Hoping All Things in Love: Week 4 Preview
FOURTH SUNDAY IN LENT
Scroll to the bottom of this post to find today’s lectionary reading and collect. You can see all the previous Lent daybook 2019 posts here.
In February 2018 I was honored to speak at a couple events for Christ Church in Austin on how the discipline of Lent forms us to love. I led the group of artists and art-appreciators in an exploration of how the rhythms and disciplines of lament, confession, forgiveness, healing, prayer, hospitality, and generosity can form us as artists and people. Through the five Sundays of Lent that lead up to Holy Week, I’ll be sharing on the blog the background notes I used to prepare that Austin talk. It’ll also give me the opportunity I haven’t taken before to share, in real time, some background to the images and music I select for the daily devotional posts.
Between Hope and Despair, Hansa (Hans Versteeg)
Artist’s statement: “Many a tear was shed …. Because painted during the fatal illness of my favourite little sister. When it was finished I rapidly got into the Volvo to show it to her. She was surprised and happy with the unexpected painting and fortunately also with her portrait that I made for her in a hurry. Treasured memories.”
There are no short cuts to agape. It must be embodied with the sustainable, life-giving postures given us by our Creator, exemplified by Jesus, and empowered by the Holy Spirit. Humans are plagued with the tendency toward artificial poses of love, which in the end deplete us and those we encounter. The only manner of movement for true agape is made up of a cruciform posture. In the greatest paradox of all, love is shaped by the cross.
If we use the poetic summary of agape in 1 Corinthians 13:7-8 - love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things - as our paradigm for embodied agape, we can consider the contrasting, artificial postures of love as a range of options, with the most extreme responses at the ends of a spectrum. In order to develop into the movement of agape, we can counter the attitudes and actions of un-love with specific spiritual disciplines that train us toward cruciform, life-giving love.
Love Hopes All Things: its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances.
Artificial Postures: Range between cynicism and idealism.
True Embodiment: We keep hope alive through the nourishing practices of confession and examen.
Capitolini, Jan Maris
Cynicism: 3 quotations & 2 excerpts
“When I lived in other places I looked on their evils with the curious eye of a traveler; I was not responsible for them; it cost me nothing to be a critic, for I had not been there long, and I did not feel that I would stay.
But here, now that I am both native and citizen, there is not immunity to what is wrong. It is impossible to escape the sense that I am involved in history… and everyday I am confronted with the question of what inheritance I will leave.” - Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace
"Truth itself is dissolving as a concept in an acid bath of idle cynicism ..." - Marilynne Robinson, What Are We Doing Here?
"‘Somehow we are taught to sneer, and the sneer is a final and sufficient judgment on people and things of the highest interest and importance.’ Robinson aims to pierce through such "prejudices and their power," not merely for the sake of defense, or as an academic correction, but more in the spirit of what O'Donovan suggests: to renew our democracy, to make possible ways of living well together. ‘A tremendous freedom always lies behind prejudice and begins to be released the moment the errors that are the substance of prejudice are acknowledged as error.’ Let self-congratulatory prejudices fall away; we have nothing to lose but our ignorance. And we might find more unity on the other side.” - James K.A. Smith’s review of Marilynne Robinson’s What Are We Doing Here?
“The offering of symbols that are adequate to contradict a situation of hopelessness in which newness is unthinkable. The prophet has only the means of word, spoken word and acted word, to contradict the presumed reality of his or her community. The prophet is to provide the wherewithal whereby hope becomes possible again to a community of kings who now despair of their royalty. After a time, kings become illiterate in the language of hope. Hope requires a very careful symbolization. It must not be expressed too fully in the present tense because hope one can touch and handle is not likely to retain its promissory call to a new future. Hope expressed only in the present tense will no doubt be co-opted by the managers of this age.
...together [Jesus’ last statements on the cross] form a statement that completely refutes the claims of those who seem to be in charge. These statements...are a refutation of the world now brought to an end. The old order may be characterized as madness masquerading as control; phony assurance of sustained well-being; a desperate attempt to control and not submit; and a grim system or retribution. Thus each statement of Jesus is a counter-possibility that places all the old ways in question. The passion narrative of Jesus provides ground for prophetic criticism. It hints at a fresh way for the repentance of Lent.” ― Walter Brueggemann, referring to “Penetrating Despair”, The Prophetic Imagination
The Anointing of Christ , Julia Stankova
5. “We are largely confined to reflection on the given pieces, and our modest expectations are confined by our reason, our language, and our epistemology. We have no public arenas in which serious hopefulness can be brought to articulation. What is most needed is what is most unacceptable - an articulation that redefines the situation and that makes the way for new gifts about to be given. Without a public arena for the articulation of gifts that fall outside our conventional rationality, we are fated to despair. We know full well the makings of genuine newness are not included among these present pieces. And short of genuine newness life becomes a dissatisfied coping, a grudging trust, and a managing that dares never ask too much.
My judgement is that such a state of affairs not only is evident in the exile of Judah but is characteristic of most situations of ministry. When we try to face the holding action that defines the sickness, the aging, the marriages, and the jobs of very many people, we find that we have been nurtured away from hope, for it is too scary. Such hope is an enemy of the very royal consciousness with which most of us have secured a working arrangement. The question facing ministry is whether there is anything that can be said, done, or acted in the face of the ideology of hopelessness.” ― Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination
Christ and the Sinner, Andrey Mironov
Palm Sunday, Peter Koenig
Idealism: 5 quotations
"...if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices...how naive we were, that the world did know and remained silent. And that is why I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must -- at that moment -- become the center of the universe." - Elie Wiesel’s Nobel acceptance speech in reference to Night
“Clutter and mess show us that life is being lived… Tidiness makes me think of held breath, of suspended animation. .. Perfectionism is a mean, frozen form of idealism, while messes are the artist’s true friend. What people somehow forgot to mention when we were children was that we need to make messes in order to find out who we are and why we are here.” - Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
“Neutrality as complicity.” - Marilyn McEntyre
“Idealism has a high casualty rate. The chances are (statistically speaking) that if you’re an artist, you’re also a student. That says something very encouraging about the desire to learn art - and something very ominous about the attrition rate of those who try. There is, after all, a deadly corollary: most people stop making art when they stop being students.” - David Bayles & Ted Orland, Art & Fear: Observations On The Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking, p. 85
“In the ideal _ that is to say, real — artist, fears not only continue to exist, they exist side by side with the desires that complement them, perhaps drive them, certainly feed them. Naive passion, which promotes work done in ignorance of obstacles, becomes — with courage — informed passion, which promotes work done in full acceptance of those obstacles.” - David Bayles & Ted Orland, Art & Fear: Observations On The Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking, p. 50
The Last Supper, Mykola Molchan
The Prodigal Son, Sieger Köder
Confession & Forgiveness: 1 stanza, 2 excerpts, 3 quotations, & 1 song
“You are not here to verify,
instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
or carry report. You are here to kneel
where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more
than an order of words, the conscious occupation
of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.” - T.S. Eliot, “Little Gidding” (Four Quartets)“I am also growing ever more aware of those who will come after me. As a grandfather, I observe the inevitable inheritance within my own family, to say nothing of the world they will inherit. When I think of the generations to come my mind is also drawn to the vast multitude of those whose lives have been destroyed in the silent violence of our modern world. This is a bitter planet and one that gives too little thought to such things.
But when we pray as the whole Adam, then we must give thought to all of these things. Is it any wonder that the Church teaches us to cry out, “Lord, have mercy!” over and over again? I think of the advice given to Raskolnikov, the axe-murderer in Crime and Punishment. After confessing his crime to Sonya the prostitute we read:
“Well, what to do now, tell me!” he said, suddenly raising his head and looking at her, his face hideously distorted by despair.
“What to do!” she exclaimed, suddenly jumping up from her place, and her eyes, still full of tears, suddenly flashed. “Stand up!” (She seized him by the shoulder; he rose, looking at her almost in amazement.) “Go now, this minute, stand in the crossroads, bow down, and first kiss the earth you’ve defiled, then bow to the whole world, on all four sides, and say aloud to everyone: ‘I have killed!’ Then God will send you life again. Will you go? Will you go?” she kept asking him, all trembling as if in a fit, seizing both his hands, squeezing them tightly in her own, and looking at him with fiery eyes.
He was amazed and even struck by her sudden ecstasy. “So it’s hard labor, is it, Sonya? I must go and denounce myself?” he asked gloomily.“Accept suffering and redeem yourself by it, that’s what you must do.”
We take a burden far greater than Raskolnikov’s into Great Lent. Bow down, kiss the earth you have defiled, then bow to the whole world, on all four sides, and say aloud: “Forgive me!” - Fr. Stephen Freeman, “Forgiveness For All the Sundays to Come”
“Without the cross, prophetic imagination will likely be as strident and as destructive as that which it criticizes. The cross is the assurance that effective prophetic criticism is done not by an outsider but always by one who must embrace the grief, enter into the death, and know the pain of the criticized one.” ― Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination
“As long as we ourselves are real, as long as we are truly ourselves, God can be present and can do something with us. But the moment we try to be what we are not, there is nothing left to say or have; we become a fictitious personality, an unreal presence, and this unreal presence cannot be approached by God.” ― Anthony Bloom, Beginning to Pray
“… spoken confession releases us into forgiveness. Speaking enacts the attitude of repentance that is the precondition of healing and restoration. Like the naming of God’s attributes and promises in praise, the particularity and specificity of what is named accounts for much of the psychological efficacy of confession.” - Marilyn McEntyre, Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies
Excerpt from a blog post I wrote during Pentecost 2016: “Cynicism is the enemy of the Spirit of Pentecost. I love the lyrics in Gungor's “Church Bells”. Read them as you listen to the song today, and ask the joyous Spirit of the Living God to restore to you the joy of your salvation. If He offers you the kindness of conviction for places in your heart that have grown crusty, jaded, bitter, skeptical, and unforgiving toward God, his Church, or the world, delight in the gift of repentance. Ask Him to forgive you, to cleanse and restore to you "the years the locusts have eaten" (in the Jeremiah passage from today).
As you pray, friends, hope. Hope for the Spirit to heal all that has been wounded, lost, given away, neglected of your faith. This is a gift the Spirit longs to give you.”
Father and Son Dancing with Banners, Brian Kershisnik
“Let church bells ring
Let children sing
Even if they don’t know why let them sing
Why drown their joy
Stifle their voice
Just because you’ve lost yours
May our jaded hearts be healed
Amen
Let old men dance
Lift up their hands
Even if they are naïve, let them dance
You’ve seen it all
You watch them fall
Wash off your face and dance
May our weary hearts be filled with hope
Amen”
7. “Get this if you don’t get anything else. The spiritual life begins with accepting God’s wholehearted love for our wounded, broken, surly frightened, sorry selves. There is no other starting point.
God calls us everyone to come out of hiding. God calls us back from wherever we went running for our lives, calls us back home. God is the love-crazed father at the window, waiting for a lost boy to come to his senses, gazing down the road for a sign of his return, now running to meet and embrace and more-than-half-carry his kid the last mile so they can start all over, as if nothing bad ever happened between them, as if the party he intends to throw that very night is the celebration of the child’s birth.
It’s always been this way. Adam and Eve were ashamed when they disobeyed God, so they hid themselves. And one way or another, they’ve been role models ever since. Why? Because we hate being seen for what we truly are, which has almost nothing to do with being as bad as we could possibly be and almost everything to do with failing to be all we could be and should be - what we aspire and maybe even pretend to be.
We know the truth - or at least much of the truth - about ourselves, and it’s not all that pretty. Our way of dealing with the ugliness is mainly misdirection: Hey, look how ugly that guy is! Look at all the things I don’t do! Our solution is faking it, taking cover when we lose our nerve — hiding out. Which is no solution at all.
Simon Tugwell wrote: ‘We hide what we know or feel ourselves to be (which we assume to be unacceptable and unloveable) behind some kind of appearance which we hope will be more pleasing. We hide behind pretty faces which put on for the benefit of our public. And in time we may even come to forget that we are hiding, and think that our assumed pretty face is what we really look like.’” - Brennan Manning, Posers, Fakers, and Wannabes: Unmasking the Real You
Meditations and practices for the coming week
The daily office lectionary for the Book of Common Prayer will continue through Jeremiah and Romans (chapter 8 is one of my all-time favorites!) for the Old and New Testament readings while we remain in John for the Gospel readings. In the Gospel accounts we revisit some of the most famous accounts of Jesus’ ministry - walking on water, feeding a crowd with a few loaves and fish. He speaks some hard-to-comprehend truths about being the Bread of Life and hints at the upcoming betrayal among his closest followers. Our Psalm selections this week invite us into some of the darkest laments in all of Scripture, yet continue proclaim the steadfast love of the Lord.
I’ve tried to suggest one practice a week that can fit along with whatever other fasts you may be undertaking this Lent. There’s merit in committing simply to one fast for the entire forty days. For example, we give up processed sugar and alcohol and then fast from one meal on Fridays. Traditionally, the Church sets aside Lenten Fridays, the weekday of Jesus’ crucifixion, to abstain from eating meat or to a partial (one meal) or whole fast (24 hours without solid food). You can read more about this tradition and its spiritual implications here, here, and here.
Sometimes we need a little help imagining what a fast can look like and how it might produce good fruit in our lives. Each week this Lent, I’ll share one specific suggestion for fasting one habit in order to feast on a corresponding practice. You might decide to stay with that fast for the entire forty days, or you might choose just one or two days to try what I’ve suggested.
Fast from taking offense.
Feast on acts of forgiveness instead.
This week, ask the Spirit of Christ to open your eyes to the times you become offended by the words and actions of others. Acknowledge the feeling and then ask God to help you release the offense quickly.
During the week, choose one person (or group) to forgive and to release from your expectation of apology or restitution. If appropriate, write them a note passing the peace of Christ through a simple few words.
Once you’ve done this, talk with a trusted friend today, and ask them to pray for you to remain in the place of peace and forgiveness in your heart and mind. Bask in the love and forgiveness of our friend and brother, Jesus, who has reconciled us to God.
If it’s helpful, here’s a recent reflection I shared on some common roadblocks to forgiveness.
On Saturday we’ll connect with An American Lent from The Repentance Project. It's God's kindness that leads us to repentance, and in His kindness and provision for reconciliation, He invites us to make confession and ask for forgiveness on behalf of not only ourselves but our forefathers and mothers.
I’ll highlight a few of the reflections that most caught my attention, but you can subscribe to receive daily reflections from An American Lent.
Lent 2019 on Spotify:
Songs for Everybody (Note: In the voice of Lent, a few of these songs contain language and difficult themes. They're marked "explicit".)
Add any of these playlists to your account by clicking ‘Follow.’
Fourth Sunday in Lent - Forgiven
Today’s lectionary readings & prayer: Joshua 5:9-12; Psalm 32; 2 Corinthians 5:16-21; Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
“Gracious Father, whose blessed Son Jesus Christ came down from heaven to be the true bread which gives life to the world: Evermore give us this bread, that he may live in us, and we in him; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.”
The Prodigal Son, Chris Koelle