Preferring Nothing to Christ

Isaiah 1:10. 16-20
Matthew 23:1-12

Wash, make yourselves clean.
Take your wrong-doing out of my sight.
Cease to do evil.
Learn to do good,
search for justice,
help the oppressed,
be just to the orphan,
plead for the widow.

This is one of my favourite pieces of Hebrew poetry. It has a rhythm which makes it easy to memorise. It’s an uncompromising message and it’s meant to be. The prophet’s job is to see the world as God sees it. Isaiah is impatient with a way of living which compartmentalises worship and daily life: the two must go together. In just a few verses we have a whole programme for Gospel living.

Wash
Take
Cease
Search
Learn
Help
Be just
Plead

In the Rule of St Benedict, Lent is seen as a time when we ‘wash away in this holy season the negligences of other times.’ It sounds a little gentler than Isaiah’s message, but the result can be the same.

How do you hear Isaiah’s message this Lent?

Daniel 9:4-10
Luke 6:36-38

Today in the first reading from Daniel the prophet looks back over Israel’s covenant relationship. He fully acknowledges that Israel has strayed far from God and to them ‘the look of shame belongs.’ Israel is now completely dependent on God’s mercy.

In Luke today Jesus invites his disciples to ‘be compassionate as your father is compassionate.’ The love and mercy which is the essence of God in Daniel’s prayer is here held up for our imitation. We learn to be compassionate by expanding our hearts and our perceptions. We learn to be compassionate by being generous with all we have and are.

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 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. St Benedict is clear in his Rule that it is one of the cellarer’s jobs to make sure that there is enough for everyone. He evens goes to the trouble of instructing the cellarer to divide each monk’s portion of bread so that it is spread out over the mealtimes.

And then we come to love. How easy it is for me to measure my love. Weighing things out to the last gram. The Gospel challenge for me today is to be the one who gives first and to that hope my full measure will run over.

Where is Christ calling you to give a full measure?

Genesis 12:1-4
2 Timothy 1:8-10
Matthew 17:1-9

Last week we accompanied Jesus to the desert and this week we are invited to make the climb up a high mountain. We find ourselves in the company of Peter, James and John and watch as Jesus is transfigured.

Matthew’s hearers would have been at home on the mountain top. They would have known this as the place of encounter par excellence. In the Book of Exodus, before Moses ascends Mt Sinai to receive the Law, ‘there were peals of thunder on the mountain and lightning flashes, a dense cloud, and a loud trumpet blast’. God calls Moses to climb the mountain and he obeys. Moses will be called several more times to meet God on the mountain and each encounter will shape salvation history. Encountering God changes Moses’ physical appearance:
‘the skin on his face was radiant after speaking with the Lord.’. Commentators suggest that this phenomenon marks Moses out as someone who not only speaks God’s word but who also embodies it.

There is a rich theological backdrop to the account of the Transfiguration. Each element of the story stands in continuity with the history of Israel. For Peter, James and John this moment can be seen as a strengthening for all that lies ahead. They will accompany Jesus in his passion and death. This moment in and out of time is to reassure them that God’s glory is woven through all that they will experience.

Towards the end of the Gospel passage comes a line which always stands out for me: And when they raised their eyes they saw no one but only Jesus.

Let this be our hope this Lent, that in all that unfolds we may see no one but only Jesus.

Deuteronomy 26:16-19
Matthew 5:43-48

‘The Lord your God commands you today to observe these laws and customs; you must keep them with all your heart and all your soul.‘

The Book of Deuteronomy is a favourite of mine. Commentators have drawn my attention to the number of times the ‘heart’ is mentioned. What Deuteronomy offers is a way of the heart. Every thought, every action is to be directed towards God. The keeping of God’s commandments is something which frees us and expands our hearts.

Similar themes are echoed in Ps 118 today. Here we are invited to do God’s will and to seek him with all our hearts. The whole Psalm is a long meditation on the disposition of those who seek God alone.

If we want to keep God’s commands we need space in our hearts. Lent offers the chance to do this.

How can you make space in your heart this Lent?

Ezekiel 18:21-28
Matthew 5:20-26

The picture that I have used today is of our chapel at Turvey. The place in front of the altar is of huge monastic significance. It is there that you stand as a postulant and ask to begin your monastic journey and then some months later you will stand there as you receive your habit. You will stand there at First Profession and make your profession of vows. At Solemn Profession you will prostrate while the community sings the Litany of Saints. As you reach your various Jubilees you will renew your vows on that same spot. And then, when your life has run its course, your coffin will be placed on that same place in front of the altar. Your life has come full circle in front of the altar.

Liturgy and life are intimately connected. What happens in our sacred spaces in symbol and ritual gives us a pattern for our daily lives. In our worship and our daily lives we are called to be upright before God, true to ourselves and reconciled with our neighbour. It’s all of a piece.

Jesus sets us a very high standard today in the Gospel. Our hearts are to be in harmony with our actions.

Is Jesus calling you to reconcile with someone this Lent?

Esther 4:1-7
Matt 7:7-12

ASK
SEARCH
KNOCK

These 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.

Are there doors that you would like to be opened to you this Lent?

Jonah 3:1-10
Luke 11:29-32

‘The people of Nineveh believed in God:
they proclaimed a fast and put on sack cloth,
from the greatest to the least.‘

I am very fond of the Book of Jonah. Jonah is a bit grumpy and doesn’t quite trust that his preaching mission will take off. But it does. There is no subtlety in Jonah’s message. The people have 40 days to get back on track or everything will be destroyed.

Sometimes we need a wake up call. Sometimes that call can be subtle. Sometimes it is very loud and obvious.

It is striking that all the inhabitants of Nineveh, cattle included, take part in this solemn fast. It is worth reflecting on how much the support of a group to carry us along when we feel the journey is long and hard.

Are you called to a change of heart this Lent?

Is 55:10-11
Matthew 6:7-15

The words of the Our Father are so familiar to us. Sometimes they can lose their impact and we miss the fact that the prayer is revolutionary. We are praying that God’s kingdom might come. That’s every value turned on its head. No ifs, no buts. Are we ready for this?

In his Rule St Benedict asks that the Our Father be recited several times during the monastic day:

‘Assuredly, the celebration of Lauds and Vespers must never pass without the superior reciting the entire Lord’s Prayer at the end for all to hear, because the thorns of contention are likely to spring up.

Having the superior recite the Our Father is a safeguard for community living. St Benedict knows that the small irritations can quickly become big irritations. Praying that God’s kingdom may come involves the readiness to forgive others on a daily basis. Each time we do this we build for the kingdom.

How can you build for the kingdom this Lent?

Leviticus 19:1-2, 11-18
Matthew 25:31-46

For I was hungry and you gave me food;
I was thirsty and you gave me drink…

There are times and seasons when the Scripture we hear is vivid and is played out right before our eyes.  The desperate needs of the peoples of Ukraine, the plight of those caught in the cost of living crisis, all cry out to us from this Gospel text. Take a walk in any town centre or turn on your tv or computer and you will see this text made flesh. There are some images that you simply cannot unsee. It’s Christ’s face that we see.

Matthew’s picture of judgement can startle us with its directness. The idea of standing before Christ and having him show me the times that I didn’t recognise his face is very sobering. For me the text is as much about withholding as it is about giving.

Where have I hardened my heart, held on to what I had and not allowed myself to recognise Christ? When have I walked on by because it seemed like too much effort? 

Let’s pray for the grace to see Christ in every circumstance of our lives.

Genesis 2:7-9, 3:-17
Matthew 4:1-11

For the first hearers of Matthew’s Gospel the scene of Jesus in the desert would have struck a familiar chord. In the preceding chapters they heard of the miraculous birth of Jesus, an attempt to kill him, the need to flee to Egypt and his passing through the waters of the River Jordan. These events all find their parallel in the story of Moses. Matthew casts Jesus as the New Moses and this time spent in the desert parallels the 40 years that the people of Israel spent in the Sinai desert.

Despondency and grumbling almost break the will of the people of Israel. Moses continues steadfast. His heart is set on the Promised Land.

Jesus too models steadfastness for us. The devil makes three attempts at weakening his resolve. Jesus wields the sword of Scripture and remains unmoved.

We are perhaps out of the habit ourselves of turning to Scripture in the face of difficulty or temptation. Our ancestors in the faith, the Desert Fathers and the Desert Mothers, might be of some help to us with this. The memorising and repeating of Scripture was the heartbeat of their strange and counter cultural existence. These desert dwellers were all seeking ‘purity of heart’. At its simplest purity of heart is a life so attuned to God that you ‘want what God wants’. Scripture was the tool that cultivated the soil of their hearts. Repetition and meditation on short pieces of text changed and expanded the inner landscape of their hearts. The goal of the whole desert tradition was tenderness and compassion.

How is God calling you to cultivate tenderness and compassion this Lent?