Lent and Judgment

I have a recurring nightmare some variation of which, I believe, is a very common experience.  It involves being in school and showing up for the final exam without having studied for it, or sometimes it takes the form of not showing up at all because I can’t remember where it is supposed to be.  It is a very bad feeling.  As a priest, once or twice, I have had another variation of it, which involves showing up for church and finding out I was scheduled to preach but not having a sermon prepared.  I have spoken to many people who have some variation of the same nightmare.  I suspect many of you do.  The theme of this particular nightmare is judgment.

On the other hand, I also know that I have never actually sat for an exam, or taken a test, or written a paper without some sense of anticipation and even excitement and a longing to get my paper back and see how I’d done. 

So here’s the paradox.  On the one hand, we have a strong aversion to being judged and failing.  It is enough to give us nightmares long after one would hope we’d grown out of such childish things.  On the other hand, we are drawn to being judged like a moth to light because part of us longs to be tried and found worthy, judged and affirmed, tested and passed “with distinction.” 

With that in mind we come to a teaching in the Gospel of Luke, which is assigned for the third Sunday of Lent this year, having to do with a group of Galileans apparently killed by Pilate when they had come to sacrifice at the Temple in Jerusalem and a group of eighteen people also killed in Jerusalem but this time in an accident when the tower of Siloam fell on them.  It was an event that caused the people of Jesus’ day to wonder—to wonder what it meant, to wonder what God was up to, to wonder about how to make sense of it in any spiritual way.  It is not at all unlike how we are wondering in our own day, our own day in which 26 innocent people, 20 of them first graders, are killed by a gunman in Newtown, Connecticut. 

I don’t think Jesus had nightmares about judgment or encouraged others to have them either.  As to the Galileans killed by Pilate, he asked, ‘Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?’”  As to the 18 killed in the collapse of the tower of Siloam, he asked “do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem?”  He not only asked.  He answered emphatically.  “No.”  This is not about judgment, Jesus said.

And then there is the paradox.  This is not about judgment and still Jesus calls on those who were listening to him—and us—to repent.  “No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.”  It is a curious thing.  It is not about judgment.  When it comes to things like this, Jesus says, judgment is entirely beside the point. 

And still, the message is to repent.  How can the message be to repent when the judgment is rendered irrelevant?

It seems to me that there are two ways to approach living, at least as a Christian.  There is the “nightmare that you show up for the exam without having studied” way of approaching life and there is the joy of being affirmed by God way of approaching life.  Now, don’t get me wrong.  I’m not at all saying that God approves of anything and everything.  I could give you a whole list of things I don’t believe God approves of and that deserve judgment.  What I am saying is that either we respond to what God wants of us out of fear of judgment, out of fear of showing up at the exam without having studied, which gives us nightmares, or we respond to what God wants to us out of gratitude that in Christ the judgment has been made irrelevant.  It isn’t that judgment is made not real.  Judgment is real enough.  But with God, that doesn’t mean it is eternally relevant either.  Our response is in how we look at it, from the perspective of fear of judgment or from the perspective of grateful for grace.

Peace,
+Stacy

Celebration in Giving

Here’s a question I’ve often wondered about.  Why is it that the only thing Episcopal clergy are fundamentalist about in their preaching is tithing?  I’ve noticed we take an uncharacteristically legalistic approach on this subject.  I have some thoughts as to why that might be.

This Sunday’s Old Testament lesson (Dt. 26:1-11) is about the obligation to return to God the first fruits of the harvest.  It is a variation of the theme about the obligation of tithing.  Interestingly, though, the Old Testament, which we Christians sometimes ignorantly characterize as legalistic, even the law itself, Torah, which includes the Book of Deuteronomy, does not approach giving so much as duty or a discharge of legal obligation as an opportunity for the joyful giving of thanks.  In fact, Deuteronomy portrays the act of the giving of the first fruits of the land as a liturgical call and response between God and God’s people, a way in which God shares with the people God’s own joy.  God’s joy is expressed in giving to us; ours in expressed in turn the same way. 

Deuteronomy is a book of rubrics very much like the rubrics or worship instructions of our own Book of Common Prayer.  Rubrics prescribe the right way to worship.  Deuteronomy goes into some detail about the giving of the first fruits because the issue is right worship, by which we mean joyful worship, thankful worship, and not really about legal obligation at all. 

It prescribes that some of the first fruits are to be gathered in a basket and taken to the priest.  The priest, in turn, will take it and set it down before the altar.  It then prescribes the appropriate liturgical formula:  “You shall make this response before the Lord your God.”

What the response turns out to be is a recitation of God’s saving acts toward the people of Israel.  It begins with a reminder of where they came from, “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor.”  It recalls the people’s time in Egypt, their oppression and enslavement by the Egyptians, and God’s deliverance.  It concludes with the recognition that, after all this, God ‘brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.” 

It is then and only then that the act of giving occurs.  “So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O Lord, have given me.” 

First comes God’s call to the people in generosity and salvation.  Then comes the people’s response of gratitude and generosity in return. 

Giving is not an obligation.  It is a response to God’s prior generosity—God’s deliverance from oppression and God’s provision of an abundant home.  God calls in generosity.  We respond in generosity.  It is not, I hope, no matter how many stern stewardship sermons I hear, not about what we have to do to make God happy but about what we have the opportunity to do in gratitude. 

It all has only one purpose according to Deuteronomy.  “Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the Lord your God has given to you and to your house.”  It’s not about duty.  It’s about celebration.

Peace,
+Stacy

Highs and Lows

The story of the Transfiguration (Lk. 9:28-36), which is the Gospel for this coming Sunday, the last before Lent, is a juxtaposition of highs and lows. 

On the one hand, the Transfiguration is a high.  Peter, James, and John accompany Jesus up the mountain.  The disciples are present as Jesus prays and is transfigured.  Luke says that “the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white.”  (v. 29)  Then Moses and Elijah appear and speak with Jesus.  And finally all are overtaken by a mysterious cloud from which the voice of God proclaims, “This is my son, my Chosen; listen to him!”  (v. 35)  Definitely a high.

That story is followed by puzzling story about a boy possessed by a demon (Lk. 9:37-43a), which is unfortunately only an optional part of the reading for Sunday.  The disciples had attempted to cast out the demon unsuccessfully.  The boy’s father appeals directly to Jesus, and he heals the boy.  What is troubling is Jesus’ harsh response to the unsuccessful disciples:  “You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you and bear with you?”  (v. 41)  Definitely a low point. 

The exact reason for Jesus’ harsh criticism is left a matter of speculation.  Maybe the disciples had grown arrogant with their earlier successes and lost touch with the reality that the authority they exercised was not actually theirs but God’s.  Or perhaps the teaching Jesus had just been doing with them about his own coming suffering and death had so disturbed them that they were rendered, at least temporarily, helpless.  Maybe they had just gotten lazy.  It is impossible to say for sure. 

What we can say for sure is that life with Jesus, not unlike life with anyone else, or for that matter, life in general, has its ups and downs.  I take some paradoxical comfort in the reality that even Jesus had his moments, moments in which he is harsh, demanding, difficult to get along with, and just plain cranky. 

It’s not that he doesn’t have his reasons.  He is, after all, determinedly heading toward Jerusalem to confront the worst that the world has to offer.  He could certainly be excused for being a bit on edge.

Still, life with Jesus has its shocks, disappointments, and hurts.  And that is good to be reminded of in the startling way the Gospel puts the highs and lows together, especially as we head into Lent.  Lent ought to be a reminder that even the divine life is real life.  In fact, the good news is that the divine life and real life are one and the same.  Real life is not just a series of unmitigated highs.  It is highs and lows together, one shedding light on the other or one keeping the other from being so blinding that all vision is hopelessly obscured.

Just as the story of the Transfiguration moves from high to low, both equally real, so Lent moves in the opposite direction from low to high, again both equally real.  It begins with a reality it is not pleasant to look at—Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.  And it ends with the greatest of all high—He is risen.  And with him, so are we.  It’s all in the high and lows.

Peace,
+Stacy