Notes for Lent One: Taken

NOTE: After our observance of Ash Wednesday tomorrow - February 17th - we will move into the 40 days of a Holy Lent. Here are my worship notes for Sunday, February 21st, the first Sunday in this season. I will be going deeper into the "Eucharistic spirituality" that has grabbed my attention over the past two weeks. Drawing heavily from Henri Nouwen's little book, The Life of the Beloved, we will explore what it means to be "taken, blessed, broken and shared." Our Lent will also include two study conversations: on Wednesdays at 12 noon, Luther Pierce and I will host a conversation re: "Faithfully Facing Dying" using study material from the United Church of Christ. And on Mondays at 7 pm, I will lead a group in "Lord, Teach Us to Pray" as an exploration of many styles of prayer.

Lent is a time to remember, writes Dianne Bergant, remember specifically that we are dust. And the reason the Church calls us to Lent again and again is so we might remember the salvation that only God can give. Apparently it is human nature to forget – to overlook – to become so busy and self-obsessed that we start living as if we were the center of the universe.

• Politicians and marketing companies know this – and saturate our days with jingles and commercials and images that are so catching and seductive that they worm their way into our deepest selves without our ever knowing.

• Ever find yourself humming or singing one of those insipid but addictive commercials – and the harder you try to quit the more insistent and maddening it becomes?

It is small wonder that some of our most creative – and well-paid – minds go into marketing, right? Human beings can only manage so much information at one time. So if you want your message to be dominant, then you have to remind and reinforce over and over again.

And so we return to Lent – our annual spiritual infomercial – that was created to help us remember the salvation that only God can provide. Because, you see, given all the competing messages that are at work for our attention, another human truth is that most of us will only hear and honor what we want to hear and embrace. Frederick Buechner has written that:

Because the Word that God speaks to us is always an incarnate word – a word spelled out to us not alphabetically, in syllables, but enigmatically, in events and books and even the movies we see or the music we listen to – the chances are we will never get it just right. We are so used to hearing what we want to hear and remaining deaf to what it would be well for us to hear that it is hard to break the habit. (It takes practice)… to keep our hearts and minds open as well as our ears, but if we do this we will come to recognize, beyond all doubt, that however faintly we hear God, the Lord is indeed speaking to us… (about a salvation that only God can give.)

And so we return – again and again – to Lent asking for ears to hear. Like Jesus in the desert wilderness, it is very easy to become confused – especially when confronting choices about how we live that might bring us greater comfort, honor and social satisfaction. Who doesn’t want their lives to be simpler, less painful and more rewarding? As Kate Huey of the United Church of Christ has asked: “Why shouldn't Jesus satisfy his hunger with a little bread, and wouldn't it be great if Jesus ruled the world (instead of the hated Romans), and how impressive would it be if Jesus flung himself off the temple roof and a thousand angels came to rescue him? If Jerusalem witnessed that one amazing thing, early on in Jesus' ministry, perhaps there would be no need for the rest of the Gospel, right?”

• That’s the wisdom of marketing, right? Razzle dazzle – sex appeal – the lure of power and prestige? NBC television received over $261 million in advertising for this year’s Super Bowl. One executive said, "The Super Bowl has become one of our country's biggest holidays, a uniquely American day, and advertisers recognize the value in being a part of it."

• And what was advertised? Doritos, Budweiser, sexy women, stupid men and high priced cars. There is a whole subset on the Internet ranking what are the best Super Bowl commercials of all time, did you know that?

In some ways, the community of faith born of Jesus Christ doesn’t stand a chance against that kind of money, power and sex appeal. But it never has – and winning in terms of the world has never been Christ’s goal. Theologian Sharon Ringe puts it like this: "Public relations stunts contradict the gospel, and indeed, the heart of Jerusalem will prove to have another welcome for Jesus – the Cross – because of the nature of the gospel he brings" and his refusal to play by their rules.

And so we return to Lent – quietly and carefully – with song and prayer and silence. Very different from the Super Bowl, yes? And we return to our consideration of how it is we might live as God’s beloved. Throughout the season of Epiphany, God’s light illuminated the true nature of Jesus as the Lord’s beloved. Remember last week when amidst the prayers on the mountain the voice of God shared these words with the disciples: this is my beloved with whom I am well pleased? Well, Lent is one of the ways we are asked to remember – and practice – how to live as God’s beloved.

Using Henri Nouwen’s insights that just as there are four movements offered to the bread of Holy Communion – it is taken, blessed, broken and then shared – so, too, are there four spiritual commitments to living as God’s beloved in our daily lives. Today we go more deeply into the first discipline: taken. Nouwen writes:

To become the beloved of God we, first of all, have to claim that we are taken. That might sound very strange at first, and yet it is essential to becoming the Beloved… therefore the first step in the spiritual life is to acknowledge with our whole being that we have already been taken by God.

Now think about that: God has already taken you and claimed you as the Lord’s beloved. There is an abruptness and force to this grace that is supposed to remind you that even though you must put this blessing into practice, first and foremost, the blessings of God are an act of God. God takes us – calls us – and chooses us before we are ever involved.

• Like bread at the Eucharist, we don’t bake ourselves – we don’t come to the table all by ourselves either – we are carried, chosen, taken.

• You see, to be taken by God is a humbling awakening – it tells us that God cherishes us profoundly and there is nothing we can do to earn this love.

• Did you get that? There is NOTHING we can do to earn God’s grace – and that makes some people crazy: we want to be in control – we ache to be in charge – we love having things to do and lists to check off.

But Lent isn’t about what we can do – it’s about what God wants to do for us – and the temptations Jesus faces in the wilderness blast that out like a trumpet call for those with ears to hear. Each of Christ’s temptations – certainly their goals – could be good. What’s wrong about wanting to “feed the hungry, bring the world under the control of good and trust in God's power to protect us?” Our motivation suggests one scholar:

So often we choose to accomplish good things in ways that are less than admirable. We try to perform the extraordinary so what we do reflects favorably on us. We use brute force in order to achieve control. We put God to the test rather than live peacefully with God's plan as it unfolds within and around us. We seek to become the super-hero, the super-minister, the super-Christian, on our own.

Over and over again, even when scripture is quoted and tradition invoked, Jesus tells his adversary: Stop – it takes more than bread to be fully alive – so I will not tempt the Lord my God. Stop. The first insight to living as God’s beloved is that it is all up to God – not you or me or any of our actions – which should be simultaneously humbling and liberating.

I love the way Nouwen puts this in his book The Life of the Beloved when he writes:

From all eternity, long before you were born and became a part of history, you existed in God’s heart. Long before your parents admired you or your friends acknowledged your gifts or your teachers, colleagues and employers encouraged you, you were already chosen. They eyes of love had seen you as precious, as of infinite beauty, as of eternal value And when love chooses, it chooses with a perfect sensitivity for the unique beauty of the chosen one – what’s more it chooses without making anyone else feel excluded. For to be chosen is not about competition… it is about embracing… which is perhaps something only our hearts can ever grasp.

Isn’t that right – that perhaps only our hearts can grasp that since the beginning of time you and you and you – were embraced and chosen in love to be God’s precious beloved? How counter-cultural is that? The anti-thesis of the Super Bowl! And I’m not picking on professional sports – although I think it is obscene and unholy that athletes are paid in the millions of dollars while teachers and doctors and nurses and counselors are treated like yesterday’s fashion. No, what I’m trying to show is how totally counter-cultural – upside down – and humbling are the tender values of Jesus Christ.

• They have NOTHING to do with what we call civilization. That’s why Jesus is out in the wilderness, you know? He wants to show us that the way of God – the life of the beloved – is born outside the status quo. It is not only beyond the rules and habits of the privileged, it is born at the borders of the city. In the wilderness – on the fringes of everything we know to be nice.

• That’s why Jesus is out in the desert, you know? “Out beyond the domestication of reality as defined by culture and human exchange,” writes Marcus Borg, Jesus is searching for the wild and liberating truth of God. Like his mentors throughout Jewish history – Moses and Elijah whom he prayed with on the mountain last week or his wild man cousin, John the Baptist – Jesus is on a vision quest.

He is in training for how to live in a way that will turn the world upside down so that it can finally be right-side up according to the very grace of God. Dare I say he is practicing how to live and trust that he is the beloved of God? And if Jesus had to practice – and remember – let’s just say that it is likely that we do, too.

So here are two ways of practicing, cultivating and saturating yourself in the knowledge that you truly are the beloved of God:

• First, when the world hurts you: when your loved ones wound you – when the marketing gurus assure you that you are too fat or too thin – too stupid or too boring – too old or too young – too ignorant or over qualified – whenever that happens and it happens every single day of our lives YOU have to reclaim the truth of God.

Every time you feel hurt, offended or rejected, you must say to yourself: These feelings, strong as they may be, are not my true self… for I am a chosen child of God – precious in the Lord’s eyes – beloved from all eternity and held safe in God’s everlasting embrace.

• And second the best way to remind yourself that you are beloved is to find countless little ways to say thank you to the Lord. “Gratitude is the most fruitful way of deepening your consciousness that you are not an accident, but a divine choice,” writes Nouwen. We are inclined to complain – go towards bitterness rather than gratitude – carp rather then find a way to celebrate and it poisons us heart from the inside out.

I’ve seen it in action – I’ve witnessed how destructive it can be to the ones I love – and I’ve seen how well intentioned church people can suck the joy out of life because they grasp bitterness rather than gratitude.

So I’m going to give you something that you can take home with you – something that has changed my life and helped me practice choosing to know that I am God’s beloved – ok? And you can use it or discard it as you like. I don’t remember where I found it – I have no idea who wrote it – but I’ve been carrying it around with me for about 15 years and it really helps.

It’s called a letter from God and you can read it whenever you need it. It says…

Dear James: This is God. Today I will be handling all your problems for you. I do NOT need your help. So, have a wonderful day. I love you.

PS – remember… if life happens to deliver you a situation that you cannot handle, do not attempt to resolve it all by yourself. Kindly put it into the SFGT box – something for God to do – and know that I will get to it in my own time. All situations will be resolved, but in my time, not yours. And once the matter is in the box, do not hold onto it by worrying. Instead, focus on all the blessings that are present in your life right now.

If you find yourself stuck in traffic, don’t despair: there are people in this world for whom driving is an unheard of privilege. Should you have a bad day at work, think of the man who has been out of work for years. Should you despair over a relationship gone bad, think of the person who has never known what it is like to love and be loved in return. Should you grieve the passing of another weekend, think of the woman who has to work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week just to feed her children or purchase health care.

Should your car break down, leaving you miles away from assistance, think of the paraplegic who would love to take that walk. Should you notice a new gray hair in the mirror, think of the person with cancer in chemo who wishes she had hair to examine. Should you find yourself at a loss and pondering what life is all about, asking what is my purpose: be thankful – there are those who didn’t live long enough to get the opportunity.

And should you find yourself the victim of another’s bitterness, ignorance, smallness or insecurities, remember: things could be worse – you could be one of them.

This Lent, dear people, God wants you to know that you are the beloved being made whole in Christ Jesus our Lord.

credits: seasonal cross by Gertrud Mueller-Nelson in To Dance with God; Desert Garden by Byashim Nurali; St. Joseph with Jesus by Michael O'Brien