Preferring Nothing to Christ

ZION

For ZION was saying: ‘The Lord has abandoned me, the Lord has forgotten me.’ Does a woman forget her baby at the breast, or fail to cherish the son of her womb?

In the language of Isaiah the covenantal bond between God and the Israelites is often spoken about in relational terms. The chosen people are the object of God’s love and as a form of shorthand, they are referred to as Zion. In turn, Zion is used as a shorthand for Jerusalem.

Isaiah’s words in Ch 49 are spoken to a people in Exile. Hope in God’s plan has been replaced by feelings of despair and abandonment. Landless and living in an alien land they wonder if God is even aware of their plight. Re-assurance comes: God’s commitment to them and compassion for them are stronger and even more intense than that of a nursing mother. Zion can rest secure that her time of Exile is coming to an end.

We have reached the final stage of our Lenten journey and now we prepare to walk alongside Jesus in Jerusalem. Every promise made throughout the Old Testament now takes flesh on the wood of the cross. Like the Israelites, Jesus will experience a feeling of abandonment and like the Israelites, he will cry out. Jesus knows himself rooted in the Father’s love, in a love that will never forsake him.

How have you been aware of the Father’s love this Lent?

(Isaiah 49:8-15, Wednesday, Fourth Week of Lent)

YOUNGER

A man had two sons. The YOUNGER said to his father, ‘Father, let me have the share of the estate that would come to me.’

The hearers of Luke’s Gospel will have been familiar with the opening of this parable. In the literary conventions of the Old Testament, when a story starts with a man having two sons, it is usual to identify with the younger. We can trace a thread in the story of our salvation history through younger sons whose deeds, and at times, misdeeds, were part of the fulfilment of God’s promises. The human dynamics in the parable of the Prodigal Son cannot fail to touch our own experience. The younger son’s choice to go off into the world with his dreams and a bag of money always stirs me. His barefoot and bedraggled return to his father, portrayed so poignantly by Rembrandt, is fixed firmly in my biblical imagination.

What is less commonly portrayed is the son’s full restoration with robe, sandals and a ring. Every sign of the father’s acceptance and welcome is lavished on the younger son. The long sleeved robe is likely to be the best garment that the father has. The sandals mean that the father has restored him as a household member and not a slave. And the ring, likely used as a family seal, assures the son that his lineage is not in question. The son is now safe and secure in his father’s love. This love is to be celebrated with a feast.

How has God made his love known to you this Lent?

(Luke 15 1-3, 11-32. Saturday, First Week of Lent)

CHRIST JESUS
Ιησούς Χριστός

Make your own the mind of CHRIST JESUS: Who, being in the form of God, did not count equality with God something to be grasped.

There is a sense in which the whole of Lent is an opportunity to ‘make our own the mind of Christ Jesus.’ I hear in this quotation the implication that if my mind is like Christ’s then my heart and soul will be too. The pages of the Gospels give many different insights into the mind of Christ. How we absorb these texts and try to live them is the work of a lifetime. In the classical language of the spiritual life humility emerges as a significant theme. It’s a theme that is very easily misunderstood and caricatured.

The famous scene in the Nun’s Story where Mother Marcella asks Sister Luke to intentionally fail her exam to show humility, is etched on my mind. Thankfully, the reverse has been true in my own living of the Rule of St Benedict. Humility is not a negation of who I am, but a call to be my truest self. In Benedictine life it involves, amongst other things, putting others first and trying not to order things in a way which is easier for you. In community life you see this modelled around you. Little by little you can learn to live what is modelled. You can’t force it. You need space inside yourself for grace to work. In time you learn that humility is as much about learning to accept a compliment with grace as it is about putting the other first. It’s about becoming fully human.

How has Christ called you to be your true self this Lent?
(Philippians 2:1-11, Good Friday)

WHEAT GRAIN

Unless a WHEAT GRAIN falls on the ground and dies, it remains only a single grain; but if it dies, it yields a rich harvest.

As we come to the final weeks of Lent we might feel that our hopes and plans haven’t quite come to fruition. The Liturgy can gently nudge and prompt us to go a little deeper. It can also shock us into action too. This text from John’s Gospel always prompts me to go a little deeper. The imagery draws me in and I imagine fields and fields of golden wheat, stretching as far as the eye can see. It isn’t long before I am faced with the reality of what it means for a wheat grain to fall to the ground and die. As the wheat grain dies, so must I die to self.

On Holy Saturday at Lauds we sing these verses from the Byzantine liturgy:

How can you die, Christ our Life,
How can you lie in the tomb?
How can you die, Christ our Life,
How can you lie in the tomb?
By your death, you will destroy the power of death,
And you will raise the dead from their tombs.
Lord, you were like a wheat grain in the heart of the earth.
Lord, you were like a wheat grain in the heart of the earth.
The grain dies and the wheat springs up a hundredfold;
truly, you are our Bread and our Life.

In the starkness of our chapel on Holy Saturday these words go straight to the heart. Daunting as it may feel to confront the reality of dying to self, this pattern of dying and rising has already been imprinted on each of us at baptism. We are sealed and strengthened with Chrism and called to pattern our lives on Christ as priest, prophet and king. We carry within us the potential to die to self and embrace new life. Lent sharpens our focus. Each Lent the invitation is the same.

Which opportunities has Lent given you to die to self and to embrace new life?

(John 12: 20-33, Fifth Sunday in Lent)

VIRTUE

For I tell you, if your VIRTUE goes no deeper than that of the Pharisees, you will never get into the kingdom of heaven.

When I learnt the Catechism at aged seven I really enjoyed the pages where the Theological and Cardinal Virtues were listed. It all looked very neat and tidy and I would happily reel off the lists. Though I must admit I couldn’t make any great distinction between the Virtues and the Gifts and Fruits of the Spirit that were to be found on the same pages. When you are seven it all seems to come down to being good and trying your best.

When Jesus speaks of virtue I still hear those Catechism answers, but now I know that there is a whole world of meaning in what our text has rendered as ‘virtue’. What is at issue here is in fact a whole way of life. Jesus is asking us to live in such a way that our intentions, words and deeds are all in harmony. This is a picture of integration in its fullest sense. Outer performance or observance is to be in harmony with our hearts.

You may have got to this stage in Lent and feel that you have gone adrift. Lent offers us the opportunity to be intentional about living in an integrated way. Often it is the smallest shoots which bear fruit, so it is always worth paying attention to the tinniest shifts in our inner and outer worlds. We can keep tilling the soil and watering. One day we will notice a little shoot of grow.

How do you hear this text? Have you noticed any new growth in yourself this Lent?

(Matthew 5:20-26, Friday, First Week of Lent)

UNLEAVENED BREAD

The Israelites pitched camp at Gilgal and kept the Passover there on the fourteenth day of the month, at the evening in the plain of Jericho. On the morrow of the Passover they tasted the produce of that country, UNLEAVENED BREAD and roasted ears of corn, that same day.

One of the opportunities which Lent offers us is the chance to remember and retell the many ways in which God has been active in our lives. Remembering is writ through the pages of the Biblical narrative. These verses from the Book of Joshua remind us of the preparation in haste of bread without yeast, the Exodus from Egypt, and the keeping of Passover. These are primal memories for the Israelites and their retelling binds them in deeper communion.

The yearly eating of unleavened bread reawakened the memories of God’s decisive action in leading the Israelites from slavery to freedom. Some scholars see unleavened bread as pure, simple and humble. It’s a bread that is entirely new, using nothing of the old. I find this helpful.

In the New Testament we find more layers of meaning added to our understanding of unleavened bread:

Throw out the old yeast so that you can be the fresh dough, unleavened as you are. For our Passover has been sacrificed, that is, Christ;
let us keep the feast, then, with none of the old yeast and no leavening of evil and wickedness, but only the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. ( I Corinthians 5:7-8)

For St Paul we now are called to be unleavened bread. We are called to leave behind the old and, in Christ, become something entirely new.

How has Christ called you this Lent to leave behind the old and embrace the new?

(Joshua 5:9-12, Fourth Sunday in Lent, C)

THIRTY PIECES OF SILVER

They paid him THIRTY silver pieces, and from that moment he looked for an opportunity to betray him.

The figure of Judas looms large in Holy Week. Those thirty pieces of silver are lodged in our collective imagination through art, poetry and hymnody.

Stories of betrayal are always uncomfortable. Betrayal can happen in a matter of seconds. We can say or do something that we can never take back. Perhaps Judas stands for all of our moments of betrayal? Perhaps he stands for all the times we have ‘headed out into the night’? Perhaps he stands for all those times we have watched our hope die and made a wrong choice?

In the Orthodox tradition Judas features often in the hymnody of Holy Week:
Servant and deceiver, disciple and betrayer, friend and devil, Judas has been revealed by his deeds.

These pairings are so poignant. Judas and his thirty pieces of silver can function as a mirror for our own hearts. But we can have courage in the God of all mercy whose hands can hold every betrayal and who counts back each piece of silver.

How does the story of Judas speak to you this Lent?

(Matthew 26:14-25, Wednesday, Holy Week)

SHAKEN TOGETHER

Give, and there will be gifts for you: a full measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, will be poured into your lap; because the amount you measure out is the amount you will be given back.

I love this text. It opens up a whole world for me. I have spent much of my monastic life as the monastery cellarer and I have learnt the importance of how I measure. In the monastic kitchen you are always making substitutes and adjustments. There have been times when I haven’t been quite sure that there was enough to go round. It has pretty much always worked out and no one has gone hungry.

St Benedict urges the cellarer to be mindful that the food provision must be adequate for the needs of the community. The cellarer is to divide the portion of bread allotted to each monk so that it lasts through the day. This is good and loving common sense. But when it comes to love, this is not something that is to be measured and weighed out to the last gram. The love that St Benedict’s monks are to show is to be the ‘warmest love’, ‘selfless’, ‘humble and sincere.’ (Ch 72) This really is the love that is ‘pressed down and shaken together’.

The Gospel challenge for me today is to be the one who gives first and to make my full measure run over.

Where is Christ calling you to give a full measure this Lent?

(Luke 6:36-38, Monday, Second Week of Lent)

REPENT

The time has come and the kingdom of heaven is close at hand. REPENT, and believe the Good News.

The evangelist Mark is the most concise of the Gospel writers. In just four verses Jesus is baptised, goes into the wilderness and then emerges to begin his public ministry. There is an air of urgency and a sense that time is short.

Jesus emerges from his baptism and wilderness experience with a message that is uncompromising. His cry of ‘Repent’ is for deep and radical change where hearts are to be turned away from all that would hinder their love for God. Jesus echoes John the Baptist, who in turn echoed the Old Testament prophets who proclaimed the great day of reckoning, the Day of the Lord. With imagery of warfare and cataclysm the Old Testament prophets warn of a time when God will come to right all wrongs.

As the Gospel unfolds Jesus will show us by the way he lives, teaches and loves what it means to repent and to change our hearts. Lent can be a time when we take stock and look at the places in our lives where our hearts have become stuck and seem unable to turn. The Scriptures are there to guide us and to challenge us.

How is God calling you to a change of heart this Lent?

(Mark 1:12-15, First Sunday in Lent, B )

QUIVER

He made my mouth like a sharp sword, he hid me in the shadow of his hand. He made me into a sharpened arrow and concealed me in his QUIVER.

During the course of Lent and Holy Week we read from the parts of Isaiah which are known as the Servant Songs. The identity of the servant isn’t clear. Some say that it could be Isaiah himself, others Israel and others Cyrus, the Persian King whom God will use to liberate Israel. This uncertainty gives us a certain freedom when we come to interpret the text. When the Church uses these texts in Lent and Holy week we can hear them as foreshadowing Jesus. Handel’s Messiah has done much to plant this understanding in our collective biblical memory.

Isaiah 49 speaks powerfully of the servant’s preparation for service. The servant spends time concealed, away from the public gaze. We can imagine this as an intense time of testing and strengthening. His mouth is being made like a sharp sword and his whole being a sharpened arrow that is honed to perfection. The hidden years which Jesus spent in Galilee prepare him for his public ministry. We can imagine this as protected time, where family life and ordinary tasks all contribute to who he is.

How do you hear this text today? Do you have a sense of God concealing you and preparing you for something this Lent?

(Isaiah 49:1-6, Tuesday, Holy Week)