As God Sees

One day Sherlock Holmes, the great detective, and Dr. Watson, his assistant, went on a camping trip. They ate well, enjoyed a bottle of wine, and then lay down. Soon they were fast asleep. Some hours later, Holmes woke up. He nudged his faithful friend. “Watson,” he asked, “Look up and tell me what you see.” Watson replied, “I see millions and millions of stars.” Holmes then said, “Well, Watson, what does that tell you?” Watson thought a bit and then replied, “Astronomically, I observe that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, I see that Saturn is in Leo. Horologically, I deduce that the time is about a quarter past three. Theologically, I understand that God is all-powerful, and that we are small and insignificant. Meteorologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. Why, what does it tell you?” “Watson, you idiot,” Holmes replied, “Someone has stolen our tent!”1

It’s Laetare Sunday, also known as Refreshment Sunday or Rose Sunday, for the rose-colored paraments and vestments that are traditional for the day. Since we don’t have rose-colored paraments and vestments, we’re still using our purple paraments and vestments. Even so, we’re halfway through Lent. Just for today we can ease up on our Lenten disciplines and look forward to the joys of Easter. And because we anticipate Easter, today is also a traditional day to tell jokes, even in the midst of this solemn Lenten season.

Just as Holmes chided Watson for not seeing what he most needed to see, today’s Scripture invites us to question whether we are seeing what we most need to see. Is it possible that we might see the world around us differently? In our reading from the first Book of Samuel, we encounter a venerable servant of God, who learned to see differently. Samuel had served God since he was a young boy, since he first said to God, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” On God’s instructions, he had anointed Saul as king. When Saul failed to be the king the people of Israel needed, Samuel followed God’s instructions and sought a new king from the family of Jessie. Even though Samuel was able to hear God speaking, he still needed to be tutored by God in how to see. Wasn’t his first choice for the next king just the one we would make? Big, handsome, regal, yes? No, for “the Lord does not see as mortals see.” Wasn’t David, as the youngest, the least likely person to be the next king? Yes, yet God already foresaw the powerful leader that David would eventually become, and God taught Samuel how to see a little of what God saw in David.

In our Gospel story, it is the disciples who learn to see differently – at least we hope so – and the Pharisees who cannot or refuse to see differently. Walking along, Jesus and the disciples pass by a blind man. The disciples see the man and do what Watson did – or what we might do, or think when we see a beggar or homeless person. They see an “it.” They focus on the past and look for someone to blame for the man’s condition. They see a theological problem, an abstraction. Jesus models a different way of seeing. Jesus sees a human being, a “thou.” Jesus looks into the future and sees what the man might become. Jesus sees someone in need. Jesus looks for a way to transform evil, not just talk about it.

And then Jesus acts. He does something concrete to change the man’s condition. He doesn’t let himself get mired in process. He doesn’t wonder what the systemic reasons are for the man’s blindness or his need to beg. He doesn’t wonder why the man’s family isn’t taking care of him. He doesn’t wait to mix the mud paste until the man says he believes that Jesus can heal him. He doesn’t care that the Pharisees will criticize him for healing on the Sabbath. He sees someone who needs help, he takes action, and he enables the man to see.

The now-sighted man is, as we would be, ecstatic that he can see. When he finally finds Jesus again, he worships him. Unfortunately, the Pharisees have a different reaction. They are not impressed by Jesus’ healing of the blind man, and they are offended that Jesus healed on the Sabbath. Have they, as we often do, put God in a box? Are they unable to see beyond the lines of their dogma and tradition? Do they try to fit God into the confines of their own understanding, instead of seeing the sign that God might be doing something entirely unprecedented?

What do you see in this story? Are you like the disciples, willing at least to wonder what Jesus might be up to? Or are you more like the Pharisees, unable to believe that God might do things in an untraditional, unexpected way? I wonder what would happen if we could put aside our preconceived ideas about how things are and ask God to help us to see as Jesus saw, as God sees – even just a little.

Might we see ourselves differently? Might we be able to admit honestly who we are? We began our Lenten study series on forgiveness looking at the need for honest, intentional self-examination. This past week we talked about recognizing our enemies, both those people we actively dislike or believe wish to harm us and those elements of our own personality or lifestyle that we dislike. Is it possible that we are not seeing either our external or internal “enemies” clearly, or as Jesus sees them? Might we also admit how and where – and more often than we like – we miss the mark? Might we be able to ask God to open our eyes to those places in our lives we could begin to change?

By the same token, might we also be able to see ourselves as God’s beloved and gifted children? Think of all the images just from Scripture that remind us of how dear we are to God. We are like the protected sheep of today’s psalm, watched over by the Good Shepherd. We are the guests at God banquet, fed with the rich wines of Isaiah’s prophecy or with the bread and fish of the gospel accounts. We are the ones who are healed from our diseases by God, whose eyes are opened by God, and who are taught by God to have faith in God’s promises. We are those who in baptism were “sealed with the Spirit” and are now part of Christ’s body.

If we could see as Jesus saw, as God sees – even a little – might we also see others differently? If we knew our family and friends to also be God’s beloved children, might we be more understanding of them? Might our anger flare up less often? Might we treat our co-workers, our clients, those who wait on us, guests, and strangers as fellow human beings with real needs of their own? Might we be slower to judge those who look, talk, smell, or behave differently from us? Might we be more willing to take the practical steps needed to meet their needs for healthcare, housing, clothing, or work? Might we even see other faith communities differently? Might we be more willing to partner not only with those of other Christian denominations but with Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, or even with those of no religion, to begin addressing the world’s myriad needs? If we could see as Jesus saw, as God sees, might we be able to recognize signs of God’s presence in the world? Might we see that God is already working a transformation in us – if we would but cooperate?

One day people saw a blind man sitting by the steps of a building with a hat by his feet and a sign that read, “I am blind, please help.” A creative publicist came by and noticed that the blind man had only a few coins in his hat. He dropped a few coins in the man’s hat. Then, without asking the man’s permission, he took the sign, turned it over and wrote another message on it. Then he put the sign back by the man’s feet and left. That afternoon the publicist came back to check on the blind man. The blind man’s hat was full of bills and coins. The blind man recognized the publicist’s footsteps and asked if he was the one who had rewritten his sign. The blind man wanted to know what he had written on it. The publicist said, “Nothing that was not true. I just phrased your message differently.” He smiled and went on his way. The blind man never knew that his sign now read “TODAY IS SPRING AND I CANNOT SEE IT.”2

God is continually transforming us into Jesus’ likeness. As we trust in “the slow work of God,” perhaps we can also begin to comprehend the work to which we have been called as members of Christ’s body. As Teresa of Avila, one of the great Christian mystics reminded us,

Christ has no body now on earth but yours,
No hands but yours, No feet but yours,
Yours are the eyes through which is to look out
Christ’s compassion to the world;
Yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good;
Yours are the hands with which he is to bless men now.3

1. Told in Synthesis, March 30, 2014.
2. Ibid.
3. Parminder Singh Summon, Summon’s Compendium of Days (New York: Seabury, 2007), 96

Living Water

Picture yourself in Tucson. The city rests on a desert plateau about 2100 feet above sea level. It is surrounded on three sides by mountains that rise to over 9,000 feet. Unlike the Sahara of our imaginations – endless miles of rolling white sands – the desert here contains many varieties of plant and animal life. Saguaro cacti and other succulents rise high above the desert floor. Palo Verde and Mesquite trees provide a little shade, and hummingbirds twitter everywhere. The light in Tucson, like most of the desert southwest, is astonishingly clear and bright, and there are twice as many sunny days as cloudy ones. What you might not notice, until you begin to get dehydrated, is that the air in Tucson is very dry, indeed dangerously dry. Every work truck carries the familiar orange barrel-shaped water coolers. Open up almost anyone’s fridge and you’ll find plastic jugs filled with water, that are constantly being refilled. On the back patio there will inevitably be a gallon jug of tea baking in the sun. And when you sit down to lunch, or perhaps just to visit, you’ll drink at least three glasses of the chilled iced tea or some other drink. You can survive in Tucson without central heating, you can even survive without central air conditioning – the first evaporative coolers only became affordable in Tucson in the late 1940s. But you cannot survive in Tucson without water. It is absolutely necessary to life.

Now picture yourself in Samaria, near a well on the outskirts of Sychar. Here too the climate is desert-like and very dry. Here too you can’t survive without water. It’s noon. Trudging up to the well is a lone woman, shunned and ridiculed by the other village women, who would have come earlier, while it was still cool. The woman desperately needs water for herself and her male companion. To her surprise she meets a tired, dusty, Jewish man, who breaks all the rules and asks her for a drink. “What,” she says, “You’re kidding, right?” Then, to her astonishment, he tells her that if she knew with whom she was speaking she would have asked for “living water.” She knows her sacred geography and history, so she presses the stranger about this water. And again he astonishes her by telling her that all those who drink the water he provides “will never be thirsty,” and, indeed, that this water will become “a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”

What on earth is this “living water?” To begin with the expression translated “living water” can also mean “fresh, running water,” as opposed to water in a cistern. But what kind of water is Jesus offering? Actually, we don’t have to look much farther than the Hebrew Bible to get some clues. In today’s lesson from Exodus, the water gushing out from the stony rock becomes a symbol for God’s continuing care for God’s people – despite their tendency to whine, complain, and drive Moses nuts! Elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, Jeremiah speaks for God and, accuses the people of choosing cracked cisterns instead of the “fountain of living water,” i.e., God himself (2:13). Similarly speaking for God, Isaiah promises the exiles that when they return to Israel they will “draw water from the wells of salvation” (12:3). Isaiah also voices God’s promise to guide the returning exiles “by springs of water” (49:10) and God’s invitation to all who thirst to “come to the waters” (55:1). Ezekiel tells us of the beauties of the restored Temple with a lush description of the life-giving river flowing from the Temple. Ultimately, water symbolizes the source of life and Spirit for all creatures. Jesus is heir to this rich Scriptural tradition, and so he reminds the woman – and the hearers of this Gospel – that our relationship with him is absolutely necessary for life, and that through him, we have access, deep within ourselves, to the life-giving action of the Spirit.

There’s more. Jesus’ “living water” transforms us. It is not meant to make us feel good. Instead, Jesus’ living water transforms us into people who are like him. Look at how Jesus related to the Samaritan woman. Jesus reached out to her across every social barrier – gender, religious practice, morality, and ethnicity. He accepted her, instructed her, encouraged her, and loved her. He gave her dignity, even though those around her surely abused her, because she had transgressed the rules of proper living. When the woman was touched by Jesus’ loving acceptance, she could turn around and offer Jesus’ love to others. Running off and leaving her water jug, she ran to the neighbors who had shunned her and invited them into Jesus’ presence. Empowered by Jesus, she became the first evangelist!

Can we experience the transformative power of Jesus’ living water? In The Bean Trees, a hauntingly beautiful novel set largely in the southwest, Barbara Kingsolver relates the story of Taylor Greer, a native Kentuckian who winds up in Tucson with a Cherokee child. One day, just at the beginning of the summer rains, Taylor goes into the desert with Mattie and Esperanza, two of the assorted friends she makes. Mattie mentions that for the ancient Native Americans, today is New Year’s Day. “What?” exclaims Taylor, “July the twelfth?” Mattie explains that “they celebrated it on whatever day the summer’s rain first fell. Everything started over then,” she said. They planted crops, the kids ran around naked, and “they all drank cactus-fruit wine until they fell over from happiness. Even the animals and plants came alive again when the drought finally broke.”1

So do we have to go to the desert southwest to experience the power of living water? Aren’t we also thirsty? Like the Samaritan woman at the well, aren’t we also thirsty for love and acceptance? Aren’t we thirsty for real, authentic life? Don’t we, as John Lawrence suggested,2 often go after water that doesn’t really satisfy us? “There are,” he says, “the more obvious wells” of alcoholism and drug addiction, the “forever running sluice of poverty and hunger.” Perhaps we drown ourselves in our work – paid or unpaid – only to neglect our health, our families, our neighbors, and our God. Jesus promised the Samaritan woman that “those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty.” Jesus says the same thing to us – to all of us, me, you, the clergy, the bishops, the alcoholics downstairs. Irenaeus, the second-century Bishop of Lyons reminded us that “The Church is the fountain of the living water that flows to us from the heart of Christ. Where the Church is, there is the Spirit of God, and where the Spirit of God is, there is the Church and all grace.”

So the question remains. How do we experience this living water? We experience this living water in the same way that the Samaritan woman experienced it: by opening ourselves to Jesus’ presence. Although Jesus is present to us everywhere we seek him, for some of us, he may be more present in especially sacred places: old churches or pilgrimage places. Others of us might sense his presence in nature: in spectacular sunsets or on our daily walk. For others, Jesus is present in “thin places,” where the veil is parted and we suddenly sense that Jesus is standing beside us – as I did this week praying with a family whose loved one was dying. Many of us – hopefully all of us – see Jesus in the Eucharistic banquet, when we sense ourselves sitting at table with him and his friends as we receive his Body and Blood.

And when you are centered in the Lord, his water will flow through you. When his water flows through us into a parched and thirsty world, we can ourselves follow our Master, and offer our love to those whom Jesus loved, to those who are marginalized, who are poor, sick, needy, or addicted. Would you like a concrete way to ensure that people everywhere have access to the safe, clean water? Providing access to clean water is one of the major program areas of Episcopal Relief and Development. Closer to home, dare we let Jesus’ living water touch those who are not a part of this community? Later this spring, we hope to offer living water to those who wish to worship “in spirit and truth,” but who cannot, for any number of reasons, join us in this sanctuary. The church will leave the building – to share its living water with those who thirst.

As we prepare for Street Church and our other ministries here is a simple way to practice the presence of God.3 It is given to us by Edwina Gately. In week 27 of 52 ways to practice God’s presence, Gately prays,

The rain is falling
like millions of silver jewels
shining against
the black of the night
to be absorbed
by the thirsty soil.
May your grace, O God,
fall upon
our dried humanity
unceasing.
May we absorb
your moistness
that our dried up hearts
may rise and swell to bursting.

And here is her invitation: “As you water your plants or flowers, imagine God’s grace watering your soul.” May we, like our plants, drink deeply of God’s living water.

1. As quoted in Sundays and Seasons (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 2007, 115.
2. Quoted in Synthesis, March 27, 2011 (Boyds, MD: Brunson Publishing Co.).
3. A Mystical Heart (New York: Crossroad, 1998), 66-67.

Journeys

First, let’s hear some more of the story. The last we heard of Abraham’s story was, “So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him.” Actually, other people went too, so here’s a little more of the story. “Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. Abram took his wife Sarai and his brother’s son Lot, and all the possessions that they had gathered, and the persons whom they had acquired in Haran; and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan. When they had come to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh…. Then the Lord appeared to Abram, and said, ‘To your offspring I will give this land.’ So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. From there he moved on to the hill country on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar to the Lord and invoked the name of the Lord. And Abram journeyed on by stages towards the Negeb” (Gen. 12:4-9).

Abraham heard God’s call to move. Imagine it. He was seventy-five. Sarah was perhaps ten years younger. Although they had no children, they must have had many servants, animals, tents, cookware, clothing, and other possessions. They had lived all their lives in one place, among family and friends. They had welcomed their nieces and nephews, their great nieces and great nephews. They had walked their flocks and herds over the same hills and valleys for decades. They were respected elders in their clan. Now they were called to gather the flocks and herds, pack up all their goods, say their good-byes, and literally walk away. They faced a perilous journey. Would they survive the desert heat, the wild animals, and the bandits? Would they find sufficient food and water? And where was “the land that I will show you?” And all this on the strength of an absurd promise: “I will make of you a great nation.” Can’t you just imagine Abraham answering God, “You haven’t even given me kids. You’re going to make me a ‘great nation?’”

But, amazingly, they went. What a lot of courage, moxie, and faith, that journey must have taken. At each place along the way they stopped and recognized God’s presence with them. Did they eventually come to see that God was with them everywhere? On this arduous journey, did their trust in God deepen? Did the physical move from Ur to Canaan also turn out to be a spiritual journey? We’ll never know. We do know, though, that they continued to wander for some years, that they received God’s promise a second time, that Abraham argued with God, that they entertained angels unawares, that Sarah finally gave birth to Isaac, and that Abraham was even willing to sacrifice Isaac at God’s call. Ultimately, their story is too far back in time for us to know much more. Even so, God fulfilled God’s promises. Abraham did become a great nation, and he has become a paradigm of faith for three of the world’s major religious traditions.

Nicodemus was also on a journey, a journey that was more spiritual than physical. Imagine, if you will, what this visit to Jesus must have been like for Nicodemus, what courage it must have taken him to venture out. He was a respected elder of the Pharisees, a community that deeply revered the covenant that God had made with the Jews at Sinai and that tried diligently to live according to their understanding of the Law of Moses. No wonder Nicodemus came by night. He would have had much to lose if he had been seen by his fellows. Did he have to psych himself up for it? What excuse did he give his family for venturing out so late?

Even though he was a leader of his community, Nicodemus treated Jesus with great respect. Jesus was not of the priestly or scholarly clans, and had not been formally ordained, yet Nicodemus addressed him as “Rabbi.” He even acknowledged that Jesus had given signs that he had “come from God.” Nicodemus was clearly a spiritual seeker. And he wanted to know concretely who Jesus was and what God was up to.

Did Nicodemus get a straight answer to his query? Almost like a Zen master, Jesus challenged the realist Nicodemus, answering him in what surely sounded – and still sound – like riddles. Jesus invited Nicodemus to begin a journey of reflection and spiritual transformation. As the image of physical birth suggests, it would be a painful and arduous journey. It would be a journey as risky spiritually as Abraham’s journey was physically, and with an equally unknown destination. It would be a journey that would move Nicodemus beyond the certainties of the law toward recognition of God’s love for all people, Jews and Gentiles alike.

Did Nicodemus get it? It’s hard to tell from the gospel account, since the evangelist moves the camera away from Nicodemus and instead has Jesus launch into a lengthy speech. However, Nicodemus comes into the story twice more, when he later defends Jesus before the Sanhedrin, and then after Jesus’ death when he provides spices for Jesus’ burial. Some think that he then became a respected leader of the fledgling Christian community. Whether or not he did, with his courage in approaching Jesus, his questions, his confusion, and his honest seeking, Nicodemus too has become a paradigm of the spiritual life, especially of the transformation that an encounter with Jesus can provoke.

Wally Underwood was also on a journey, though he didn’t know it at first. As Fr. Lenny Stephens was enjoying a rare quiet evening at home, Wally’s eldest daughter Val knocked on Lenny’s door. After introducing herself, she announced to an astonished Lenny, “The baby, Father, the baby … the baby needs doin.’ Mum said I should get it sorted. So, here I am, wi’ the baby, to see when she can be done.” Finding his voice, Lenny got the baby’s name, Madonna Cheryl, asked when she’d been born, and got other needed details. Then he asked about Madonna’s father. “No idea,” was the unembarrassed reply. ‘Whoever he is’ll do nothin’ anyway. So no point in tryin’ to find out. Baby’ll just be part o’ the family, so ma mum says.” “Who can come with you to church and stand with you,” Lenny asked, “if there’s no father for the baby?” “Oh, that’s no bother,” Val replied. “Ah’ll tell ma dad to come.”

And so Madonna’s grandfather Wally Underwood showed up at church the following Sunday. He was a sight quite unlike anyone Lenny had seen before: rumpled suit, three-days growth on his face, hair only partly plastered down, and horn-rimmed glasses repaired with the proverbial Band-Aid. On subsequent Sundays, he fell asleep during the sermons, though he did wake up for the offering. He stood up and sat down at the wrong time, until he learned the system from the gracious folks who were always ready to help him. At the appropriate time Wally stood proudly beside his daughter on the day Madonna Cheryl Underwood was finally “done,” as the family had wished.

Val Underwood never came back to the church. But Wally did, even when he didn’t have to. He was still unshaven, and his suit was still rumpled. He began to stay awake for the sermons, and he joined a parish men’s group. He came to the annual parish retreat – in his rumpled suit. He became part of the church family.

Fr. Lenny was enjoying another rare quiet evening at home, when there came a knock on his door. It was Wally. “Wally,” Lenny asked, “what brings you here? Everything all right?” “Sure, everythin’s sorted, Father. It’s just that I needed to ask you something.” “Ask away,” Lenny replied. “Well, it’s like this,” Wally continued, “I heard you say in church on Sunday that there was to be a Confirmation Class soon, and I wondered if it would be OK to come along.”

We are on a journey. Like the characters in all our stories, we are on physical and spiritual journeys. All of us are experiencing the physical changes wrought by time on our bodies. Many of us have moved physically, to new places, new jobs, new relationships, and new church communities. We understand the fear and courage such moves entail. As we make these changes, like Abraham we too discover that God is part of the transformations occurring in our lives. Many of us are also like Nicodemus. We wrestle with things of the Spirit. We wish for more clarity than we have, more certainty that we are in the right place spiritually. We know how difficult spiritual growth and transformation are. And some of us are like Wally. One day the Spirit reaches out to us and begins pulling us along to a perhaps unexpected place. And finally we find ourselves asking, perhaps timidly, “Would it be OK if I came along too?”

We can count on this: God will continue to lead us. Ultimately we can trust that God’s love is greater than anything we can imagine, and with Jesus as our travelling companion we will reach our final destination in God.

On Retreat

We are on retreat. On Ash Wednesday, I suggested that we might think of Lent as a time for all of us to be on retreat, a time for the church to withdraw from business as usual and seek a deeper relationship with God. How many of you have actually been on a retreat? I don’t mean what is called a “retreat” in corporate or academic circles. Those are usually just extended business meetings that happen to take place in a hotel or resort, where you have drinks and good meals instead of the usual coffee and doughnuts, and where the emphasis is often on “team-building.” True retreats are just the opposite of business “retreats.” They usually take place at retreat houses, perhaps monasteries or convents, with simple accommodations and meals. They can be corporate, but they emphasize vertical, not horizontal ties, i.e., our relationship with God rather than with each other. They are mostly silent. Many last a week, although some, especially those focused on the spiritual exercises of Ignatius of Loyola, can last for thirty days.

My own first silent retreat was for two and half days at the convent of the Community of the Transfiguration, an Episcopal order of nuns whose motherhouse is in Glendale, near Cincinnati. That retreat was simply one of unstructured prayer and reflection. Since then, I have made two week-long silent retreats, both at Our Lady of the Pines, a Catholic retreat house in Fremont, Ohio. I will return there again this summer. Often we make retreats like these for discernment, i.e., we go asking God’s help with a decision, a question, or a request. And they usually include daily spiritual direction, i.e., conversation with a wise guide who can help us discern how God is acting in our lives. In the right place, with the right spiritual guide, such a week can be life-changing, or, at the very least, a deep experience of God’s presence and grace.

Jesus was on retreat. Just like all those who go to the desert, a monastery, or a retreat house surrounded by a pine forest, Jesus was on retreat. All three synoptic gospels record that he was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness. If you remember the video we watched during Lent last year, “In the Footsteps of Jesus,” you remember the barren hills above Jerusalem that Jesus must have wandered through and the caves where he must have spent the night while he was on retreat. Why, immediately after his baptism in the Jordan River, did the Spirit send him on retreat?

In the church, we tend to focus on Jesus’ divinity. After reciting “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God,” in the Nicene Creed, most of us slide right over “and was made man,” i.e., became a human being. We forget that Jesus really, truly, was a human being, and that he might have wrestled with doubts and questions about his identity and vocation, just as we do. If indeed Jesus was truly human, then he too entered into discernment as he hiked the Judean hills. As he sought God’s presence in deeper silence, perhaps he also sought to discern more clearly God’s will for him. Perhaps he especially wished to understand the words he had heard after his baptism, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” What could it mean to be God’s Beloved Son?

What might it been like for Jesus out there in the barren hills? Perhaps he had taken a knapsack with him. Well before forty days were past, though, he would surely have run out of the food he had brought with him. The caves might have provided shelter but little comfort, even if he had a blanket with him. Could he have bathed or washed his clothes? Unlike those of us who make retreats with others, Jesus was utterly alone. Perhaps he was also spiritually bereft. Perhaps he was experiencing a “dark night of the soul.” Perhaps he felt that God had utterly abandoned him. Perhaps he felt paralyzed, unable to discern what lay ahead and what might be demanded of him.

Mark provides no detail about what Jesus actually experienced on his wilderness retreat. Matthew and Luke suggest that, in this exhausted state, Jesus grappled with three deep questions, three temptations, if you will. The first question was whether he should be a miracle worker. Should he use his God-given powers to create food and other material objects? Should heal everyone who was sick? Should he exorcise all the demons that plagued people? The second question was whether he should call on God’s protective power to keep him safe from all harm. And the third question was whether he should seek to defeat the powers that be through exercise of superhuman political power. In other words, was Jesus really willing to be fully human? As Debie Thomas suggests, “If those forty days in the wilderness was a time of self-creation, a time for Jesus to decide who he was and how he would live out his calling, then here is what the Son of God chose: deprivation over power. Vulnerability over rescue. Obscurity over honor. At every instance in which he could have reached for the certain, the extraordinary, and the miraculous, he reached instead for the precarious, the quiet, and the mundane.” This is the paradox of Easter, she reminds us: that “Jesus’ ‘free gift’ to humankind is rooted not in his power but in his sacrifice.”1

Perhaps, just perhaps, Jesus didn’t come to an understanding of his vocation all at once. Perhaps it took him forty – or more – days of wrestling with it for him to understand his vocation and truly embrace it. However, the Gospel accounts tell us that, once his initial time of discernment was completed, he emerged from his retreat willingly embracing his human limitations and his vocation, and ready to follow God’s lead wherever it took him.

We are on retreat. We have not physically removed ourselves from our ordinary lives. We have not come away to a retreat house, although I heartily recommend the experience of extended retreat for anyone who has the chance to do it. We are not in silence, although silent prayer and contemplation are always commendable. But we do have the gift of Lent to go on a kind of retreat. We can perhaps let go, for a time at least, of those things that distract us from God. We can think about how we might simplify our lives. Even if all you do is clean out a closet or a drawer, or say no to some obligation that no longer feeds your spirit, or say the short form of prayer at the end of the day, you have come closer to a simpler life. We can take advantage of the opportunity to grow in faith together, through our Lenten study sessions. Most important, we can attempt to discern more clearly where God might be leading us.

So here’s my invitation to you. Go on a virtual retreat. Follow Jesus into the wilderness. Take some time today to think or pray about what you might want to discern during this Lent. What question do you want to ask of God? What do want to request from God? With what decision do you seek God’s guidance? Write down somewhere, perhaps in a journal, your question, request, or object of decision. Find some extra time in your day or week to pray about it, and to deepen your trust in God’s leading. At the end of Lent, see whether you have any clarity about what is on your heart. If you need any special help with discernment, there are many different materials out there, which I’ll be happy to recommend. I can also provide, or direct you to, appropriate sources for spiritual direction and retreat centers. If it is helpful, use this prayer, perhaps even daily. Let’s pray it together.

O Lord
I do not know what to ask you.
You alone know my real needs,
and you love me more
than I even know how to love.
Enable me to discern my true needs
which are hidden from me.
I ask for neither cross nor consolation;
I wait in patience for you.
My heart is open to you.
For your great mercy's sake,
come to me and help me.
Put your mark on me and heal me,
cast me down and raise me up.
Silently I adore your holy will
and your inscrutable ways.
I offer myself in sacrifice to you
and put all my trust in you.
I desire only to do your will.
Teach me how to pray
and pray in me, yourself.2

Most important, accept God’s gift of Lent. Let God’s gift of Lent draw you into fuller acceptance of Jesus’ humanity and your own. Let God’s gift of Lent lead you into a deeper understanding of the One whom we profess to follow. Let God’s gift of Lent draw you closer to God’s heart and more deeply into God’s love.

1. “My Flannel-Graph Jesus,” Journey with Jesus, March 9, 2014, http://www.journeywithjesus.net/
2. Vasily Drosdov Philaret, c. 1780 – 1867, http://www.cptryon.org/prayer/special/discern.html

Turning Points

We are at a turning point. We are certainly at a turning point in the liturgical year. We are completing the first great cycle of the Christian year, the Advent-Christmas-Epiphany cycle, which begins in December as we contemplate Jesus’ second coming, continues through the twelve days of Christmas tide, and culminates in the glimpses we get of Jesus’ true identity during the weeks of Epiphany tide. This coming week we will enter the second great cycle of the Christian year, the Lent-Easter-Pentecost cycle, during which we will walk with Jesus to Jerusalem, experience both his death and rising to life again, and give thanks to God for the gift of the Holy Spirit. Finally, during the long season of Pentecost, which stretches from early June through early December, we will grow and mature in our faith.

We’re also at a turning point in our contemplation of Jesus’ story. Although we’ve heard the story somewhat out of sequence, we celebrated the events surrounding Jesus’ birth, and we were with him and his family as old Simeon and Anna recognized him as God’s anointed one. When he emerged from his years of obscurity we were with him at his baptism. We heard him call Peter, Andrew, James, and John out of their lives as fishermen into new lives as his apprentices. We’ve heard portions of his sermons and teachings as the evangelist wove them together. When Jesus asked Peter, “But who do you say that I am?” perhaps we weren’t shocked when Peter blurted out, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” But then, when Peter tried to dissuade Jesus from mentioning the Cross, perhaps we were stunned as Jesus rebuked Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block ….”

Now the story changes direction. After today, Jesus will turn his face toward Jerusalem. He has already mentioned the Cross and rebuked Peter for trying to dissuade him from going to Jerusalem. From here he will set his face toward the holy city, toward his triumphal entrance into the city, his last meal with his friends, his agony in the garden of Gethsemane, his trial before the Jewish and Roman leaders, and his execution as a criminal.

At this turning point in the story, three of Jesus’ apprentices follow him up a mountain. There they have a great vision, and they see him as he truly is. Once they knew him as a man just like themselves. Now they see him in all his glory. Now the disciples know that they were right to leave all they most loved to follow Jesus. Now they understand that Jesus is the fulfillment of all the old prophecies, and that to be like him is the goal of all the myriad laws that make up God’s covenant with the Jews. Now they hear that he is both God’s beloved and their own guiding star. Did they also have a foretaste of the true end of the story? Did they sense in their vision of Jesus that the story would not end with Jesus’ death on the Cross? Did they get an inkling of the possibility that in his second coming Jesus would look as he did then? Whatever they sensed, they tried to capture the moment of their great vision. But Jesus was way ahead of them. “Can’t be done,” he said. “Get up. We need to go back down. We need to face what awaits us down there. Just don’t tell anyone what you experienced up here until the whole story has played out, and you truly understand what you saw today.”

The gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke all relate Peter, James, and John’s great vision at the turning point of the story. Yet no one knows for sure what really happened. We only know that somehow the vision confirmed Peter’s confession. Perhaps Peter, James, and John told the rest of Jesus’ closest friends. Perhaps knowledge of that vision, even if they had no clue what really happened, sustained them through the walk to Jerusalem and the dark days of Jesus’ execution.

Ultimately, though, no one can really talk about a vision like the one the disciples had. No one can really understand them or fix them in stone. There are truly experiences of God’s presence, whether in visions or in worship, that elude our understanding, and that we simply cannot express in words, or even pictures. Barbara Brown Taylor relates a story told by the physicist Niels Bohr.1 It seems that a young rabbinical student heard three lectures by a famous rabbi. He related to his friends that, “The first talk was brilliant, clear and simple. I understood every word. The second was even better, deep and subtle. I didn’t understand much, but the rabbi understood it all. The third was by far the finest, a great and unforgettable experience. I understood nothing, and the rabbi didn’t understand much either.” God’s presence is inexpressible; God literally takes our words away.

Jesus’ first followers were certainly not the only ones who had great visions. The Desert Fathers and Mothers had visions after they left Alexandria and the other cities behind for the solitude of monastic communities. Francis of Assisi had a vision of Jesus in the Church of San Damiano, in which Jesus commanded him to rebuild his church. As Julian of Norwich lay mortally ill she had visions of Jesus’ Passion, of the Trinity, and of God as our great lover. She spent the next twenty years of her life reflecting on her visions and attempting to express their depth and meaning for her. Martin Luther King, Jr., had his own mountain top vision, foreseeing, ahead of his time, the possibility of racial equality and justice in this country.

Many of us have also had such numinous experiences. Perhaps you felt God’s presence as you walked deep into a forest, or as you stood on a cliff looking out at the miles and miles of rocks and boulders below you. Perhaps you had a vision of Jesus as you sat in a quiet church, meditating on the stained glass windows or humming a familiar hymn. Perhaps you felt yourself drawn into the mystery of the Eucharist and knew yourself sitting at that long-ago table with Jesus and his friends. Perhaps you heard God speaking to you in the silence of your own prayer. Perhaps a psalm phrase leapt out at you as you read one of the daily offices. Perhaps a reading from Scripture caught you off guard, and you knew yourself directly addressed by God. All of sudden, you found yourself in a “thin place,” where the veil that separates us from the divine was suddenly lifted, where the cloud that conceals God’s reality was momentarily parted.

When we have such experiences, we too try to capture the moment. We may want to photograph the wonderful natural scene. We may want to journal about what we experienced in the church, in worship, or in prayer. We may want to use the psalm as a talisman, repeating it whenever we need assurance of God’s reality. Ultimately, Jesus says the same thing to us that he said to his friends. “Can’t be done,” he reminds us. “Get up. We need to go back down. We need to face what awaits us down there.”

And the reason is this: God gives us mountain-top experiences – or quiet pew experiences – so that we can be transformed. After we have had a vision of God’s reality we see the world and ourselves differently. You cannot go along doing the same old same old once you have glimpsed the nearness of God’s kingdom. When you have glimpsed Jesus’ true identity, your faith and confidence are deeper, and you have deeper trust in your ability to face whatever it is you must face.

Scottish writer Tom Gordon tells the story of a performance of Handel’s “Messiah” that almost didn’t happen. Everything that could go wrong did. Coming home after rehearsals that seemed to go nowhere, with choir members at odds with each other, Morag felt as if she were on a mountain climb with no end in sight. She needn’t have worried. On the night of the performance, the choir scaled the mountain. The performance was glorious. No one knew quite why. Was it the quality of the paid soloists? Was it the beaming smile of the former director sitting in the very first row? Was it somehow the work of God’s Holy Spirit? After the performance was over, and most of the musicians and singers had left, Morag sat in the dressing room, staring into space. “Not going home?” one of the tenors asked. “I don’t want to go home,” she replied. “I’d like to stay here, to hold on to this feeling for as long as possible. This is too good to let go.” The tenor smiled. “Aye, lass, it was good right enough. But you can’t stay here forever – none of us can. We’ll remember tonight for sure, and we’ll get a buzz out of our memories when we think back. But it’s time to go now. And there’ll always be another year.”2

We are at a turning point, a turning point from life as we knew it to life as Jesus’ friends. What visions of divine reality come to you in this place? When you have felt the nearness of God’s kingdom, will you go back down the mountain to be a healing presence to those around you?

1. From The Luminous Web (Boston: Cowley Publications, 2000), 79, quoted in Synthesis, 27, 3, March 2, 2014.

2. “I Want to Stay,” Welcoming Each Wonder (Glasgow, Wild Goose Publications, 2010), 87-89.