Mirslov Volf wrote, “Forgiveness flounders because I exclude my enemy from the community of humans, and I exclude myself from the community of sinners.”
Begin by centering your heart in God’s presence… Give thanks to Him that you do not need to hide anything from him. Affirm that He is faithful and good, and his mercy and grace are “new every morning.” The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness” (Lam. 3:22-23).
Now let Him begin the process of searching your heart. Are there people in your life you struggle to forgive? What stands in the way of forgiving them?
Then, simply confess in as specific a way you can the sin, or unforgiveness that troubles you. Don’t rush through this process. Simply rest in God’s presence as He does this.
Now choose with God’s help to forgive them. See them in the presence of God. Ask God for Hi s mercy to fall on them. Receive Christ’s forgiveness for you. Remember – “He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9)
Receive His assurance of pardon – 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, 8 which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight 9 making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ . (Eph 1:7-9 ESV)
And finally commit this confession to the Lord. As you rest in his forgiveness ask him how to walk this out. Is God asking you to do anything in regard to your forgiving the one who sinned against you? Ask for the supernatural power of His Spirit to give you what you need to move forward. Thank him that you “have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer [you] who live, but Christ lives in [you]” (Gal. 2:20).
38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ 39 But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40 And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. 41 And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. 42 Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you. 43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. (ESV)
Step One – Read the passage slowly, attentively. Allow yourself to be taken in by the words – pay attention to any word or phrase that strikes you in the passage. (If you haven’t studied this passage, you may find this first reading will stir observation questions in you – such as who, what when, where, how).
Step Two – Read it again. Meditate and reflect on the passage. What is it in your life that needs to hear that word or phrase? This is an incredibly challenging passage. Sit in silence for a time, attending to the thoughts, images and impressions that begin to come to you. Turn that into prayer. Who do you think of when you think of your enemy? Where have you struggled to forgive or to love your enemy? – commit that to God.
Step Three – What is God saying to you? What do you begin to feel called to?
Step Four – How does God want you to live this passage out? What are you resolved to do? Is there more forgiveness work that needs to be done? What does going the extra mile look like for you? What does loving your enemy look like?
Lectio Quote: Forgiveness
The triumph of sin, the main sign of its rule over the world, is division, opposition, separation, hatred. Therefore, the first break through this fortress of sin is forgiveness: the return to unity, solidarity, love. To forgive is to put between me and my “enemy” the radiant forgiveness of God himself. To forgive is to reject the hopeless “dead-ends” of human relations and to refer them to Christ. Forgiveness is truly a “breakthrough” of the kingdom into this sinful and fallen world. (Great Lent, p. 27)
You can go through the same steps that we use for Lectio Divina for Scripture, or simply take some time and read this quote slowly and seek the Holy Spirit’s help to press into this word on forgiveness.
We are completing our picture of repentance with a word on the last desire or virtue from the last Sunday pre-Lent. Forgiveness is the virtue – and one way of seeing it is as the desire to lay down our arms; to make a cease-fire; to turn the other cheek, to bless and honor our enemies. While what I’ve read of these preparations for Lent haven’t grouped them in any hierarchal order, they do seem to build one on the other.
If our first foray into repentance and preparation is a desire and hunger for God and His righteousness, then what follows in respect to the second desire makes sense. We long to be what God calls us to be, we thirst for His presence and His righteousness. We take our rightful place in relationship with Him and as a result in right relationship with each other. We accept that our repentance will carry with it the virtue of humility. And then from that place we know that we must make our way home from the far country of our sins. Repentance then takes on the deep desire to go home, to make peace with our Father and leave behind all that was destined to ruin us. Contrition is the virtue and regular confession of sin is the practice that keeps that repentance fresh and rich.
The fourth desire is love – the kind of love that shows mercy – not just occasional mercy but steadfast mercy, steadfast love. The Old Testament calls this “hesed” – and when attributed to God it reveals itself in faithful, long enduring, loyal mercy and steadfast love and goodness. Here mercy is not the opposite of justice, it is the pouring out of our lives in service to others because we want to be like Jesus, and because we want to give back to him what He has so generously given to us. Thomas Hopko says that “having mercy is God’s most distinguishing characteristic. Pouring out His mercy, His steadfast love, upon His covenanted people is His main characteristic (The Lenten Spring, p. 62). It’s easy to see how this virtue follows the others – we hunger for God’s righteousness, which means we accept our place in relationship with Him, and we long to live contrite and holy lives. Our reach then extends beyond our love of Him and goes out toward our neighbors and beyond.
The fifth desire signals a movement toward a radical place in relationship to others. This picture of repentance is truly “love of another kind.” Forgiveness. That’s it. One word. But probably the hardest thing we will ever do (or have ever done). I’m not talking about offering the olive branch of peace to someone who has owned his/her debt. I’m not talking about being able to forgive because we know they didn’t really mean it. I’m not talking about uneasy truces. I’m talking about a way of life that is absolutely impossible without the grace of God, without the power of Christ within. Every one of us will probably have at least one enemy – they might even be a beloved enemy. But we live not only in a broken world, we also live in a world where debts are held onto, where anger seethes beneath the surface, and bitterness carries the day. We might be able to clean up the way we talk to our enemies, but unless we intentionally lay down our arms, we will not know this “love of another kind.”
C.S. Lewis spent much of his life wrestling with forgiving others. He wrote in a letter shortly before he died, that he had finally forgiven a cruel schoolteacher from his early years. I’ve often wondered about the passage in Matthew 18 about forgiving someone 70 x 7 times. I used to think it meant that the one who sinned against me did so 70 x 7 times and each time I was supposed to forgive them. But in my own journey of healing, I have realized that it’s very possible I am called to forgive the same sin over again. I hope you know I’m not talking about being afraid we haven’t forgiven – I’m talking about the layers of unforgiveness that I may have harbored without even knowing I’ve done so.
Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.
Matthew 18:21-22 (ESV)
Lewis says this: “To be Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you. This is hard. It is perhaps not so hard to forgive a single great injury. But to forgive the incessant provocations of daily life- to keep on forgiving the bossy mother-in-law, the bullying husband, the nagging wife… how can we do it? Only I think, by remembering where we stand, by meaning our words when we say in our prayers each night ‘forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us.’”
I find it interesting that the only sin mentioned in the Lord’s prayer is the sin of unforgiveness. Our capacity to receive God’s forgiveness is directly related to our capacity to release and forgive our enemies. Unforgiveness is ugly – and we really don’t want to see that kind of ugliness in ourselves. There is one person in my life (well there are probably more, but one sounds like I’m an ok person) that I struggle to forgive. I know I still struggle because when they are mentioned in conversation, I get a little excited when I hear bad things about them. Ugh.
Forgiveness is love of another kind. There are sins so grievous that there is no way we can forgive without the power of the Holy Spirit. Many of us won’t know or experience that kind of evil. But most of us have had people in our lives who turned their backs on us, slandered us, held grudges, or even envied us. There is a part of the Sermon on the Mount that is so hard to read, much less put into practice. For me, I would rather read verses about God’s love for me, like John 3:16. But… Jesus says: 39 But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40 And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. 41 And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. 42 Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you. 43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. (Mat 5: 39-45 ESV)
I would say that this kind of love – this unqualified forgiveness is the pinnacle of repentance. It completes the cycle. If repentance is a jewel, fashioned by God and our obedience, then these five desires reflect significant facets of that jewel. I want to be that kind of person – one willing to yield to the work of God in my heart and in my life that shines forth the kind of repentance that attracts others. Will you join me?
Today, I am supposed to be writing about the fourth desire in repentance – and that is the desire to be in right relationship to “the other”. This could be about lots of different people – but I think the key is that “the other” – is simply another human person. They are not me.
This is what Schmemann says about the “other”. “Christian love is the “possible impossibility” to see Christ in another man, whoever he is, and whom God, in his eternal and mysterious plan, has decided to introduce into my life, be it only for a few moments, not as an occasion for a “good deed” or an exercise in philanthropy, but as the beginning of an eternal companionship in God himself. For, indeed, what is love if not that mysterious power which transcends the accidental and the external in the “other” – his physical appearance, social rank, ethnic origin, intellectual capacity – and reaches the soul, the unique and uniquely personal “root” of a human being, truly the part of God in him?” (GL: p.23)
This desire is the virtue of love and the story is the story of the Last Judgment, (Mat. 25:31-46) where Jesus talks to two different groups of people about how they fed him or didn’t feed him, gave him drink, or not give them drink. He goes on in great detail – I was a stranger – I was naked, and I was sick, and I was in prison… And he says to the first group – you did this when you did it to the least of these… and to the other group – you did not do any of these things to me because you turned your heart and your words and your actions away from the least of these.
Today, I had lunch with my daughter and my grandsons, and we went to a restaurant we all really like. The service was horrible – I mean we waited over an hour for our food. I was disgusted, wanted to leave, wanted to somehow let the wait staff know just how bad they were at their job. We finally left and I took most of my lunch with me (as some act that might make him feel bad??). I left a really bad tip. I came home and complained to my husband, and felt pretty justified with my contempt for this really bad waiter. And then I sit down to write about repentance and mercy and love. If it weren’t for this particular story being linked to this facet of repentance, I could really concentrate on finding good things to do for people who need good things. I like showing mercy. But I missed the forest for the tree. I missed the opportunity to show Christ to another person – obviously to the waiter, but then of course to my daughter or my grandsons. Ugh.
Ironically, this ties in with the third desire or virtue which is the longing to go home, to turn back from the far country of sin, and make our way back – expecting to do penance; not expecting at all the almost embarrassing love of the Father – the lavish, generous, underserved love of our Father. The virtue that this desire points to is contrition – “which conveys a steady attitude of awareness of one’s frailty and wrongdoing before God” (psaltermark.com). And for me, today, it went deeper – to an old-fashioned word – compunction. Compunction is described as a sudden sense of shame linked to wrongdoing. It’s an experience that “cuts to the heart”. As I sat down to write – what I did today reared its ugly head and I saw my sin for what it was – not merely a missed opportunity to show grace, but a failing that made me miss seeing Jesus as the recipient of that mercy and grace.
I hesitate to even write this out because it’s so fresh that I don’t want to use it as an example in a “sermon” on mercy. I also am afraid that you, the reader, might feel bad for me (maybe I’m projecting, but if any of you would recount this experience to me, I would right away want you not to feel bad!) One of the ways we can grow in this virtue of contrition and the practice of confession – is to let each other confess, feel bad, feel guilt, and not rush in to rescue. It’s up to us if we are called to hear someone else’s confession to encourage the right kinds of guilt and discourage any deep shame that just never lets up. That is pride, and the Cross is God’s response to that kind of pride.
Our solidarity with each other allows us to truly confess and receive what Christ has done for us on the Cross. Thomas Hopko writes that “confession ‘springs from an awareness of what is holy; it means dying to sin and coming alive again to sanctity’. It expresses itself in the ‘oral confession of sins,’ accomplished ‘with precision, without veiling the ugliness of sin by vague expressions.’ It is fulfilled in the resolution never to sin again, although realizing that we will fall because we are not God. It is sealed by our subsequent sufferings to remain steadfast in our struggle against sin. Such confession is at the heart of our spiritual efforts, especially during the lenten spring. (The Lenten Spring, Thomas Hopko, p. 55-56. Hopko is quoting a Father Elchaninov and you see his words in the single quote marks).
So many emotions today. From disgust to a blatant disregard for the “other”, to compunction to contrition to confession to receiving God’s grace. Remember what Fleming Rutledge said about confession: “The grace of God prepares the way for the confession of sin, is present in the confession, and even before the confession has been made, has already worked the restoration of which the confession is not the cause but the sign” (The Crucifixion, p. 204).
Alexander Schmemann calls Lent the season of bright sadness – in part because in Lent as we become more practiced in repentance and we learn we do not have to fear our brokenness and sin, we can receive this season as a season of great joy. Amen.
As I entered this season of Lent I went back to my rule of life which I had decided on at the beginning of the year. I’ve written a bit about what a rule of life is. It’s simply a way to stay aligned with what God is calling you to become, not a way to measure what you’ve done. It’s a marker, a signpost. It can include all measure of things. A question, a song, a Scripture, a prayer… Whatever God leads you to! I have found there is no end to the resources out there. I have simply included in my observation of Lent some of the decisions I made at the beginning of the year. I hope this serves as a reminder for you as well.
The question I try to ask each day when I start it is this: “How will I live out my baptism today”? The scripture that comes to mind is the passage from Romans 6:4-11:
Rom 6:4-11 –We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin–because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
I also call to mind the word from Alexander Schmemann about baptism and the rule of life:
“…to remain faithful to his baptism, living by it, making it always the source and power of his life, a constant judgment, criterion, inspiration, ‘rule of life’.”
And then from St. Patrick:
I arise today: Through the strength of Christ’s birth with his baptism Through the strength of His crucifixion with His burial Through the strength of His resurrection with His ascension Through the strength of His descent for the judgment of doom.
“Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God who raised him from the dead” ( Colossians 2:11b-12).
You know my weakness, Lord. Every morning I make a resolution to practice humility and in the evening I recognize that I have committed again many faults of pride. At this I am tempted to become discouraged but I know that discouragement is also pride. Therefore, O my God, I want to base my hope in you alone. Since you can do everything, deign to bring to birth in my soul the virtue I desire. To obtain this grace of your infinite mercy I will very often repeat: “O Jesus, gentle and humble of heart make my heart like yours!” Amen.
The first feast of the preparation for Lent in the Orthodox tradition is centered on a deep desire, even hunger, for God and for His righteousness. The practice I believe presses this out is fasting. This most certainly means in some ways fasting from food – to allow our hunger for physical nourishment train us in our hunger for God. But there are other ways of fasting as well – what John the apostle wrote of countering the “lust of the eyes”.
The second feast centers on the desire or virtue of humility. The story told is one familiar to most of us and that is the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector, found in Luke 18:10-14. This is a desire for “the right order of things”, where we acknowledge our rightful place before God and even before other people. I think that one of the spiritual practices that might help us fulfill this desire is the practice of silence.
This passage from the Old Testament describes the position all of earth takes before the Lord.
But the Lord is in His holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before Him.
Habakkuk 2:20
And then from Revelation 8:1 – this beautiful picture is painted: “When the Lamb opened the seventh seal there was silence in heaven for about a half an hour”.
Silence – something we rarely experience. I remember one time in high school I went with some friends to the Smoky Mountains. There, for some reason, I found myself alone – and I sat on the hill against a tree and looked out at this incredible beauty – the mist rising, the blue-gray color of distant mountain, the smell of fresh air. It was glorious. Yet even the beauty didn’t keep me from feeling lonely. But I was transformed just a few minutes later. I noticed the silence. Absolutely no noise of human life – no cars, no talking, no trains in the distance. I didn’t even hear the normal sounds of birds, or leaves rustling, or animals scurrying. It was the most quiet I had ever been around. In that stillness I felt great peace – all high school angst at being alone gone.
How many places are left with that kind of quiet – but I feel like if I could keep faith with that silence, I would know my place. I would not strive to be the smartest, the fastest, the most…(anything).
“In reality, true, good silence always belongs to someone who is willing to let others have his place, and especially the Completely-Other, God. In contrast, external noise characterizes the individual who wants to occupy an over-important place, to strut or to show off, or else who wants to fill his interior emptiness, as is the case in many stores and public facilities, and also particularly in the waiting rooms of some dentists, hairdressers…, where they impose incessant background music on you”.
Internet article – unknown.
In the brief time I have committed to this practice – I have been so aware of just how often I seek place, or recognition or superiority. In conversation with someone who is sharing a story, I am already moving ahead looking for my own story that matches theirs. Now friends, I am not at all encouraging self-analysis or what Leanne Payne called the disease of introspection. I want to be aware of how deeply God is calling me to this, and I can only do that as I listen to Him. His voice exhorts, but it exhorts with the utmost love and patience. Silence is such a gift – one that grants us, as well as those around us – peace and stillness. When we are not distracted by our own noise and can really listen to those we are in conversation with, it is transformative.
“The fruit of silence is prayer…Jesus is always waiting for us in silence. In this silence he listens to us and speaks to our souls…And then we will hear his voice…In this silence, we find a new energy and a real unity” (St. Teresa).
Here are some questions that might help direct this practice if you decide that this is something God is calling you to:
Do I spend any time in silence each day?
Do I seek out silence? Or do I fill in any opportunity for quiet time with noise instead?
Do I turn on music in the car when I could drive in silence for a while?
Do I speak when words are unnecessary?
Do I seek that place of deep quiet just sitting in God’s presence?
Perhaps for some of us – silence is not just something we’ve rarely thought about. It can be a trigger for anxiety. It could be that the dread of it is part of our emotional or psychological or even spiritual defenses. So, I ask you to be gentle with yourself, and do what God is calling you to. In any attempt you make to do this, ask Him for His peace and healing word. We are not looking to be heroes in the spiritual arena. Let this be a reminder to you that any practice you are being drawn to should be made out of a sense of what God is calling you to. Remember as well that God is with you, He is in you, and He is forming Christ in you.
Another complementary practice to silence could be finding ways to honor or defer to others, in words or deeds. Especially in our relationship with God, we can find ways to honor Him. We can honor Him as Job did, 21 “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” 22 In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong” (Job 1:21-22 ESV).
14 If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. 15 Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place. 16 I have chosen and consecrated this temple so that my Name may be there forever. My eyes and my heart will always be there. (2Ch 7:14-16).
Holy Father, as we long to express our repentance through humility, may we be quiet, even silent before You. Enlarge our hearts, dear Holy Spirit, that there might be great space there to dwell in the quiet places. Make our silences be a way to deepen humility in us, and may we rightly honor you and others, in the same way Your Son and our Savior Jesus did. Amen.
3 ‘Why have we fasted, and you see it not? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no knowledge of it?’ Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure, and oppress all your workers. 4 Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to hit with a wicked fist. Fasting like yours this day will not make your voice to be heard on high. 5 Is such the fast that I choose, a day for a person to humble himself? Is it to bow down his head like a reed, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Will you call this a fast, and a day acceptable to the LORD? 6 “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? 7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh? 8 Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily; your righteousness shall go before you; the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard. 9 Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’ (Isa 58:3-9 ESV)
This is a very long passage to read devotionally – but it’s worth it if we press into it. I started by asking observation questions of the text – the who, what, when, where… questions. If you make a list of the things the Lord accuses the Israelites of – and then a list of the kind of fast He requires – it starts to flow! Also there is an if…then… aspect of the passage and the result of doing the kind of fast God requires is beautiful! It will be helpful to study it first, then read it slowly with lectio divina in mind.
Step One – Read the passage slowly, attentively. Allow yourself to be taken in by the words – pay attention to any word or phrase that strikes you in the passage. (If you haven’t studied this passage, you may find this first reading will stir observation questions in you – such as who, what when, where, how).
Step Two – Read it again. Meditate and reflect on the passage. What is it in your life that needs to hear that word or phrase? Sit in silence for a time, attending to the thoughts, images and impressions that begin to come to you. Turn that into prayer.
Step Three – What is God saying to you? What do you begin to feel called to?
Step Four – How does God want you to live this passage out? What are you resolved to do?
Lectio Quote – Fasting
photo by Monika Grabkowska
In the following quote you could substitute fasting/temperance for the virtues Lewis comments on: chastity and charity. Read it slowly and devotionally. Chew on it, and digest it!
We may, indeed, be sure that perfect chastity—like perfect charity—will not be attained by any merely human efforts. You must ask for God’s help. Even when you have done so, it may seem to you for a long time that no help, or less help than you need, is being given. Never mind. After each failure, ask forgiveness, pick yourself up, and try again. Very often what God first helps us towards is not the virtue itself but just this power of always trying again. For however important chastity (or courage, or truthfulness, or any other virtue) may be, this process trains us in habits of the soul which are more important still. It cures our illusions about ourselves and teaches us to depend on God. We learn, on the one hand, that we cannot trust ourselves even in our best moments, and, on the other, that we need not despair even in our worst, for our failures are forgiven. The only fatal thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection.
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Simon and Schuster, Touchstone Edition, 1996), p. 94
In my last post, I wrote of the way the Orthodox Tradition prepares for Lent (which is of course a preparation itself for Easter!) For five Sundays before Lent begins, there is a story from Scripture and a desire or virtue that fills out a full picture of repentance. As I reflected on those desires I wondered if there would be a spiritual practice that might help live out that particular desire. I want to help us follow the path from desired virtue to repentance by engaging in ways that make our Lenten practices “practical” and real. In the past I have found myself making great plans for Lent with all the things I will either abstain from or engage in! And to be honest, I peter out sometime the second or third week. Did you know why January 17th is a significant date? It is the day that most people give up their New Year’s resolutions and fall back into bad habits.
I might also say that I’m not trying to be comprehensive in my suggestions of practices that might help us on our journey. But hopefully it might spur us on!
I’ve written about this before, but I want to re-emphasize the reason I believe spiritual practice is a better term than disciplines as we seek maturity in Christ. In fact, I would say I prefer the idea of formation in Christ, or maturity instead of becoming Christlike. We don’t start with ways to build bigger muscles of Christlikeness (which can primarily be measured by changed behavior sometimes without a corresponding change in heart). Instead, we start with Paul in Galatians 2:20 – “I have been crucified with Christ, and is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” The language that better fits our becoming in this sense is incarnational reality. We are in Christ, and we engage in spiritual practices in order to be more fully formed in Him. Of course, I understand that those on the spiritual disciplines wagon want the same thing we all do! We want to grow in Christ! So please, disagree with me if that’s your conviction!
Back to desires and repentance! As you read from the post earlier this week the first desire is the longing for God and for His righteousness. The story used here is that of Zacchaeus, which is found in Luke 19: 2-8. Please go there and read it. You might agree that this longing is a hunger than can only be filled as we center ourselves in Christ and let Him fill us. So, the more natural practice for this desire is fasting. And this is where we begin: in the desert with Christ. Satan’s first temptation to Jesus was to tell him he could turn stones into bread. And Jesus says to him:
It is written, man cannot live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.
Matthew 4:4
Rocks and bread – how often are we tempted to settle for rocks when the bread of life is there for us? He was given for us that we would no longer hunger or thirst (Joh. 6:35). But I hate to be hungry. I have to say that hunger is my kryptonite.
There is great wisdom from Schmemann here:
“What then is fasting for us Christians? It is our entrance and participation in that experience of Christ Himself by which He liberates us from the total dependence on food, matter, and the world. By no means is our liberation a full one. Living still in the fallen world, in the world of the Old Adam, being part of it, we still depend on food. But just as our death–through which we still must pass–has become by virtue of Christ’s Death a passage into life, the food we eat and the life it sustains can be life in God and for God”
Schmemann on fasting
There are many things to fast from, but I think we would do well to begin with fasting from food, as we are able and led. Schmemann continues: “Ultimately to fast means only one thing: to be hungry–to go to the limit of that human condition which depends entirely on food and being hungry, to discover that this dependency is not the whole truth about man, that hunger itself is first of all a spiritual state and that it is in its last reality hunger for God” (ibid).
It is critical to understand that fasting or any other practice of abstaining we commit to is not a physical challenge alone. It must have its roots in a spiritual commitment – a commitment to surrender to God the things we most desperately hold on to.
In our times, there are many things to fast from, and probably many of us have already committed to reducing time on social media, gaming, screen time. The apostle John had no idea what we struggle with in our modern world. But in writing to churches dealing with heresy (the main heresy being the denial of the Incarnation of Christ), John writes this:
For everything in the world- the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life – comes not from the Father but from the world.
1 John 2:16
The Latin concept/word for lust here is concupiscence, which refers to an ardent powerful longing that is usually sensual in nature. John in this verse is warning the church of this concupiscence of the flesh but also the concupiscence of the eyes. When Gnosticism, which essentially is a denial of the body’s goodness, infects a people it usually results in all manner of sensual excess and transgression. We can quickly see the danger of this in the use of pornography but in this day, in our culture there is much that the eye is drawn to which falls in this category. Josef Pieper refers to this as visual noise. What the eyes are drawn to when given over to virtue and godly desire is the good and the beautiful. Gaze for a moment on the beauty in a child’s face, or the glory seen in a flower or mountain, and you see an eternal reality. But visual noise is an endless search for entertainment and utter meaninglessness. So much is out there that draws our attention away from the truth that there is barely any place to simply rest our eyes. I am so guilty of the mindless scrolling through Instagram or other social media. I am particularly fond of the “dear Abby” advice columns (did I just admit to that?!). Visual noise distracts, dulls, and kills the capacity for restraint and temperance.
Fasting has the power to restrain our fleshly urges. The picture for me here is how Josef Pieper describes temperance: “[it is] …the shore, the banks, from whose solidarity the stream receives the gift of straight unhindered course, of force, descent, and velocity” (The Four Cardinal Virtues).
Temperance is the shore, the banks, from whose solidarity the stream receives the gift of straight unhindered course, of force, descent and velocity.
“The Four Cardinal Virtues”
Temperance is the way to keep our hungers, our desires within the right boundaries! Fasting, whether food or other things, is one way of pressing into this beautiful virtue of temperance.
There is so much more I could say about fasting, but I’ll leave it here, and simply encourage you to read the great teachers out there who write about it from personal experiences.
To return to our desire – our hunger for God and His righteousness, fasting is a good spiritual practice to help us not only lean into that desire or that virtue but to be further trained in repentance.
The next post will cover the other desires and spiritual practices.
A word here though on fasting; as a practice we are probably going to struggle with this one in ways that differ from other practices. We need to prepare for failure. I have to end this post with this incredible wisdom from Schmemann –
…After all this said, one must still remember that however limited our fasting, if it is true fasting, it will lead to temptation, weakness, doubt and irritation. In other terms, it will be a real fight, and probably we shall fail many times. But the very discovery of Christian life as fight, and effort is the essential aspect of fasting. A faith which has not overcome doubts and temptation is seldom a real faith. No progress in Christian life is possible, alas, without the bitter experience of failures
Great Lent: 103-104
We must also remember that our only hope in overcoming our failures or challenges is in remembering who we are. We are in Christ! ONLY through His life in us can we hope to mature, to be formed in Him, to be made whole.
Friends, we need companions on the way – on this beautiful journey toward Easter. Let’s walk alongside each other as we press into repentance and spiritual practices. Ask a friend, share your decisions about the practices you choose. Commit to praying for another person, and when you fall off the path, be resolute and quick to return to the journey!
Have you ever really wanted something? I mean to really want it! Did your desire for it transcend everything else in your life? I have wanted so many things, so many times. But one thing sticks out in my memory. I think I was about 11 – and all I wanted for my birthday was a bow and arrow set. I mean, I really wanted it. I pestered my parents until I was blue in the face – but my birthday came and went and no bow and arrow. I was crushed, confused, and greatly disappointed. I have no idea why I didn’t get it – it seemed like everyone else got what they wanted! (I’m pretty sure my desire was not really about the bow and arrow!)
To desire something deeply makes one vulnerable. It has the power to expose us and the power to ruin us. But God made us for desire! He made us to direct the whole of our hearts in desire to the good He has for us. When desire is directed toward the thing we were made for – it moves us, it transforms us. It is like being shot out of a cannon! The desire for a life with God is the thing we were made for. And our God-driven desires picture for us the gift He has for us during this season of Lent.
I was not aware of this before my time preparing for Lent last year, but I discovered that the Orthodox Church spends five weeks before the first day of Lent in preparing for it! Can you imagine spending five weeks preparing for the preparation of Easter? As I continue my thoughts about desire, I need to say just how indebted I am to Father Alexander Schmemann for his great book: “Great Lent: the Journey to Pascha”.
There are five feasts in the weeks before Lent begins, and they all center around godly desire. Each week stresses a particular desire which together displays a picture of repentance. It’s beautiful and I want to somehow bring us into an experience of each desire as a facet of this wonderful jewel of repentance.
The first feast centers on the story of Zaccheaus from Luke 19:2-8. Zacchaeus had such a desire to meet Jesus, and yet there was no way to get close to Jesus because of his limitations (he was short… – like some of the rest of us). I love what Schmemann says about this:
…ours is to desire that which is deepest and truest in ourselves, to acknowledge the thirst and hunger for the Absolute which is in us whether we know it or not, and which, when we deviate from it and turn our desires away, makes us indeed a “useless passion.” And if we desire deeply enough, strongly enough, Christ will respond.
Alexander Schmemann, Great Lent, p. 16
The first desire reveals a deep hunger for God and His righteousness.This is the virtue of godly desire.
The second feast tells the story of the tax-collector and the Pharisee, from Luke 18: 10-14. We know how that story goes. The Pharisee comes to the temple full of presumption (and full of himself). In his “prayers” to God he says – “I am so glad I am not like that guy over there!” The tax collector comes to the temple, acutely aware of his deep need for forgiveness and simply cries out “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”
“The lenten season begins then by a quest, a prayer for humility which is the beginning of true repentance. For repentance, above everything else, is a return to the genuine order of things. It is, therefore, rooted in humility and humility – the divine and beautiful humility – is its fruit and its seed”
Great Lent, p. 18.
This desire is for: A return to the right order of things – This isthe virtue of humility – God is God and we are not!
The third feast tells the story of The Prodigal Son, Luke 15:11-32; a familiar story, where the second son leaves his home to make his way in the world. He squanders all he had and has given his heart (and his desires) to things that cannot last, unlovely cravings and sins. He “repents” and turns back toward home, not expecting grace or kindness. He is totally sickened by his wastefulness and sin.
To truly repent means that we realize just how far we are from home. In our wanderings “something pure and precious and beautiful has been hopelessly broken in the very texture of my existence” … and through our confession, through our longings – we turn our faces home – and there the Father not only meets us at the door, He runs to greet us. He says – “Oh how I have longed for this day – My joy is overflowing…” This reveals Lent itself as pilgrimage and repentance as return. We see that the real prodigal in this story is the Father – generous and lavish in His love for us!
“It is easy indeed to confess that I have not fasted on prescribed days, or missed my prayers, or become angry. It is quite a different thing to realize suddenly that I have defiled and lost my spiritual beauty, that I am far away from my real home, my real life, and that something precious and pure and beautiful has been hopelessly broken in the very texture of my existence. Yet this, and only this, is repentance, and therefore it is also a deep desire to return, to go back, to recover that lost home”
Great Lent: p. 21-22
This is a deep desire to return to God and is the virtue of contrition, godly sorrow over our sinfulness.
The fourth feast is celebrated on the fourth Sunday of preparation. The story commemorating this is the Last Judgment, from Matthew 25:31-46. It marks Christ’s words to those there on the Last Judgment. The scripture says that when Christ comes in glory and sits on his throne he will say: “For I was hungry, and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked, and you clothed me, I was sick, and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then they asked Him, “when did we do this”? His response? – “when you did it to the least of these!”
Christian love is the “possible impossibility” to see Christ in another man, whoever he is, and whom God, in his eternal and mysterious plan, has decided to introduce into my life, be it only for a few minutes, not as an occasion for a “good deed” or an exercise in philanthropy, but as the beginning of an eternal companionship in God himself.
Great Lent, p. 23.
This form of repentance brings a deepening love for “the other“– and is the virtue of love. It gives us the grace to see and care for the needs of others.
The final feast is celebrated on the last Sunday before Lent and the story is from Matthew 6:14-21, with Christ’s commands to forgive those who have sinned against us. He says that our own forgiveness is at risk when we refuse to forgive our enemies. Schmemann says, “The triumph of sin, the main sign of its rule over the world, is division, opposition, separation, hatred. Therefore, the first break through this fortress of sin is forgiveness”. – a return to unity, peace, brotherhood” (GL:27).
This desire moves us to“lay down our arms” – and is the virtue of forgiveness – as we confess and receive, we are more naturally open to forgiving others…but the warning is clear – forgive that you may be forgiven.
This picture of repentance then centers on these five desires or virtues: hunger for God, humility, contrition, love and forgiveness.
One way we can keep faith with our baptisms is to seek out spiritual practices that correspond to these desires. I will write more on that later, but there is one practice that I have felt called to in regard to humility and that is the practice of silence. This has not gone well so far (insert laughing emoji here) – if my goal has actually been success in the practice! But this decision, this practice has revealed how much ugly pride there is in my heart and how much disdain for others I have. I have been confronted with my need to feel superior – and one way this is manifested is that I roll my eyes a lot (sometimes externally, often internally) when I think what someone has done or said is beneath me – my superior intellect or even my spiritual prowess. “Ouch! Dr. Marvin, you can help me!” (cue the first scene of What About Bob).
That’s enough for now – Let me leave you with this incredible word from John Shea on repentance:
“The more deeply one enters into the experience of the sacred the more one is aware of one’s own personal evil and the destructive forces in society. The fact that one is alive to what is possible for humankind sharpens one’s sense that we are fallen people. The awareness of sin is the inevitable consequence of having met grace… This grace-judgment dynamic reveals that the center of Christian life is repentance. This does not mean that the distinguishing mark of the Christian is breast-beating. Feeling sorry, acknowledging guilt, and prolonging regret may be components of the human condition, but they are not what Jesus means by repentance. Repentance is the response to grace that overcomes the past and opens out to a new future. Repentance distinguishes Christian life as one of struggle and conversion and pervades it, not with remorse, but with hope. The message of Jesus is not “Repent,” but “Repent for the Kingdom of God is near.”
