A Daily Lent

Seeing What Is Real Wednesday of the Third Week of Lent – March 18, 2020 A spiritual practice is a contemplative practice if it helps you see the truth about God, self, others, and the world. Life is as simple – and as painfully difficult – as that. Most persons never question their perception of the truth. They experience life through their own filters (attachments, beliefs, fears) and never take time or energy to consider the filters. And for many persons, over the course of a lifetime, their filters never change. They die in old age clutching the same filters through which they saw God, self, others, and the world when they were 10 years old. The role of spiritual practice is to help us cut through the illusions of life. A good spiritual practice will help you see what is real more clearly. When you see, you may not like what you see, but then, liking what you see is not the point. Do you want to see the truth? Or are you content to continue seeing an illusion? [Before any...

The Illusion of Being Lovable Friday after Ash Wednesday – February 28, 2020 Being lovable – the kind of person who will be loved – takes immense energy and attention. Humans of all cultures and races spend themselves on that which will cause them to be worthy of love in their particular context. The radical notion of grace and God is that we are loved just as we are. We cannot do anything to be loved more. We cannot do anything to be loved less. This notion is radical because it is a complete game-changer. If we could integrate this truth, letting it seep deep into our beings, we would cease playing so many of the self-referenced games we engage in moment by moment . . . the attention-getting games . . . the games in which we must pretty-up both our exterior (physical appearance) and our interior (secret and hidden) world . . . our fears of being unnoticed and underappreciated. Again, read what Beatrice Bruteau wrote about loving and being lovable: All this means three int...

Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Lent Daily Reading : John 8:31 – 42 Focus Passage : To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." (Jn. 8:31) Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a pastor in pre-war Nazi Germany, came up with the phrase “cheap grace” for a Christian faith which wants to receive God’s goodness without radically reordering life as Christ advocated. So today I’ll use the phrase “cheap truth” for the way these words of Jesus (Jn. 8:31 – 42) have been misrepresented. These verses have been watered down (cheapened) to suggest that spiritual freedom is possible without a radical reorientation of life. Verse 31 has been used, misused, and badly abused for a long time. It gets co-opted by those who think they repres...

Thursday of the Fourth Week of Lent Daily Reading : John 5:31 – 47 Focus Passage : "I do not accept glory from human beings, but I know you. I know that you do not have the love of God in your hearts. I have come in my Father's name, and you do not accept me; but if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him. How can you believe since you accept glory from one another but do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?" (Jn. 5:41 – 44) In the Gospels, Jesus knew the inner landscape of people. In fact, Jesus knew the inscape of persons better than they knew themselves. He knew the purposes, loves, and motivations which reside at the heart of a person. “I know,” he said, “that you do not have the love of God in your hearts.” He knows humans, that we are divided and that our lives are spent in many different pursuits. He knows that we are distracted, that we easily turn aside from that which is most central to life, in order to chase the munda...

Thursday of the Third Week of Lent Daily Reading : Luke 11:14 – 23 Focus Passage : Jesus was driving out a demon that was mute. When the demon left, the man who had been mute spoke, and the crowd was amazed. But some of them said, "By Beelzebul, the prince of demons, he is driving out demons." Others tested him by asking for a sign from heaven. Jesus knew their thoughts. . . . (Lk. 11:14 – 17a) If we can separate ourselves for a moment from the content of this text, interesting as it may be, I think we’ll find a word from Jesus about the nature of spiritual teaching and the power of spiritual wisdom. Authentic spirituality separates us from lies and illusions. It is the nature of the spiritual life to expose the false self, that is, the illusory ego-self that orders life around itself. This false self exists in human persons, in institutions, in social groups, and in larger national entities. Sometimes for a social group, this falsity is manifested in ...

Tuesday of the Second Week of Lent Daily Reading : Matthew 23:1 – 12 Focus Passage : Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: "The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them. "Everything they do is done for people to see.” (Matt. 23:1 – 5) The Pharisees and teachers of the law have a bad Sunday School reputation. We’ve beat up on them for years, cast them as the “bad guys,” as those who were stubborn and opposed to Jesus, as those who stood in the way of God. In truth, their faith expression was much like ours, consisting in prescribed rituals and regulations for life. As a group, they were not nefarious people. They simply insisted on putting new wine into old wines...

Maundy Thursday – April 2, 2015 ON A FEAST DAY IN CELLIA, brothers gathered to eat a meal at church. One of them told a server, “I do not eat anything that has been cooked. I only eat salted food.” The server called out to another, “This brother does not eat cooked food! Bring him some salt.” One of the brothers told the one on the restricted diet, “You would have done better to eat meat alone in your cell today than to have had this announced in front of everyone.” [Bernard Bangley, By Way of the Desert , p. 355] The spiritual practice of self-control reminds me that my own will and desire is not the defining context for life. Certainly it is one context for life, just not the only one. The story of MY life is always lived out in the context of the story of OUR life . . . whatever the “our” may be for you and me. “Our life” may include family, church, community, and work . . . but it also includes “our life” as a human family, who you are and who I am as a part of the la...

Saturday of the Second Week of Lent – March 7, 2015 MALICIOUS skeptics visited Abba Agathon to see if they could annoy him. They had heard that Agathon possessed great discretion and self-control. They spoke directly to him, “Agathon, we heard that you are an adulterer and full of pride.” He answered, “Yes, that’s true.” “Are you the same Agathon who gossips and slanders?” “I am.” “Are you Agathon the heretic?” “No, I am not a heretic.” “Why did you patiently endure it when we slandered you, but refuse to be called a heretic?” Agathon answered, “Your first accusations were good for my soul, but to be a heretic is to be separated from God. I do not want to be apart from God.” [Bernard Bangley, By Way of the Desert , p. 237.] The Desert Fathers and Mothers put up with a lot. There are frequent stories that report the abuse they took from naysayers and those who did not understand their lives. Similar to those who frequently tried to trip up Jesus, these skeptic...

Thursday of the Second Week of Lent – March 5, 2015 AMMA SYNCLETICA said, “Money in an open treasury is soon spent. Any virtue will be lost if it becomes public knowledge. Wax in front of a fire will melt. Shower vain praises on a soul and it will become weak. The soul will look for goodness with less fervor.” [Bernard Bangley, By Way of the Desert , p. 93.] The Desert Mothers and Fathers believed that spiritual practices could have their full effect on us only when we practice them in secrecy. This is another aspect of solitude. In fact, many took up “secrecy” (as it relates to one’s virtuous actions or spiritual practice . . . NOT as it relates to one’s addiction , brokenness, or sin) as a spiritual practice. They took their cue from Jesus in Matthew 6 . . . praying in secret and not before a crowd for recognition . . . fasting, but washing your face so that your countenance does not announce that you are fasting . . . giving alms, but not letting your right hand know...

Maundy Thursday John 13:2 – 15 The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” “No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.” “Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!” Jesus answered, “Those who have had a bath need only to wash their feet; their whole body is clean. And you are cl...

Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Lent John 5:17 – 23 In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God. Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed. For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it. Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him. I am su...

The Fourth Sunday of Lent Luke 15:25 – 32 “Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’ “The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’ “‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’” Too often the victories I celebrat...

Tuesday of the Second Week of Lent Matthew 18:21 – 22 Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” The mindset that wants to weigh, measure, and calculate spiritual realities runs counter to the spirit of Jesus and the actual work of transformation. Measuring forgiveness, for instance, by keeping track and acting as if it were a finite reality, is an act of human control. It suggests that in calculating forgiveness, I can manage it or have some control over it, which is the very thing the ego or small self wants to do. Further, by acting as if forgiveness were a finite reality, that there is only so much of it, and that it must be rationed in order not to run out of it, we deny the limitless, unbounded resources at God’s disposal. Forgiveness, mercy, peace, love . . . God spends them on the world in abundance, a...

Monday of the Third Week of Lent Luke 4:24 – 30 “Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.” All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way. There is a part of each person’s make-up attributable to cultural conditioning. Cultural conditioning includes belief systems that come from the groups with which we identify. We hold certain beliefs ab...

Thursday of the Second Week of Lent Luke 16:19 – 31 “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want...

Thursday after Ash Wednesday Luke 9:23 - 25 Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. What good is it for you to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit your very self? It is possible to gain many things in the world (success, knowledge, money, acclaim, power, influence, education, rank) but lose yourself. In fact, conventional wisdom says that gaining these things will help you find yourself, or at least make it easier for you to find yourself, but that almost never happens. Accumulating “the world” is a hollow acquisition, because whatever we accumulate is never enough. Like a thirsty person drinking salt water, we hunger for more. We accumulate, and figure it will take just a little more – always, just a little more – to quench the thirst. More of “the world” (knowledge, vocation, rela...

John 19:17 – 30 Carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is called Golgotha). Here they crucified him, and with him two others—one on each side and Jesus in the middle. Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross. It read: JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS. Many of the Jews read this sign, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the sign was written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek. The chief priests of the Jews protested to Pilate, “Do not write ‘The King of the Jews,’ but that this man claimed to be king of the Jews.” Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.” When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes, dividing them into four shares, one for each of them, with the undergarment remaining. This garment was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom. “Let’s not tear it,” they said to one another. “Let’s decide by lot who will get it.” This happened that the scripture might be fulfi...

John 7:40 – 53 On hearing his words, some of the people said, “Surely this man is the Prophet.” Others said, “He is the Messiah.” Still others asked, “How can the Messiah come from Galilee? Does not Scripture say that the Messiah will come from David’s descendants and from Bethlehem, the town where David lived?” Thus the people were divided because of Jesus. Some wanted to seize him, but no one laid a hand on him. Finally the temple guards went back to the chief priests and the Pharisees, who asked them, “Why didn’t you bring him in?” “No one ever spoke the way this man does,” the guards replied. “You mean he has deceived you also?” the Pharisees retorted. “Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed in him? No! But this mob that knows nothing of the law—there is a curse on them.” Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier and who was one of their own number, asked, “Does our law condemn a man without first hearing him to find out what he has been doing?” They replied, “Are you f...

Luke 4:24 – 30 “Truly I tell you,” he continued, “prophets are not accepted in their hometowns. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.” All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way. We all carry within us assumptions about the way life should be. Those assumptions first began shaping us when we were infants, then children. Our grandparents and parents had their own assumptions, and they passed them on to us. Further...

Luke 16:19 – 31 “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores. “The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’ “But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from the...