Preferring Nothing to Christ

Now on the first day of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus to say, ‘Where do you want us to make the preparations for you to eat the passover?’ ‘Go to so-and-so in the city’ he replied ‘and say to him, “The Master says: My time is near. It is at your house that I am keeping PASSOVER with my disciples.”

The shared memory and dynamic of the Passover is something which frames the Liturgy of the Word during Lent. Through the Old Testament readings we are invited to embark on the demanding wilderness journey with our Biblical ancestors, to feel again the hunger and confusion in the desert and to experience the triumphal passage through the Red Sea. In the New Testament readings we walk alongside Jesus who is making resolutely for Jerusalem where he will eat his last Passover meal and then pass over from death to life.

In the semi-nomadic culture of the Ancient Near East there was a springtime ritual known as ‘pesach’ (Passover). When the dry season began the shepherds needed to find water and new pasture for their flocks. The journey was dangerous. They performed a sacrifice as a means of protection and then shared a meal. The journey was necessary for the wellbeing of their flock because staying in the winter pasture could mean losing some of their flock. The ritual meal bonded the group together and this strengthened them for the journey.

Meals bind us together. The bonds that develop when food is shared have a special quality. The connections which are made with others during a meal cannot really be planned. The rituals involved in any meal provide the framework for this connection.

Lent invites us to look again at the meals we share and how God speaks to us through them. Which meals will you share this week?

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

OBEY

Although he was son,
he learned to OBEY through suffering.

We sing this text as an antiphon at Vespers during Lent in our monastic liturgy. In fact, as soon as I start to read it the tune begins playing in my head. It is very much one of the sounds of Lent in the monastery.

In the context of the Letter to the Hebrews Jesus is presented as the ideal High Priest, one who bears our burdens and intercedes for us with the Father. Jesus has a unique status. New Testament scholar, Marie Isaacs, helpfully suggests that ‘His suffering is neither punitive nor corrective but an act of filial obedience.’

St Benedict would recognise this idea of filial obedience. His Rule is writ through with the many ways in which obedience is to be cultivated in the monastery. In Chapter 5, On Obedience, St Benedict is clear that love is both the motivation and goal of obedience: ‘It is love that impels them to pursue everlasting life, therefore, they are eager to take the narrow road…’

It’s easy for Obedience to be seen as something that can limit our potential rather than expand it. Christ is our surest model of the life-giving nature of true obedience. The place that suffering plays within this is will be different for each one of us.

How has Christ called you to walk the path of obedience this Lent?

(Hebrews 5:7-9, Fifth Sunday in Lent)

As soon as Judas had taken the piece of bread he went out. Night had fallen.

These verses always chill me. I imagine a sultry night, heavy with expectation and fear. But the very next lines in the text shift the focus sharply ‘now has the Son of man been glorified’. There is no portrayal of a victim here. Jesus is in control. God’s glory is to be revealed through suffering.

Now has the Son of Man been glorified,
and in him God has been glorified.
If God has been glorified in him,
God will in turn glorify him in himself,
and will glorify him very soon.

In John’s Gospel we enter a very different literary world from that of the Synoptics. Words and themes are layered with meaning and weave in an out of the flow of the narrative. Light and darkness, day and night function on a symbolic level. Nicodemus comes at night to see Jesus. He is frightened and his visit needs the cover of darkness. In contrast, the Samaritan woman meets Jesus at midday, the hour of illumination. Judas’ betrayal also needs the cover of darkness.

At the highpoint of the liturgical year in the celebration of the Easter Vigil the Church uses light and darkness to tell the story of our salvation. Gathered in darkness around the paschal fire, we wait expectantly for that first proclamation ‘Christ Our Light’. Then when we sing the Exultet we will repeat several times ‘this is the night’.

This is the night,
when once you led our forebears, Israel’s children,
from slavery in Egypt
and made them pass dry-shod through the Red Sea.

For Judas, his choice to go out into the night changes the course of his life forever.
When we gather at night to celebrate the Easter Vigil we renew our choice to put our full trust in God, who through his Son, changes night to day and darkness to light.

Judas stood at a threshold, he made a choice.
Have there been threshold moments for you this Lent?

(John 13:21-33,36-38, Tuesday, Holy Week)

Exodus 17:3-7
John 4:5-42

In the next three weeks as we journey towards Easter, our biblical imaginations are invited to explore three major baptismal themes: water, light and life. We have made the journey from desert to the mountain top. This week we find ourselves by a well. We enter a different world when we listen to John’s Gospel. There’s a play on the themes of light and dark, night and day.

In Ch 3 of John’s Gospel, Nicodemus, the Pharisee, comes to Jesus by night. Literally and figuratively, Nicodemus is afraid of being seen, so he seeks out Jesus under the protection of darkness.

By contrast the Samaritan woman comes to the well at midday. This is the hour of enlightenment and theological insight. It’s Jesus who takes the initiative here by venturing into Samaritan territory. We are accustomed to hearing that the Samaritan woman was ostracised and sinful. This isn’t borne out in the text at all. The woman’s robust dialogue with Jesus leads her to enlightenment. By the end of the conversation she recognises in Jesus someone who knows her intimately: ‘He told me all I have ever done.’

Such is the power of her testimony that ‘many of the Samaritans of that town had believed in him on the strength of that woman’s testimony.’ Through her courage and willingness to engage with Jesus, her life has been changed forever.

How is Christ calling you to engage with him this Lent?

MILK

The Lord brought us out of Egypt with mighty hand and outstretched arm, with great terror, and with signs and wonders. He brought us here and has given us this country, a country flowing with MILK and honey.

References to a land ‘flowing with milk and honey’ appear 20 times in the Old Testament. It’s an easily recognised shorthand for both the guarantee and quality of God’s provision. The writers of Deuteronomy put this speech on the lips of Moses just before the people enter the Promised Land. It functions as encouragement to the Israelites whose path hasn’t been easy.

From our vantage point we can hear the phrase as a metaphor or as the promise of actual foodstuffs that would be available to the Israelites. In order for a land to flow with milk you need good pasture and healthy livestock and for an abundant supply of honey you need healthy and varied plant life and bees. If you have a guarantee of these then your physical needs will be more than well met. I love this shorthand.

It’s always heartening to me that this promise of physical nourishment is given as an encouragement. One of the things that I have learnt in the monastery is the importance of balancing physical and spiritual nourishment. Looking forward to something nice and enjoying it when it comes is every bit as important as the cycle of prayer. God provides.

How has God provided you with ‘milk and honey’ this Lent?

(Deuteronomy 26:4-10, First Sunday of Lent)

LAW

Do not imagine that I have come to abolish the LAW or the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete them. I tell you solemnly, till heaven and earth disappear, not one dot, not one little stroke, shall disappear from the Law until its purpose is achieved.

Laws and their keeping or breaking have been very prominent in our news over the past few years. As I write, the Epstein scandal, with all of its ramifications, is unfolding. To put oneself above the law is a scandal in itself.

Understanding law in its Biblical usage requires us to take a step back from some our usual frames of reference. Everything that we say about law in its Biblical usage is about love and relationship. Biblical law was a gift to the Israelites and its keeping a safeguard and a support. In an extended meditation on law in Psalm 118 many helpful images are used. The Psalmist asks to be guided in the way of God’s commands because there is ‘my delight.’ The law is more precious than earthly treasures: ‘The law from your mouth means more to me than silver and gold.’ The keeping of the Law is also sweeter than honey: ‘Your promise is sweeter to my taste than honey in the mouth.’

The hearers of Matthew’s Gospel brought this whole thought world to the words of Jesus. For Matthew, Jesus is in full continuity with the Old Testament tradition. Matthew portrays Jesus as the new Moses. In his being and in his teaching Jesus embodies the centrality of love in the keeping of the Law. As always, Jesus is challenging his hearers to move beneath the surface of a law and to keep it with the rigour of love.

Keeping and teaching the Law is ranked very highly by Jesus. He says that those who do it will be ‘considered great in the Kingdom of heaven.’ This is not an invitation to the elite, but to every person who truly seeks God.

How do you hear Jesus’ words? What might it mean for you to ‘keep and teach the Law’ this Lent?

(Matthew 5:17-19, Wednesday, Third Week of Lent)

KNOCK

Ask and it shall be given to you; search, and you will find; KNOCK and the door will be opened to you.

Asking, searching and knocking are all aspects of our life of prayer. Asking God for our own needs and the needs of others is something we learn from an early age. It is, of course, not without its problems. We don’t always get what we ask for. Later in life we learn that our prayer may be answered in a way that we haven’t anticipated.

The searching element of prayer is something which unfolds and deepens throughout our lives. We might find ourselves searching for a way through a difficult situation, or searching for our path in life. The search never ends.

And sometimes our prayer takes us to a place where we arrive at a door and we need to knock. It’s all relational. We reach out and knock and trust that a door will be opened. It takes courage to knock on a door. We may have been walking past a door for years and been afraid to knock. Or we may have told ourselves over and over again that there is no point in knocking because it’s unlikely that it will be answered. Lent gives us the chance to revisit those doors and to gather the courage to knock.

Are there doors on which you would like to knock this Lent?

(Matthew 7:7-12, Thursday after First Sunday of Lent)

The next day the crowds who had come up for the festival heard that Jesus was on his way to JERUSALEM.

In the Biblical imagination Jerusalem holds a place that no other city can. As salvation history unfolds God’s people hold fast to the promise that they are chosen and that God will be with them. When they wander in the wilderness the Ark of the Covenant is the guarantee of God’s promise and presence. After many twists and turns in their fortunes, the anointing of David as King makes God’s promise of a dynasty secure. David chooses Jerusalem as his base and with great ceremony brings the Ark to Jerusalem. In time, the Ark of the Covenant, once housed in a tent, will be housed in the splendour of the Jerusalem Temple. All Israel’s hope and longing is held in every stone and sacred vessel of the Temple. The Temple with its rhythm of worship and careful ordering of all that takes place is now the guarantee of God’s presence.

In New Testament times Jerusalem and its Temple are at the very heart of life. New Testament scholar, Tom Wright explains it like this:

The Temple was the beating heart of Judaism. It wasn’t just, as it were, a church on a street corner. It was the centre of worship and music, of politics and society, of national celebration and mourning. It was also the place where you would find more animals (alive and dead) than anywhere else. But, towering above all these, it was of course the place where Israel’s God, YHWH, had promised to live in the midst of his people. It was the focal point of the nation, and of the national way of life.

Deuteronomy instructs all males to make a pilgrimage three times a year to Jerusalem to celebrate the festivals of Unleavened Bread, Weeks, and Booths. The journey is as important as the celebration of the festival.

During Lent when we read the Gospel stories of Jesus making his way to Jerusalem, we as readers sense the mounting tension. This place of holiness and guarantee of God’s presence is now to be the place of a once and for all sacrifice, where love will be made visible. Jerusalem, the Beloved city, now witnesses the death of the Beloved Son.

What sense have you had of your own pilgrimage this Lent? How has God spoken to you?

(John 12:12-16, Palm Sunday)

IF

IF you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I enjoin on you today, if you love the Lord your God and follow his ways,
if you keep his commandments, his laws, his customs, you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you are entering to make your own.

Walter Brueggemann has written an interesting book, The Land: Place as Gift, Promise and Challenge in Biblical Faith, in which he explores Israel’s history of salvation through the dynamic of the promise of land, acquiring the land and staying in the land. As landless Israel wanders in the wilderness it is the promise of land which keeps them going. But with land comes responsibility. For the writers of Deuteronomy faithfulness to God and God’s commands is everything. Entering and being able to stay in the land both depend on this faithfulness.

The Deuteronomist writers put this speech in the mouth of Moses at the end of years of wandering in the desert. It’s a seminal speech and marks a physical and spiritual transition for God’s people. They stand at a boundary and are offered a choice. It’s a real choice. The three ‘if’ clauses reassuringly lay out exactly what is expected of the Israelites. If they are able to open their hearts and make a choice then they are promised life in all of its complexity and richness.

Choose life, then, so that you and
your descendants may live in the love
of the Lord your God,
obeying his voice and clinging to him:
for in this your life consists…

Our lives are made up of a myriad of small choices. God still speaks to us today, offering us choices. Baptism has bound us to the life of God and planted within us the capacity to ‘keep his commandments, his laws, his customs.’ It’s all within our grasp and promises us life.

Is God calling you to make a particular choice this Lent?

(Deuteronomy 30:15-20. Thurs after Ash Wednesday)

HOLY

The Lord spoke to Moses; he said: Speak to the whole community of the sons of Israel and say to them: ‘Be HOLY, for I, the Lord your God, am holy.’

If you set yourself the task of reading the Bible from cover to cover, you could be forgiven for losing enthusiasm when you get the book of Leviticus. At first sight, Leviticus reads as a complex handbook of rituals and ways of living which our far removed from our present day experience. It’s possible, however, to use one verse as a hermeneutical key and so find a way into the text: Love thy neighbour as thyself (Leviticus 19:18). You might have assumed that this comes from the New Testament, but it comes from Ch 17-27, known as the Holiness Code.

The careful details of the sacrificial system, the food laws and purity laws all have one goal and that is unity and LOVE. Leviticus is edited and shaped into its final form during the period of the Exile. This was a period of soul searching and dislocation for the Israelites. Faced with the feeling of confusion as to what the covenantal promises could possibly mean now, the Priestly circle of writers outline a code that is intended to safeguard love and restore hope. The Israelites are invited to image God: Be HOLY, for I, the Lord your God, am holy. This is possible for them through love of neighbour and a willingness to direct every part of their lives towards God.

All healthy societies have codes of behaviour and rituals. Our biblical ancestors were not unusual, or burdened, as some commentators suggest. The keeping of the law brings freedom. The Psalmist can say that the law is ‘honey in the mouth’, it gives ‘light for my path’ and ‘freedom to my heart’.

The message of Leviticus is that holiness is within our grasp. God invites us to be intentional in every part of our lives. Lent then is a time for looking at all the parts of our lives and seeing how best to integrate them. This can bring us wholeness and holiness.

How is God calling you to wholeness and holiness this Lent?

(Leviticus 19:1-2, 11-18, Monday, First Week of Lent)