Saturday, February 28, 2015

Second Sunday in Lent: Take Up the Cross by Letting Go






Today's Readings

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16 (NRSV)

When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said to him, "I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless. And I will make my covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly numerous." Then Abram fell on his face; and God said to him, "As for me, this is my covenant with you: You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you."


God said to Abraham, "As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her, and moreover I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall give rise to nations; kings of peoples shall come from her."



Psalm 22:22-30 (BCP., p.611)


Romans 4:13-25 (NRSV)
 
The promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there violation.

For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us, as it is written, "I have made you the father of many nations") -- in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. Hoping against hope, he believed that he would become "the father of many nations," according to what was said, "So numerous shall your descendants be." He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. Therefore his faith "was reckoned to him as righteousness." Now the words, "it was reckoned to him," were written not for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.



Mark 8:31-38 (NRSV)

Then Jesus began to teach his disciples that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things."

He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels."


Blog Reflection 

Why do we Christians even need the Season of Lent?  We go to our churches, pray, participate in coffee hour right after a Worship Service, go to Shrove Tuesday, and Ash Wednesday, attend Holy Week services, etc.  We are good Christian people.  Why do this thing called Lent every year? 

I would like you to join me in an exercise.  Immediately after you read this blog post, turn off your computer or phone.  Ignore that "ding" that just let you know you have another email waiting for you.  Try walking away from your IPad, or better yet, forget where you left it and not go into a panic because you can't find it.  Let's say you can't detach yourself from your phone or pad, try paying no attention to how many notifications you have on your Facebook wall.  Ask yourself if it does not bother you that you are ignoring the notifications on Facebook or Twitter.

In the last week, I know of a man who works in tech support.  His company ran into a problem in which no one in the entire corporation could get into their computer or account.  Not even the help desk staff.  Before the first hour was up, there were over 100 calls in the queue of angry company employees who could not get into their email, do their projects or sales information, etc.  As of this week, the help desk staff are still clearing all the repair tickets from the fall out.

The reason we need the Season of Lent, is because of how easy it is for all of us, myself including to put things like our computers, cars, television sets, food, drink, moods, addictions and behaviors of all kinds between us and our relationships with God and others around us.  We yelled at our spouse because our computer crashed.  We cry over a work project lost because of the Windows Update.  Think you have "detached" yourselves from most possessions, but not your computer?  What happens to you the next time you get a flat tire, or someone scratches the door of your car?   How do you talk with others around you after a representative at a customer service call center does her/his job and you just can't stand them telling you that they cannot help you?   Someone sat in your favorite pew in church, which means you have to find a new place to sit.  How do you respond or do you react?

The point is, all of us have something to work on.  We are all human.  No one of us is perfect, no matter how diligently we try.  What is right in our behavior is all wrong in our attitude.  What seems to be going well on the surface, has an undercurrent that is in a lot of turmoil.  We say yes, when in our hearts we are shouting no.  We are all get wrapped up in ourselves at one time or another.

Lent is God's gift to us to tell us that the Christian life is not about being perfect as in a perfectionist.  Lent is about accepting the reality of who and what we are, and to continue letting it go.  When we talk about obedience in the Monastic tradition, we are not talking about doing what is asked for the sake of itself.  St. Benedict says, "Listen, incline the ears of your heart." (Prologue. The Rule of St. Benedict, vs. 1).  Obedience is about listening from the whole of ourselves so that we can discern how we will respond to what God asks of us through our Superior.  We cannot listen and know what we are to be obedient to without taking some time in solitude and silence.  Obedience in the Benedictine Monastic Tradition is about responding out of love.  The love we respond with is what is referred to in 1 John 4:18 which reads, "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love."    

Jesus invites all of us this Lent to take up our cross by letting go.   To "deny ourselves" is to let go our false-sense of self, and live from our essence in union with God's Essence in which we find our true self.  In our false self is our prejudices, fears, self-absorption that hangs on to all those wounds, our anger, possessiveness and more.  In seeking union with God's Essence within our own essence, we accept all that is contained within our false self and we learn to practice the spiritual art of letting it go.  We accept that we fail, that we have issues with those around us who are different from ourselves, that we are affected by our arrogance and perfectionism.  We simply let go of all of that, and walk on carrying the cross out of love and obedience of what God asks of us in the here and now.  We accept that we cannot do any of this on our own.   St. Benedict wrote in The Rule, "What is not possible for us by nature, let us ask the Lord to supply by the help of his grace." (Prologue, vs. 41).

One of those things God asks of us, is to respond in love to the needs of the marginalized in the Church and society.  Our Baptismal Vows are a promise to live more deeply into our mission as Christians in a world in which the love of God, neighbor and self has become a matter of convenience.  If upholding the dignity of every human person does not work for us because we will acquire enemies inside and outside of the Church; then we can simply not do it.  If it takes us too close to the cross and we just can't let it go; then we simply ignore it and pretend it doesn't hurt anyone else but us.  This kind of thing is so contrary to what it means to deny ourselves and take up our cross to follow Jesus.

Why do we need Lent?

That is what God wants to talk with us about this Lent.

Are we really ready to listen and respond out of love?  

Amen.


Prayers

O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious
to all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring them
again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and
hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ
your Son; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.  (Collect for the Second Sunday in Lent.  The Book of Common Prayer, p. 218).


Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on
the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within
the reach of your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit
that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those
who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for
the honor of your Name.
Amen.  (The Book of Common Prayer, p.101).

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