Showing posts with label Practices. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Practices. Show all posts
Tuesday, 27 March 2012
Thursday, 15 March 2012
Lent - Pressing on into Life
Lent it must be said is Hard Work. Yesterday I mentioned the dryness that comes when trying to write everyday, but also that in that sense of 'Nothing left', what was uncovered was the reality about our lives - and that Reality is a Great Gift. 'It is very good to become disillusioned,' as someone once told me, 'for it only goes to show that you were living under an illusion, an illusion which you have now lost.'
The Wilderness is the place of confrontation with Truth, nowhere to hide and nothing to fall back on, the illusory life disappears like a vapour. In disciplines of prayer and fasting and almsgiving, we are stripped back to reveal the reality of our hearts and lives - and there we confront something that we have avoided - which is just how Hard this Christian life seems to be.
As GK Chesterton puts it, 'Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.'
What Lent often does, is to reveal to us the ways in which we avoid the Hard business of beginning the Christian Life - yes, beginning. The plain truth which often comes to us is that so enamoured are we of our own lives, that we barely notice there is little or nothing in them which is consonant with the Gospel. We have dreamt dreams about the glories of Love and Forgiveness, of Truthfulness and deep community, of Hospitality to the Stranger, to the one who is not like us, and Abundant Generosity towards the undeserving. But it has been just that, dreams, just dreams. And in the cold light of day, when we face the challenge so to Live ourselves - we find it difficult and so do not try, but we continue to allow the dreamlike illusion to be our comfort. We come up with a hundred and one very plausible rationalizations, usually along the lines of 'life is not as Simple as that'.
But in fact Life is Every bit as Simple, that is why it is so terrifying, because we cannot live it.
We can barely love our friends with deep sincerity, let alone our enemies, we cannot forgive ourselves, let alone others, we hide from the truth and justify deceit in the name of compassion - and so on.
Lent is a good teacher - it reveals the Truth, but then if we will let us it teaches us more. It is in itself an invitation to life, because we have to learn this Life we call faith - it is not just a dream or a set of doctrines or an idea, it is a life. and like our first life it doesn't come naturally at first. When we learnt anything in life - be it to walk, or write, or read, or ride a bicycle, we may well have seen others competent in the Way and thought 'I can do that', and then promptly and sometimes literally fallen flat on our face!
The thing is this - we didn't give up. We pressed on - and now, not only do we do them with ease we actually find enjoyment in them.
The Life revealed to us in Christ is the same and MORE. If we do not give up - if we do not hide behind our 101 reasons why we live a Christian life that is a pale shadow of what we know it ought to be - if we make the effort and look to the author and perfector of our Salvation, THEN we discover, that little by little, bit by bit we learn it - we learn to Perform faith. AND what is more, the more we do it - the more we discover it Really is Life in Abundance, Through our Practice of it we grow into a deeper and deeper apprehension of its Glory
Let us consider for a moment the Practice of Community - something we truly know so little of in the Western World, where we live such self sufficient lives. What Community requires is Openness of life - living lives where All that we are is known. Lives that are not carefully whitewashed tombs, but lives where our hearts, our joys and our sorrows, our sins and our small triumphs are known - that we are Known. To put it another way, lives where we are Loved.
Of course if we are pious, we might say 'ah well I am known to God', which of course is true, to a point. But our hearts deceive us. For to be Fully Known goes against the grain. Often our 'God' in nothing more than a reflection of ourselves. If God Knows us, why do we fear being known by others, why do we hide??
The truth is that we do Not know the Joy of being fully Known by God for we are scared of revealing ourselves to others and our very selves are closed up tight. We are afraid to be Known and we marshall our 101 reasons why it is not necessary to Live Openly, why One Shouldn't! Things we have been told, that due to our inherent desire to flee and to Hide (as did our First Parents) we think the epitome of Wisdom.
So we are challenged to allow that Knowing to be incarnated - in friends and neighbours. Not to Hide, to be Open. And it is Hard. Very Hard. But as we press on, as we refuse to allow the Lies to have the LAst Word, believing that Reality is the God who is Love in Community, we discover that there is more Life there than we can ever have thought possible. For in the Sharing of ourselves we Give to others. How foolish we are to think we know that it is those things we are happy to share that are gift to others. No. It is the things of which we are ashamed or hide. It is in the revealing of our Hidden selves, that are weak and fearful and as yet ill formed, that others are truly blessed, for they too find the courage to step out into the light themselves - and to begin the journey towards their own growth.
And it is so with all of the other practices of the Christian Life. We are well defended against them - we all too readily choose to live a Christian life that fits and reflects us, having made God in our own image. But if through the practices of Lent we discover that we have been looking not at God but in the mirror, then we may find Grace to Press on into this Life of God - through Lent - Holy Week, to the Cross and then the Resurrection - Pressing on deeper and deeper into Life.
The Wilderness is the place of confrontation with Truth, nowhere to hide and nothing to fall back on, the illusory life disappears like a vapour. In disciplines of prayer and fasting and almsgiving, we are stripped back to reveal the reality of our hearts and lives - and there we confront something that we have avoided - which is just how Hard this Christian life seems to be.
As GK Chesterton puts it, 'Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.'
What Lent often does, is to reveal to us the ways in which we avoid the Hard business of beginning the Christian Life - yes, beginning. The plain truth which often comes to us is that so enamoured are we of our own lives, that we barely notice there is little or nothing in them which is consonant with the Gospel. We have dreamt dreams about the glories of Love and Forgiveness, of Truthfulness and deep community, of Hospitality to the Stranger, to the one who is not like us, and Abundant Generosity towards the undeserving. But it has been just that, dreams, just dreams. And in the cold light of day, when we face the challenge so to Live ourselves - we find it difficult and so do not try, but we continue to allow the dreamlike illusion to be our comfort. We come up with a hundred and one very plausible rationalizations, usually along the lines of 'life is not as Simple as that'.
But in fact Life is Every bit as Simple, that is why it is so terrifying, because we cannot live it.
We can barely love our friends with deep sincerity, let alone our enemies, we cannot forgive ourselves, let alone others, we hide from the truth and justify deceit in the name of compassion - and so on.
Lent is a good teacher - it reveals the Truth, but then if we will let us it teaches us more. It is in itself an invitation to life, because we have to learn this Life we call faith - it is not just a dream or a set of doctrines or an idea, it is a life. and like our first life it doesn't come naturally at first. When we learnt anything in life - be it to walk, or write, or read, or ride a bicycle, we may well have seen others competent in the Way and thought 'I can do that', and then promptly and sometimes literally fallen flat on our face!
The thing is this - we didn't give up. We pressed on - and now, not only do we do them with ease we actually find enjoyment in them.
The Life revealed to us in Christ is the same and MORE. If we do not give up - if we do not hide behind our 101 reasons why we live a Christian life that is a pale shadow of what we know it ought to be - if we make the effort and look to the author and perfector of our Salvation, THEN we discover, that little by little, bit by bit we learn it - we learn to Perform faith. AND what is more, the more we do it - the more we discover it Really is Life in Abundance, Through our Practice of it we grow into a deeper and deeper apprehension of its Glory
Let us consider for a moment the Practice of Community - something we truly know so little of in the Western World, where we live such self sufficient lives. What Community requires is Openness of life - living lives where All that we are is known. Lives that are not carefully whitewashed tombs, but lives where our hearts, our joys and our sorrows, our sins and our small triumphs are known - that we are Known. To put it another way, lives where we are Loved.
Of course if we are pious, we might say 'ah well I am known to God', which of course is true, to a point. But our hearts deceive us. For to be Fully Known goes against the grain. Often our 'God' in nothing more than a reflection of ourselves. If God Knows us, why do we fear being known by others, why do we hide??
The truth is that we do Not know the Joy of being fully Known by God for we are scared of revealing ourselves to others and our very selves are closed up tight. We are afraid to be Known and we marshall our 101 reasons why it is not necessary to Live Openly, why One Shouldn't! Things we have been told, that due to our inherent desire to flee and to Hide (as did our First Parents) we think the epitome of Wisdom.
So we are challenged to allow that Knowing to be incarnated - in friends and neighbours. Not to Hide, to be Open. And it is Hard. Very Hard. But as we press on, as we refuse to allow the Lies to have the LAst Word, believing that Reality is the God who is Love in Community, we discover that there is more Life there than we can ever have thought possible. For in the Sharing of ourselves we Give to others. How foolish we are to think we know that it is those things we are happy to share that are gift to others. No. It is the things of which we are ashamed or hide. It is in the revealing of our Hidden selves, that are weak and fearful and as yet ill formed, that others are truly blessed, for they too find the courage to step out into the light themselves - and to begin the journey towards their own growth.
And it is so with all of the other practices of the Christian Life. We are well defended against them - we all too readily choose to live a Christian life that fits and reflects us, having made God in our own image. But if through the practices of Lent we discover that we have been looking not at God but in the mirror, then we may find Grace to Press on into this Life of God - through Lent - Holy Week, to the Cross and then the Resurrection - Pressing on deeper and deeper into Life.
Tuesday, 13 March 2012
Monday, 5 March 2012
Life through the Disciplines
Here at St John's we are exploring the theme of Christian Practices, through Lent. Practices I have come to define as The Life of God (as with many of the things I teach and talk about, what it is only becomes clear to me long after I've started the preparation!).
Practices such as Blessing, Sabbath, Generosity, Hospitality, Truthfulness, Forgiveness - Ways of being that embody what God in the Risen Christ is doing in the world. Of course we tend rather to think about the Disciplines of the Christian life in Lent - Fasting, Prayer and Almsgiving being the three chief ones, taking our lead from the Ash Wednesday Gospel reading, in Matthew chapter 6. Lent is a time for disciplined self examination, that opening up of the Heart of the matter as we seek to follow Christ more closely, and the disciplines are helpful in that regard. But how do they relate to the Practice of the life of God? To many in this age they seem quite antithetical - they seem negative, the path of Self denial - how can they bring forth Life. Shouldn't we just get on with Living the life of God?
But that is precisely it, for as soon as we try to 'Live the Life of God' we realise that we cannot. We fall flat on our faces. It is as if we have seen a beautiful painting, or eaten a Cordon Bleu meal, or watched a sportsman perform as the height of his game and said, I'm going to do that!! And go buy some paints or food, or go out on the Sports field and, either metaphorically or literally, fall flat on our faces. For the truth is that the artist or the chef or the sportsman has been training for years and years and we have not. And of course we know this so if we really want to master these things we set about the discipline of doing it and getting it wrong and so learning and repeating over and over again, til it comes right
Yet somehow we think that this matter of Living the Christian Life, the Life of God should be easy - until we try to do it. And then we get discouraged and give up. Or we hear from others on the way that it is hard and so don't even bother to try. Forgiveness is a good case in point here. We see it and we say "I could never do that!" Except the truth is you could, we all can - we are made to, it is part of our human nature made as we are in the Image of God.
this is where the disciplines come in. Before Jesus steps a foot into the ministry of public arena, he goes through a fierce discipline and testing - before the Father will let him loose on the world, the Spirit drives him into the wilderness, to learn through the discipline of fasting.
So what is the role of the disciplines with regard to the life of God? Isn't it enough to keep on trying and failing until we get better? Well the Wisdom of the ages tells us that that generally isn't the way, that if Christ had to fast that he might Love the world as his Father does, then so do we. As Dallas Willard points out, we can't expect to imitate the life of Jesus if we ignore the dimension of disciplining ourselves.
Let us imagine for a moment that learning to Live the Life of God is a little like learning to drive a car. When I learnt, my first teacher was my dad. It wasn't a great experience. Of course like most drivers he had loads of bad habits and so he passed them on. It was only when I sat with a qualified instructor for some focused tuition, that these became apparent. The disciplines are like those sessions with the Expert. They are times when the Only thing in focus is Living the Life. By fasting, or prayer, or almsgiving, we strip away anything that is Not to do with God and His Life, and we are subjected to scrutiny. Through which we learn something of what is getting in the way, blocking this Life of God.
(Another helpful discipline in this regard is having a good Spiritual Director - someone who is well versed in the Life of God and its ways and who can help us scrutinise the latest blockage on our path. this is never easy but, in our age subjecting our lives to the Scrutiny of another is perhaps even ore difficult and thus all the more necessary!)
The Disciplines uncover the heart and reveal what is hidden there - they reveal what is getting in the way of the Life of God as we seek to grow in faith and holiness. The Disciplines are like the tilling of the ground each season that it might bring forth more fruit. If the practices are the flourishing garden of the Life of God, the disciplines are the pruning shears and weeders that every gardener knows are Necessary.
Each of these three disciplines has an important role to play and so through the next three weeks we shall explore each one further. Beginning tomorrow with the discipline of giving alms.
Practices such as Blessing, Sabbath, Generosity, Hospitality, Truthfulness, Forgiveness - Ways of being that embody what God in the Risen Christ is doing in the world. Of course we tend rather to think about the Disciplines of the Christian life in Lent - Fasting, Prayer and Almsgiving being the three chief ones, taking our lead from the Ash Wednesday Gospel reading, in Matthew chapter 6. Lent is a time for disciplined self examination, that opening up of the Heart of the matter as we seek to follow Christ more closely, and the disciplines are helpful in that regard. But how do they relate to the Practice of the life of God? To many in this age they seem quite antithetical - they seem negative, the path of Self denial - how can they bring forth Life. Shouldn't we just get on with Living the life of God?
But that is precisely it, for as soon as we try to 'Live the Life of God' we realise that we cannot. We fall flat on our faces. It is as if we have seen a beautiful painting, or eaten a Cordon Bleu meal, or watched a sportsman perform as the height of his game and said, I'm going to do that!! And go buy some paints or food, or go out on the Sports field and, either metaphorically or literally, fall flat on our faces. For the truth is that the artist or the chef or the sportsman has been training for years and years and we have not. And of course we know this so if we really want to master these things we set about the discipline of doing it and getting it wrong and so learning and repeating over and over again, til it comes right
Yet somehow we think that this matter of Living the Christian Life, the Life of God should be easy - until we try to do it. And then we get discouraged and give up. Or we hear from others on the way that it is hard and so don't even bother to try. Forgiveness is a good case in point here. We see it and we say "I could never do that!" Except the truth is you could, we all can - we are made to, it is part of our human nature made as we are in the Image of God.
this is where the disciplines come in. Before Jesus steps a foot into the ministry of public arena, he goes through a fierce discipline and testing - before the Father will let him loose on the world, the Spirit drives him into the wilderness, to learn through the discipline of fasting.
So what is the role of the disciplines with regard to the life of God? Isn't it enough to keep on trying and failing until we get better? Well the Wisdom of the ages tells us that that generally isn't the way, that if Christ had to fast that he might Love the world as his Father does, then so do we. As Dallas Willard points out, we can't expect to imitate the life of Jesus if we ignore the dimension of disciplining ourselves.
Let us imagine for a moment that learning to Live the Life of God is a little like learning to drive a car. When I learnt, my first teacher was my dad. It wasn't a great experience. Of course like most drivers he had loads of bad habits and so he passed them on. It was only when I sat with a qualified instructor for some focused tuition, that these became apparent. The disciplines are like those sessions with the Expert. They are times when the Only thing in focus is Living the Life. By fasting, or prayer, or almsgiving, we strip away anything that is Not to do with God and His Life, and we are subjected to scrutiny. Through which we learn something of what is getting in the way, blocking this Life of God.
(Another helpful discipline in this regard is having a good Spiritual Director - someone who is well versed in the Life of God and its ways and who can help us scrutinise the latest blockage on our path. this is never easy but, in our age subjecting our lives to the Scrutiny of another is perhaps even ore difficult and thus all the more necessary!)
The Disciplines uncover the heart and reveal what is hidden there - they reveal what is getting in the way of the Life of God as we seek to grow in faith and holiness. The Disciplines are like the tilling of the ground each season that it might bring forth more fruit. If the practices are the flourishing garden of the Life of God, the disciplines are the pruning shears and weeders that every gardener knows are Necessary.
Each of these three disciplines has an important role to play and so through the next three weeks we shall explore each one further. Beginning tomorrow with the discipline of giving alms.
Thursday, 23 February 2012
At the start of Lent
The Western Church traditionally observes the Sunday before Lent by remembering the Transfiguration of Christ, as recorded in Matthew's gospel, chapter 17. There is much Wisdom in this.
As we enter a time where it is all too easy to focus out thoughts on ourselves as we apply ourselves to the disciplines of the season - traditionally fasting, prayer and Almsgiving, and more and more in the modern idiom, taking up some 'Good Work' - it is easy to lose sight of Jesus and get caught up in all the 'virtuous' things we are doing, being at home with ourselves, rather than allowing Jesus to take us on pilgrimage through the Wilderness, the only place where God's people learn faith.
There is a sense that the apostles felt this on the Mount of Transfiguration - "it is good for us to be here" - they are all too ready to pitch tent and stay there, but the 'lights' go out and suddenly
"they saw no one except Jesus himself alone."
No bright lights, no voice from Heaven - just Jesus. Lent is a time which asks us "Is He Enough?"
Matthew records that as soon as they come down from the mountain, the disciples find themselves floundering in the thick of the battle
When they came to the crowd, a man came to him, knelt before him,
and said, ‘Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and he
suffers terribly; he often falls into the fire and often into the water.
And I brought him to your disciples, but they could not cure him.’
Jesus answered, ‘You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer
must I be with you? How much longer must I put up with you? Bring him
here to me.’
And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was cured instantly.
Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, ‘Why could we not cast it out?’
He said to them, ‘Because of your little faith. For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a
mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, “Move from here to there”,
and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.’
They are perhaps asking, What happened to that Light, the Voice - The Wonder and the Awe of the mountain - why couldn't we have stayed there?? But as Jesus tells them, they have little faith. The plain fact is that the Light, the Voice, The Wonder and the Awe are all present, but veiled in human flesh. He is still Present to them, but they have little faith, they cannot See.
Jesus has his own Mount of Transfiguration experience - his Baptism.
There are signs, the Spirit, the heavenly voice. How easy it must have
been to ask to pitch tent by this place of blessing. But as Mark puts it
The Spirit "drives" Jesus out into the Desert. This Work is Vitally
urgent for Him and it is for us too.
As we enter Lent we are called to go with Jesus, to let go of other supports, ease and food, money (as we give alms) - for it is a time of testing. But all we are doing is going with Jesus and in the path of His disciples. Lent mirrors Jesus' 40 days in the Wilderness - we do not go alone. As He was as present amongst the demoniacs and the chaos of his disbelieving disciples, he is present in our Wilderness walk
One of his disciples saw the lights going out, yet spoke faith
- ironically for he was known as the one who doubted -
'Let us go also, that we might die with Him'
Whilst we still long to remain
comfortable,
whilst we have yet to learn to See him when humanly
speaking the lights have gone out,
we need Lent
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