Welcome to Lent! Not the desert, deprivation, giving up
something you love Lent, but the “how can I best embody the love of God Lent?” Not that that necessarily means we won’t give
something up, like our beliefs that we cannot change the world, or even our
lethargy about spending time with God, or anything else that gets in the way of
showing God’s light in the world. This
Lent we will be looking at some simple questions to which we may believe we
already know the answer. I’ll be
suggesting some different answers that might change the way we live our lives
in the world.
This week we look at the
exchange between Peter and Jesus just before Jesus is taken off to be
tried. Jesus is trying to prepare the
disciples for what is ahead. Peter cannot
let go of the physical presence of Jesus and promises to lay DOWN his life if
Jesus will just take him with him.
Obviously, Peter did not know or understand what was ahead for this man
he so much wanted to follow. Jesus’
response, while some would say is unkind, unfortunately turned out to be
true. Peter’s betrayal which is really
no more than many, if not most of us have done along the way, simply shows us
that Peter, and we, do not know the meaning of laying our lives down in the
manner to which Jesus calls us.
So, what is
the opposite of down? In the spiritual
life, I believe that the opposite of down is IN. Take a look at what Rev. Elder Darlene
Gardner says about Adam and eating of the apple. Eating the apple gave him insight inside. Suddenly, he knew that he, in Rev. Elder
Darlene’s words, “would be accountable to God for the impact that his actions
would have on others”. That’s inner
work, my friends, and I would suggest that the spiritual practice of Lent, or
returning, is all about the inner work of becoming accountable to God and to
the world for all our actions. So, we do
not lay our lives down; we open them to receive the inner work of the spirit.
All three of
our readings give us guidance in the inner work that we will undertake during this
Lenten period. Paul tells us, “But now that you’ve found you don’t have to listen to sin tell you
what to do, and have discovered the delight of listening to God telling you,
what a surprise! A whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and
more of life on the way!” Rev. Elder Darlene writes,
“His (and
our) eyes were opened to the truth that our attitudes and actions are almost
always the sole cause of human pain, suffering, oppression, and exclusion. We have
to accept responsibility for this; we have to care. We can no longer close our
eyes to what we can now see. We can no longer close our hearts to one another
nor deny that the so-called ‘other’ is really just the other part of ‘we’." And, finally Jesus says, “Let
me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you
love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my
disciples—when they see the love you have for each other.”
These
three passages perfectly lay out the nature of the inner work that we must
undertake if we are to grow in spiritual understanding this Lenten period. First, we learn to and delight in listening
to God. This gives us freedom to hear
directly from the source. And the result?—wholeness
in every part of our lives. How do we
learn to listen directly to the source?
We stop talking—talking to others, talking to ourselves, and especially,
talking to God. We give God a chance to
talk to us. Now while I would not
pretend to limit the ability of God’s nature to grant us epiphanies, or “aha”
moments at any time, even in the midst of a crowd of people, I know for myself
that I am more able to hear God when I minimize the distractions so prevalent
in my life and in my head. This
eliminating of distractions is a deliberate act. This is a drawing away from the busyness and
business of the day or night and welcoming God’s spirit into our inner
beings.
If
you’ve been reading my blog, “Sanctuary of Leaves”, you know that I have been
struggling some with my ability to listen.
Two mantras were given to me and I’m finding them quite useful. The first mantra places every aspect of my
life, outer and inner, in perspective. “What
is, is.” This implies that I am lovingly
accepting where I am in everything at this point. Struggling to change some aspect of myself or
becoming embroiled in some conflict with others, doesn’t matter—when I open my
heart to the message of the Divine, what is at that moment is. I can stop my struggle, set aside my
distracting emotions, and just listen.
The
second mantra given to me was “I let it all go”. Oh, no, you might be thinking. There she goes about letting it all go. Been there, done that, and it—whatever the “it”
is—just comes flying back into my face before I can say “amen”. Notice, I didn’t say that this was easy and
it’s only a beginning. But, it might,
just might, be worth giving it a try.
When I use these as mantras before meditation, I say to myself “what is,
is” on the inhale of breath and “I let it all go” on the exhale. Focusing on my breath makes it easier to
focus on the mantras as well. Then, I am
ready to listen. It’s hard some
days. One day, I never moved past the
mantras, never did get to the place where I felt I could listen, so I just kept
repeating the mantras, knowing that God was doing inner work on me in spite of
myself.
Rev.
Elder Darlene tells us that once we have obtained inner knowledge from God,
just as Adam did in the eating of that darn apple, we have a responsibility to
practice our own spirituality and all of our lives in ways that do not hurt
others. This inner knowledge brings an
accompanying accountability. This welcoming
and healing of others that lives in our own inner selves after we receive God’s
insight, means that straightway we will be living a life of love. Jesus expands this relationship between inner
truth and outer actions even more.
Living this life of love is the only way that people will know that we
are following the teachings of the Spirit of God through Jesus. We cannot tell people that we love them, we
must show them. God does this first, we
are not only told that we are loved, we are given this beautiful land in which
to walk, an amazingly complex body in which to embody our insight, and
continual communication from God to hold our spirits securely in the Sacred.
So
the opposite of down is not up, it is in.
During this Lenten time, if we can go inside more often than we usually
do, we will be rewarded with hearing God.
And, if we are open, we can listen and make our own what God is
saying. Try it with me this week. Find a quiet place or a place where no one can
disturb you. Shut the ever-present phone
off. Get into whatever position is
comfortable for you. Start with some
breathing using the mantras if they appeal to you. Inhale, “What is, is”. Exhale, “I let it all go”. Do this until you begin to feel some space
being made in your heart and spirit to listen to God. When you are ready, continue focusing on your
breath and allow your heart to listen.
If your thoughts take you someplace else, come back to breathing with
the mantras and focus.
You
may wonder at the inclusion of such an exercise in a sermon. I am becoming more and more convinced that
many of us are hungry for practices that will bring us closer to God. Meditation is one such practice. Lent is a perfect time to introduce some new
practices into your spiritual life. This
week we talked about meditation. Next
week we will encounter another spiritual practice that may or may not appeal to
you. Take what feels like it fits and
leave the other here.
Because we are not all the same and a
practice that feels comfortable to some may not to you. So, in addition to having new experiences, we
are also practicing inclusivity as we become more comfortable with all kinds of
spiritual practices. This Lent, let us
come together as a community and go “inside” to find the truth God has
entrusted to our hearts. In the spirit
of openness and unity, we pray together, May it be so. Amen and amen.
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