A Daily Lent

Tuesday of the Third Week of Lent Daily Reading : Matthew 18:21 – 35 Focus Passage : Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive someone who sins against me? Up to seven times?" Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times." (Matt. 18:21 – 22) Often in the Gospels people asked Jesus a question out of a particular personal motivation, only to find that Jesus didn’t answer their question. Rather, he raised new questions, or redirected their question to that which was relevant to the kingdom of God. Peter asked a question about forgiveness. “How many times should I forgive another? Seven times?” It was a generous question. Most of us don’t get past three. But there was an unspoken part of Peter’s question: “How many times should I forgive someone else before I take matters into my own hands?” Peter’s background in Jewish law restrained him from excessive retaliation, limiting vengeance to “e...

Monday of the Second Week of Lent Daily Reading : Luke 6:36 – 38 Focus Passage : “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. "Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." (Lk. 6:36 – 38) Those who dismiss Jesus as Messiah but glibly call him a good teacher are either extremely naïve or terribly misinformed. Those who put forth Jesus’ teachings as a way to get ahead in the world haven’t listened deeply to his teachings. Try taking his words in this passage into your workplace, school, politics, or neighborhood group. You won’t get you very far in our culture’s framework. Mercy, non-judgment, forgiveness, generosity, and a refusal to condemn are not recipes for success, corporately or personall...

Holy Saturday – April 4, 2015 A brother at Scetis committed a fault. A council was called to which Abba Moses was invited, but he refused to go to it. Then the priest sent someone to say to him, “Come, for everyone is waiting for you.” So he got up and went. He took a leaking jug, filled it with water and carried it with him. The others came out to meet him and said to him, “What is this, Father?” The old man said to them, “My sins run out behind me, and I do not see them, and today I am coming to judge the errors of another.” When they heard that, they said no more to the brother but forgave him. [Benedicta Ward, The Sayings of the Desert Fathers , pp. 138 – 139.] Abba Moses was a former robber, who gave up his life of marauding and thievery to live as a monk dedicated to God in the desert. A formerly vicious man, late in life Moses became known for his compassion. To others, he seemed to embody God’s generosity and mercy. Scetis was one of the large monastic communitie...

Good Friday – April 3, 2015 AN OLDER MONK AND A YOUNGER MONK were in Cellia. The older suggested that they live together. The younger refused, saying, “I am a sinner, Abba. I must not live with you.” But the older monk insisted. The old man was pure in heart, and the younger monk did not want him to discover that he sometimes had sexual cravings. The older monk said, “I will go away for a week. When I return, we can talk about this again.” Seven days later, the younger decided to test the older by saying, “While you were gone, I was strongly tempted. I went into town on an errand, and I ended up in bed with a woman.” The older monk asked, “Are you penitent?” “Yes.” “Then I will carry half the burden of this sin with you.” The younger man responded, “Now I know we can stay together.” [Bernard Bangley, By Way of the Desert , pp. 146 – 147] Most people feel that their own sin is so unique, so dark, so despicable, that no one else would understand it, much less st...

Monday of the Fifth Week of Lent – March 23, 2015 A MONK VISITED ABBA SISOES and told him he had fallen from grace. “What should I do, Abba?” Sisoes replied, “Get up again.” After a while, the monk returned to ask, “What can I do now? For I have fallen again.” “Get up again,” the old man said to him, “Never stop getting up.” [Bernard Bangley, By Way of the Desert , p. 386] We are too easily overcome by our failures. We are too quick to think of our own sin as unforgiveable, as – what MUST be so – the pinnacle of all sin. We live with a human economy of grace – which does not really represent God’s grace at all – that believes God’s resources are limited, that there is a scarce supply of God’s grace, God’s mercy, and God’s forgiveness. It is, in fact, a flaw in our thinking from which it is very difficult to recover. Jesus’ disciples spoke from that same framework of scarcity: “How many times should I forgive the one who sins against me? Seven times?” (Mt. 18:21 – 22...

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 Second Week of Lent Luke 6:36 – 38 “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” Be merciful . . . Do not judge . . . Do not condemn . . . Forgive . . . Give . . . Before these five qualities are actions, they are ways of being, or stances toward life. Of course, it is possible to engage in an act of mercy or to forgive, for example, or to do any of these things once in a while . . . or even once or twice or several times. In other words, you can give without being a generous person . . . you can forgive someone without being a forgiving person . . . . At one level, Jesus is encouraging this behavior. It truly makes a difference. But even mo...

Matthew 18:21 - 22 Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive someone who sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times." "How often should I forgive someone?" I've always thought of Peter's question as referring to the same person who continues to offend or injure me in different ways at different times . . . multiple offenses, so to speak. Today I'm reading it differently. How often should I forgive the same person for the same offense? Jesus answered in effect, that there is no limit to forgiveness, no outer edge to it. Forgiveness, even for the same injury, must be continual, persistent, never-ending. I used to think that when I forgave someone, it was a one-time-forever kind of thing. That is, once I forgave, I forgave forever. Once I did it, I did it. That settled it. I said the words, "I forgive you," and then moved on, as if the matter we...

Matthew 5:23 - 24 “So if you are presenting a sacrifice at the altar in the Temple and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you, leave your sacrifice there at the altar. Go and be reconciled to that person. Then come and offer your sacrifice to God." Honestly, I read these words about leaving the altar to be reconciled with another person, and the petulant little child within me screams, "BUT I DON'T WANT TO!!" If stepping toward another person reconciliation is the first step toward offering our lives to God at the "altar," the "altar" will be a pretty desolate place. So few of us have healthy patterns of dealing with anger, forgiveness and reconciliation. And few of us sense ourselves so solidly connected to God in our interior that we are willing to step away from our ego to extend generosity toward another. Yet, Jesus gave us this picture of the kingdom of God, the radical reorienting of life whereby we are not p...

Matthew 6:12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. The language of this part of the Our Father (The Lord's Prayer, the Model Prayer, or in Latin, the Pater Noster ) varies, depending on the translation you use. Some favor "trespasses," others "sins," and some "debts." In congregational prayer, I usually use "trespasses." When I say the prayer privately, I use "sins." When I want to meditate on the prayer and linger with the images, I use "debts." As an image, "debt" carries a depth of meaning for me that the others lack. I have daily experiences of being indebted to others, and of others being indebted to me. Every time I step into a store, for instance, and pay at the checkout, I'm reminded of my debt . . . I have to pay something of value in order to take out something of value. It's the way our economy works. We assign value to something and then extract pay...

Matthew 18:21 – 35 Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive someone who sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. “The servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go. “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded. “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you...

Matthew 18:21 – 35 Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive someone who sins against me? Up to seven times?" Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. "Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. "The servant fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will pay back everything.' The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go. "But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!' he demanded. ...