The Wilderness Within

     There is a wolf in me ... fangs pointed for tearing gashes ... a red tongue for raw meat ... and the hot lapping of blood—I keep this wolf because the wilderness gave it to me and the wilderness will not let it go.    

     O, I got a zoo, I got a menagerie, inside my ribs, under my bony head, under my red-valve heart—and I got something else: it is a man-child heart, a woman-child heart: it is a father and mother and lover: it came from God-Knows-Where: it is going to God-Knows-Where—For I am the keeper of the zoo: I say yes and no: I sing and kill and work: I am a pal of the world: I came from the wilderness. 

~ Wilderness by Carl Sandburg

     These are two stanzas from the beautiful poem Wilderness by Carl Sandburg. (You can read the entire poem if you like.)  I love them because they point out a truth that we often ignore, that we try to hide, or do our best to forget. It is the thing of which we are reminded each Ash Wednesday as our Lenten journeys begin - we are made from the dust of the wild. We come from the wilderness.
     This week our focus is on Jesus' journey into the wilderness. The timing of Jesus' journey cannot be accidental - it happens just as he is baptized and emerges from the waters, dripping wet, and sure of God's love for him. It comes at a time when his ministry is fledgling and not really yet begun. It comes at a time when it is essential for Jesus, the Son of God, fully divine, to remember that he is also fully human - made from the dust of the wilderness.

Christ in the Desert - Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoĭ*

     And so he goes, led by the Spirit into the wilderness, an account we read about in Matthew 4. (You can also read about in all of the other gospels as this is one of the few texts included in all four.) According to Matthew's gospel, the Spirit sends Jesus there 'to be tempted by the devil.' It is no wonder Jesus included in his teaching that we ought to pray that the Spirit doesn't 'lead us into temptation'!
     Jesus had been through it - 40 days of fasting and being tempted with the challenge of his authority as God's son: If you are God's son, prove it and turn these stones to bread... 40 days of bone-wearying survival in a desert wilderness and being tempted with the challenge of God's willingness to become human: If you are God, prove it and throw yourself off the building... 40 days of solitude save the company of the wild animals and being tempted with the challenge of his power: If you, human, really want to rule just worship me and all this will be yours...
     Each part of Jesus' temptation had to do with the fact that he was really, truly, human. Made from the dust of the wilderness where he was exiled those 40 days. Made from the dust of the wilderness the Israelites were exiled those 40 years. Made of the same dust from which we are made. And it seems as if this wilderness dust is somehow in tension with the water-Spirit of which children of God are born. 
     Remember baptism is a new birth, the beginning of a new life not lived in the flesh, but in the Spirit. The age old battle between our carnal desires born in the wilderness and the Spirit-filled lives of God's children rages every day. Along with Carl Sandburg I can honestly say 'there is a wolf in me.' Within me is the capacity to destroy and tear down, to kill and maim, to prey and stalk. Yet, like Jesus, I am also a child of God. Born of water and Spirit. And the wolf in me constantly lives in tension and is tempted to prove - that I am good, worthy, special. To prove that I am talented, competent, and intelligent. To prove that I am 'living the dream' and happy about it.
     These verses from Matthew have left me pondering the mystery of wilderness. Is wilderness all about place? Is it all about circumstance? Or is wilderness something I have - something I am - something that is part of my DNA? Is the real threat of wilderness from within my own being?

*Kramskoĭ, Ivan Nikolaevich, 1837-1887. Christ in the Desert, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=54297 [retrieved March 19, 2014]. Original source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kramskoi_Christ_dans_le_d%C3%A9sert.jpg.

Mirror, mirror...

While we've known all winter that spring would be around the corner, it feels like we are finally seeing signs of the promised new life after the long, cold, and dark winter. The snow is melting, the sun is shining, and it is getting warmer. This in itself is enough to make any of us upper-mid-westerners break out in a song of praise, and that's exactly what I saw someone doing as they went outside for the first time yesterday morning. They literally started singing, face and hands up in the air, drinking in the warmth and sunshine.
     We are now in chapter 22 of The Story, which happens to be the first chapter of the New Testament. It is all about the birth of Jesus, stories we are accustomed to hearing in December and Advent. Yet here it is - March and Lent, and we have the birth of Jesus. Which may be exactly just what we need, because like those people I saw burst into spontaneous songs of joy yesterday, our text is from Luke 1 and Mary, the mother of Jesus, spontaneously bursts into a song of praise for what God has done.
     This song of praise often referred to as The Magnificat, is a glorious song that focuses on the work of God in the world saying that God has:

The Visitation - Mary and Elizabeth Meet*

• looked with favor on the lowly
• given favor to those who fear God
• shown strength
• scattered the proud
• brought down the powerful
• lifted up the lowly
• filled the hungry with good things
• sent the rich away empty
• helped God's servant Israel

What a list of God's deeds! No wonder Mary begins to spontaneously burst into a song of praise. And the curious thing about this song is that she recites it when she visits her cousin Elizabeth, after the angel Gabriel has announced that she will give birth to God's son.
     When we hear these words in Advent we look with hope for how God's coming among us in the flesh will make all of these things that God has done come to pass. The focus is on the future impact of God's work in Jesus. Yet we are in Lent, and so we read these words with a different lens.
     During this time of Lent, these words invite us to ponder how, because of what God has done for us in Jesus, we are partners with God in making these things come about. As we contemplate our own relationship with God, our own spiritual health and well-being, our own way of living our faith and love, this song of praise becomes something like a mirror.
     When you look in the mirror do you see someone through whom God is working? Do you see someone God uses to lift up the lowly or fill the hungry with good things? Do you see someone who works to bring down the powerful and send the rich away empty through justice and advocacy? This week I am pondering how this song reflects, or sadly how it often doesn't reflect my own life of faith.
     Into what does Mary's song of praise invite you? How does it challenge you to live and to, like Mary, open your own life to God's work so that God's salvation can be shown in and through you? Even as we stand convicted of our own shortfalls, we remember how Mary's song starts
 ‘My soul magnifies the Lord,
   and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,
for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant.
God has seen us in our lowliness, and God has sent us a companion in our journeys of faith. May this Lent be a time for us to ponder the mystery of God's gracious forgiveness and mercy, even as we continue to strive to live as God's beloved children in this world.

*JESUS MAFA. The Visitation - Mary and Elizabeth meet, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=48279 [retrieved March 11, 2014].

How is your heart?

Meu Coracao/My Heart*

   Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of our Lenten journey. Here at St. John our journey will be a little different than normal - since we are still in the throes of   The Story we continue to follow through the Bible rather than hear the usual Lenten texts given in the lectionary. Yet as has been the case in the last several months, the Spirit has worked and the themes remain the same.
     This Sunday we hear from Nehemiah, and it is the last chapter before we come to the New Testament in our journey. Nehemiah was one of the exiled, and when he asks after his home and his people the news he receives is less than comforting. The walls of Jerusalem have crumbled, the people are in 'great trouble and shame.'

     It is easy in this life to focus on one thing or another while neglecting something else. My suspicion is that the survivors, those who 'escaped captivity' are focusing on trying to rebuild what was taken. Remember that in war only the valuable are taken; those with skills, power, knowledge, and prominence are worth the trouble - which means that those left aren't used to being in charge. They don't have what it takes to just pick up and start where they left off before the invasion. The walls and gates of their city were probably low on the priority list of things to fix.
     Regardless of this fact, however, it doesn't change that Jerusalem, and the temple in particular, were seen as God's home; care for these things was a reflection on the relationship the people had with God, the God who had saved them. This is why Nehemiah, upon hearing the news of disrepair of the city gates and walls, immediately begins to fast and pray. While the 'great trouble and shame' are in reference to the state of Jerusalem, and how the survivors had cared for their sacred place, Lent offers us a time to reflect upon the state of our own sacred places, specifically on the state of our hearts.
     Fasting and prayer are two common disciplines taken up by individuals during Lent because of the ways in which fasting and prayer remind us that there is more to life than what we spend our time worrying about. Fasting and prayer call us into closer relationship with God, and they help us to examine our priorities, our relationships, and those important things which too often go neglected because some other, less important emergency comes up.
     The important thing to remember when reading Nehemiah is that God has already saved the Israelites. The salvation came generations before when God brought their people out of slavery in Egypt. The commandments and statues they follow are simply a relationship agreement of how these saved ones live with God and with each other. So Nehemiah fasting and praying, and then in subsequent chapters of the book calling people back to the commandments, is not about being saved but more about calling people back to their salvation in the first place.
     The same is true for us. We have already been saved. Jesus already died, our sins are already forgiven, new life is already ours for living. Except it is easy to forget this, and to live in ways which show the true state of our hearts: we forget that. This season of Lent is an opportunity for us to turn back, to examine our hearts and lives, and to engage in practices which bring us home again.
     After reading Nehemiah, I am left pondering the mystery of my own heart and my own sacred places. What is the state of yours?

*Meu Coracao/My Heart, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=54138 [retrieved March 4, 2014]. Original source: Amanda Vivan, Flickr Creative Commons.