Most of All

I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the sharing of His sufferings by becoming like Him in His death. (Philippians 3.8)

Center of Everything

If our lives were bookshelves, where would the volume called My Faith be? Would it stand on such a tall shelf that retrieving it requires too much effort? Would it get tucked between other familiar titles—My Family, My Job, What I Do for Fun—where it competes for our attention and often is jostled out of the way as we reach for something else? Would it be somewhere in all of these stories of our lives, yet it would take some looking to find it? Would it be stacked nearby, in the pile of books we intend to thumb through when we find the time?

Or would My Faith rest at the center of everything, easily within reach, its covers barely able to contain pages swollen from overuse, the copy smeared from constant highlighting, the margins tattooed with notes and question marks and exclamation points? Would it be so vital to everything we do that it never makes it to the bookshelf at all? Is it the one book we carry with us at all times, no matter where we go or what we do?

Sunday’s New Testament selections (John 12.1-8; Philippians 3.4-14) portray two people whose editions of My Faith are veritable forces that propel their lives. In John, we see Mary, the sister of Jesus’s close friend, Lazarus, do something that seems utterly senseless, yet makes perfect sense. In Philippians, we hear Paul explain his approach to life. Again, what he says sounds illogical. But his reasoning is solid.

Most Peculiar

Mary’s story is remembered for several reasons: her extravagant behavior, which comes out of nowhere; Judas’s exaggerated outrage, which camouflages ulterior motives; and Jesus’s defense of Mary, which, if we misread it, is somewhat confusing. And the event’s drama is magnified by its setting, a dinner party. Jesus and the disciples are headed for Jerusalem, where—unbeknownst to everyone but Him—their travels will end. They stop at Bethany, a prosperous outlying village, to visit with Lazarus and his sisters. While Martha puts dinner on the table and Lazarus hosts his guests, Mary appears with a pound of nard, a costly perfume made from oil pressed out of the roots of spikenard, a flowering plant from the Valerian family. Nard is primarily used to anoint corpses, as its sedative properties (like those in today’s Valerian root extract) are said to enhance the deceased’s restfulness. Mary empties the nard onto Jesus’s feet and wipes off the excess with her hair. Her actions are alarming on many levels.

Most obvious, of course, is the expensiveness of her gesture—which is what angers Judas. He protests her wastefulness, saying she could have sold the perfume and fed poor people with the proceeds. (The writer of John is skeptical about his motives, however, saying that, as treasurer of Jesus’s ministry, he skimmed donations.) Furthermore, Mary’s behavior is totally inappropriate at a dinner party. Bringing nard to the table introduces an ominous air to a festive situation; its association with funerals cannot be overlooked. Then, anointing Jesus and wiping His feet with her hair crosses numerous social boundaries: male-female, life-death, intimate-public, leader-follower. Everything about this is most peculiar, unlike anything else we see in the Gospels.

So Judas’s shock is understandable, even if his motives are corrupt. No doubt everyone—other than Jesus and Mary—is appalled by her actions. Jesus’s reply to Judas’s complaint doesn’t ease the tension. “Leave her alone,” he says. “She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of My burial. You will always have the poor with you, but you do not always have Me.” (John 12.7-8) We can read His response any number of ways that miss His point. Is Jesus placing His personal comfort above the poor’s needs? Is He saying our commitment to end poverty is futile? Is He excusing what looks like conspicuous consumption? Why would Mary to bring augurs of His death to the table in the first place? Does she know something that no one else but Jesus realizes? Apparently, she does. In very short order, Jesus will be illegally arrested, tried, and executed.

It is vital for Mary to express her faithfulness to Him before He dies. She anoints His feet, because they are about to travel a rugged road that leads to Jerusalem and takes a sharp turn up Calvary’s hill. But why does she towel His feet with her hair? Jesus grasps the symbolism of her gesture. In physically reclaiming the excess, she shares in His death. It’s about more than staying with Jesus until the end; active faith emits intentions to remain with Christ always, in life, death, and life after death. That is, most certainly, a shocking confession.

The Story of Our Lives

Unfortunately, John doesn’t give Mary a chance to explain. If she could speak, she would echo Paul’s statement in Philippians 3.8: “I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the sharing of His sufferings by becoming like Him in His death.” Once again, we see a disciple at Jesus’s feet, pouring out his soul, desiring to get so close to Jesus that he’s inseparable from Him. Like Mary, Paul recognizes that resurrection is a miraculous outcome that overthrows the brutality of earlier suffering and the finality of death. (We cannot rise from what we do not experience.) Paul opens this passage with startling bravado. “If anyone has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more,” he brags in verse 4. He lists all the ways he’s superior, concluding, “as to righteousness under the law, [I am] blameless.” (v6) For someone constantly urging his readers to stay humble, his swagger seems wildly inappropriate. Yet Paul redeems himself in the next verse: “Whatever gains I had, these I regard as loss because of Christ.”

In Mary and Paul, we see two individuals of notable means and privilege. Neither is born into poverty. Both come from strong families and enjoy the advantages of status. Neither really has anything to prove in society’s eyes. Still, both implicitly understand that faith matters most of all. It is so central to their lives that they keep it in handy reach, using it to frame everything they do and say. Do they realize this will alarm some and anger others? Of course, they do. But their longing to know Christ in every way—in suffering, death, and resurrection—surpasses any concerns about how they’re viewed. They count everything but their faith as a loss. They know that following Christ through sufferings and death will bring new life to every aspect of their existence.

Which brings us back to the bookshelf. When My Faith becomes the most important volume in our lives, other books obtain greater meaning and clarity. In our homes and families, at work and play, we experience resurrection power by proclaiming victory over suffering and death through faith. The world will continue to turn. There will always be poor people. There will always be rich ones. There will always be cruel people. There will always be kind ones. But we who cherish faith most of all are unshaken by any of this, because our lives hew to a different story that grasps the relationship between loss and resurrection. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul poeticizes this, using a seed as his metaphor. He says: “What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.” (v42-43) That’s how faith seizes control of life’s sorrows and setbacks. That’s the story of our lives.

In anointing Jesus’s feet and wiping up the excess perfume with her hair, Mary shares in His death and resurrection. That is her story. And if we make faith central to our lives, it becomes our story, too.

Always Content, Never Complacent

I have learned to be content with whatever I have. (Philippians 4.11)

“I don’t like Paul.” I’ve heard several people say this lately. My response is always the same—a sympathetic nod—because Paul isn’t easy to like. On one page, he takes our breath away with eloquent dissertations on God’s grace. On the next, he trips all over himself, snarling at his detractors, belittling women, and mistaking swagger for certainty. But while I too quarrel with Paul’s personality and more than a few of his ideas, I like him very much. I like him because he’s difficult to like. I like him because he’s never reluctant to admit to his messiness. Most of all, I like him because he’s our finest example of a sincere Christian trying to figure out how all of this is supposed to work and what it all means.

I see Paul as a sort of lead investigator in the faith lab. He’s constantly at work, observing new phenomena, combining ancestral beliefs with novel approaches, debunking outdated myths, replacing them with fresh paradigms, and always—always—struggling unlock the Gospel’s revolutionary truths. Paul insists on publishing his findings as he goes, a daring proposition for anyone carving out new territory, let alone someone tasked with establishing the principles and practices of a radical faith movement. As a result, we’re privy to his blunders as well as his breakthroughs. It’s why we see him barrel down a dead-end alley one place—for instance, in his condescension toward women’s roles in the home and church—and then reverse his direction elsewhere, as he does by declaring, “there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus,” in Galatians 3. These flaws attest to Paul’s obsession with figuring things out. Despite his irksome vanity, he’s not interested in proving how smart he is. He’s doing his best to put everything together for the sake of the Gospel. He may not be likeable. But he’s always sincere.

We can get closer to Paul by recalling that, like many of us, he’s the product of a highly prescriptive faith environment. Before Christ charges him to be an Apostle, he already knows the Hebrew Bible by heart and has gained respect as a model seminarian. On top of that, he’s a Roman citizen, a foreign-born Jew of the merchant class, a person of privilege. So he comes from an entirely different place than the other disciples. By the time he’s stopped by a vision of Jesus on the Damascus Road, he’s sure he’s got a handle on how things work. Now he has to start all over again. And one of the key shifts in Paul’s life occurs when he learns to differentiate between complacency and contentment.

In Philippians 4.11-13, we find Paul’s magnificent contentment confession: “I have learned to be content with whatever I have… In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need.” And what is his secret? “I can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me.” We can assume Paul’s talking only about his physical and material needs. Yet I’m of the mind it runs deeper than that. I believe he would also add, “I know what it’s like to be religiously complacent and how to be content with unanswered questions. I can remain committed to trying to figure it all out, while conceding it’s more than I can ever comprehend.” Now his famous “I can do all things” statement becomes an epic declaration of faith in the making.

I’m thoroughly convinced that every Lenten desert contains a Damascus Road of some kind—a bracing encounter with Christ that calls us away from shallow lives of religious complacency and leads to the deeper mysteries of faith. We won’t figure it all out. We’ll make blunders and find ourselves backtracking from ideas we’ve embraced in the past. Not everyone will be happy with us. But in our pursuit of right relationship with God we can find contentment. Paul told Timothy, “There is great gain in godliness combined with contentment.” (1 Timothy 6.6) Pursuing God’s will and way inevitably requires us to start over, clearing away ready-made answers to make room for questions we can’t possibly resolve. But when we combine that with contentment, we will gain strength for our journey and discover lives of faith that are anything but complacent.

On High Alert

Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? (Isaiah 58.6)

It’s Ash Wednesday. Once more we find our way to an altar, where we bow in humility and rise from our knees bearing a visible sign of repentance. As always, there will be a lot of thought and conversation today about what we’re “giving up” for Lent. We will leave the Ash Wednesday rite with the best of intentions and spend the next few weeks struggling to honor them.

To be sure, there is merit in self-denial. It teaches us discipline and retrains us so that we can master unhealthy reflexes and habits. Yet what’s supposed to come out of fasting? In Isaiah, we discover that it’s less about what we elect not to do, and more about relearning what we must do. In Isaiah 58, God says our piety and ritual—our subscription to religious obligation—mean nothing if they don't alert us to sacred obligations to those around us.

Sacrificing meat or candy bars or TV is, at best, a start. We do these things to keep us mindful that fasting is, above all, an act of faithfulness to a God Who desires meaningful change in our attitudes and behaviors. Yet if Lent starts and stops with what we’re “giving up,” we’ve not gone far enough. “Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high,” God warns. “Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD?” (v4-5)

There’s a break in the text, making room for us ask, “If there’s more to this fasting thing than getting off our high horses and wallowing in our guilt, what can it be?” The answer is remarkably simple and direct: God expects our fast to focus on doing better in the here and now—not feeling sorry that we haven’t done so in the past or pledging improvement in the future. Listen very closely to God’s definition of an acceptable fast (quoted at length, because its emphasis cannot be overstated):

Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not hide yourself from your own kin? Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindication shall go before you, the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry for help, and God will say, Here I am.

If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. The LORD will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.

If we enter Lent’s desert intent only on adopting an ascetic mindset—grappling with self-denial and its attendant temptations, distancing ourselves from others to relish the benefits of solitude—we fall short of God’s demands. The Hebrew word for “fast” literally means, “to cover one’s mouth.” Thus, it stands to reason if we refuse to placate our hungers, we have more to give. What are we to do with our excess—this food we don’t eat, this extra time we have on our hands, these comforts we sacrifice? God tells us: we surrender them to others in need.

We enter Lent on high alert, extremely conscious that our wilderness adventure will open opportunities to share. Indeed, if we’re doing the real work of fasting, we seek out the less fortunate, the hungry, the afflicted, and the oppressed. We create the means of practicing Lent’s discipline. We look for distressed families we can feed. We extend ourselves to overworked parents and provide them respite by offering to sit with their children while they recharge their batteries. We seek out solitary coworkers or churchgoers and sit beside them. We find the senior who needs help cleaning up the house or running errands. We make time for the sick and grieving among us, assuring them they’re not alone. We embrace the ridiculed and misunderstood. We speak kindly to ears bruised by insults and cruelty. We touch the untouchable and love the unlovable.

We are surrounded by fasting opportunities.

We leave our comfort zones, because fasting should make us uncomfortable. It thrusts us into a desert of strangeness and uncertainty. It tests our wills and purifies our motives, leading us beyond the desire to be holy so that we become holy. Fasting has very little to do with what or how much we “give up.” It’s all about what or how much we give. And if we center our Lenten experience intent on caring for others, our wilderness will explode with new and abundant life.

Your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. The LORD will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. (Isaiah 58.10-11)

Coincidence and Transformation

Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed. (2 Corinthians 3.17-18)

God’s Way

The 2013 liturgical calendar barely gives us time to recover from Christmas before catapulting us into Lent. Truthfully, I’m not sure I’m ready. When I opened the lectionary to see that this weekend’s Gospel (Luke 9.28-43) returns to the Mount of Transfiguration—as always happens on the Sunday before Ash Wednesday—a shroud of fatigue and dread settled over me. Was I up for this? I could probably rally, much like I do when I drag myself out of bed in the wee hours to catch an early flight. But that wouldn’t be the right approach to this season. We should come to Lent with eyes and hearts wide open, knowing it will ask more than we expect, yet eager to meet its demands. I wasn’t sure I had enough in me to do that. I told myself, “Better dose up on faith, Buster.” Then I did what I always do when faith is in short supply: I prayed. “God, I hope You’ve got this,” I said, “because I can’t make this journey on my own.”

A few hours later I got an email from a close friend who’s never set much store in “organized religion.” He’d just heard an interview with Gloria Loring (an actress neither he nor I recalled) discussing her autobiography. I’ll let him tell the rest:

Well, she really is a fantastic lady… open-minded, etc. I know you don’t like the word, but amazingly spiritual. Anyway, the most interesting quote is the title of her book, Coincidence is God’s Way of Remaining Anonymous. When I heard it, I just could not stop thinking about it… so simple, yet effective. Well it turns out to be a quote of Albert Einstein’s. I just couldn’t get it out of my head.

I’d never heard the quote and now I can’t get it out of my head, either. A fountain of faith burst through its seven words—from Einstein, no less! I was overcome with reassurance. I’ll be frank: at this moment, I just don’t have the energy for the wilderness that lies ahead. But when Wednesday comes, it will be there, because God is at work. Whether through direct inspiration or the anonymity of happenstance, strength for this journey will arrive. How can I be so sure? Because the Transfiguration story portrays one of Scripture’s greatest examples of how God is revealed in seeming coincidence.

Good for Us to Be Here

The story begins uneventfully. Jesus needs to get away to pray. He takes Peter, John, and James with Him and they climb a mountain, leaving the other disciples behind. Scripture doesn’t indicate why Jesus selects them. In retrospect, we know they become pillars of the Church and what transpires on the mountaintop will be a pivotal moment in their faith lives. Whether Jesus intends for them to see what transpires there we can’t say. We can, however, suppose that from their perspective, witnessing the Transfiguration is purely coincidental. They have no idea if this is a singular event, or if this sort of thing happens regularly when Jesus prays in solitude. All they know is they’re there by seeming coincidence to see Jesus utterly transformed, conversing in spirit with Moses and Elijah, after which they’re engulfed in a cloud of God’s undiluted presence. A voice instructs: “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to Him!” (Luke 9.35) And there it is: this is no coincidence at all. Peter, James, and John have been brought to this mountain to discover Who Jesus really is. God has chosen this experience to provide them with very particular knowledge in a very particular way. When the veil of coincidence is removed, they have no doubt God is at work in their lives.

After seeing Jesus transfigured—essentially getting a preview of the Resurrected Christ’s appearance—Peter starts to get it. He says, “Master, it is good for us to be here.” (v33) His first impulse is to build three structures, one each for Jesus, Elijah, and Moses, to commemorate the experience. But God dismisses Peter’s idea with the proclamation, because Peter is called to construct something more enduring and significant than a mountaintop memorial. He will the become the Church’s chief engineer, relying heavily on John and James’ assistance as they build the living, breathing Body of Christ together. And when he says, “It’s good we’re here,” he doesn’t grasp the import of his comment. He doesn’t realize that, by watching the changes in Jesus’s person, he too has been changed. Once they leave the mountain, God’s redemptive plan will take shape through a series of apparently random events that, only by hindsight, reveal God’s intentions. A long journey of unanticipated challenges and uncertainty awaits Peter, James, and John. The transformative nature of this experience will strengthen them more than they know. The unshakable assurance that Jesus is God’s Son will sustain them in the coming days, when He’s slandered and persecuted as everything but God’s Chosen Son.

Constantly Being Transformed

Coincidence is God’s creative license. It frees God to move anonymously in the background, bringing us to places where we experience Christ’s transformative power up close and personal. In 2 Corinthians 3.17-18, Paul writes, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed.” We are being transformed, as we discover God’s glory at every turn—sometimes through deliberate prayer and study, but just as often through ostensibly random circumstances that cause us to say, “Master, it is good for us to be here.”

Perhaps you’re primed for Lent. I pray you are. But if, like me, you’re concerned about mustering stamina for the days ahead, know that God is working behind the scenes to bring you to a place of renewed strength and commitment. Lent’s season of consecration begins with confessing we can’t make this journey on our own.

We don’t have to be Einsteins to discern that God is at work in our lives, moving behind the scenes to bring us to places of renewed strength and commitment.