Dear People of Christ Church,
I hope you're having a fruitful start to your Lent; have you stuck to your chosen paths toward Easter? I was reading an article recently that asked this question: If you said you were going to pray for 15 minutes every morning for Lent and you already missed two of them, is God annoyed that you've already failed twice, or is God delighted that you set aside time for prayer five times?
I think if you had to pick one, you'd probably admit that you first focused on the failure, not the success. There are a lot of reasons it's hard for us to see how God sees or love how God loves, and one stumbling block has to be the uniquely human burden of so frequently turning toward negativity. Whenever I find myself favoring harsh self-criticism over compassion, I struggle to remember to ask myself: does this come from God, or from somewhere else? It's good to hold ourselves accountable, but not if it blinds us to the intimacy we already share with God in our lives.
Historically, the name for the "somewhere else" has been the devil. Satan. To be honest, I'm pretty doubtful about the existence of anything at all like a red cartoon character with horns and a tail. At the same time, I also reject the old Michelangelo image of God as an old white man with a beard, however majestic looking *he* is reaching across the Sistine Chapel.
The thing is, I feel like I actually have experienced God in my life; I have been embraced by oceans of love and acceptance, I've heard the still small voice guiding my steps and I've been moved by the suffering I've seen in the world. I've been bodily fed and restored by our sacraments, made one with all of you in Christ at the altar. I don't have a visual image for what that's like, apart from the experience of being in relationship.
I've not had a personal experience of any sense of anthropomorphized evil. I have seen it in action: the hopelessness of our culture in our "debate" about gun violence while children are dying. The extreme poverty of Sub-Saharan Africa while governments insist that nothing can be done. Racism and homophobia. Passivity in the face of suffering. Rape. These are all evil. There's no dressing it up to make it reasonable, but still I have a hard time naming it as Satan. CS Lewis wrote that the devil's greatest success is convincing us that he (sic) doesn't exist. There are quite a few things that CS Lewis and I disagree about, but I think that sounds about right. I have just as much trouble with it as anyone else.
What's even harder is seeing how, in my own life, I succumb to the "not from God" stuff on a smaller level. How can I ask God's help to withstand the temptation to scold myself for not being good enough? How can I ask God's help to withstand the temptation not to give up on my spiritual practices when they get hard? How do I ask God for help in resisting the evils of complacency in our church community, in being too comfortable with how pleasant it all is?
Our First Sunday of Lent Gospel is very clear about how Jesus is tempted; he withstands the devil's invitation because he trusts in God. How do we also trust in God to withstand evils both great and small? How do we support each other in the journey?
Blessings,
Sara+
PS Did you miss our first Lent series conversation? It's not too late! For the next four Tuesdays, members of the congregation will lead us through a series of conversations on prayer. Next Tuesday, Daniel Keleher on Jesus, while Erin Jensen teaches the Godly Play series on Knowing Jesus in a New Way for the younger set.
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