Lenten Reflections 2010

On Sundays during Lent 2010, members of the St. Francis-in-the-Wood community offered refections on the week's readings. Presented here are the five reflections for Lent.

Surviving the Wilderness: Luke 4:1-13

Following Jesus: Philippians 3:17 - 4:1

The Fig Tree: Luke 13:1-9

The Prodigal Son: Luke 15:11-32

Inner and Outer, Inside and Outside: Philippians 3:8b-11

Surviving the Wilderness: Luke 4:1-13
February 21st 2010

All across this nation today you've probably got a thousand speakers giving a thousand crummy Olympic based metaphors in their sermons. I do not intend to fall into this lazy preaching trap... Except for this introduction; which will fall into that lazy preaching trap!

There's been a lot said about game plans and strategies over the past few weeks. In today's Gospel reading we get an inside look into the game plan of the devil. This is one of the few places in scripture where we get this opportunity. And the plan is this: lead Jesus into the wilderness and then tempt him with the most specific Jesus style temptations possible.

First: offer him bread to sustain himself. He's human and he's hungry. Second: take him to the top of the highest temple and remind him that he could save himself from a fall. In other words, tempt the divine part of himself. And thirdly: the test on the mountain; which offers him dominion over the whole Earth.

These may seem like easy 'temptations' to resist for the Son of God. But His very status is what makes these the ideal temptations, at least in the eyes of the Devil. He is the Son of the Creator. To eat from, have dominion over and to command creation are essentially his birth rights. In all the temptations, the game plan is to play for things Jesus is destined for and which he *should* have.

Jesus' response? The same all three times. He rejects the devil using scripture as a basis. He doesn't argue the importance of all the things which the devil offers; but he doesn't want them *right now.* He has entered the wilderness for preparation for what is to come, but the devil is offering him short cuts so that he doesn't need to do that. Yes, Jesus is fixed on the mission He is about to perform which will, if we follow His story to its very end, will encompass all these things. But the very reason he's entered the wilderness is his way of saying "I'm not ready yet. I'm going to prepare myself."

Like the coach who misjudges a venue; the devil, it seems, just doesn't really understand the wilderness the way Jesus does. He seems to regard Jesus' presence there as something of a punishment which he can tempt Jesus with release from. But the author of Luke makes it clear that Jesus was led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit. It's a place he *desired* to go.

We could talk more about Jesus' trials and temptation but, really, his temptations are on a level which we can't really comprehend. The fact that it seems so obvious that he'd reject them proves that we're not likely to be tempted in quite the same way. We will not get Son of God level testing. But I do believe we can relate to the wilderness.

"Wilderness" can mean a whole lot of different things. It has some very scary connotations. We don't have to go anywhere to feel in the wilderness and we've all touched on it at some point in our lives: it can be a hospital waiting room. Or searching classified ads when we're looking for jobs. Or at school when we're being bullied. It's basically a place where, whether we're literally alone or not, we feel adrift and unable to rely on the people or things which we normally would. Deprived of basic reassurances, of our health or the security of our job for example, we can feel our world close in all around us. We have suddenly been cast into the wilderness. We, of course, spend most of our lives actively doing the things which will keep us out of that kind of place! But sometimes we just cannot stop it.

But there is also a more positive idea to be obtained from wilderness. We live in a part of the world where the landscape around us can give us a very positive impression of the word. Wilderness as vast, open spaces. For many, those spaces are filled with possibility for exploration, discovery and revelling in the grandeur of what is around us. Much has been written about the renewing process of spending some time in the wilderness. Read some of Angus' sabbatical blogs from the Arizona desert, for example! They are places where we can be alone, but where we are not lonely.

And I think that's, crucially, what dealing with the wilderness comes down to. Dealing with loneliness. Jesus was not alone in the wilderness. He was guided by the Holy Spirit. When the devil found him to implement his game plan he thought he was going to find a desperately lonely soul to tempt with food, with glory and, ultimately, with a whole world which would mean he wouldn't be in the wilderness anymore. Ultimately, though, Jesus could rely on His knowledge of scripture not just to recite words, but as a constant reminder that He was feeding himself on his relationship to His Father. By removing Himself from society; He had made *that* voice louder. And the devil could not compare.

We are scared of loneliness, and it is right that we should be. But we should not be scared of being alone. And yet we seem to act like we are. We seem to try anything to cut silence and stillness from our lives. When cell phones were banned in cars, how many of us rushed out to buy Bluetooth headsets because we were sure we were going to miss something? We'll keep the television on whilst we're doing other things. Social networking, YouTube, DVDs... we're so afraid of moments of silence and inactivity that we fill our lives with more and more 'stuff' so that we're constantly distracted. So when we do find ourselves cast into the wilderness; we are scared. We're so lonely and isolated; we don't now how to cope.

Maybe that's what we could do for Lent. In the time of preparation for Easter, some folks have a traditional thing they give up. Others like to take something on. But I wonder whether in both instances we're doing so because we believe we need to punish ourselves. That's not what Lent is really driving at. It's certainly not why Jesus went into the wilderness; which is, of course, where these forty days come from. He went there to use the wilderness to His advantage: to hear that still, small voice of His Father with greater clarity than ever before. There's nothing wrong with self discipline, but will our own Lenten habits or sacrifices get us any closer to hearing God's voice? Will they help us in the wilderness?

This Lent, let's take away something of the noise. Not as a punishment, but as a way of carefully entering the wilderness ourselves. Getting used to silence and not being afraid of it. Picking up that book we were meaning to read, taking that time to process rather than jumping on the Internet. Taking space for quiet, reflection or exploration. Listening for the voice of God. So that when we are forced into the wilderness, we may find that we are more ready to deal with the experience. The wilderness shouldn't be where we're most alone. It is lonely, yes. But it should be where we hear God's voice the strongest.

Following Jesus: Philippians 3:17 - 4:1
February 28th 2010

Take a moment to be aware of our breath, the breath of God. Attune to this breath/this spirit of God in you so that as you listen to the reflection the Word of God in your own life may continue to be awakened, through the spoken word or in spite of it. Holy One you are present with us always help us to remember this and to listen to you. Amen.

Lent is a time when we prepare for Easter, the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. Although Easter is the goal, the preparation, the journey to Easter is very important. It is a time to reflect on our lives discerning those things that deepen our relationship with God and those things that distract us from God. We do this through some kind of discipline; often a commitment to follow a plan that trains us to remember our intention, to align our lives with God's will by following Christ.

In, our readings for this second Sunday in Lent Paul invites us to join in imitating him as an example of how to follow Christ. He claims their/our citizenship is in heaven. That our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself. That is quite a statement that raise 2 points I will touch on.

1. What is the body of our humiliation? Paul gives us a glimpse of this when he speaks of the enemies of the cross of Christ whose god is the belly, and their glory is in their shame, and their minds are set on earthly things. His criticisms are reminiscent of the temptations of Jesus in the Wilderness (note the order is a bit different) First; "Their god is the belly; Jesus is tempted by the devil to turn stone to bread to satisfy his belly/hunger, Their minds are set on earthly things. In the second temptation Jesus is shown all the kingdoms of the world and is offered all of their glory and authority. Glory, according to Wikipedia, is the manifestation of God. Authority is power and control. For Jesus to take glory and authority from the devil is to agree that the devil (or perhaps for us a person in a powerful position) can give it. Glory and authority cannot be given by the devil. Only god can give it. As Jesus said, It is written, "Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him."

The third glimpse at 'the body of our humiliation' is "Their glory is in their shame. In the third temptation; Jesus is tempted to test God's care of him. The devil said that if he threw himself off of the pinnacle of the temple the angels would catch him. I wonder what shameful actions (how they gave themselves away in order to receive care and or affection) the "enemies of the cross" did to feel cared for not by God but by others. Jesus' response to this temptation is, "Do not test the Lord your God."

The body of our humiliation is when the needs of our belly, the need to have power, our need to feel loved and cared for by others take the place of our right relationship with God.
My second question

2. How will Christ transform our body so that it conforms to the body of Christ's glory? Remember, glory is the presence of God. Paul says it is done by the power that also enables Christ to make all things subject to himself. Don't you wish he could have been clearer? What power is he talking about? To add to this, in the gospel reading Jesus says, "How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings?" and he can't. So, Christ has a power that makes all things subject to him yet he is unable to gather his chicks under his wings. This is an interesting kind of power.

As I tread into the mystery of this power I dare to share an insight. First, I believe Jesus to be the Son of God and I believe him to be fully human. In order for him to be able to do his ministry as a human being he needed to align his human needs with God's will and the temptations of the devil helped him to do it. Each time he was tempted He CHOSE God, not his belly, not care from the world, not power.

And so, this Lent as we align our will with Gods we are invited to follow Christ into the wilderness; sometimes this is the wilderness of our own soul, sometimes it is the wilderness of our daily lives, and sometimes it is a tragedy causes us to reexamine our life. It doesn't matter. At each step we can choose, and if we find ourselves off course, we can choose again. We need to choose to gather under the wings of Christ.

One of the gifts of Jesus life and death, is what he has taught us about life and death. He has made it easier for us because he went first so when we go to the wilderness we have him to follow. We have Him to come with us and help us. We also have Paul and the disciples to imitate, growing in alignment with God. We also have mentors who inspire us.

I want to share a story about a community of people who inspire me. They survived the earthquake in Haiti. You may have heard the story on CBC. For me I sense their right relationship with their God having transcended the control our basic human needs sometimes has on us.

David Gutnick of CBC tells the story which I will abbreviate.
In November, 2009, David was driving through the Narette neighbourhood of Port-au-Prince, Haiti when his way was blocked by a parked truck filled to the brim with 400 (25-kilogram) plastic pails of food and 400 highly coveted, blue plastic tarps.

Narette sits on the side of a ravine. It is where the Italian embassy used to be. But now it is a heap of broken concrete around which dozens of homeless families camp out under the trees. These families appear to have nothing but the clothes on their backs, little to put in their cooking pots and only dusty, stained mattresses or sheets rescued from the rubble on which to sleep. But today the excitement was palpable. Everyone was covered in sweat and talking almost giddily about how much they were looking forward to the new food in the plastic pails.

A residents' association, led by the neighbourhood mambo, a voodoo priestess by the name of Lamercie Charles Pierre, was unloading the truck. A neat handwritten list had been drawn up setting out who needed the supplies the most. When the unloading was done, the truck driver drove away and the list was passed around.

The food distribution was just about to begin when the driver came back. He had made a big mistake. The food was for another tent park 10 minutes away.
He faced the hungry crowd in Narette and said he needed the 400 pails of food back as well as every single one of the plastic tarps.

Now this is a city that is crawling with machine gun bearing troops while international security bulletins warn that it is on the verge of each-man-for-himself violence.
But here in Narette, the residents' committee huddled with the priestess and made a quick decision: Everything was returned to the truckdriver with their help.
All 400 pails of food and all 400 blue plastic tarps were passed from sweaty hand to sweaty hand and loaded back on the truck. The truck driver thanked them and off he went to deliver his goods to the hungry people at the other tent camp.

This was simply, the Priestess would say later the right thing to do.

When you speak to ordinary Haitians about the catastrophe, and about the continued horror and the losses they have suffered, you very much get a sense that there is a shared understanding of how it all fits into a common universe.

It is something intangible and not something that I could dare try to measure.
It may be simply, as anthropologist Wade Davis has suggested, an element of voodoo culture, a particular "way of being."

What I think it comes down to is a deep sense of responsibility towards the other person, towards those who share your same misery, which may be part of the voodoo way as well.

As Christians, the suffering with Christ on the Cross is something we share at Easter, yet the journey to get there influences our experience of Easter. We share in the call to follow Christ, we share in the temptations of the wilderness as we discern right action in our daily lives, we share the glory of goals met and grieve those not met and sometimes its difficult to know what is glory and what is grief, for sometimes one leads to the other...and life goes on.

I think of the curler, Cheryl Bernard, who missed gold by one shot, her last Rock. In an interview she said it will take her 10 years to get over it. She didn't say this with tears in her eyes, although I'm sure she will shed some tears. She said this with the knowledge of what it takes to integrate the regrets or disappointments in our life. We might trivialize going for gold, but going for excellence was her mission and she missed her mark by what I think she will consider a mistake. What impressed me throughout her interview were her presence, and her ability to remember the special times with her team mates and family. Clearly the focus of her attention was the love that had grown amongst them all as they worked towards a common goal, even in the midst of her great loss. The goal of gold simply helped her to focus her energy, gave her purpose, helped her develop her skill, helped her make decisions and helped her to take risks. It gave her a structure to evaluate what works and doesn't work, and in the process of doing this many times, she developed and matured as a curler.

I invite you to discern your goal, your intention for Lent, continuing your journey of transformation, letting go of what distracts you from God and embracing what keeps your mind on God, training yourself to be ready when your day of testing arrives, as it arises for us all. Reach gold and remember the importance of the journey there.

The Fig Tree: Luke 13:1-9
March 7th 2010

I love fresh figs. When I was growing up we would sometimes have dried figs, which I know lots of people like, but I don't care for the way the seeds go, all kind of crunchy. But fresh figs...

I love the soft suede skin and its muted purple and green colours. When you hold one, it gives to gentle pressure, and your instinct right away is to cup it carefully and protect it from bruising.

The taste is subtle and exotic and sensual... I can see why that landowner was getting so ticked off by the fig tree that wouldn't produce. He knew what he was missing!

I have this delicious recipe for an appetizer using figs. You cut the fig in half, or quarters if it's large, and you press a piece of walnut into the flesh and then wrap it around with a strip of prosciutto, put a bunch on a plate and drizzle them with a bit of balsamic syrup. Oh...heaven!

SO...we've heard just now this reading from the Gospel of Luke and Jesus' story of the fig tree. Jesus tells us, tells his disciples, this is a parable, so we know this story is about more than just a landowner, a gardener, and reluctant fig tree.

How, then, does this parable inform us, and how is it a part of our journey through Lent?

Let's back up a little to our first reading this morning, which actually moves us ahead along the timeline, to Paul's letter to the church in Corinth.

It's been several years since Jesus' death and resurrection, and the naïve, struggling bunch of disciples that watched in fear and horror as Jesus was crucified, has grown strong and dynamic, empowered by the Holy Spirit.

They remember and share Jesus' words. They bear witness to his miracles and perform some miracles of their own in his Name. They tell all who will listen what Jesus taught in his three short years of ministry, and they take this message well beyond Jerusalem. To their numbers are added hundreds, thousands more who believe, and so begins their often precarious journey with Christ.

Paul -- whose conversion is a spectacular story on its own -- determines his role, his purpose as a follower of Jesus, is to take all he's learned, all he has experienced, all the ardour that fills him, and share it with the Gentiles. Over time, because of Paul and his fellow apostles, centres that follow Christ are born and multiply in towns and provinces throughout the Roman world.

A new religion is in its infancy.

Paul has his hands full.

I have a confession. I have always had trouble with Paul. The academic in me admires his arguments, his beautiful constructions, and the images of Christ he shows us and encourages us to hold.

But...perhaps it is because I'm a woman and the mother of women in a modern age...maybe it's because I respond better to encouragement than to...threats... I don't know.

However...because of the research I needed to do -- to be able to offer an approach to today's readings -- I have, grudgingly, come to a truce with Paul, and admit there's a lot more to him than I have previously allowed in our "relationship".

Corinth is one of those "crossroad" ports. People from all around the Mediterranean visit Corinth for the lights and the action. There's music and dancing; wine, women and song. And great food from the temple-offerings kitchens. It seems a lot of the people who converted and now call themselves Christians, have lapsed into behaviour more consistent with the questionable freedoms of earlier days. It would seem, as we learn in Paul's letter, that they have again become idolaters. They've returned to earlier sexual debauchery, and argue that -- because they have been saved through baptism and enjoy the grace of God's forgiveness -- they can pretty much do as they like. They're Teflon coated.

This is an attitude that Paul knows he has to change. He wears several hats, but his great concern is in reaching these many faith communities, and in trying to establish some uniformity. How do you maintain consistent beliefs and practices among all? It's a question I think we're still trying to figure out today.

What impresses me now about Paul's challenge to himself, is that all through his letters (even with all their nasty, overbearing and prescriptive bits), his impassioned love rings loud and clear for these new Christians. It is a love and a generosity of spirit that is directed by everything that Christ has promised each of us.

We hear Paul's stern warning in this reading. He reminds the Corinthians that our ancestors, lead by Moses, had also been baptized, in a sense, by God's grace. Paul intimates that Christ, as one with God and the Holy Spirit, was on that Exodus, too. The people with Moses were nourished by manna, the bread of Life and by water from the rock that was Christ, and I think Paul is drawing a parallel between that wilderness banquet and the banquet Christ sets for us when we meet in the Eucharist. God asks only for our faithfulness.

But as Paul points out, the Israelites began to take God's largess for granted. They slipped back into their old ways: idolatry, sexual indulgences, by questioning and testing God, and by a lot of whining and complaining. They turned their backs to God.

And God becomes the vengeful, angry God we often encounter in the early books of our Bible.

God strikes many of the Israelites dead - 23 thousand in one day, we're told! Paul really wants the people of Corinth to know that God set this in motion to be an example, and it's a pretty harsh one. The testing that the Corinthians face now is no different. They could be wiped out as surely as the swift response of God landed on the people of the Exodus. Repentance is required.

Then, in the last few sentences of this reading, there's a switch. Paul, faithful to his call, reminds the people that temptation strikes us all, and our disordered lives can be filled with pain and disaster. But, we are assured, God will be there with us, too. The Corinthians have a chance. They can change. They can turn around. So can we.

Let's set aside, now, Paul's admonitions and his examples from the Hebrew testaments, and go back a few years to the dwindling days Jesus recognizes as the last of his ministry. I think, by now, he may be feeling frustration with the disciples he has called, who perhaps haven't stepped up to the mark as quickly as he had hoped. His work and the things he has said haven't gone unnoticed by the Jewish establishment, who keep trying to trip him up in an effort to make his message less potent somehow.

People around Jesus ask him about the gruesome event in the temple, where a brutish Pontius Pilate has massacred a group of Galileans and mixed their blood with the sacrifices being offered in the temple. The common world-view of the time makes them believe that those murdered must have lived sinful lives to die so suddenly.

Jesus asks, "Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you."

Jesus is saying there's no cause and effect, no action/re-action. Bad things happen to good people. And good things happen to bad people. That's just the way of the world. To put it crassly, "shit happens". But, I can imagine in a voice raised for emphasis, he says: "Unless you repent, you will all perish as they did."

Another news story...the death of 18 more under the tumbled rubble of a stone tower...and again Jesus calls for them to repent. He really is serious. "Repent", however, is not just the battle cry of some fervent evangelist. It carries special meaning. From the Greek, the translation is "turn around." Turn to God. Turn your world view upside-down. Turn and change.

This can be, should be part of our Lenten preparations. Turning around to re-examine what we are doing with our lives, and how that may or may not fit in with God's plan - it's a worthy undertaking. Today's readings, and those in weeks to come, tell us that the God to whom we return is both God of the Exodus and God of the empty tomb. This is the God who constantly enters our lives with liberating compassion.

And so, we come back to that fig tree. If God is the landowner and Jesus is the gardener, are we the fig tree? Is God waiting for us to bear fruit? And if we don't bear fruit, will Jesus stand up for us and ask for one more year. And another. And another. With the attentions of the "gardener" we may actually flourish. "If it bears fruit next year, well and good, but if not, you can cut it down."

There's no ending to that story. We are not told what happens to the fig tree, and it is within that tension of unknowing that we must face the world with, as the collect reads, the companionship of Christ... our pattern and our hope.

The Prodigal Son : Luke 15:11-32
March 14th 2010

My younger brother, Jim, had a deep influence on my idea of the Prodigal Son. Until his birth, my life was practically perfect! I was everybody's favorite girl. After he was born, he became the baby. I had to share my toys. I had to be a Big Girl when he spilled juice all over my drawings. He got away with murder! When I yelled, "Not fair!" my mother would say, "He's just a baby, Anne. Forgive him."

Forgive him? Not me! I wanted JUSTICE!

Naturally, when I grew up and learned the parable of the Prodigal Son, I identified with the Older Brother. I thought the father was, at best, a dupe. Too partial to the ne'er-do-well. Grossly unfair to the deserving one.

A closer look at the story has now revealed that things weren't as clear-cut as I thought.
It turns out it isn't all about the Prodigal Son and his undeserved forgiveness. It's about the Father ~ and his loving response to two very different sons who BOTH erred and strayed from him in different ways.

Before going further, it's good to notice why Jesus told the parable, and in what context. This helped me understand who Jesus was speaking to that day ~ and every day since then, to this very Sunday.

The parable is one of his usual indirect but pithy responses to the grumbling of the Pharisees. This time, their complaint is: "This fellow welcomes sinners and EATS with them!"

Jesus has committed the sin of attracting a large crowd of Tax Collectors and sinners who are excited and encouraged by the Good News he brings. Worse, he enjoys their company!

The Pharisees, of course, have come to criticize Jesus, and to find ways of discrediting him. On this level, the parable speaks to the Pharisees, 2,000 years ago. Jesus chooses not to answer them directly. Instead, he tries to show them where they're going wrong through the story he tells. At the same time, the Sinners learn more about God, and what they may expect from him.

There are three levels to the parable he tells. The first is the tale of a loving, father and his dysfunctional sons.

The younger son, the prodigal, the "lost" one, as his father calls him, is like the feckless grasshopper of Aesop's fables. He wants his fun, and he wants it NOW. He asks his father for his full inheritance early, and actually receives it. (Ask, and you shall receive!)
Instead of investing his money wisely, he runs off to a distant place, far from the influence and constraints of his loving father. There, he proceeds to break every rule in the book and soon squanders his resources in riotous living.

His sins are as plain as the nose on his face, easy to judge and condemn. They're sins of the flesh: the desire to experience and enjoy everything that was formerly forbidden, with no thought for the future. Inevitably, he winds up broke, disgraced, starving, and friendless. He hires himself out as a laborer, tending the swine of a heartless Gentile landowner. (The ultimate degradation for a Jew.) He's reduced to eating the pig's food.
This is a desert experience in spades. It brings about a "coming to himself," or a return to his senses. He recognizes that his present life is a disaster, and that he was better off at home where even the lowliest servant has enough to eat. He repents of the behavior that has brought him low, and resolves to go home and beg for mercy.

The speech he prepares to give to his father when he returns, are words of confession and contrition. "Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son." He judges himself harshly, according to the laws of his forsaken faith. He doesn't expect forgiveness. Instead, he will ask to be allowed to return as a humble servant. "Treat me like one of your hired hands."

He never gets to express that request! While he's still a long way off, his father sees him, runs to him, and welcomes him home with joy. He accepts his statement of contrition and restores him, unconditionally, to his place in the family. As tokens of love and forgiveness, he gives him symbolic gifts of a gown, a ring, and sandals. The fatted calf is slaughtered to prepare a joyous feast of Reconciliation. What a happy ending!

Unfortunately, the Older Brother spoils the party.

If the prodigal is Aesop's thoughtless grasshopper, the Older Brother is the busy ant. He's disciplined, obedient, and a hard worker. A model son.

Yet, when his brother returns, nobody, not even his father, remembers to notify him! He returns home from work in the fields to discover that a great party is underway. He has to ask a slave to tell him what's going on. Perhaps he's been forgotten in all the excitement. But is it possible that he has trouble connecting with people? Nobody loves a martyr to good works! There may be reasons for his being overlooked.

The Good Brother, it turns out, is not perfect. His faults are the inward and invisible sins of pride and self-righteousness. He's resentful and hostile toward a brother who refused to follow in his narrow footsteps. He repudiates him and further blackens his name. Refuses to celebrate his return. He fails to notice that his father has provided for HIM ~ just as he's provided for the prodigal son. He has no clue that he, himself, might need mercy and forgiveness for his hard heart and failure of love.

Unlike the grasshopper, the busy ant hasn't had the advantage of a desert experience to shock him into deeper awareness. Avoiding risk, adventure, and forbidden pleasures, he's never left home. Because of this, he never "comes to himself," nor feels any need for repentance. He believes himself to be already righteous.

The return and restoration of his erring sibling is a devastating blow to his pride and sense of justice. His jealousy and outrage know no bounds. He refuses to enter the house, is rude to his father and accuses him of unfair treatment. "Listen! For years, I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command. Yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends!"

Surely, a father who was prepared to cut his youngest son loose with 1/3 of his net worth would have been willing to part with a single goat! Did he ever ask?
His bitter complaint that "When this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!" echoes the Pharisees' jealous remark that Jesus eats with sinners.

The parable stops before we hear the end of the story. The father runs outside to plead with his Older Son, just as he ran to meet the Younger Son. He begs him to join the party. He responds to his rage and accusations with assurances of his love and provision.

"Son, you are always with me. And all that is mine is yours." But he insists that everyone MUST celebrate the return of one "who was dead and is now alive again" who was "lost and is found." This is a moral imperative for all of us. We don't know how the Older Brother receives this message, because Jesus stops there, leaving us to wonder.

Returning now to the actual situation that prompted the parable, we arrive at the second level of the story. We see that it is a metaphor for the drama playing out in Jesus' life and ministry, as recorded in Luke's gospel. At this level, the Good Father= God. The Prodigal Son= the Tax Collectors and Other Sinners. The Older Brother= the Scribes and Pharisees.

Jesus tells his listeners what God is like.

The sinners and outcasts are drawn to God by his message.

The Scribes and Pharisees are repelled by his message.

The message the Pharisees reject is that God is a loving God, who forgives and welcomes sinners home. He will not compel his children to love him. They cannot earn his love by good works, because he loves them already. Though he wishes they would never go astray and lose themselves, he is a God who takes risks. He sets his children free to stay, or to wander. To make mistakes and suffer the consequences of their errors. To "come to the end of themselves," repent, and return home empty, broken, and brokenhearted. He waits to receive them with open arms. Forgiveness and restoration are freely offered to all ~ Pharisee and Prodigal alike. This is called grace!
The message is hard for the Scribes and Pharisees to bear. Theirs is a religion of works. They've already decided that Sinners have no place in God's family. Only the righteous, like them, deserve to belong. The message of a God who welcomes sinners home falls on deaf and angry ears.

We don't have the end of the story in this particular encounter. But the gospel tells us what happened later. On Good Friday, Christ, the Son of God, was crucified, with the collusion of some ~though not all ~ of the Pharisees who hated him.

God's response to the crucifixion came at Easter. He raised Jesus from the dead. He did this so that we might ALL becomes his sons and daughters ~since Christ paid, on the cross, once and forever, for our sins and transgressions.

This brings us to the third level of the story. Our life as Christians today.

The message is the same one that Jesus delivered over 2000 years ago.

We can all come home to the Father, Pharisees and Sinners alike. As Paul said in the reading from the Second Letter to the Corinthians, "If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation. Everything old has passed away. See, everything has become new!" This is the fulfillment of the promise of forgiveness in the parable of the Prodigal Son.
In the Lenten season, my challenge is to examine myself to see where I fit into this parable. Am I still a little Pharisee, as I was when I was a child? Or am I more of a Sinner? Nobody's perfect. Most of us have a foot in both camps.

When disheartened by the faults I find, I am comforted by the story of the Prodigal Son. It reminds me that the loving eyes of God the Father, and of Jesus, his son, will always see the best in us. And they will always welcome us home.

Inner and Outer, Inside and Outside: Philippians 3:8b-11
March 21st 2010

This is a sermon about inner and outer, inside and outside. When you go home today, and someone asks you what the sermon was about, that's what you can tell them: inner and outer.

When I was teaching RS fulltime at SFU, there was a question that came up in the introductory course without fail: "Sir (yes, even at SFU!), what is the soul?" (The other unfailing question would occur in the unit on Buddhism: "Sir, are you enlightened?"--a question to which neither "Yes" nor "No" would have been an appropriate answer; I usually just laughed and carried on.) Now of course there are many responses I could have given to that question. In fact, in Christian history, no theory of the soul gained general acceptance until the 13th century, when Thomas Aquinas, the big brain of the Middle Ages, declared that the soul was a "spiritual substance" which was the "form" of the body--he's following Aristotle here, who says that everything material has an inner dynamic, its form, which determines what its "matter," its material reality will be like and look like. Then in the 18th century, there were some crazy scientists who would undertake the cruel experiment of putting a naked, dying person on a large scale, and then carefully noticing the difference in the person's weight as he stopped breathing. This difference they took to be the "weight" of the soul, when obviously it was the weight, if that is the right word, of the breath/air leaving the person's lungs. That at least takes us back to the first use of the term in the bible, in Genesis 2:7, which says that in the creation of the first "earth-creature," ha-adam, God "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living soul"--at least that's what the King James says; less memorably, the NRSV says that he became "a living being," which is what "soul" meant in the 17th century.

So what did I say to the students? I said that the soul is the inside of the body, just as the body is the outside of the soul. I didn't mean by that what Aquinas did, not being an Aristotelian myself [  ]. What I meant was that a human being has a material part and an immaterial part, and both together constitute the human being. I think of the soul not as a "spiritual substance," but as a kind of open and empty mold, a spiritual capacity, into which comes every human experience we have. So our souls grow over the years, just as our bodies do. There are people who are what I think of as small of soul and others who are large of soul--I know we've all met both kinds. Both were born with the same capacity for soul-work; but in one person this has resulted in a soul marked by love and generosity and courage, and in another, born with the same capacity, a soul marked by selfishness, greed or even cruelty. Indeed, just as we grow and then maintain our bodies through food and water and rest and exercise, so we grow our souls through their immaterial equivalents: spiritual food, the living water (cf. John 4), Sabbath rest, and commitment to the running of the race which God sets before us.

Another commonplace in our society: "I'm spiritual, but I'm not religious." I would be rich today if I had a dollar for every time someone has said that to me or quoted it to me. (How many of you have heard that comment?) Again let me share with you an idea I would offer my students. Visualize a square: that's religion. Now visualize a squiggly, amoeba-like shape to the right or left of the square the border of which runs in its squiggly way into and out of one side of the square: that's spirituality. That diagram then makes it clear that there are three major cohorts among us--those who are religious and not spiritual, those who are spiritual and not religious, and those who are both religious and spiritual. And of course there is constant traffic from one section of the diagram to another--or out of it entirely--as people who are religious but not spiritual decide to cut their losses and play golf instead, becoming neither religious nor spiritual; or who decide that religion is empty formalism and become, in their own view, spiritual; and then once in a while, the spiritual-but-not-religious person who sees something new and hopeful in the life of the church, the Christian community, and moves sideways, becoming both spiritual and religious. So there's a parallel to the idea of body and soul, a union of inner and outer. "So much, then, my brethren, by way of preface."

This, then, brings us back to my text, Paul's statement to the Philippians. It's important to know that his statement about wanting to know Christ and his sufferings and his resurrection follows a previous discussion about circumcision. Paul's critics were saying to him that in order to be a Christian you had to be a Jew first, and that meant (if you were a male), that you had to be circumcised, that is, go through a religious ritual. Paul disagreed, saying that it was the inner circumcision of the heart that counted, not the outward circumcision of the body. He recounts his Jewish religious credentials--circumcised himself at eight days of age; a member of the tribe of Benjamin; an observant Pharisee; a zealous persecutor of the newborn church; a blameless keeper of the law of Moses. Then he says that he is ready to consider these credentials as so much rubbish compared to the personal inner knowledge of the risen Christ.

Now, a word of caution here. There is such a thing as anti-semitism, and we need to be careful not to give ammunition to anyone whose mind is bent (le mot juste) in that direction. So is Paul saying that he's not a Jew any longer? Is he rejecting his Jewish heritage? No, he's not. Have a look at Romans 11, in which he affirms his identity as a Jew, and speaks of the Gentiles--that's us--to whom he was especially sent, as being like branches of the wild olive tree grafted into the original olive tree of Israel.

Then what is he saying? Is he saying "I'm spiritual, now but I'm not religious any more?" No, he's not saying that either. He is saying that it is the inner reality that gives meaning to the outer reality, not the other way around. So he remained a religious man, as many places in his New Testament writings attest. He's in the middle part of my diagram, spiritual and religious.

It's obvious by now that I favour that middle section: religious and spiritual together. Spirituality is the soul of religion; religion gives body to spirituality. And further: just as the body is most appropriately directed by the soul, and not the other way around, so our religion--our outward practice: worship, decision-making, use of money and other resources; attitudes to others--needs to be governed by our spirituality, our inward sense of ourselves, our souls. Otherwise, says Paul in another place, your religion is vain, that is, empty.

Back to my text again: Paul says that beyond any outward religious observance, he wants to know Christ, both in his sufferings and in his resurrection. The word "know" is a profound one in the Bible. It doesn't just mean "be acquainted with" a particular someone--do you know Bill? Yes, I do know Bill--it means to be in an intimate relation with that someone. "Abraham knew his wife Sarah ...."--and so Isaac was born. It means to have as close and loving and life-shaping a relationship with Christ as those of us with partners have with our intimate partners. With that kind of inner knowledge, outward religion clicks into focus. Without that kind of inner knowledge, outward religion remains relatively diffuse or tasteless or, ultimately, pointless; just as, when a marriage dies inside, it needs to be buried by divorce--unless there can be a resurrection, which like the original resurrection, is unlikely but not entirely impossible.

And this is probably why the ancient framers of the lectionary--which goes back about 1500 years in its earliest form--chose this passage to be read two weeks before Easter. Good Friday is coming soon: an opportunity to know Christ in his sufferings, to go deeper this year than ever before into their meaning. Paul in fact would say that that really means a willingness to be crucified with Christ. And Easter Day is coming two days later: an opportunity to go deeper than ever before into the meaning of the resurrection, again, as Paul would say, to rise with Christ. In fact, if you look at the baptism service in the BAS, you will see that it sees baptism as the moment when, in the spirit, we do die with Christ and rise again with him. It's the greatest opportunity of the whole Christian year to put more "soul" into the body of our religion.

I had a conversation about this inner-outer thing with a friend a few months ago, a young woman in her thirties, who told me that she didn't believe in the resurrection. My immediate response, which I have to say surprised me as I said it, was this: "You don't believe that Jesus rose from the dead because you haven't risen from the dead." Nor, of course, had she died with him, which is the necessary prerequisite for rising again. And so it is that without that inner knowledge, our religion is just a matter of going through the motions.

A final comment. We can live our entire lives from the outside or from the inside. If we live them from the outside, the most important thing is what other people think of us, or whatever statements we make by our dress or our job or our possessions; and whatever advantages those assets may bring us. But the time will come when we look inside and find there only emptiness or dryness. If we live from the inside, however, from the heart, from the soul, from our inward knowledge of both the sufferings and the resurrection of Christ, then we can live with joy and power. Children, for example, begin their lives by living from the inside, speaking from the heart, which is probably why Jesus said we should become "as a little child" if we wanted to enter the kingdom of Heaven. Of course, after a few years of school and such, we have been socialized to keep our hearts to ourselves. But mid-life and later offers wonderful opportunities to move inward again. And I'm not suggesting that any one of us lives life entirely and fully from either the inner or outer position. For most of us, most of the time, it's a matter of proportion, of percentage: some days or years we live more from the soul, and days or years less. It's the struggle between the persona and the person.

But looking inward, if we will, we find our true selves in Christ, about whom Thomas Merton says, in a wonderful phrase, that he is our "other and true self." And as Shakespeare says: "This above all--to thine own self be true"--and I'll tweak that just a little: "This above all--to thine own soul be true."

Inner and outer; body and soul; religion and spirituality; Good Friday and Easter--"to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I [also] may attain the resurrection from the dead."

Lord, have mercy; thanks be to God.

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