.