It’s another Lenten season. I don’t know whether you read that sentence with joy or dread. A little of both, I suspect, for most of us. There is something exciting about a season with such a clear purpose and direction. At the same time, that purpose and direction can be painful to say the least. If the purpose is to examine the innermost thoughts and inclinations of the heart, then that can be sobering, troubling, disturbing of our long held belief that we are good enough at the very least, and better than most at our best. Lent can be unsettling, if we work it right.
Wait. What? Why would we want to “work Lent” in such a way that we are unsettled? Because we know that without a little work, we’ll never get anywhere. Or without a little upset, we will never be set right. Or as Fred Buechner said before the Gospel can be good news it has to be bad news. Before we can be comforted we have to be disturbed.
This Lenten season I am inviting my congregation to consider Spiritual Disciplines. These disciplines are ancient practices that have given followers the opportunity to deepen their faith, to practice obedience and adoration on a daily basis. I’ve chosen ten different disciplines to focus on over the five Sundays of Lent. There are others, and perhaps you have some that you find meaningful for you. But I invite you to consider these ten for this Lent. Perhaps they might help with the upsetting, or the refocusing that I was talking about here.
And then, to help us get into these disciplines, I decided to let the Psalms be our guide. These are the selections from the lectionary, that ecumenical guide to scripture each Sunday that many mainline churches use. But we don’t often use the Psalms as texts for worship and preaching. So, yet another stretch for this season.
Let’s recap: Psalms and Spiritual Disciplines coming together to help us be upset by Lent. Uh, ok. Let’s give it a try. Here is the Psalm for this Sunday, you tell me which disciplines are called for. OK? Give it a try.
Psalm 25:1-22 To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul. 2 O my God, in you I trust; do not let me be put to shame; do not let my enemies exult over me. 3 Do not let those who wait for you be put to shame; let them be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous. 4 Make me to know your ways, O LORD; teach me your paths. 5 Lead me in your truth, and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all day long. 6 Be mindful of your mercy, O LORD, and of your steadfast love, for they have been from of old. 7 Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember me, for your goodness' sake, O LORD! 8 Good and upright is the LORD; therefore he instructs sinners in the way. 9 He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his way. 10 All the paths of the LORD are steadfast love and faithfulness, for those who keep his covenant and his decrees. 11 For your name's sake, O LORD, pardon my guilt, for it is great. 12 Who are they that fear the LORD? He will teach them the way that they should choose. 13 They will abide in prosperity, and their children shall possess the land. 14 The friendship of the LORD is for those who fear him, and he makes his covenant known to them. 15 My eyes are ever toward the LORD, for he will pluck my feet out of the net. 16 Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted. 17 Relieve the troubles of my heart, and bring me out of my distress. 18 Consider my affliction and my trouble, and forgive all my sins. 19 Consider how many are my foes, and with what violent hatred they hate me. 20 O guard my life, and deliver me; do not let me be put to shame, for I take refuge in you. 21 May integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait for you. 22 Redeem Israel, O God, out of all its troubles.
The lectionary only has the first ten verses, but I decided to bring in the whole thing this week. Partly because this Psalm is an acrostic. You can’t tell it from the English translation, but in Hebrew each verse begins with a different letter of the alphabet. There are 22 characters in the Hebrew alphabet, and there are 22 verses in Psalm 25. I consider for a moment retranslating it so that it started with successive English letters, but decided that was too much work! You’ll just have to take my word for it.
But the main reason for including the whole thing was so that you could see the flow from beginning to end. How it seems to jump from internal to external struggles, how the enemies named in the psalm sometimes seems like real flesh and blood bad guys and how sometimes they seem to be inner demons afflicting the confidence and well-being of the psalmist.
Yet, despite the struggles from whatever source, there is an antidote suggested. Verse four is the beginning of that antidote. “Make me know” it says, “teach me” it continues, “lead me ... and teach me” the next verse records. Kind of hard to miss when you look at it. And it is possible that if we continue on this line that you would think that the discipline that fits here is study. That is an important one and will be coming up in a couple of weeks. But no, that isn’t where we start this week.
Instead we ask the question what do we need to do in order to learn, in order to be led? We need to listen. The Voice on the mount of transfiguration said “This is my beloved Son, listen to him.” Jesus said, “let those who have ears to hear hear!” So our disciplines begin with Silence and Solitude.
Dallas Willard divides spiritual disciplines into disciplines of abstinence and disciplines of engagement. He puts Silence and Solitude under abstinence and that makes sense. In a way. There is a letting go involved in these disciplines. They are about moving yourself aside, about letting go of your need to speak or to fill up with quiet with sounds of your choosing. A Discipline of Silence requires that you listen to another voice. Perhaps it is an inner voice, perhaps it is a voice that comes from beyond yourself.
Which means that perhaps Silence ought to be a Discipline of Engagement. Yes, you are abstaining from speaking, but you are looking to plug into the Word of God. You are seeking to engage with a presence beyond yourself. Silence is not, in the end, about emptiness, but about a fullness that is harder to define.
But whether we see it as abstaining or as engaging Silence is about learning, about being willing to be led. That is what the Psalmist is trying to get us to understand. The way out of trouble, whether inner demons or external enemies, is to learn the ways of God, the paths of the Lord. And the first step toward learning is to listen.
So, are you all ears this Lenten season? Are you ready to be taught and to grow and to follow? That’s my prayer these 40 days.
Wait. What? Why would we want to “work Lent” in such a way that we are unsettled? Because we know that without a little work, we’ll never get anywhere. Or without a little upset, we will never be set right. Or as Fred Buechner said before the Gospel can be good news it has to be bad news. Before we can be comforted we have to be disturbed.
This Lenten season I am inviting my congregation to consider Spiritual Disciplines. These disciplines are ancient practices that have given followers the opportunity to deepen their faith, to practice obedience and adoration on a daily basis. I’ve chosen ten different disciplines to focus on over the five Sundays of Lent. There are others, and perhaps you have some that you find meaningful for you. But I invite you to consider these ten for this Lent. Perhaps they might help with the upsetting, or the refocusing that I was talking about here.
And then, to help us get into these disciplines, I decided to let the Psalms be our guide. These are the selections from the lectionary, that ecumenical guide to scripture each Sunday that many mainline churches use. But we don’t often use the Psalms as texts for worship and preaching. So, yet another stretch for this season.
Let’s recap: Psalms and Spiritual Disciplines coming together to help us be upset by Lent. Uh, ok. Let’s give it a try. Here is the Psalm for this Sunday, you tell me which disciplines are called for. OK? Give it a try.
Psalm 25:1-22 To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul. 2 O my God, in you I trust; do not let me be put to shame; do not let my enemies exult over me. 3 Do not let those who wait for you be put to shame; let them be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous. 4 Make me to know your ways, O LORD; teach me your paths. 5 Lead me in your truth, and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all day long. 6 Be mindful of your mercy, O LORD, and of your steadfast love, for they have been from of old. 7 Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember me, for your goodness' sake, O LORD! 8 Good and upright is the LORD; therefore he instructs sinners in the way. 9 He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his way. 10 All the paths of the LORD are steadfast love and faithfulness, for those who keep his covenant and his decrees. 11 For your name's sake, O LORD, pardon my guilt, for it is great. 12 Who are they that fear the LORD? He will teach them the way that they should choose. 13 They will abide in prosperity, and their children shall possess the land. 14 The friendship of the LORD is for those who fear him, and he makes his covenant known to them. 15 My eyes are ever toward the LORD, for he will pluck my feet out of the net. 16 Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted. 17 Relieve the troubles of my heart, and bring me out of my distress. 18 Consider my affliction and my trouble, and forgive all my sins. 19 Consider how many are my foes, and with what violent hatred they hate me. 20 O guard my life, and deliver me; do not let me be put to shame, for I take refuge in you. 21 May integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait for you. 22 Redeem Israel, O God, out of all its troubles.
The lectionary only has the first ten verses, but I decided to bring in the whole thing this week. Partly because this Psalm is an acrostic. You can’t tell it from the English translation, but in Hebrew each verse begins with a different letter of the alphabet. There are 22 characters in the Hebrew alphabet, and there are 22 verses in Psalm 25. I consider for a moment retranslating it so that it started with successive English letters, but decided that was too much work! You’ll just have to take my word for it.
But the main reason for including the whole thing was so that you could see the flow from beginning to end. How it seems to jump from internal to external struggles, how the enemies named in the psalm sometimes seems like real flesh and blood bad guys and how sometimes they seem to be inner demons afflicting the confidence and well-being of the psalmist.
Yet, despite the struggles from whatever source, there is an antidote suggested. Verse four is the beginning of that antidote. “Make me know” it says, “teach me” it continues, “lead me ... and teach me” the next verse records. Kind of hard to miss when you look at it. And it is possible that if we continue on this line that you would think that the discipline that fits here is study. That is an important one and will be coming up in a couple of weeks. But no, that isn’t where we start this week.
Instead we ask the question what do we need to do in order to learn, in order to be led? We need to listen. The Voice on the mount of transfiguration said “This is my beloved Son, listen to him.” Jesus said, “let those who have ears to hear hear!” So our disciplines begin with Silence and Solitude.
Dallas Willard divides spiritual disciplines into disciplines of abstinence and disciplines of engagement. He puts Silence and Solitude under abstinence and that makes sense. In a way. There is a letting go involved in these disciplines. They are about moving yourself aside, about letting go of your need to speak or to fill up with quiet with sounds of your choosing. A Discipline of Silence requires that you listen to another voice. Perhaps it is an inner voice, perhaps it is a voice that comes from beyond yourself.
Which means that perhaps Silence ought to be a Discipline of Engagement. Yes, you are abstaining from speaking, but you are looking to plug into the Word of God. You are seeking to engage with a presence beyond yourself. Silence is not, in the end, about emptiness, but about a fullness that is harder to define.
But whether we see it as abstaining or as engaging Silence is about learning, about being willing to be led. That is what the Psalmist is trying to get us to understand. The way out of trouble, whether inner demons or external enemies, is to learn the ways of God, the paths of the Lord. And the first step toward learning is to listen.
So, are you all ears this Lenten season? Are you ready to be taught and to grow and to follow? That’s my prayer these 40 days.
Shalom,
Derek
No comments:
Post a Comment