When I chose the title for this blog, I’m going to be honest, I was just trying to come up with a catchy name. I was in the middle of a “man crush” on Josh Ritter’s music and was reading Walter Brueggemann’s book “The prophetic imagination”. Brueggemann had an excellent analysis of the manner in which empires create a sense of the “eternal now” (the powerful belief system that there is nothing better that is ever going to come along) and Ritter’s song “Like Leaves and Kings” struck me as a wonderful reminder that arrogant assumptions about the permanence of things (e.g. Francis Fukuyama’s argument that we are at the end of history and that liberal democracy and capitalism are the final resting places) are incorrect and reflect a misguided hope.
But before I could get too smug and laugh at the misguided beliefs of “people like that” I was reminded that I, too, attempt to create a sense of permanence about myself. I live my life as if there will be unlimited tomorrows with little sense that my life will come to an end. I all too easily say “goodbye” to friends and loved ones with the assumption that, of course, there will be another “hello”. I let time and my schedule dictate my life while telling myself that there will be good “relational quality time” later on. This is where Lent punches me in the face. From Ash Wednesday where I am reminded that it is from ashes that I came and to ashes that I will go, to Good Friday where I see God the Father forsake God the Son to death, I am reminded that all things must fall.
In the little English-speaking Anglican church I am attending in Bucharest our pastor spoke of sin as anything that separates us from God, while salvation is that which brings us back into relationship with God. When we say that Jesus was without sin, we are meaning more than that Jesus never had a sinful behavior, we mean that Jesus was always in right relationship with God the Father through God the Holy Spirit. It is this solidarity with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit that Jesus is constantly tempted to abandon during his life. During the Lenten season the Church begins to contemplate on the multitude of ways that we, individually and corporately, are not in right relationship and solidarity with God. As I reflected on the patterns in my life that keep me from right relationship with God I began to yearn for an ending of those things. Those patterns that had established themselves as “permanent” and “just the way that I am” began to come into view as something else that needed to fall. And this is the terrifying part about Lent, because when things end we want to control and know what will begin. Christ’s passion in the Garden of Gethsemane becomes our own...endings aren’t often experienced as pure delight (even if they are the ending of negative things) and are more often experienced as anguish. Christ was so convinced about God’s promises and life that he went to the cross and experienced God-forsakenness trusting God to bring about something new. My hope and prayer for my brothers and sisters in Christ and myself during this Lenten season is that we will enter into the terror of “endings” and trust in the God of beginnings no matter where that leads.
But before I could get too smug and laugh at the misguided beliefs of “people like that” I was reminded that I, too, attempt to create a sense of permanence about myself. I live my life as if there will be unlimited tomorrows with little sense that my life will come to an end. I all too easily say “goodbye” to friends and loved ones with the assumption that, of course, there will be another “hello”. I let time and my schedule dictate my life while telling myself that there will be good “relational quality time” later on. This is where Lent punches me in the face. From Ash Wednesday where I am reminded that it is from ashes that I came and to ashes that I will go, to Good Friday where I see God the Father forsake God the Son to death, I am reminded that all things must fall.
In the little English-speaking Anglican church I am attending in Bucharest our pastor spoke of sin as anything that separates us from God, while salvation is that which brings us back into relationship with God. When we say that Jesus was without sin, we are meaning more than that Jesus never had a sinful behavior, we mean that Jesus was always in right relationship with God the Father through God the Holy Spirit. It is this solidarity with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit that Jesus is constantly tempted to abandon during his life. During the Lenten season the Church begins to contemplate on the multitude of ways that we, individually and corporately, are not in right relationship and solidarity with God. As I reflected on the patterns in my life that keep me from right relationship with God I began to yearn for an ending of those things. Those patterns that had established themselves as “permanent” and “just the way that I am” began to come into view as something else that needed to fall. And this is the terrifying part about Lent, because when things end we want to control and know what will begin. Christ’s passion in the Garden of Gethsemane becomes our own...endings aren’t often experienced as pure delight (even if they are the ending of negative things) and are more often experienced as anguish. Christ was so convinced about God’s promises and life that he went to the cross and experienced God-forsakenness trusting God to bring about something new. My hope and prayer for my brothers and sisters in Christ and myself during this Lenten season is that we will enter into the terror of “endings” and trust in the God of beginnings no matter where that leads.
1 comment:
I left a killer response shortly after you posted this, but I think you're blog swallowed it. I think I didn't begin my post with the right temper of humility, and the little morality monster in my computer decided to chastise me for it. Oh well.
It's interesting how pervasive the assumptions behind Fukuyama's thesis are in our society, and also how perfectly the arrogance of his thesis perfectly illustrates Brueggemann's point. But each and every one of us tend to believe in Fukuyama rather than Walter; I think we all place our faith in the gifts of democracy and what it's done for us lately. We are the Israelites, it seems. Always forgetting.
I, too, must admit to falling prey to a mindset of the permanence of all things. Whether they be relationships, or life itself, I live as if all things will be the same today as they were the day before. I, too, place my faith in a misguided hope. I begin to realize that faith in God is scary, and requires on my part the acceptance of moments of terror and questioning. I often think of Sarah Masen Dark's words at her concernt: "The Resurrection, right?" It often seems too far away.
Boy, Lent kinda sucks sometimes! No wonder so many evangelicals have banished it from the realm of religious experience! It's a bit of a downer.
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