Imagine, if you will, a presidential motorcade coming into town. People line the streets, waving American flags. Secret service agents and police officers surround the limousine on all sides, ready to jump into action if there is a problem.
Now, imagine that, on the other side of town, another kind of parade is happening. In this procession, the leader is riding in a little clown car. People still line the streets, cheering. They are playing Hail to the Chief on kazoos. If we saw this silly demonstration, we could easily understand that it was meant to be a parody of the bigger and more serious motorcade happening elsewhere. This was exactly what was happening on Palm Sunday, as Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey.
In Jerusalem, during the time of Jesus, it was customary for the Roman governor to make a military parade through the city during the week before the holiday of Passover. The Roman province of Judea was known for being a troubled place that frequently experienced violent insurrections. The risk of uprising was especially high during the Passover season, when the Jewish people celebrated their deliverance by God from slavery, tyranny, and genocide in Egypt. Governor Pilate’s annual show of force at that time was intended to nip those thoughts in the bud, before people got any bright ideas about acting on them.
Jesus’ triumphal entry, on the other hand, was a deliberate lampoon of the governor’s bravado. He based his demonstration on the words of the prophet Zechariah from the Hebrew Scriptures:
“Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey” (Zechariah 9:9).
By comparison, Jesus’ gathering was quite small, filled with the most obnoxious riffraff in town, and was obviously poking fun at the powers-that-be. It’s no wonder then that the authorities were anxious that this little demonstration might attract the wrong kind attention from Pontius Pilate and his soldiers. I can hear fear in their voices as they say, perhaps while glancing nervously over their shoulders, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” Jesus responds, rather poetically, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out” (Luke 19:40). Paraphrasing Jesus’ words, I imagine Jesus shrugging his shoulders and saying, “Yeah, sure… Good luck with that!”
The serious point that Jesus was making with this little demonstration of political theater is that the so-called powers-that-be in this world are not so powerful as they think. They show their strength through competition and violence, but Jesus shows us another way to live.
Our Epistle reading this morning tells us something about how that other way looks. St. Paul tells us that Christ, “though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself” (Philippians 2:6-7a).
This “emptying” that Paul talks about is the self-giving love that Jesus radiates from every cell of his body. It stands in stark contrast to the competitive systems of domination that tend to rule the world, both in Jesus’ time and ours.
The “way of the world,” as we are socially trained to accept it, is the way of the zero-sum game, where there are winners and losers, us and them, insiders and outsiders. We see it everywhere: in military conflicts, sporting events, political elections, and business deals. We get so accustomed to this way of thinking, it even finds its way into our families, neighborhoods, and churches. But this way of thinking comes with a downside: When left unchecked, it destroys the very communities that it depends on.
Consider, for example, the “Super Chicken” experiment conducted by evolutionary biologist William Muir at Purdue University. Dr. Muir was interested in improving the egg-laying potential of chickens, so he took the top-producing chickens from each coop and put them together in a “super coop,” expecting this coop to out-perform all the others. What he discovered, though, was surprising. The “super coop” did not perform better than the other coops, but worse… much worse, in fact, because the super chickens all killed each other. Dr. Muir did what he did in the name of improving efficiency, but ended up creating an environment full of aggressive and territorial over-achievers.
This doesn’t just happen with chickens, either. Back in the 1990s, there was a very successful company called Enron. This company had a “rank and yank” practice where they would evaluate their employees and fire the bottom 10% of performers each quarter. Like Dr. Muir, they were trying to increase productivity, but created a company culture where competition led to dishonesty. Eventually, the whole company collapsed under the weight of its own cut-throat practices. The Enron company went bankrupt, thousands of people lost their jobs, and the leaders went to jail.
When we make an unholy idol of winning, we end up losing our souls.
When Jesus, the Son of God, came into this world, he didn’t come to win; he came to love. He didn’t come to seize power, but to give his life for others. The paradox is that this is what true power looks like: Not the power to control, but the power to love without limits.
There is a scene in one of my favorite TV shows where the hero is trying to convince his nemesis to join the hero in a worthy cause. The nemesis complains, “But you can’t win!”
And the hero replies:
“Winning? Is that what you think it’s about? I’m not trying to win. I’m not doing this because I want to beat someone, or because I hate someone, or because I want to blame someone. It’s not because it’s fun. God knows it’s not because it’s easy. It’s not even because it works—because it hardly ever does. I do what I do because it’s right. Because it’s decent. And above all—it’s kind. Maybe there’s no point to any of this at all. But it’s the best I can do. So I’m going to do it. And I will stand here doing it until it kills me. Who I am is where I stand. Where I stand is where I fall. Stand with me.”
I can’t help but hear Jesus in those words. Not trying to win, but just doing what is right, decent, and kind, standing in love until it kills him, and inviting us to stand with him. That’s who Jesus is; as Christians, that’s who we believe God is.
Christians imagine God, not as an “old man in the sky,” but as a flowing river of love. The mystery of the Trinity envisions the one God as three persons (i.e. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), a community, a network of relationships, bound together in perfect love.
Whenever someone is baptized in the name of the Trinity, we are proclaiming our faith that this person, and every person, is caught up in that never-ending flow of love. The Trinity is why we, as Christians, are happy to say, “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them” (1 John 4:16). We don’t just attach the adjective “love” to the noun “God,” we go all the way to saying that God is love itself. And love, as we remember from English class, is a verb.
And if love is a verb, and God is love, then God is a verb. God doesn’t just exist; God happens wherever love is happening. If a river were ever to stop flowing, it would cease to be a river and become a lake. In the same way, if God’s love were ever to stop flowing outward in greater and greater circles of community, God would cease to be God.
This is the alternate way of living that Jesus presents to us on Palm Sunday: The way of self-giving love. Jesus does this because that’s who Jesus is, that’s who God is, and that’s who we are called to be.
Jesus didn’t come to win; he came to love. He didn’t ride a war horse; he rode a donkey. He didn’t exploit his power; he emptied himself.
Today, Jesus invites us to stand with him.
So, as we enter Holy Week, let us stand with him, not because we want to beat someone, but because it’s right, because it’s decent, and above all—It’s kind. Maybe it won’t lead to us winning the competitions that the world values so much, but it’s the best that Jesus can do, and he will stand here doing it until it kills him. It’s who Jesus is, and who he is is where he stands, and where he stands is where he falls. We already know from experience that the cut-throat way of the world is doomed to failure, so let us try this other way instead. Let us stand with him in love, through Holy Week and every week, until it kills us. Until that Easter morning when the tomb is opened and even death itself is swallowed up in victory, powerless against the relentless flow of God’s love.
Back before my wife Sarah and I had started dating, we were in that awkward stage where we were both noticing each other, but neither one had worked up the courage to make a move, so we just kept dancing around the subject. One night, Sarah invited me to a party at her house, and we ended up talking on the couch long after everyone else had left. It was getting late, Sarah reached forward for her drink on the coffee table, I unconsciously stretched, and she accidentally sat right back into the spot where my arm was. Sarah was like, “That was smooth! Can we talk about this?” On the outside, I played it very cool and calm, but on the inside, I was like: “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Anyway… to make a long story short: It went pretty well and we’ve been married for 20 years.
The moral of the story is that our actions sometimes have an impact beyond what we intended them to have. That was certainly the case with St. Mary of Bethany in today’s gospel.
Mary’s anointing of Jesus happens at a very important turning point in the larger story of John’s gospel. Up until this point, Jesus had been dropping hints about his true identity, but from this point forward, he would begin to speak more openly as the story moved toward its climax with his crucifixion and resurrection.
In the chapter just prior to this one, Jesus raised Mary’s brother Lazarus from the dead. This miracle, according to John, was the catalyst that caused the religious leaders to begin plotting to have Jesus killed. As this part of the story begins, Jesus is having dinner at the home of Lazarus, Martha, and Mary. The memory of Lazarus’ death and resurrection was very fresh. Mary would have been deeply moved by the miracle she had just witnessed. Not only had Jesus turned her grief into joy, he had also rescued Mary and Martha from a life of poverty and degradation, which would have absolutely happened to two unmarried women who no longer had a man to speak for them in their patriarchal society. Jesus had saved, not one life, but three lives in his raising of Lazarus from the dead. Mary probably felt that she owed Jesus her life at this point.
As a sign of her gratitude, the text tells us that Mary took “a pound of costly perfume.” The Greek word for “costly perfume” is myrrh, which was used for burial rituals. It is quite likely that Mary had bought this perfume to use for her brother’s funeral, which was no longer necessary, thanks to Jesus. By breaking it open and pouring it on Jesus’ feet, she was expressing her relief and gratitude for what Jesus had done for her and her family.
This, all by itself, would have been a powerful statement, but Jesus gives it an even greater significance that Mary herself could not have known. Jesus says, “She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial.”
Jesus knew, whether through supernatural clairvoyance or just an insightful hunch, that his own death was impending. Mary’s act of devotion meant more than she could possibly have known. Just as Mary honored Jesus with her gratitude, Jesus honored Mary with the knowledge of what her gesture truly meant to him.
The moral of this story is the same as the one I told about my wife and me: Our actions sometimes have an impact beyond what we intended them to have.
Our individual lives are a part of a larger story. Like ripples in a pond, God’s grace expands the meaning of what we do to cosmic significance. If, as Jesus says, even the hairs on our head are numbered, then surely no small act of goodness or kindness goes unnoticed by the God who made the universe.
My favorite modern example of an action that has a greater impact than its intent is the story of Fr. Trevor Huddleston, an Anglican priest who ministered in South Africa in the early twentieth century. Fr. Huddleston was an outspoken activist against the apartheid policies that discriminated against people of color in South Africa. One of the many racist laws on the books at that time was that, whenever a darker-skinned person passed a lighter-skinned person in the street, the darker-skinned person had to step off the curb into the gutter and lift their hat in deference to the lighter-skinned person. Fr. Huddleston, who was himself a lighter-skinned person, thought this racist law was absolutely ridiculous. So, he made it his regular practice that, whenever he passed a person of color in the street, he would step off the curb and lift his hat in a gesture of respect to this fellow child of God. Technically, this was an act of civil disobedience against South African law, but Fr. Huddleston practiced this as an act of divine obedience to the higher law of God, which says that all people are created equal.
One day, Fr. Huddleston was walking down the street and saw a little boy and his mother coming his way. As was his usual practice, he stepped off the curb and lifted his hat in a gesture of respect as they walked by. The boy and his mother were people of color. The little boy asked his mother, “Mummy, who was that man?” And the mother replied, “Son, that man is an Anglican priest, and furthermore, he is a man of God.”
The little boy, telling this story years later, said, “That was the day that I decided I too wanted to be an Anglican priest, and furthermore, a man of God.” That little boy grew up to be Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who helped President Nelson Mandela dismantle the satanic apartheid system that kept God’s beloved children in chains for so many years. It is possible that Fr. Huddleston might have had no memory of that particular day, in which he acted with the same integrity that inspired his actions every day. Like St. Mary of Bethany, Fr. Huddleston could certainly not have known that his simple act of stepping off a curb would have a ripple effect that would eventually lead to the undoing of the twisted system against which he was protesting.
Kindred in Christ, I invite you today to consider how your own simple acts of compassion and courage may have a similar ripple effect on the world in which we live. One never knows when a word of kindness or a gesture of gratitude may have an impact far bigger than its intent. Many such acts are known to God alone, but rest assured that they are known. Jesus says, in his Sermon on the Mount, “When you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Matthew 6:3-4).
Dr. Martin Luther King, in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, wrote, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
As witnesses of the gospel of Jesus Christ, I want to encourage you this day to speak up whenever one of our siblings in Christ has offered some small word or deed that has impacted your day. It is quite possible that the giver of this gift is unaware of what it meant to you. Be quick to offer thanks to them, and to God for them.
If you are on the receiving end of such recognition, I invite you to listen with ears of your heart, giving thanks to God, who has multiplied the impact of your small gift to mean more than you intended.
Dearly beloved, our lives are not our own and they are not lived alone. It is up to us to enlighten our neighbors with knowledge as they have enlightened us with the love of Christ in their hearts. Who knows whether that grateful acknowledgement might be the very encouragement needed by a weary soul who is secretly despairing of life itself? By adding our small gesture of thanks to the common wealth, we may provide the necessary means by which a life might be saved.
Like St. Mary of Bethany, our actions have an impact far beyond their intent. Let us remember this fact and draw strength from it. May we trust that our lives matter more than we know.
In his brief novel, The Great Divorce, Anglican author C.S. Lewis writes about an imaginary bus tour of heaven and hell. One of the many interesting things about this book is how he imagines hell. For Lewis, hell is not a realm of fire and brimstone where the wicked are eternally tortured for their sins on earth. Instead, he depicts hell as a place where people live in huge mansions and get whatever they want, whenever they want it. Sounds like heaven, doesn’t it? Well, the catch is that, with so much space and instant gratification available, people don’t need each other, so they just pack up and move farther away whenever anyone upsets them for even the slightest of reasons. This leaves vast tracts of empty cities where no one roams. Instead, everyone has locked themselves inside their own mansions and pace the empty halls alone all day, muttering about their “rights” and complaining that everything bad that has ever happened to them is not their fault. The real kicker is that the gates of this hell aren’t even locked; people can get up and go to heaven any time they want, except that nobody wants to. They would much rather stay stuck in their mansions, totally alone, and utterly convinced of their own self-righteousness. The souls of the damned in The Great Divorce bear a striking resemblance to the elder son in today’s gospel reading. I begin today’s sermon with this story because I too have a tendency to act like the self-righteous elder son in Jesus’ parable.
Here is my honest confession: Earlier this week, someone greatly offended me with something they said.
(PLEASE NOTE: If you are hearing this and wondering whether it was you, I want you to be assured that it was not. It had nothing to do with anyone in this room, this parish, or this town. I won’t tell the whole story here because it’s not important to this sermon. All you need to know is that my feelings were hurt and I was very angry about it).
I spent much of the week stewing in my self-righteous indignation, replaying the conversation over and over in my head, and losing sleep over it.
When I sat down to write this sermon, I read the passage and froze stiff when I got to the part about the elder son. I realized that, after my week of angry pouting, I could not, in good conscience, stand in this pulpit on Sunday morning and preach about the good news of God’s amazing grace without being a complete and total hypocrite (because that’s exactly how I’ve been acting). Like the elder son in Jesus’ parable, I wanted my enemies to be punished for what they had done to me; I wanted the scales of justice to be set right, only to realize, when I was confronted by the words of Jesus in Scripture, that I am, as my mother used to say, “full of bologna.”
“Holding onto resentment,” as the Buddha once said, “is like drinking poison and waiting for someone else to die.” That was me this week.
What struck me so hard is that Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son is not really about the prodigal son. It has more to do with the elder son. Jesus tells this story in response to a group of upstanding and religious citizens who were offended that Jesus was “hanging out with the wrong crowd.” In response to their complaints, Jesus tells three stories. The first and second stories are about a lost sheep and a lost coin, respectively. The third and final story was about a lost son who ran home with his proverbial tail between his legs after going on a bender and waking up face-down in a pigsty.
The part of the story we know best begins with the younger son asking his father for his share of the family inheritance. Normally, this sum of money would only be given out after the father had died, so this request was the equivalent of the younger son saying to his father, “You’re dead to me.” I can only imagine the pain that the father felt in that moment. But, instead of berating his son for saying something so stupid, the father honors the request and divides his wealth between his two sons.
As we know from the story, the younger son squandered his inheritance by partying hard until the money ran out and he fell on hard times. When he finally hit rock bottom, the younger son came to his senses and decided to return home. It’s important to note that this decision was not based on any sense of remorse for his actions, but out of the base desire for self-preservation. The younger son concocted a rehearsed speech, through which he hoped to con his way back into his father’s good graces.
When the younger son gets within sight of his family home, Jesus tells us, in what I think is one of the most comforting passages in the entire Bible, that “while he was still far off,” his father got up and ran to meet him. I love this verse so much. The father did not wait for the son to make it all the way home, but ran to him “while he was still far off.” This verse should be a great comfort for those of us who realize that, even after years of following Jesus, we are still very far away from where we ought to be, spiritually.
The father was not standing on the front porch with arms crossed, tapping his foot and waiting for his son to finally crawl his way up the driveway. No, Jesus says that “while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran to him and put his arms around him and kissed him.”
The younger son, probably taken aback by this extravagant display of affection, nevertheless starts into his rehearsed speech, but his father doesn’t let him finish. He interrupts the speech with an enthusiastic call to start a party. This interruption should call into question everything that Christians have come to believe about the proper order of confession and forgiveness. The father does not wait to see if his son is sincere about his change of heart. He does not even let him finish his prepared speech.
(I wonder what it would be like if the priests in our church were to interrupt the congregation’s prayer of confession during the Sunday service and pronounce the absolution before they had even finished!)
The son is already forgiven before he even finishes confessing his sins, so great is his father’s love for him. So great is God’s love for you and me, as well, according to Jesus.
God does not forgive us because we repent; God forgives us before we repent. God’s amazing grace is what gives us the strength to repent and amend our lives in the first place.
So, a celebration ensues at the house. But, as we know, all is not well with the elder son, who had stayed home to work dutifully on his father’s farm. We learn a lot from the elder son’s reaction to the news that his brother had returned home. Unlike the father, the elder son was not happy to see him. We learn even more about the elder son’s misconceptions about who his father is.
He says to his father, “Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you.” This is our first clue that something is off about the elder son’s perception of his relationship with his father: he thinks of himself as a slave, not a son. He thinks that his father is only interested in obedience, not love. He sees their relationship as merely transactional, not personal. He assumed, quite wrongly, that their relationship would end if the son was not perfectly submissive to the father’s power. The younger son’s return to a celebration would have completely upended the elder son’s faith in a morally-balanced world.
The next thing the elder son says is, “I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends.” Now, this is a very puzzling statement. Earlier in the story, Jesus remarked how the father had “divided his property between [his two sons],” at the younger son’s request. Presumably then, the elder son would have already received his share of the family estate which, according to the inheritance laws of that time, would have been a double-portion of that which was given to his younger brother. So, when the father tells his eldest son, “All that is mine is yours,” he was not just speaking metaphorically or hyperbolically; he meant it literally. The fact that the elder son still sees himself as a slave, who has never received anything from his father, is incontrovertible proof that the elder son has entirely misjudged the character of his father.
In the end, this is not actually a parable about a lost son, but about two lost sons. The younger wandered away and wasted what had been given to him; the elder stayed home and forgot that he had been given anything at all. The elder son, by Jesus’ account, is the one who is in the more spiritually precarious position.
The real story, however, is not about either of the sons, but about the father. The father comes out to meet both of his lost sons where they are, in the midst of their self-made mess. Traditionally, this story has been known as “the parable of the prodigal son.” The word “prodigal” comes from a Latin word meaning “lavish or extravagant.” The most lavish and extravagant thing in this parable, as I see it, is not the younger son’s wastefulness, but his father’s graciousness and love toward both of his sons. For this reason, I would like to suggest that we rename this story, “the parable of the prodigal father.”
Kindred in Christ, the good news of this story is that our Father in heaven, as revealed in his Son Jesus Christ, loves us more than we deserve, more than we expect, and even more than we understand. God’s amazing grace and unconditional love annihilates all of our manufactured misconceptions about who God is and who we are, in relation to God.
The truth is that we are loved and we are forgiven by God. Full stop. No provisos, addenda, or quid pro quo. It is a free gift; we did not earn it, so we cannot lose it. Nothing is required.
The only thing God requests of us, out of love, is that we trust in that love and pass it along to others, through our words and actions. Even this meager request is more for our benefit than God’s.
In a world torn by self-righteous violence, the humble testimony of those who know that they are loved, in spite of our best efforts to prove otherwise, has the power to undo the shackles of our own self-righteousness and liberate us from the hell of our own making.
May each of us trust that we are forever held by this love and do our best to demonstrate it to others, to the end that they too might join us in proclaiming the good news of God’s amazing grace.
On Labor Day 1973, my mom and dad, then newly married, were in an apartment fire. Dad was the first in the building to wake up and smell smoke. He ran down the hall, banging on doors to alert the neighbors. Mom, meanwhile, took a quick glance around the room for anything essential. Thinking to herself, “The only thing I can’t replace is my wedding pictures,” she grabbed the album and ran. When I called Mom this week to ask permission to share this story, she recounted the story to me again: “So, there was your mother, without wallet or car keys, standing outside in nothing but her checkered nightgown, clutching a photo album!”
Sudden brushes with mortality have a way of reminding us about what really matters. The crisis itself wakes us up to what is most important. Too often, we humans have a tendency to get overly attached to our creature comforts, bad habits, and pet projects. We often miss the forest for the trees, when it comes to evaluating our priorities in life. Sudden crises can sometimes be useful in helping us clear out the junk and rediscover who we truly are.
In the penitential season of Lent, the Church provides us with a way to consciously engage in this kind of self-reflection without going through the inconvenience of a sudden crisis. During these forty days, we can intentionally choose to recognize and let go of the extra clutter in our souls and refocus our attention on what really matters.
Spiritual writer Richard Rohr, calls this, “the spirituality of subtraction.” He says that, often, the true task of our spiritual practices is not to add something that we need in our lives, but to help us let go of what we don’t need. The season of Lent is a good time to practice “the spirituality of subtraction.”
Lent is about getting underneath the cluttered surface of life and rediscovering the “the treasure hidden in the field” of our lives. Today’s Scripture readings give us a few hints about how to do that.
In the first reading, from the Hebrew Scriptures, the prophet Joel tells the people, “Rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the LORD, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love” (Joel 2:13). In ancient Hebrew culture, the tearing of one’s clothes was an outward sign of grief or penitence. Joel is encouraging the people to go deeper than the outward gesture and focus instead on the inner meaning of sorrow.
Jesus, in a similar fashion, warns the people in today’s gospel, “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them” (Matthew 6:1). The point of almsgiving, fasting, and prayer, according to Jesus, is not to make us look good and pious in front of our neighbors, but to help us reorient our hearts toward God.
Almsgiving, fasting, and prayer are all traditional practices associated with the season of Lent. In a world economy based on greed, self-indulgence, and power, the practices of almsgiving, fasting, and prayer are like cloths that we use to wipe away the extra grime on the surface of a mirror, so that we can then see our true reflection smiling back at us once more. In order for these cleaning tools to be effective, we have to stop caring what others think about us and face the honest truth about who we are.
Many of us live with an unspoken fear that, underneath our collected junk of ego-centric debris, there is no true self. We think, “Who am I without this job/degree/car/house/status/money/relationship?” Sometimes, it can even be a negative thing that we have nevertheless come to identify with: “Who am I without this trauma/rage/illness?” We worry that, if we let go of these things, there will be nothing left of us.
The hardest spiritual truth to believe, the biggest leap of faith to take, is to let ourselves become skeptical of our delusion there will be nothing left of us when the debris of our egos has been swept away.
Lent is, traditionally, the time when new converts to the faith prepare themselves to receive the Sacrament of Baptism. For those who have already been baptized, it is a time when Christians prepare themselves to renew that covenant at Easter Vigil. In Baptism, each of us hears again the message that was proclaimed by God over Jesus, at his baptism: “You are my [Child], the beloved; with you I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11). Beloved children of God is who we truly are, whether we realize it or not, whether we believe it or not. The spiritual exercises of Lent are tools given to help us return to this most central truth of our lives.
The message of Jesus, in today’s gospel, is that there is something there, waiting to be rediscovered. In fact, Jesus says, what you find underneath all that junk is who you authentically are, as the beloved child of God. St. Paul writes, in the New Testament, “Set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory” (Colossians 3:2-4).
Christ is our life. Christ is our true self, fully present, though hidden under the clutter of our fragile egos.
Kindred in Christ, Lent is a time when we can return to awareness of this central truth. Lent is a time for letting go of those things that no longer serve us, or our true purpose in life. Lent is a time when we can rediscover what really matters and who we truly are as beloved children of God.
I encourage you, during these forty days of almsgiving, fasting, and prayer, to do what my mother did on the night of that apartment fire: Take a glance around the room of your life, to think about what really matters and what cannot be replaced, so that you can then let go of what matters less. Like my mom, you may find yourself standing outside on a cold night, without wallet or car keys, but safe, alive, and holding on to what really matters.
May it be so, and may you rediscover who you truly are as the beloved child of God.
Isn’t that a funny question? It’s probably the most frequently asked and most dishonestly answered question we face in a typical day. Most people don’t want to hear the honest truth. Can you imagine what would happen, if they did?
You would pass a total stranger on the street and ask, “How are you?”
And they would say, “Well, I just came from my doctor and he said the rash on my backside is nothing to worry about…”
You would immediately be like, “WOAH! TMI! I did not need to know all that!”
There is only one acceptable answer to the question, “How are you?”
That answer is, “I’m good.”
People don’t ask that question because they want to know the truth. They ask it because human beings are social animals and we’re just checking in with the herd. We’re like a pack of gazelles, grouped together on the savanna, watching out for predators. When I see them on the TV nature shows, I imagine them talking to each other like people do, and they’re saying the exact same things: “How are you? I’m good. You good? I’m good. You good? I’m good…”
We do it because we’re social animals, and that’s a very good thing. The herd instinct evolved because every member of the group stands a better chance of survival if we are all looking out for each other. When someone asks, “How are you,” what they’re really asking is, “How are WE?” And furthermore, because every individual is part of the herd, what they’re really REALLY asking is, “How am I?”
I wonder what it would be like to switch the pronouns in our casual conversations? We’d walk by a total stranger in the street and ask, “How am I?” And they would respond, “You’re good.” It would be much more honest to do it that way, but that’s just not how our social discourse has evolved.
The truth is, even if we did switch it around like that, it still wouldn’t solve the underlying problem of looking for self-validation from other people. The upside of being a social animal, especially for gazelles, is that there is safety in numbers; the downside, especially for humans, is that we have a tendency to identify too strongly with the herd. We rely too much on other people to tell us who we are. So, we begin to think that how we appear, in the eyes of other people, is who we really are, in an ultimate sense.
And that is the question that we are really, REALLY, really asking when we meet each other on the street. The question on our lips is, “How are you,” but we’re really asking, “how are WE,” and we are really REALLY asking, “How am I,” and we are really, REALLY, really asking, “Who am I?” That’s the question that keeps us up at night.
Jesus of Nazareth understood this fact about human nature. That’s why he taught us, in today’s gospel, “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them” (Matthew 6:1). He knew full well that the human herd instinct, while helpful for survival, could not fully satisfy our inner longing to know ourselves. At best, it can help us maintain a sense of order and group solidarity; at worst, it can reduce morality and identity to the lowest common denominator of “keeping up appearances.” Jesus understood that what matters most is not how we appear on the outside but who we are on the inside, and that is something that the general herd of humanity cannot tell us.
This is why Jesus, in today’s gospel, gives such strong warnings against the hypocrisy that comes with praying, fasting, and giving alms in public. Each of these things is good, in itself, but if we only do it to gain the approval of other people, we miss the point of why we do it.
So Jesus says that, when we donate to a worthy cause, we should “not let [our] left hand know what [our] right hand is doing” (3). And when we pray, we should “go into [our] room and shut the door” (6). And when we fast, we should “put oil on [our] head and wash [our] face[s]” (17).
Jesus teaches us, “pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (6). He tells us to keep these things private, not because they are shameful, but because their performance for the sake of public approval causes us to miss their point. The purpose of these spiritual exercises is to help us look inward, rather than outward, for the answer to our most burning question: “Who am I?”
The forty days of Lent are the perfect time for us to take that honest look inside and find out who we are when no one else is looking. Traditionally, the Church has taught that Lent is a season of penitence, where we express sorrow for our sins. That is certainly part of it. Any honest look inside ourselves involves looking at those parts of our personality that we don’t like. But there’s more to it as well: An honest look inside of ourselves, away from the opinions of other people, leads us to embrace and celebrate parts of ourselves that we have kept hidden away out of fear that these aspects of who we are might not be acceptable to the people around us.
The season of Lent is a time when you can rediscover these parts of yourself and realize that this is how God made you, this is how God loves you, and this is how you reflect the image of God in a way that it is utterly unique to yourself. THIS is who you are. Embrace it, celebrate it, forgive it if you must, and love yourself the way God loves you, just the way you are.
Friends, I want to leave you tonight with a question. This is not a question I want you to answer out loud or right now. I want you to think about it. I want you to carry it with you through these forty days of Lent. I want you to ask yourself this question very seriously and deeply, and I want you to trust that whatever answer you come up with will be the right answer for you.
I figure I deprived you all of your guilty pleasure blog during Lent, so I at least owe you an explanation for how it went.
The short answer is that it went well. No TV, Facebook, or blog was quite healthy for me. We stopped having family dinners around the boob tube. My wife and I noticed an increased frequency of much-needed heart-to-heart talks. I was also able to reconnect with one of my dearest friends via email. We live less than half an hour away from one another and see each other at least once a week, but we never seem to have time to talk.
One unexpected bit fun is that I made leaps forward in my music that I’d been trying to accomplish for years. Back in college, I was really into the whole bleeding-heart Christian folksinger thing. But by the time I graduated, I was really sick of two things:
“Christian” music.
Four chords, three verses, chorus, and bridge.
I was turned on to Michael Hedges and U2. I had this idea in my head of a sound that combined fingerstyle acoustic guitar with chillout electronica. Over the years, I haven’t had the means to make this happen. A year or so ago, I started learning about synths and drum machines when I purchased an amazing software package called Reason 6. A little later on, I also invested in a Yamaha USB interface for my guitar. But I couldn’t get the interface to work right… until now.
Without the distraction of social media, I was able to put a lot of time and effort into it. I can remember the moment when the breakthrough happened. It was about 4:45 on a Thursday afternoon. The interface was finally operational (thanks to the correct software drivers, which took forever to find) and I loaded a kind of funky, Latin electronic riff I had started working on with my brother-in-law last year. The track had everything but a melody. When I started improvising over the top with my acoustic, it was like watching a solar eclipse. I never knew that something coming out of my hands could sound so good!
So that, Superfriends and Blogofans, is what made my Lenten exercise worthwhile.
However, since this season is supposed to be “spiritual” (whatever that means), I should probably say a few penitential words.
I caught myself (and was caught) cheating on the fast on more than one occasion. If anything, this exercise showed me just how addicted I am to this never-ending stream of digital information that pulses through my eyes to my brain. Even now, having been off the fast for over a week, I can still feel the dopamine hit I get every time I log on. I’m not kidding, it feels like I’m getting high. When I was off-line for extended periods of time, I got that anxious feeling like the room didn’t have enough air in it.
It’s well-known among those who fast that fasting never feels spiritual. You just feel like crap the whole time. What fasting does is highlight your inner struggles by taking away the addictive crutches you use to anesthetize yourself against the stress of living. It makes you face reality in all of its shitty splendor.
That never feels good, but if you stick with it, you gain a tremendous amount of insight and self-knowledge. You are so much more aware of what it is that you need to work on in your life. In the end, it’s a fruitful exercise, but it sure is no fun.
So yup, I’ve apparently got stuff to work on.
Thanks for sharing the journey with me!
“Tis’ grace hath brought me safe thus far and grace shall lead me home.”
Hidden in the annals of Christian history are stories we’d rather not tell.
The Church of Christ has not always done well at emulating the life and love of its Lord and Savior. As a matter of fact, we’ve been downright evil for much of the time. One need only mention the Crusades or the Salem Witch Trials to get an idea of what I’m talking about. One such example comes from the very roots of our own Presbyterian tradition:
Back in the 1500s, when John Calvin was preaching in the Swiss city of Geneva, a guy named Michael Servetus blew into town. He was on the run from the Catholic Church after being arrested for heresy and then breaking out of prison. Servetus was a Unitarian, meaning that he did not believe in the doctrine of the Trinity: the belief in one God, consisting of three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The fugitive Servetus made a bad choice in putting Geneva on his travel itinerary. John Calvin, whose opinions had a powerful influence on city politics, had no more love for Servetus than the Catholic authorities had. Calvin himself had previously written to a friend, “If [Servetus] comes here… I will never permit him to depart alive.” And Calvin made good on his threat. As soon as someone recognized Servetus attending worship at Calvin’s church, he was arrested, tried, and burned at the stake for heresy. Michael Servetus’ last recorded words were, “Jesus, Son of the Eternal God, have mercy on me.”
This is part of the dark side of Presbyterian history. John Calvin is still remembered as the founder of the Reformed Tradition, of which the Presbyterian Church is a part. In 1903, Calvin’s spiritual heirs in the city of Geneva erected a monument to the memory of Michael Servetus on the spot where he was burned. The inscription on that monument condemns Calvin’s error and acknowledges that the true spirit of the Reformation can only exist where liberty of conscience is allowed to flourish.
It’s too little, too late for Servetus, but the gesture acknowledges that we’ve at least made a little progress in half a millennium.
In so many of these cases of heresy trials and stake burnings, there is an oft-repeated label that has been misappropriated from the New Testament and applied to the opponents of established orthodoxy. That label is: “Enemies of the cross of Christ”.
You might have noticed that very phrase appearing in this morning’s reading from Paul’s letter to the Philippians. Paul wrote, “[M]any live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears. Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things.”
And just who are these “enemies”? Paul is not clear on that. At various points in church history, this term has been applied to Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Pagans, Unitarians, and basically anyone else who’s theological views differ from the person applying the label at the time. “Enemies of the cross of Christ” is a derogatory epithet used to identify others as “outsiders” and “heretics”. Most of the time, it has been applied to emphasize doctrinal differences between religious groups.
I believe that such use of this phrase does violence to its original meaning in Paul’s letter to the Philippians. You see, in that letter, Paul never suggests that one’s religious affiliation or theological orientation are determinant of one’s status as an enemy of the cross of Christ. For Paul, the truth goes much deeper than that: so deep, I would say, that the essence of this message can be found in the spiritual teachings of every mystic and every sage in every culture, every place, and every period of history. Paul’s message of the cross is the story of people graduating from their small, self-centered lives to the larger, reality-centered Life. Some have called it conversion, some salvation, some liberation, and some enlightenment. For Paul, as for most Christians, the central symbol for this process of transformation is the cross of Christ.
The cross is the single most recognizable Christian symbol in the world. Historically speaking, it was of course the instrument of torture and execution on which Jesus was killed. Symbolically speaking, Christians have attached multiple levels of meaning to its significance. Starting about a thousand years ago, a full millennium after Jesus was born, a British writer named Anselm of Canterbury came up with the idea that theologians now call “substitutionary atonement”. You might not have heard that phrase before, but you probably have heard some preacher on the radio or television saying, “Jesus died for your sins.” Substitutionary atonement is currently the most commonly known and accepted interpretation of the significance of the Jesus’ crucifixion, but the idea is only about half as old as Christianity itself.
In his letter to the Philippians, Paul presents an entirely different understanding of the cross. For Paul, the crucifixion event cannot be understood apart from the story of Christ’s resurrection. According to Paul, these two events form a unified whole. Neither one makes any sense without the other.
The crucifixion and resurrection, taken together, form the central image of the Christian spiritual journey. In the process of transitioning from a self-centered to a reality-centered life, every Christian must undergo a kind of death and resurrection. As Paul himself wrote elsewhere, in his letter to the Galatians, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.” Earlier in his letter to the Philippians, he writes in a similar vein:
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.
Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
In this early Christian hymn, Paul lays out the path of self-emptying, the path of the cross, which leads to resurrection and exaltation by God. And this, he says, is not only the journey of Jesus himself, but also of every Christian who claims to bear his name. Paul begins his hymn with the exhortation: “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus”.
A Christian then, in Paul’s eyes, is one who walks the path of the cross, who dies to the old, self-centered life and rises to the new, reality-centered Life. One could say that a Christian is a “friend of the cross of Christ”.
By contrast, those who are “enemies of the cross of Christ” are those who refuse to walk this path of metaphorical crucifixion and resurrection. The Buddha might call them “unenlightened”. Muhammad might call them “infidels”. Harry Potter would probably call them “muggles”.
What can we learn about these “enemies of the cross of Christ”? Well, since this status has more to do with one’s way of life than with one’s religious affiliation, I think we can say that they might belong to any tradition or no tradition at all. We’re just as likely to find them in pews as in bars.
Here’s what Paul has to say about them: “Their end is destruction; their god is the belly”. This is an interesting way of putting it. When Paul says, “their god is the belly” he obviously doesn’t mean their physical abdomens. The belly is where one’s food goes after it is consumed. The belly, in this sense, is the seat of desire. The people who refuse to let go of their small, self-centered lives are worshiping their own desires and addictions. What they want/need is most important to them.
For them, the primary concern is “my food, my money, my country, my church.” Everything is all about I, me, my. There is no big picture or larger context in which they see their lives. That which benefits them is universally good. That which hinders them is universally bad. In every story, these folks never fail to cast themselves as either the heroes or the victims. They’re always on the side of right. They have all the answers. Anyone who disagrees with them is a heretic who deserves to be burned at the stake. This is what self-centered worship looks like. These folks are what Paul refers to as “enemies of the cross of Christ.” There is no self-sacrifice for them. There is no denial of desire for the greater good. There is no responsibility beyond one’s responsibility to one’s own self. Self-centered existence.
What is the end result of this way of life? Paul says it quite clearly: “Their end is destruction”. This self-centered way of thinking and living can only lead to pain and death. This is not some mysterious, mystical idea. Think about it: what kind of world would this be if neighbors never went out of their way to help each other? What if friends and family never forgave each other? What if no one answered the call of charity or the obligation of justice for those who suffer? I don’t know about you, but that’s not a world I would want to live in. That selfish mentality can only lead to destruction, as Paul warns us.
The way of the cross is the way of sacrifice. Jesus could have called upon his mass of followers to rise up and fight if he so desired. Instead, he chose to walk the path of nonviolence. He chose to suffer pain, rather than cause it. He chose to die, rather than kill to protect what was rightfully his. In so doing, Jesus set himself apart from every other revolutionary movement leader of his time. His selfless sacrifice did not go unnoticed or unremembered. He left his followers with a symbol and an image that would change the way they look at the world.
Christ’s willing submission to crucifixion, according to Paul, is the basis for his sovereignty over all creation. For his followers, it is the model we follow for living our lives in the world. The end-result of crucifixion is not death, but resurrection. “Humiliation”, according to Paul, is transformed into “glory”. Followers of the way of Christ must befriend the cross because it is the only way into the “abundant life” that Jesus intended for us to have.
Paul’s warning about the “enemies of the cross of Christ” is not a wholesale condemnation of those who hold different theological views from Paul’s, or John Calvin’s, or mine. Paul’s warning applies to all of us, no matter what religion we espouse. With tears, Paul is pleading with us to realize that our little lives, ruled by our own selfish desires and preferences, lead only to destruction.
The flip side of Paul’s warning is that those who befriend the cross, who walk the path of self-sacrifice for the greater good, like Jesus did, are sure to receive resurrection, salvation, and enlightenment. These are the true saints, the blessed ones who discover the meaning of life. These are the real Christians: the friends of the cross of Christ.
May it be so for you, for me, and for all who seek the greater good, the life abundant, in the name (or the spirit) of Jesus Christ.
The past twelve months have been amazing for me on this blog. I’ve had two separate posts go semi-viral and catch the attention of some of the biggest movers and shakers in my denomination. Many of you have emailed me (and a few have even called) with encouraging words about what this blog means to you. Your words have kept me writing when I otherwise wanted to quit. Thank you.
I’ve come to see what I do here as part of my larger ministry in the world, no less significant than what I do from the pulpit on Sunday or in my classroom during the week. I have been especially touched by the messages left by those who self-identify as exiled or de-churched Christians. I hope that my presence in your life via this blog is part of your healing from the wounds of the past.
As social media occupy an increasingly central place in my life, I think it is imperative that I learn how to integrate them into my life in a harmonious and holistic way. Many others have voiced concerns about the effect that these media are having on our ability to communicate with one another. Our technology has outpaced our ethics. We need to occasionally step back and take stock of where it is that technology has brought us, how it is that we got here, and what it is that we want to do next.
I have noticed this technological imbalance in my own life. Whether I am at work or play, I spend most of my time in front of TV and computer screens. Things that need doing sometimes don’t get done because there’s just “one more thing” I want to watch or do online.
The liturgical season of Lent is, for me, a time for self-reflection and restoring the balance of life. During these next 40 days, I’ve decided to unplug from electronic entertainment and social media. I’ll be updating my blog with my weekly sermons and checking Facebook on Sundays (which don’t count as part of Lent). I’m also allowing myself to watch one half-hour TV show on Sundays because I don’t want to fall too far behind on the final season of The Office.
Other than that, you can find me reading a book, tuning my guitar, playing with my kids, and (believe it or not) cleaning my house. I hope to use this time to reflect on my relationship with technology and social media. I hope to return with a greater sense of clarity about what this technology is for and how it is that I wish to conduct myself in its virtual environment.
I’m not going totally off-grid, though: I’ll be checking email for professional purposes and answering the phone. If you need to talk to me for personal reasons, feel free to give me a call! I get the sense that I’ll be craving conversation.
I’ll see you again at Easter when this blog kicks back into action! Until then, make sure to check in weekly to read the sermons!
Three brothers grow up together in Dublin, Ireland. When they come of age and go off to make their way in the world, they make a pact: whenever they drink, they’ll always order three pints of Guinness, one for each brother. One of the brothers settles in New York, where he finds an Irish pub and becomes a regular. He explains the pact to the barkeep, who always knows to bring him three pints. Then, one fine day, the man comes in and asks for only two pints. The barkeep realizes that one of his brothers must have died.
“Condolences,” he says as he brings the pints over, “these are on the house, on account of your loss.”
“What are you talking about?” He says, “There’s no loss. I just gave up drinking for Lent!”
I think this guy has the right idea about Lent. He’s creative! He’s thinking outside of the box.
Traditionally, this is the season of the church year where they really turn on the guilt. A lot of people talk about “giving something up for Lent.” This tradition got started way back in the olden days when new church members (called “catechumens”) would spend several weeks spiritually preparing themselves for baptism on Easter Sunday. They would pray and fast for extended periods of time, sometimes intentionally going without food for days on end.
Eventually, this practice was extended to all Christians and has been watered down to the point where people symbolically try to break a bad habit or deny themselves some minor luxury, like chocolate, during the 40 days before Easter (as if going without M&Ms for a few weeks was really supposed to be spiritually empowering). Our scripture readings in church during this time tend to be a little more somber in tone. For example, Jesus starts his sermon in today’s reading from Mark’s gospel with a call for people to “repent.”
I don’t know about you, but that word (repent) stirs up some very specific mental images for me. Maybe it’s just because I grew up down south in the Bible Belt, but I have several memories of fiery preachers on street corners with signs that said things like, “Repent, sinner!”
These guys (they were usually male), had a knack for going into great detail about the pains of hell that awaited those sinners who would face the wrath of God on the Day of Judgment. The only way out, they said, was to repent. And by repent, they mean: convert to (our version of) Christianity and feel really, really sorry for all your sins. Do that, and maybe (just maybe) God won’t burn you in hell for eternity.
So, that’s their story. I think I want to tell a different one. I think we need to take a good, hard look at that word, repent, and see what it actually means, rather than let some fire-breathing preacher do the job for us. The word repent in Greek is metanoia, which literally means “to change the way you think.”
Do you remember that series of advertisements for Apple Computers that came out about ten years ago? They had pictures of all kinds of original geniuses like Albert Einstein, Jim Henson, Mahatma Gandhi, and Jane Goodall. And next to each person’s photo was the phrase: “Think Different.” To me, that’s what the word repent means: “Think Different.” Think outside the box. Get creative. Imagine new possibilities. “Explore strange, new worlds. Seek out new life and new civilizations. Boldly go where no one has gone before.”
So the, what is it that we’re supposed to “think different” about? Well, the full text of Jesus’ sermon from today’s gospel reading goes like this: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”
We’ve already talked about what “repent” means. What about the rest of it? As many of you already know, one of my favorite phrases in the entire Bible is, “the kingdom of God has come near.” A lot of folks like to think of “the kingdom of God” (a.k.a. “the kingdom of heaven”) as a happy place that exists way up on some cloud or in an alternate dimension where people go when they die, but that’s not how Jesus uses the phrase. Listen to what he says again, “the kingdom of God has come near.” Another way to translate “has come near” is “is at hand.” Let’s try something. If you’ve been hanging out here for a while, you’ve probably done this with me before, but we’ll do it again, just so the message sinks in. Hold your hand out in front of you and look at it. Jesus says, “the kingdom of God (heaven) is at hand.” How far away is heaven? As close as your own hand.
For Jesus, the kingdom of God is a present reality. It has to do with this world. The kingdom of God is Jesus’ vision of what this world would be like if God were allowed to be in charge instead of the powers that be. In a world where “might makes right,” Jesus has the audacity to stand up and say, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth” and “blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.” Remember the Berlin Wall? It stood for decades as a symbol of the barrier between democracy and communism. The powers that be on both sides of that wall had their guns and missiles pointed at each other around the clock. Do you remember how it came down in a single night in 1989? It didn’t happen because we Americans scared those Russians away with our big, bad nuclear weapons. It happened because one East German official mistakenly announced on TV that their borders were now open. Later that night, as people started lining up at the border, Harald Jaeger, a low-ranking border-guard, made the first decision to open his gate. People flooded through to the other side. Within days, the wall was torn down. Within a year, Germany was reunited. Two years after that, the great Soviet Union itself was gone. An entire generation of Americans and Russians was raised to believe that the Cold War would end with a mushroom cloud and the fulfillment of Mutually Assured Destruction. But it ended with dancing instead of marching, singing instead of marching, and the sound of champagne bottles being uncorked instead of the sound of gunfire. Who could have imagined such a peaceful resolution? “The kingdom of God has come near.”
Now, that’s a big-picture example. I think the kingdom of God comes near to us every day. Whenever we’re at the pharmacy, café, or supermarket and we look the server in the eye, “the kingdom of God has come near.” Whenever some jerk cuts you off in traffic and you don’t give him the finger or blow your horn out of spite, “the kingdom of God has come near.” Whenever two people in conflict sit down together and try their best to work it out, “the kingdom of God has come near.” Whenever your kid comes home and says, “Mom & Dad, I’m gay,” and the first words out of your mouth are, “I love you,” “the kingdom of God has come near.” Whenever your spouse is in the hospital and you’re standing by the bed, holding his/her hand and saying, “We’ll get through this,” “the kingdom of God has come near.”
Whenever aging parents agree to let their children hire in-home assistance for them, even though they don’t think they need it, but know that it will put their children’s minds at ease, “the kingdom of God has come near.”
The kingdom of God is a present reality. It’s Jesus’ vision of what this world could be like. He calls it “good news” and invites people to “believe in” it. Have you ever “believed in” something or someone? Maybe there’s some high school kid who is nervous before that big performance or big game and the coach or teacher says, “I believe in you.” It’s empowering, isn’t it? A statement like that can really make a difference in a kid’s life. And I don’t care how old you are, whether you’re age 9 or 90, we all still need to hear that from time to time: “I believe in you.” In the same way, you might donate your time and energy to cause you believe in: feeding the hungry, taking care of young kids, or helping underprivileged families have a Christmas. When you believe in it, you give yourself to it, and that makes a difference. Jesus called it “good news.” He invites all of us to believe in that good news: “the kingdom of God has come near.”
And that leads us back to that word, repent. It’s has nothing to do with guilt or fear. It has everything to do with thinking outside of the box. The great scientist Albert Einstein once said, “A new type of thinking is essential if [hu]mankind is to survive and move toward higher levels.” Jesus is inviting you today to embrace the mystery of imagination and participate in the miracle of creativity. Think different in order to make a difference. That’s the “good news” Jesus is inviting you to “believe in” and be part of: the kingdom of God come near, the kingdom of heaven-on-earth.
We pray for it every Sunday:
“Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
Here is a breathtaking animated short that Annie Grove found online. There is so much subtlety to love. I could go on gushing about it, but I think I’ll let the film speak for itself. Here’s to Lent!
Hopping Hadrian's Wall 