The Contemplative Crisis

Where do you experience  God’s salvation? Normally the question would be: “Do you know how God’s salvation is offered to you in Christ?”  Or another question might be: “Where were you when you were saved?” Both these questions focus on knowing and experiencing salvation at some point in the past. However, we live in the present and experience God in the present, including salvation. Salvation and healing/wholeness are sometimes used interchangeably in Luke’s gospel and this is how I would like to use this term although I understand that in certain situations, ‘being saved’ is what the word salvation is reduced to. My question today is, “Where do you experience God’s salvation in daily life, now?”

Let me give you an example of experiencing God’s salvation. Ben, a boy of about 3 yrs of age, invites Sarah, his godmother, to dance with him to a Wiggles song on the DVD on the television. He does not know that Sarah  suffers from depression. He invites her to dance however. Sarah gets up and begins to dance and as she does so, she experiences a moment of knowing that an inner healing has taken place by giving herself to the music and the situation. She has moved from a place of woundedness and sadness, and being held by depression due to recent tragic events, to a place where she has experienced wholeness and joy. Sarah could see this situation as a gift of God and a moment when she experienced salvation.

In John’s gospel, ch 5 vss 1-9, Jesus invites an unnamed crippled man who sits beside the pool of  Bethesda to be healed. Of course he would want healing we think. He has been crippled for 38 years (Jn 5:5). That’s why he has had his relatives bring him each day to sit beside the pool. But if he accepts the invitation by Jesus to get up and walk, it will mean a total change in his lifestyle. It will mean no longer saying to people: “I am the man beside the pool crippled.” How he views himself and his identity will change by accepting the healing. An uncertain future is opening up before him. The same invitation was offered to Blind Bartimaeus when Jesus said to him: “What do you want me to do for you?” (Mk 10: 46) The rich young ruler who came to Jesus asking what must he do for eternal life was offered the invitation to leave finding his security in his wealth and to trust God in everyday life (Mk 10:17ff). Attached to the invitation by Jesus to be healed or set free is the disturbing thought that one’s life will not be the same again. Salvation will bring transformation – and change. Although willing  to acknowledge their crippled  and  blind states, the man beside the pool of Bethesda and Bartimeaus were totally unprepared for Jesus turning up and bring with him, salvation into their particular situation. (See also Zacchaeus, Lk 19:1-10)

Sometimes people we meet are so wounded and hurt that they are crippled. They  constantly retell their story as, “I was injured by this event or person and I no longer feel as if I have control over my life. I have lost everything, even my sense of identity. I am so defined and scared by this event or person that I cannot move back to a place of health again.” How do we encourage these people to move to a place where they experience freedom from their crippling story? The key lies in them experiencing  Jesus coming into their life and bringing his salvation/healing.  In a particular situation of their everyday life, when they experience his presence, they are able to experience his salvation. So what we could do is ask them to learn and notice when God invites them to experience his salvation in their everyday life, just as the cripple beside the pool was invited to experience God’s salvation unexpectedly in an unexpected way. The crippled man expected the waters to be stirred  forming little waves indicating it was now possible to be healed -  if he got into the water in time. Instead he got Jesus helping him to his feet;  healing him and setting him free from his past. This was his moment of salvation/healing.

Often though, we use inappropriate substitutes to fill the hole and to banish the pain which cripples us. A common one is to seek long and deep intimate conversations with a few friends to temporally numb the pain and daub the soothing balm on our wounds. They provide much needed support. But if we stop and look at what’s happening,  we’re avoiding the issue (of our crippled and hurt life), and using our intimate friendships to put a band aid on our wounds. If it is pointed out that we are relying on our friends too much or simply using them to avoid facing the pain within which cripples us, we reply in anger that we need these friendships, they are what keep us going.  However, they are really bringing us each day to the pool where we sit waiting for a miracle to happen.  In effect, they are colluding with us in allowing us to maintain our status as a victim. But we must be willing to surrender this false identify and allow God to approach us and invite us to be healed.

Another inappropriate solution to our pain and the feeling of being divorced  from God is to do what Elijah did. Following his confrontation with the prophets of Baal and their slaughter on Mt Carmel (1 Kings ch’s 18-19), he became exhausted and afraid for his life due to threats made by the queen of Israel,  Jezebel. He embarked on a search for salvation but used an inappropriate means to grasp it. He went down to Mt Horeb (also known as Mt Sinai), where God had appeared to Moses and given him the ten commandments. Did Elijah find what he sought by going to Mt Sinai? No he didn’t. He expected to be re-commissioned like Moses or given some new gift to bring back to his fellow countrymen, but God wasn’t in the fire, the roaring wind which split the rocks, or the cloud. It was the small still voice that God’s voice could be heard. This became a moment when Elijah experienced God’s salvation in the small still voice of God. God was alive and present to him and his needs.

On particular practice I’ve found useful is to read Scripture with our imagination. Using our imagination, we place ourselves in the scene and enter into a dialogue with Jesus. (This is commonly called the Ignatian method.) The following meditation and exercise is designed to train your eyes and heart to become more aware of when and where you experience God’s salvation in your daily life.

Read the story of the crippled man in John 5:1-9 several times until it becomes quite familiar.

Imagine that you are the crippled man sitting beside the pool of Bethesda.

What does the surrounding area look like? What are the sounds you can hear? Is it hot or cool? What  can you smell or touch? Are there any other people with you? Who are they and what are they doing?

You see Jesus coming in and approaching. What does he look like? He turns and sees you. How do you feel?

Then Jesus says to you, “Do you want to be healed.” What do you want to say to him as a result of this question? Spend a bit of time talking to him about his question. Then Jesus invites you to take his hand and to get to your feet and take your mat home. You accept his offer and get up. How do you feel now? How does it feel to be walking with your mat home? What thoughts are going through your head? Do you like being healed? What are you expecting tomorrow will be like when you wake up in bed and realize that you won’t be going to the pool to sit beside it for the rest of the day?

It’s winter here and almost the shortest day of the year.  This season is associated with a mixtures of responses. I asked a group today on a ‘quiet day’ retreat what feelings and thoughts they associated with winter. Some said it reminded them of being rugged up in bed with a doona wrapped around them. (A doona is a feather quilt bearing this eponymous proprietary name.) Others thought of woollen jumpers, the open fires, the shorter days and longer nights; of cosy food. Yesterday I asked the secretary at the church where I am a minister what she associated with winter as a test run to the questions for the group today. Her response was quite different and unexpected. She spoke of the cold, of miserable weather, colds, of being shut inside. Her tone of voice reinforced the sadness she associated with this time of year.

I wrote the following poem in July 2007. I think it includes both the sadness and the joy which can be experienced at this time of year. It also suggests that winter can be a time of transformation, from a place of death, to life.

Winter has us in its icy grip;
It’s frozen fingers clasped firmly around our day.
The earth sleeps silently dreaming of the coming spring
when this globe will round the corner
on its way
toward the warming sun.

It is a time,
of colds which cause cancellations and inconvenience,
with scratchy children and their snuffly sleepless nights,
the smell of Vicks Vapor Rub and the sound of coughs.
But we are grateful for wintertime,
its fresh cold wind, woollen jumpers, swollen rivers - even floods;
the golden gift of low slung setting sun
so great our hearts almost burst with joy.

The earth sleeps silently,
in wintertime,
and your work O Lord is quietly going on
hidden from our eye.
But we are waiting, longing for our Springtime,
when like a gardener you will come to repair your ground.
Send forth your Spirit to renew our tired earth,
our worn down farmers, our anxious towns looking at the sky.
Bring forth the daffodils, the wattle’s yellow and the blossom;
signs of your resurrection work
and of a life to come when this living death will die.
© Rob Culhane 21 July 07

The winters in Tasmania are much colder than here in Melbourne where I now live. When I lived in Tasmania, I was working as a carpenter and I’d often go out into the countryside to work on a farmer’s house. I noticed that during winter time, there is not much for them to do. The days are shortened; frequently it is too cold to get motivated to be outside and not much is otherwise happening around the farm.  Often it’s too boggy to be heading out into the paddocks. Once they have fed their cattle or sheep in the morning with hay cut from the summer, that was pretty much it for the day. In late winter, lambing season starts, but until then, it’s pretty quiet. Just the sound of the wind in the windbreaks of pine trees and the mournful sound of the crows or currawongs crying in the distance. In between not having much to do, I noticed they would repair their fences, especially when a storm had sent a tree branch crashing down on them. The wire fences were re-strained taunt again and fences made of the stones piled up so they look regular and not bedraggled with stones strewn around the fence’s base like a child’s Lego in the lounge room. Farm gates were rehung and welded and the farm machinery fixed or serviced. It was a time to tend to the overlooked jobs which have been deferred in the busier, warmer months.

Winter is like our mid-life. Not much is happening; we feel lost, dead almost. We are frequently mourning the loss of summer’s power and are aware of the silence and death detected in the winter’s approaching footsteps. It is an in between time, as we wait for spring. It is a place where there seems to be little going on, of darkened days. It’s silent, but it can also be a time for quiet transformation, of preparation for the spring. It is a good time to tend to the little disciplines and re-build the prayerful practices we have overlooked or deferred in the busier summer months. And winter provides us with a quiet time to listen again for the voice of God’s invitation to be converted and to accept his invitation to come, and move into a place of new life, the life of spring.

We have all been given two ears to listen with.
In one ear, we have heard the voice of those who criticise us and say,
‘You’ll never be any good’,
or that, ‘You messed that up’,
or ‘You’ll never learn’,
or ‘You’re not able to be a leader’.
It might have been our family which has told us this,
with sometimes just a look,
sometimes at the top of their voice,
the message we hear is loud and clear.
It might have been a boss,
a leader who is stressed and frustrated and tired
and has taken their anger out on you.
But we must turn down the volume of that voice in our ear
and listen with our other ear to God’s voice which
we hear in Scripture
we hear in the voice of encouragement by friends
we hear from those who walk beside us at our pace
we hear from strangers who comment on our abilities which we shyly deny
although God has impressed them into us from our birth.
We must listen to the voice of God in our other ear which says
‘You are deeply loved by me.’
‘You have been chosen by me and are precious in my sight.’  (Is 43:4)
‘You are the apple of my eye.’  (Ps 17:8)
‘Your days are written by me before anyone of them has come to pass.’  (139:16)
and
‘I have appointed you to go and bear fruit which will last.’ (Jn 15:16)
We must do this everyday
in the morning
before we turn on the radio
before we read the newspaper
before we use the internet
before we watch the television
before we forget to listen to God’s voice
in the silence, in solitude and in our prayer
because it is in this place that we find our renewal.

Extreme ascetic practices have thankfully moved to the margins of church life. Some continue to exist, such as the re-enactment of the crucifixion in the Philippines and self flaguation. There are some who do not eat meat during Lent within even my own congregation. I am impressed by their commitment but prefer to offer prayer and praise to God from a full heart rather than an empty stomach. (Michael Casey, Toward God, p. 107) Others postpone breakfast on Sunday morning until they have come to church to receive holy communion. The relationship the disciple of Christ has with their body has been a complex one as Church history highlights. My interest is in how our bodies relate to our life of prayer because our bodies are intimately connected with our prayer life, helping or hindering it.

For much of my life I didn’t pay much attention to my body, or how it was employed in prayer and worship. I was typical of many men, focused on the outward world, the world of action, who saw their body as an instrument which did the bidding of the mind. What we thought we had to do, the body would obligingly carry it out. It was our obedient servant to our will. The body was distanced from the ‘real us’, the head and mind. This is a dualism which has a very long history in Western culture, one which we have inherited from the Greeks and baptised into the Church.

This separation came to an abrupt end about 10 years ago. In midlife my body began to make little protests and noises to get my attention. At first I ignored its bleating. Then I developed a trifecta of Coeliac Disease, high blood pressure and Fructose intolerance. I could no longer ignore my body or treat it with disdain; a machine which would obey my plans, my will and faithfully carry out my wishes. My daily liturgy has become to holdout my hand to receive two tablets to control my blood pressure and a third to help protect my esophagus damaged by the undiagnosed Coeliac Disease.

My ‘labora’, the daily work of the Benedictine monk, is to swim twice a week to control my weight and to help my cardio-vascular system remain at least at a functional level. Walking regularly is required to keep my back from developing painful muscle spasm. I have had to wean myself from the Western diet of high fat and sugar, or else I will undoubtedly develop Type 2 diabetes and my doctor has whispered that my cholesterol level is dangerously high and I risk needing another tablet a day to control it.

Now the temptations I battle with are not found in the desert where Anthony wrested with the demons, but in the suburbs, where the daily temptation is offered by the innocent coffee or the sugary soft drink, especially those with caffeine added. I find them addictive and when the sugar and caffeine are combined together, they produce a high as tangible as the effect of a good glass of wine on my brain – or any other mind altering pharmacology. Chemicals I would have formerly ignored, I now see are seeping into my body and poisoning it. I have finally had to come to grips with this thing, my body. There is no other I can trade this one in for. It is like our earth, sustaining our human race, yet we are destroying it. There is no other planet we can get to replace it; there is no other body available to replace this one, the one I have, so I had better care for it as God has given it to me as a gift. I need to be a steward of God’s grace, extending this ‘grace’ toward even my body.

We, the majority who comprise our local churches, are paralysised from doing anything which will deliver us from the vicious grip of over eating, our slothfulness, our self indulgence and the excessive consumption of food. Our apathy about the starving poor mirrors our short sightedness of our own over consumption, We seem indifferent to the powerful cultural messages which keep us trapped; that it is no accident that there are advertisements for fast food on our television at tea time; or that the shopping mall would be incomplete without luxurious coffee shops, cake shops and other food providers. Our churches are not havens from our bodily passions, but subtly continue to support them with many of our events and meetings centered around – food.  Often its not good food either. It’s like inviting a recovering alcoholic to a meeting at the local pub.

No, we cannot separate our bodies from our prayer lives. If they are sick, overweight or tired, our prayer life suffers. If we are suffering sleep apnoea, we will be incapable of praying without falling asleep. The common cold affects both our bodies, our minds and our emotional lives, so how can we be so blind not to see that the condition of our bodies will affect our prayer lives? A new askesis (Gk for discipline), which seems to be lacking in the ‘New Monasticism’ movement, must include the discipline of our bodies and weaning it from our Western culture’s unhealthy food habits.

The intimate link between our bodies and our worship and prayer is seen in our worship services where we kneel for prayer and at the communion rail to receive the sacrament of holy communion. It is the posture of humility and dependence upon God. We stand in the liturgical traditions of the Church, to listen to the gospel reading and for the holy communion thanksgiving prayer, a sign of our respect. In some churches and during the daily office, we bow in respect to the altar in the church and to each other because we all bear the image of God. We prostrate our bodies, as a sign of reverence, abasement and plea for mercy.  We lift our hands to express our praise. We shake hands to express our welcome of the other, the stranger and our neighbour who is forgiven and reconciled on the same basis as me at the greeting of the peace. We lay hands on children to bless them and to pray for people, a sign of our identification with them and their setting apart (consecration). We make the sign of the cross at the invocation of the Holy Trinity and prior to receiving the body and blood of Christ. Pilgrimages unite heart, body and spirit in the action of walking. Our bodies are intimately tied to our worship, our life of prayer. Church worship is kinesthetic. To have a healthy prayer life will require some attention to our body, especially a healthy body.

However, when the Reformation was underway, this union of body and prayer began to separate. The emphasis shifted away from a focus on the eucharist to a focus on the sermon and the receptacle for the sermon was the mind. Worship became more static and the amount of area allocated to allow physical movement in a church decreased. The sensory elements were purified from the churches; just white and black would do, mirroring the doctrinal precision of its churches leaders. Either you were right (white) in your doctrine or wrong (black). In the Presbyterian, Baptist and later Church of Christ congregations, the people were now served communion, and this too resulted in less bodily movement around the church. The body was confined to tight pews; it was in the mind where the worship now took place. (In the Georgian Churches here in Australia (which were constructed in New South Wales and Tasmania), the pews even have doors on them, preventing movement.) Thank God for the Charismatic Renewal which helped get the Church in touch with their bodies again and helped get them moving.

My body is the temple in which the Holy Spirit dwells. (1 Corinthians 6:19-20) It was this truth that Paul appealed to as one of several arguments to stop the Corinthian Christians from indulging in promiscuous sex or intercourse with the temple prostitute. The sins committed by the human body could not be separated from realm of the spirit or soul because we are a psycho-sexual pneumatic being, clothed in flesh; just like the Incarnation of Christ, but we forget this too often. Irresponsible sexual expression will pollute our spirituality, sever our relationship with God and lead to a divided self. I am accustomed to thinking that my body belongs to me; but it’s not my own, it belongs to God; it is in this body that Christ now dwells, and in which the Father has come to live. Our sexuality is not just a bodily desire, but interconnects with our need for intimacy, touch and love. To treat it negatively is to fall again, into dualism with catastrophic results. A lack of awareness of how our sexuality interacts with who we are and our behaviour has led to tragic consequences for sexual abuse victims. But flirting, the dress by men and women in provocative clothing and the ‘projection’ by men of a persona of confidence and strength are more subtle ways our sexuality might be displayed, even within our local congregation.  The common reaction to the awareness that we are sexually endowed people with desires is repression, if not denial. This is simple legalism, usually imposed by those who are least comfortable with who they are. A better way than repression or denial of our sexuality is to call our desire the ‘sacred flame’, which needs protection from burning others when expressed inappropriately or by exploitation. This sacred flame needs tending when our bodies and relationships are tired and frayed and is a gift too, with all the other things which make us who we are in God’s image.

The church history record of the treatment of the body has been by and large, negative.  The monastic movement has certainly contributed to this portrayal. However, what we need is integration, not separation, if our contemplation is to grow and deepen. The following example taken from the Desert Fathers (200-450 AD) highlights this integration and the need to pay attention to the body and to treat it with respect, or else our life of prayer will be effected. And its taken from the very body of work which has traditionally eschewed our sexuality.

“They said of one monk that he had lived in the world and had turned to God, but was still goaded by desire for his wife; and he told this to the monks. When they saw him to be a man of prayer and one who did more than his duty, they laid on him a course of discipline which so weakened his body that he could not even stand up. By God’s providence another monk came to visit Scetis. When he came to this man’s cell he saw it open, and he passed on, surprised that no one came to meet him. But then he thought that perhaps the brother inside was ill, and returned, and knocked on the door. After knocking, he went in, and found the monk gravely ill. He said, ‘What’s the matter, abba?’ He explained, ‘I used to live in the world, and the enemy still troubles me because of my wife. I told the monks, and they laid on me various burdens to discipline my life. In trying to carry them out obediently, I have fallen ill and yet the temptation is worse.‘  When the visiting hermit heard this, he was vexed, and said, ‘These monks are powerful men, and meant well in laying these burdens upon you. But if you will listen to me who am but a child in these matters, stop all this discipline, take a little food at the proper times, recover your strength, join in the worship of God for a little, and turn your mind to the Lord. This desire is something you can’t conquer by your own efforts. The human body is like a coat. If you treat it carefully, it will last a long time. If you neglect it, it will fall to pieces.’ The sick man did as he was told, and in a few days the incitement to lust vanished. “ (The Desert Fathers (Translated by Benedicta Ward, Penguin Books, London: 2003; p. 49.)

Contemplative prayer by its very nature, is to bring a unity between God and ourselves through an unmediated experience. To lapse into some expression of dualism is to impose a separation and division between what is an integrated whole (body, mind and spirit) which is against the very expression or theology of contemplation. Contemplative prayer I’ve noticed, has helped me to locate myself in God (‘Your life is hidden in Christ’ as Paul writes in Col 3:3) and can help us to become reconciled to our bodies, to listen to them and treat them with respect. As I grow older, I am increasingly reconciled to the fact, that my body will in the end, determine much of what I am able to do and where I am able to go. (The prophecy by Jesus to Peter about his lack of freedom in his old age is one which can take note for our own old age. [Jn 21:18-19])

Eventually this body will be like all of the things I struggle with to relinquish to God, be overcome by death but also resurrection. The offering (oblation) of my body earlier in my life to God (Rom 12:1-3), to remain chaste until married, and even now to remain chaste from all other things which will pollute my body, will one day be fully realised. In between its nourished by the oblation of Christ’s body through our participation in the body and blood of our communion with Christ. (Here I am remembering the words from the Prayer Book for Australia, the Words of Consecration, p. 112.)  That God regards our bodies as something important is seen by the way he will resurrect them. This fact  and its power casts its shadow back from beyond the end of time, into this age where death and destruction reign.  Together with all the creation, our bodies, a microcosm of the greater creation, will with it be transformed by the resurrection power of Christ, because our bodies are not independent of this creation. For God to transform one will by necessity of its intimate connection to the other require both to be transformed; and that as both are injured by sin, both will be redeemed by Christ (Rom 8:18-25). The gift of the Spirit by God himself, is his promise and confirmation to strengthen our hope that what we hope for will be given, if not in this age, then certainly in the age to come.

Our prayer to God, involves our body. Our life in God and participation in the life of the trinity incorporates (in corporal – Latin to embody) the totality of ‘us’. If our bodies are neglected, afflicted or poisoned with modern food additives,  we will be affected and this will also affect our prayer life too. Christianity is not a disembodied religion as the incarnation of Christ attests, but a religion which should be able to integrate body, soul, spirit and mind into a unified whole in God, who gives us life. Contemplative prayer then, should not be seen to be against the body, ignoring the body, or disparaging the body but helping us intregrate our body into our union with Christ himself.

A friend of mine has been finishing his Ph.D in Italy. In response to my request he has supplied the following reflection on Ps 88. This is by coincidence, the same Psalm which I referred to in my earlier post. But it doesn’t matter. It highlights just how well God uses the same Psalm in different contexts to speak into our lives to comfort or challenge us. He writes:

“In 1993/94, there had been a tragic series of murders of young women in the Frankston area. A friend of mine, a newly ordained priest at the time, became involved with the family of one of the young victims, a year 12 student at the local secondary school. He was asked to conduct the funeral and rang me asking me to help him because it was going to be a ‘big’ funeral in the school hall with lots of media attention. The funeral was certainly big, the circumstances tragic and the feeling overwhelmingly heart-wrenching for all those concerned. That Friday evening, I was due to go away for a weekend recollection with my seminary colleagues. Sitting alone in the chapel and reflecting on the tragedy of the moment, I opened my breviary to Compline and the words of Ps. 88 had a poignancy that has remained with me to this day:

Lord my God, I call for help by day;
I cry at night before you.
Let my prayer come into your presence.
O turn your ear to my cry.

For my soul is filled with evils;
My life is on the brink of the grave.
I am reckoned as one in the tomb;
I have reached the end of my strength.

Like one alone among the dead;
Like the slain lying in their graves;
Like those you remember no more
Cut off, as they are, from your hand.

You have laid me in the depths of the tomb,
In places that are dark, in the depths.
Your anger weighs down upon me;
I am drowned beneath your waves.

You have taken away my friends
And made me hateful in their sight.
Imprisoned I cannot escape;
My eyes are sunken with grief.

I call to you Lord all the day long;
To you I stretch out my hands.
Will you work your wonders for the dead?
Will the shades stand and praise you?

Will your love be told in the grave
Or your faithfulness among the dead?
Will your wonders be known in the dark
Or your justice in the land of oblivion?

As for me Lord, I call to you for help;
In the morning my prayer comes before you.
Lord, why do you reject me?
Why do you hide your face?

“It’s too easy to lose touch with who we are and become obsessed with what we are not. We become alienated from our very selves as we develop bad habits that verge on addictions. We are convinced by television commercials and become obsessed with the latest laptop computer, the newest model of an automobile and the miracle drug that will solve our weight problem, our sexual dysfunction or our struggles to have a good night’s sleep. We desperately crave affection or attention and will do anything to obtain it. We live in the present for a fleeting moment, only to return quickly to tomorrow’s worries and concerns. We become so consumed with our careers and roles that we end up defining ourselves by what we do. We are restless and weighed down with the guilt and regrets of the past.”

So writes Albert Haase, a Franciscan and professor of spirituality at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, Illinois in his book, Coming Home to your True Self, p 37. His words describe what many of us are and because we sense that this might be our condition, fear peering inside our lives to discover that what he’s said might be true. How do we become free from these obsessions, restless desires and unsatisfied ambitions?

Our hearts and our lives can be likened to a donut and in the middle of them is a gapping hole into which we stuff all sorts of things in order to find fulfilment or to cover up the hole. We become quite skilled at doing this and become people whose lives are consumed by filling these needs. Haase calls this the construction of the false self; a false self which we project out into the world but at the cost of ignoring our true inner self which was made for God. Haase makes a helpful description of the things we are likely to become obsessed by or slaves to. They all begin with the letter P. (He could have been a primary school teacher in an earlier life with a skill like this.) The empty P’s as he calls them are:

Pleasure

Praise

Power

Prestige

Position (in our work, family or church which gives us a sense of importance or power)

Popularity

People (filling up our lives with lots of relationships to hide the loneliness within)

Productivity

Possessions

Perfection

What shall we do? It is at this point that the Bible readings for Lent are helpful at illuminating what must change within us and how this might occur. On 14 March the reading will be the parable of the lost son and his elder brother. The younger son took his inheritance, wasted it and came to his senses in the pig pen. But this is our story too, of those who come to their senses in the pig pen of their lives lived out in suburbia. We have left the household of the Father and have become obsessed in filling the hole in our lives and spent all that we have trying to fulfil the “Empty P’s”. We are destitute. But by returning to the Father and accepting his welcome embrace and grace, we can begin to build a new life. (The elder son was just as lost as the younger one, but did not realise it. He works to obtain his Father’s praise. He fills his life with perfectionism, focused on productivity. He is unable to feel pleasure such is his performance driven life.)

On 21 March the story of Mary anointing the feet of Jesus from Jn 12:1-8 will be studied. This devotion and sacrifice by Mary highlights that she has abandoned seeking praise (she is criticised by Judas), popularity and prestige (by effectively washing the feet of Jesus like the household slave would do). Her possessions have no claim on her heart as she has had to sacrifice much in order to purchase the costly perfume which is poured out on his feet in utter devotion to her Lord. 

Then the Good Friday readings come upon us, often catching us out because we are still not prepared with what will now happen in the last week of the life of Jesus of Nazareth (Luke 22:14-23:49). The annual Passover dinner with his disciples turns into a farewell dinner; a new covenant is instituted between God and humanity; and the betrayal by Judas strips back the veneer over human nature to reveal the basest and darkest qualities which lie just beneath the surface. Judas is addicted to power and possessions; he will do anything (even betraying an innocent man) in order to meet their insatiable thirst. Just after Jesus announces that he is going to be betrayed by one of his own disciples, two of the disciples make a grab for the best seats in the kingdom and reveal their own slavery to position and power.

The rulers, religious teachers and Pilate who silence Jesus by crucifying him are exposed as men who are constantly seeking praise. Their hunger for prestige and popularity has blinded them to the coming of Jesus the Messiah and the momentous moment in history that they have become participants in. Peter caves in to the accusation by a servant girl that he is a disciple of Jesus and denies him. Peter, we now see, wants people to love him; he is afraid and will seek popularity rather than standing with Jesus.

But Easter Sunday is about a new day dawning; of evidence of God’s power and redemption; that by death Jesus has done with the penalty of sin and the resurrection is the evidence and justification that God has accepted his death and work on the cross for us. The resurrection is proof that the power of God working through the Holy Spirit is able to transform even death men to live again (Rom 4:24-25); this same power can set us free from the “Empty P’s” (Rom 6:5-11; 8:11). There is new life revealed in Jesus the resurrection and the life (Jn 11:25), a new life beyond our hostage to these “Empty P’s” which is able to transform us – now; today, tomorrow, for all eternity. The purpose of Easter is to remove the penalty of following the Empty P’s, and to set us free from the power they have over our lives. Easter points us to the essence of Christianity: that one died so that all may become the righteousness of God, not only free from the Empty P’s, but free to give ourselves to the one who redeems us, God. Surely the fact that we are no longer slaves to the Empty P’s, but sons and daughters of the Father should inspire us to give our lives, time, talents and money to him who has loved us and died for us?