Preferring Nothing to Christ

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)

GIVE

GIVE us today, our daily bread.

The Liturgy of the Word in Lent takes us through some of the major themes of our salvation history. Many of the readings can be heard as an invitation to conversion of heart. The Our Father can be read as a guide to this conversion. It’s familiar petitions chart for us a path of simple holiness.

I am always struck that this prayer contains within it a petition for our physical needs: bread. We are used to reading this spiritually, but I imagine the first hearers of Matthew’s Gospel will have heard this very much as physical. Having enough bread to eat was a daily concern for many. Wheat and barley crops were some of the most important crops in the agricultural economy of Jesus’ day. There is a deeper meaning too in this petition in that Jesus is teaching us to ask the Father for all our needs.

With the rise of food poverty in our country, there are many families who cannot go to bed at night with an assurance that there will be enough food for the next day. Our Lenten Appeals meet a need that is increasing. When we pray for the coming of the kingdom in the Our Father it’s precisely these situations which come to my mind. When we pray ‘thy kingdom come’ we commit to working for that change.

How is God calling you this Lent to provide daily bread for others?

(Matthew 6:7-15, Tuesday, 1st Week of Lent)

FASTING

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

So many thoughts surface for me when I come to explore the concept of food and fasting. I am conscious of friends who have struggled with eating disorders, I am troubled by the rise of foodbank use in the UK and throughout the world there are communities facing severe food shortages due to long term conflict, war and drought. So how do we hear the language of fasting?

In all the major Faith traditions of the world fasting plays a significant part. In the story of Jonah fasting is used as communal activity to bring about a change of heart. It’s an interesting detail that even the animals join in with the fast. The story shows fasting as an effective tool for change.

In the monastic tradition an element of fasting is built into daily life. It’s not so much the quantity of food that is restricted, it’s more that meal times are set and ordinarily you can’t help yourself to what you fancy when you think you need it. For St Benedict the middle way is the key to food provision and consumption. He wants his monks to eat neither too much not too little.

Lent then can be a time for finding that middle way in our relationship with food. Over the years I have come to realise that time spent eating mindfully and really appreciating the meal in front of me is as important as eating less. However you approach it, fasting is a tool for changing your heart. It’s about small changes that will enable you to prepare and celebrate Easter with joy.

Is there a small change that you could make to help you prepare for Easter with joy?

(Jonah 3:1-10, Wednesday, First Week of Lent)

EMPTIED

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.
But he EMPTIED himself, taking the form of a slave,
becoming as human beings are;
and being in every way like a human being,
he was humbler yet,
even to accepting death, death on a cross.

This ancient hymn in the Letter to the Philippians is a touchstone text of our faith. The hymn is framed by the invitation to me to make my own the mind of Christ. Whichever way I approach this text it’s the word ’emptied’ which always stands out for me. Christ here, freely and lovingly, empties himself of everything except the doing of his Father’s will.

I can place my Benedictine vows of Stability, Obedience and Conversion of Life solidly within this framework. Each requires that I empty myself in order to make space for God. In the vow of Stability I make space for God by committing to this community, in this place. In the vow of Obedience I try to lay aside my own will to make space for God’s will as mediated through the Rule, the Scripture, my superior and my sisters. In the vow of Conversion of life I make space for God by committing to inner growth, repentance and change.

When I hear this text I am reminded of Good Friday in our monastic chapel. The chapel is emptied of its usual furnishings. There’s a hollow sound in the acoustic and a stark reminder that the large wooden cross, made from trees from our garden, is now our sole focus.

How is Christ calling you this Lent to empty yourself and to make space for Him?

(Philippians 2:6-11, Palm Sunday)

DESERT

The Lord will always guide you, giving you relief in DESERT places. He will give strength to your bones and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters never run dry.

Lent invites us into the desert and the Exodus experience of the Israelites.

I hear in Isaiah’s words the motif of the covenantal bond between God and Israel. While the demands are high and far reaching for Israel, God promises to sustain them.

Isaiah’s words were originally for a people in Exile. He holds out the hope of their triumphant return to their own land. This will need a change in political fortunes and also a change in their hearts and minds. If they can make this change they are promised strength in their bones and relief from what has been the ‘desert’ of their lives in Exile. The promise to Israel that they will be like a spring that never runs dry is such a helpful image for Lent. Lent is as much about our refreshment as our own desert experiences.

How do you hear God’s promise today?

(Isaiah 58:9-14, Saturday after Ash Wednesday)

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?