Blessings on this grey, wintry day! However disorienting I have found this snowless winter to be, going outside in the flurries has made me appreciate the relative warmth of the last few months. I love the cycle of the seasons, but I cannot say I also love having numb toes.
Our winter-free winter has, in any event, made me pay attention more closely. One of the blogs I read regularly in preparing my sermons is written by a Methodist minister in Florida, Jan Richardson. I was recently struck by an observation she made about the wilderness text from the Gospel of Mark. The text says, quite straightforwardly, “Jesus was in the wilderness with the wild beasts.” (Mark 1:13). Richardson points out that there is no threat, no menace implied: they are just there. She wonders whether they might be companions, witnesses, protectors of solace and silence.
Lent, this year, is for me all about questioning my habits: those things I do and think without even realizing it. Living a fairly routinized life, it’s easy to stop paying attention to the unconscious choices I make. But what happens when I don’t fill my commute with radio noise? What happens when I don’t march my children to bedtime like a general, trying to get rid of them into their rooms as quickly as possible? What happens at dinner without that glass of wine, washing the dishes without that piece of secret chocolate? I’m not giving anything up explicitly (except the radio in the car—that one I’m trying really hard on)—so much as really observing what nourishes me. Sometimes it IS a glass of wine or a piece of chocolate—but oftentimes I find I’m fine going without, and those resources can go somewhere else.
Being with the wild beasts: not controlling or panicking, but coexisting, recognizing real threat where it is. Also vital to Christian practice is faith in God’s transforming grace: love is always more powerful than death. In the Daily Office lectionary we’re making our way through Genesis, currently spending time with Joseph (of the fabulous coat) and his brothers. They sell him into slavery in Egypt but he ends up working for Pharaoh, ultimately saving them from famine. As Joseph forgives his brothers, he says, “Though you intended to harm me, God intended it for good.” (Gen 50:20). In the same way as the Trinity’s 1+1+1=3 makes us have to forget how to count, the redemptive power of God makes us have to forget how follow sequence.
The life of faith is not linear. It was a terrible thing that Joseph’s brothers kidnapped him and sold him. It was a terrible thing that God surely would not have planned. At the same time, would Joseph have been able to save his family from the famine that gripped his homeland had he not been sold into slavery in the first place? They all would have died. This is the power of redemption that comes from the cross: not a suffering God had planned or intended, but still an opening of wonder and grace. So, too, with the wild beasts; how often do I perceive something as a threat that actually invites me closer to God? How often do I see something as an exciting option, when actually it distracts me from my path?
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