Lent #26: Discipline 6 of 7—reading and meditating on scripture.

Devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture.

(First Timothy 4:13)

Linda and I took up reading aloud to one another Steinbeck’s East of Eden. It has been laying around. Linda was supposed to read it for book club, but never did. We had lost the habit of reading aloud to one another. There’s something about hearing it read in the voice of the other. Scripture is like that. It’s best heard in the voice of another.

Reading, for the ancients, was something done aloud, even when reading to oneself. Notice how Jesus reads scripture (Lk 4:16-21):

When Jesus stood up to read, the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me…” Then Jesus rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Jesus said to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Notice the drama: “The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him.” A scroll so precious that today all 24 feet of it is displayed in Jerusalem at the Shrine of the Book museum. Notice how Jesus takes his time to “unroll the scroll”—no turning pages; no chapter and verse to help him find “the place where it is written.” You just have to know the scroll to find the place.

When Jesus finds “the place where it is written” he begins to read it out loud, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me…” I would love to hear Jesus reading scripture—His voice? Then, when “the eyes of all …were fixed on him;” Jesus says something about what he had just read, that only he can say, “It speaks of me” (Lk 24:27). With our eyes fixed on Jesus, scripture has a way of causing “our hearts to burn within us” (Lk 24:32).

East of Eden isn’t Scripture, but there would be no “East of Eden” if it were not for Scripture: “Cain went out …and settled in the land on the Nod, east of Eden” (Gn 4:16). Like all true fiction, the novel has to do with people and places, with history and redemption. That’s the Bible story: “On the third day, Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place far off” (Gn 22:4). It is about what happen on that third day of the journey when Abraham “saw the place far off.” That’s worth meditating on—a Lenten meditation.

Lent #25: Discipline 5 of 7 – Almsgiving.

Honor the aged.

(Leviticus 19:32)

Anna rigged up a virtual birthday party for me yesterday: #76. I’m living on the bonus side of my allotted “three score and ten” (Ps 90:10). Almsgiving has to do with kindness shown towards the needy. Because of this malicious virus, Linda and I have been listed among the most vulnerable. We have become the recipients of kindness.

Lent #24:  Discipline 4 of 7—Fasting.

With fasting …Who knows?

(Joel 2:12&14)

“Who knows?” Maybe the Lord will bring an end to Joel’s locus infestation and the Lord “will bring rain, as before. And, the vats will overflow with wine” (Joel 2). That’s the same thing David said when fasting for the life of his child: “I fasted and wept; for I said ‘Who knows? The Lord may be gracious to me and the child may live’” (2Sam 12:22). Fasting does not presume. It’s a humble discipline. It does not remove us from suffering; nor, does it guarantee calamity will be avoided. Who knows?

Ancient locus infestation continue to plague us to this day. So too, with viral breakouts. As moderns, we’ve come to imagine that science has put an end to such ancient scourges. It hasn’t. That’s the scary thing about our present viral outbreak; science seems to have lost its magic. The malicious virus continues to have its way. The death toll rises.

The Prophet Joel calls us to fast and pray for God’s deliverance. It’s not to say science will not eventually find its magic: “There may come a time when recovery lies in the hands of physicians, for they too pray to the Lord that he grant them success” (Sirach 38:13). Maybe this time, those who imagine we can handle things without God, will “pray to the Lord” and the Lord will “grant them success”.  Let us who pray, pray so.

Lent #23:  Discipline 4 of 7—Fasting.

Declare a holy fast ...and cry out to the Lord!

(Joel 1:14)

In the face of a massive locus attack, the prophet Joel calls for a national fast to put an end to the infestation and preserve their economy. Watch the prophet’s poetic plea (Joel 1:4-14):

What the cutting locust left,

    the swarming locust has eaten.

What the swarming locust left,

    the hopping locust has eaten, and

What the hopping locust left,

    the destroying locust has eaten…

It has laid waste my vines,

    and splintered my fig trees;

it has stripped off their bark

    and thrown it down…

The vine withers,

    the fig tree droops.

Pomegranate, palm, and apple—

    all the trees of the field are dried up;

surely, joy withers away

            among the people.

Consecrate a fast,

    call a solemn assembly.

Gather the elders

    and all the inhabitants of the land

to the house of the LORD your God,

    and cry out to the LORD.

I can’t say that’s what needs to be said. I’m not a prophet. I can’t write poetry. I want to think about it some: Does Joel and his poetry have anything to say during our viral scourge? Whatever is to be said should probably be said poetically.

Lent #22:  Discipline 4 of 7—Fasting.

David fasted, pleading for the child.

(Second Samuel 12:16)

As the child born of David’s adulterous affair with Bathsheba struggled for life; David fasted and prayed for the life of the child. It didn’t work. When the baby died; “David got up from the ground…washed, put on lotions, changed his clothes, and went into the house of the Lord and worshiped. Then he went to his own house, ate …and comforted his wife Bathsheba” (2Sam 12:16-24).

Feast days are prescribed in the Law: Sabbath, and the annual festivals: Passover in the spring, Pentecost in the summer, and Tabernacles in the fall. Fasting is not prescribed. It’s spontaneous. We do it in the face of crises, calamity, or loss. Like when David at the deathly sickness of his child; or, when Israel fasted during the oncoming carnage of a locus infestation (Joel 1:4&14).

Apparently, the Pharisees felt fasting needed prescribed days: “twice a week” (Lk 18:12), in order to assure proper piety. They questioned Jesus’ and his disciples’ lack of fasting: “‘Why do the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?’ Jesus said to them, ‘The wedding guests cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they?’ The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast’” (Mt 9:14-15). You don’t fast at a wedding celebration, do you? But, maybe later, an appropriate time will come. Today, for example, might be a good day to fast and pray for deliverance from this malevolent virus.

Lent #21:  “Analogue Church”

When the fullness of time had come,

God sent his Son...

(Galatians 4:4-5).

We’ve been spending our “shelter in place” time going through our stuff and thinning things out. My method is to toss and move on. Linda’s notion is to hold, discuss, contemplate and then figure out where best to keep each item. The process has brought us back into our analogue world of vinyl record albums and printed pictures and eight millimeter film.

These are our agreed upon non-tossables. I’m told the solution is to digitalize all those albums and prints and film. But, we can’t bring ourselves to digitalize our analogue life. I recall the first time someone showed me their digital watch—what wonder. By and by, I got one of my own only even more so—I could store data like phone numbers in it. Recently, I got a new watch after being without one for some years. My new one has hands and numbers one through twelve with twelve at the top and six at the bottom. I can’t store any data in it. It just tells time as time passes.

I’ve been thinking about such things since last Sunday when our pastor, during digitized church, said he longs to get back to “analogue church”. It caused me to think about Lent and the Christian Calendar and the Fullness of Time. Following the Christian Calendar (Advent, Christmastide, Epiphany, Lent, Easter Sunday followed by Eastertide and Pentecost), places us into the Gospel Story. You can’t digitalize it. Like the hands of my new watch, the Gospel story unfolds within the “fullness of time.”

It caused me to think of our present pandemic suffering. It would be nice if we could just digitalize the whole thing, hit a few key strokes, and arrive on the other side. But it wouldn’t be fair—it wouldn’t be real. Analogue life means we must live through it. We have to participate in the suffering. That’s Lent. We can’t just jump to Easter mourning. We have to allow time to play out all the way to Calvary.

Lent #20: “Saving Mr. Banks”

Christ suffered for our sins.

(First Peter 3:18)

To my surprise, there was something Lenten about that movie, “Saving Mr. Banks,” our family watched virtually together. It’s a movie about the making of Mary Poppins; and, in particular, the fuss that Walt Disney had with the author, Pamela Travers.

As the film unfolds, we discover her fantasy story, came out of her real life childhood relationship with her father. As a child she loves and idealizes her father, but gradually becomes aware that her father is a flawed man. She’s looking for the Disney movie to treat Mr. Banks, the father of the children in Mary Poppins, tenderly. Which gets us to the movie scene when Walt Disney discerns that the fantasy isn’t really about the children; but about the father, Mr. Banks. Thus the title: “Saving, Mr. Banks.”

It’s a gospel story of sin and redemption. In life, we discover that every relationship disappoints—falls short of the Glory. We are in need of redemption. Lent is about how Jesus suffered for our salvation. Christ bore our suffering in order to heal our relationship with our Creator, with ourselves, and with one another.

Fantasy, good fantasy like Mary Poppins, has a way of pointing us in a gospel direction. Notice how the opening poem speaks of a salvation that comes to us from beyond—something brewing that will bring salvation not only to Mr. Banks, but “to the whole household” (Ac 11:14):

Winds in the east,

Mist coming in;

Like something is brewing,

About to begin.

Can’t put my finger

On what lies in store;

But I feel what’s to happen,

All happened before.

Lent #19 – Virtual Family Gathering.

I hope to see you soon,

and we will talk face to face.

(Third John vs 14)

Brandon, who knows about technical stuff, got us together for a virtual movie night. From our scattered places we watched the same movie: “Saving Mr. Banks.” We watched on-line, in real time, making our real time on-line comments along the way.

The best part of the night was Priscilla helping me get on-line. It required lots of work. We eventually had to resort to “face time” so she could see my screen and figure out my mishaps. But, before we “face timed” my computer screen, I got to see her face—what a pretty girl. Like all our grandchildren—bright and beautiful. That was the best part of the night.

Lent #18:  Virtual Church Week Two.

They were all scattered.

(Acts 8:1)

Virtual church again. Through modern technology, we pretend to gather. We know it's not the real thing. We long for that gathering when we become, what our pastor calls, “analog church” once again. It makes us even more aware that we are scattered: “The hour is coming,” as our Lord said to his disciples, “when you will be scattered, each one to his own home.” We know ourselves as scattered because we know what it means to be gathered—gathered together in Jesus Name, i.e. “church.”  Only the gathered know that they are scattered; and, only the scattered know what a blessing it is to be gathered.

Maybe that is our Lenten Suffering: “On that day a great persecution arose against the church in Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the region” (Ac 8). This scattering resulted in big surprises: “Those who were scattered went about preaching the word. Philip went down to a city of Samaria, and proclaimed to them the Christ—the Anointed One” (vss 4&5). Others “who were scattered because of the persecution …traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the Word” (Ac 11).  Philip and other no-named “others” find themselves scattered about. The surprise is that this scattering ends up bringing the gospel to the whole wide world—even to us.

Let’s trust that our scattering will result in some surprise good. God has a way of bending things into something good (Romans 8 somewhere).

Lent #17: Discipline 3 of 7–Prayer.

How long, O Lord?

(Psalm 13)

This is no fun. I thought maybe a day or two, maybe even a week or two. But, every morning greets us with bad news: “The virus continues to spread.” One of these days, we are assured, all this “sheltering in place,” all this “social distancing” will bear fruit; and, the viral arch will bend towards the good. We can’t help wonder with the Psalmist, “How long, O Lord?”

John Calvin, one of the church’s hero theologians, assures us that God has placed boundaries on Satan’s mischief. Malevolence messes with us, but God has decided to stick with his creation. He won’t let it go Satan’s way. God redeems creation for himself. We wouldn’t even raise the question “How long, O Lord?” if we didn’t believe it was so. Psalm 13, like all psalms, is a prayer; and further, it is a prayer sung by God’s people. The Psalms are both a prayer book and a hymn book. That’s how Psalm 13 ends: “I will sing to the Lord…”  We sing the psalm as we wait for God’s benevolence to boundary Satan’s malevolence.

Lent #16 – Discipline 3 of 7–Prayer

I urge that prayers be made for everyone.

(First Timothy 2:1-4)

The Apostle urges us to pray for everyone because “God our Savior desires everyone to be saved” (1Tm 2:4). A Christian writer recently raised the question, “Does God get his wish?” It doesn’t seem like it. However, the point of God our Savior’s desires has to do with how we pray. We pray for everyone because “God our Savior desires everyone to be saved.” Or, to put it in a more familiar verse, we pray for everyone because “God so loved the world” (Jn 3:16).

During this coronavirus pandemic, prayers require the “pan” in “pandemic”. It’s a N.T. word meaning “every” or “all” or “all of public life” as in “I teach Christ Jesus everywhere (pantachē, 1Cor 4:17). Isn’t that something? Those of us who believe in “God our Savior” serve as a “royal priesthood” (1Pt 2) praying to God our Savior for the hurts of all people.

Lent #15:   Troubles

In troubles and hardships,

…in distresses and sleepless nights

(Second Corinthians 6:4-6)

We began Lent thinking of ways to “participate in the sufferings of Christ” (Phil 3:10). Today, in the middle of Lent, by surprise, suffering has come our way. There’s no need to conjure up sufferings. That far off malevolent virus has brought suffering to us. Instead of thinking about how we can participate in His sufferings; we can contemplate how Christ participated in our sufferings. God the eternal Son, entered our troubled world: “born of a woman …to redeem us” (Ga 4:4-5). Jesus participated fully in our earthly troubles. He “empathizes with our weaknesses… and helps us in our time of need” (Hb 4:14-16).

Lent #14: Dread.

I’ve uttered what I did not understands.

(Job 42:3)

Woke up unusually happy this morning. It had something to do with a pleasant dream—a dream of my youth with all my life before me. Apparently, I awoke with the dream still in me. My whole body felt young. The dream lingered until I turned on the television.

The experts were on once again—the real scientist who will, we are assured, get us through this virus. It seemed to me they were just “wagging their tongues,” as Jeremiah said of the false prophets (Jer 23:31), assuring us that science will handle this. All the while, a little box on the lower right corner of the screen shows the Dow diving another 2,000 points and more. Dreadful!

“Dread” is an honest word. There are things to be dreaded—like an unknown virus that comes out of nowhere. Melville’s’ Moby Dick calls it “loomings”. There something looming out there, something ominous, like the Great White for which we have no answers. Like Leviathan of the deep: “Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook?” God asked Job, and “Who can confront Leviathan and be safe?” (Jb 41) That’s a good dread.

Like Job, our faith stands not in the absence of dread, but in the face of dread. Because of Easter morning, we believe that the worst thing is not the last thing. Maybe those experts, and all us mortals who venture big claims, would do well to acknowledge with Job that “I’ve uttered what I did not understands, things too ominous for me to know (Jb 42—it’s all in Job).

Lent #13: Discipline 3 of 7 – Prayer.

Pray without ceasing.

(First Thessalonians 5:17)

“It’s Been a Year,” a poem by Gary’s daughter lamenting the loss of her daddy. After several stanzas; she concludes the poem with these three lines:

            We miss daddy so, even though his mind was diseased

            Yet we find such comfort

            Knowing he is healed and in heaven with Thee.                         

We might expect the poem to end: “Knowing he is …in heaven.” But Michelle adds two more words, “with Thee.” That concluding “Thee,” turns her poem into a prayer. We can’t presume. That’s why we pray.

That must be what it means to “pray without ceasing.” We can’t find comfort and eternal healing apart from “Thou who hearest prayer” (Ps 65:2). Without “Thee,” why write a poem?

Lent #12:  Social Distancing.

Greet one another with a holy kiss.

(First Corinthians 16:20)

Virtual Church this morning. No gathering. No greeting. No touching. No affection, No “holy kiss.” We gathered with friends for dinner last night. We were all a bit leery. How should we greet? Our gracious hostess prepared her table with a few extra leaves to create some distance around the table for the six of us. Then, there was the departure, catching us again with this strange new reality. What to do? We couldn’t help but take the risk; maybe not quite as exuberant, fun and free as in times past; but, there were hugs nonetheless.

Malevolence, like this malevolent virus, has a way of distancing ourselves from one another. Maybe this is our surprise Lenten Suffering. That’s how our Lord’s suffered, only more so: “Eli, Eli,lemasabachthani?” A cry from the cross so memorable that Matthew keeps the exact Aramaic words, before translating it for us: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Or, maybe Matthew keeps the Aramaic because they are the exact words that begin Psalm 22. To those who know the Psalm, like those first hearers, they know that’s not how the lament ends. It ends with “Proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn (that’s us), saying that he has done it [for our salvation]” (Ps 22:31).

Our present social distancing reminds us what a gracious gift it is to gather together and to “greet one another with a holy kiss.” Virtual church will not do. We long for the real thing: “I hope to visit you and talk with you face to face,” John writes to his congregation, “so that our joy may be complete” (2Jn & 3Jn). There’s even a greater joy that awaits us when “we shall see His face” (Rv 22:4).

Lent #11: Discipline 3 of 7 - Prayer.

Pray for those in high positions.

(First Timothy 2:1-2)

Our grandchildren’s athletic tournaments have been canceled due to the Coronavirus

Pandemic. “Old folks watching boys and girls playing…” (Zech 8:4-5) is a sign of God’s blessing. It’s our joy and delight. What are we to do when we can no longer watch our grandchildren play?

We older folks are told to stay home and do nothing. That’s no fun. But, as Lent would have it, I suppose we can, as Jesus teaches us, “go into [our] room and shut the door and pray” (Sermon on the Mount, Mt 6:6). And, when we pray, the Apostle would have us “pray for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead peaceful and quiet lives” (1Tm 2:1-2). I think “peaceful and quiet lives” means watching our grandchildren play ball, wrestle and swim. That will be my first Lenten Prayer.

Lent #10 – Discipline 2 of 7 – Repentance.

Restore again to repentance.

(Hebrews 6:4)

I’ve talked of repentance, but haven’t actually practiced the Lenten discipline of repentance. I’m not sure I know how. I’ve chosen my path—the way of Christ. How do I repent—change my mind and go in another direction? According to the book of Hebrews, such repentance is “impossible” (Hb 6:6). So, maybe Lenten Repentance is more like remembering my repentance and baptism that put me on the path of following Jesus. How are things going along the way? I drift off from time to time. I stall along the way saying to myself, “I’m on the right path, that’s good enough. I’ll just sit by the wayside and wait for Glory.”

That’s what concerns the writer to the Hebrews. He, or maybe she (perhaps Priscilla who taught Apollos “the Way of God more accurately” Ac 18:26), does not want me to stall out along the way; but, rather to grow in “the Way of God.” Such growth will require “solid food” (Hb 5:12), especially when you bring up “the priestly order of Melchizedek” (Hb 5:10). Melchizedek? Who’s that? Maybe I’ll just lie down by the wayside and wait for Glory.

Or, maybe I’ll repent of my complacency. Get back on the Jesus path; and, see if I can travel from Melchizedek to Christ my High Priest interceding in my behalf within the Godhead this very moment (Hb 4:14-16, Ro 8:34). Lenten Repentance gets me up and going even when it leads me into “the priestly order of Melchizedek.”

Lent #9: Discipline 2 of 7 – Repentance.

Repent and Believe in the Gospel

(Mark 1:15)

That’s how we encounter Jesus in the Gospel of Mark: “Jesus came proclaiming the gospel.” And then we hear his first words: “Repent and believe in the gospel”; or, almost his first. There’s a few words proceeding: “The time has come. The kingdom of God is near.” And, a few words after: “Come and follow me.” The gospel is in the middle of it all: “kingdom,” “repent,” “believe,” “gospel,” “follow.”  

“Gospel,” comes from the Greek word “euaggelion”: the eu means “good” or “beautiful”, and the aggelia means “message”—our word “angel” comes from aggelia meaning “messenger”. The eu in front of aggelia assures us that God’s message to us is “good”. It’s “good news”. I notice that’s how it’s mostly translated; but there’s something special about our old English word “gospel’ that I can’t give up. It means, like the Greek, the “good spell”—the good story. I like that. It’s the story that puts a spell on you. It marks you.

All that mumbling to remind us that repentance, within the sphere of Christ, is always good news. In God’s “No” to our contrivances; comes God’s “Yes” to our repentance—our change of mind to follow Jesus towards the kingdom of God. We were once going one way, until Jesus showed up; and then, we turned (repented) and went another way—the way of following Jesus. It’s not an easy way, but it’s good—it’s gospel.

Lent #8: Discipline 2 of 7 – Repentance

Repent and Believe

(Mark 1:15)

Repentance doesn’t come to us out of nowhere. Something has to happen—something big. Something bigger than “I’m sorry”. Though “I’m sorry” is a good thing, it usually doesn’t cost us much—some embarrassment maybe; or, even recompense. But repentance itself has to do with our belief in God as our Creator and Redeemer. Repentance has to do with a strange sorrow that comes to me for becoming something other than what God created me to be.

Belief and repentance are inseparable. It’s all in Psalm 51: “A broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” There is sorrow in repentance, but it comes with a good dose of joy: “Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.” Anything that is mechanical and spiritless, such as contrived penance, is not repentance. Repentance requires God’s spirit mingling with our spirit. In short, the whole of our big and spacious triune God is in on it: God the Father who created me, God the Son who redeems me, and God the Holy Spirit who “sustain[s] in me a willing spirit” (vs 12).

Lent #7: Discipline 2 of 7 - Repentance.

Repent and believe in the gospel.

(Mark 1:15)

“Jesus came preaching the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel’" (Mk 1:15). The appearance of Christ among us causes us to change our minds about things. That’s what “repentance” means: to change our mind; or, to change direction. In short, to change the trajectory of our lives. We wouldn’t think of it if we hadn’t encounter Christ.

Repentance is the second of the seven Lenten disciplines. What would it mean for me to repent during Lent? Haven’t I already repented? I think I “went forward” once or twice. I was baptized. So, I must have repented back there somewhere. I lack a good repentance testimony. I’m a bit envious of those who share dramatic stories about how they were saved from a life of decadence and debauchery.

The Amish, I’ve been told, send their teenagers out into the world to “run around” a spell after which they can either remain in the world, or rejoin the community through repentance and baptism. As teenagers we did something like that in our own way. As the Psalm goes: “Remember not the sins of my youth…” (Ps 25). Even the righteous Job thought it unfair to bring up the “sins of [his] youth” (Jb 13:26). You can’t come out of adolescence unscathed.

Repentance does not come on our terms. It requires a spiritual encounter: “Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him when he comes near” (Isa 55:6). An old Fanny Crosby hymn, best sung by Lyle Lovett, gets to the heart of it:

Pass me not, O gentle Savior,

Hear my humble cry;

While on others Thou art calling,

Do not pass me by.

Maybe Lent will provide us with such an encounter. I don’t suppose we can practice the first Lenten discipline of self-examination, without it leading us to the second Lenten discipline of repentance.

Lent #6: Discipline 1 of 7 - Self-Examination.

Examine yourselves,

and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup.

(First Corinthians 11:28)

Isn’t it interesting that self-examination is put in the plural: Examine yourselves—yourselves, gathered in community around the table of our Lord. I just returned from a gathering of guys for a few days, by a lake, to examine some difficult aspects of scripture together. I didn’t expect, or intended it to have anything to do with my Lenten self-examination project; but, it did.

That’s true of our Lord’s teaching as well. Self-examination takes place within the sphere of fellowship: “Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eyes, but do not notice the log in your own eye (Mt7:2)? Noticing others causes me to take notice of myself.

Gathered around the Lord’s Table is a good place for self-examination. You don’t want to acknowledge disappointing and troublesome things about yourself without the Bread and the Cup at hand. The Cross frees us to examine our self. Whatever broken self we discover; Calvary heals and makes whole. It frees us for one another. Our Living Lord becomes our present mediator not only between us and God, but between me and you; and, not only that, Christ is our mediator between our old self and our new self: “Christ intercedes in our behalf” (Hb 7:25).

Lent #5: Discipline 1 of 7 - Self-Examination.

First take the log out of your own eye.

(Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 7:5)

It is an odd idea when you think about. For example, who is this self that examines myself? How is it that I can stand outside of myself and examine myself? I don’t know where to begin. I have a feeling I’m not going to like what I find. Let me try.

Okay, I tried. But, I’m not sure what I discovered; or, if I’m capable of such self discovery. As the prophet Jeremiah puts it:  The heart is deceitful above all things. Who can understand it?” There’s a good chance I’m fooling myself. Even the Apostle seems to have given up on the idea: “I do not even judge myself (1Cor 4:3).

Yet, Jesus does encourages us to examine why it is so easy “to see the speck in our neighbor’s eye,” but hard to notice “the log that’s in our own eye” (Mt 7:3). That’s a good place to start my Lenten self-examination: “There’s a log in my eye.” Jesus said so.

Lent #4: The Lenten List.

Grow in grace and knowledge…

(Second Peter 3:18)

Apart from Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, I haven’t paid much attention to Lent. Even though I’ve been aware of Lent, I haven’t followed it much—not in the way the Book of Common Prayer invites me to participate: with…

1)      self-examination

2)      repentance

3)      prayer

4)      fasting

5)      denial/charity/alms

6)      reading and meditation on God’s holy Word

7)      marking our mortality.

I’m leery of contrived disciplines. Such disciplines didn’t work for Martin Luther, and our Puritan forbearers would have none of it. The Apostle Paul calls it “all dung.” He uses a bad word that we best not translate (Phil 3:8). But if such traditional disciplines lead us to “kneel before the Lord our maker and redeemer,” as the invitation promises; then, maybe such disciplines, within the sphere of God’s grace, can be a good thing. I find The Lenten invitation so beautiful that, for the first time, I’m going to accept the invitation and see what happens. I’ll let you know how it goes.