Manifold temptations

What are temptations that you face? Some years ago around this time of year, in my work with a group of teenagers, I asked them if they ever felt they had been tempted. One young girl spoke up: “I was tempted to give money to the guy begging on the street, but I didn’t.” Not exactly the response I was hoping for. It was one of those moments when I realized I had work to do, and maybe even wondered if I was up to the task.

It may not be that we talk these days much about temptations. The prayer (the collect) we read yesterday in church suggests that they will come. Not a matter of if but when. And they’ll come in force. I appreciate the Rite I language which predicts manifold temptations. I’m wondering what those might be for you as we begin the season of Lent.

Lent begins with the story of Jesus being led to the wilderness (by the Holy Spirit, of all things) to face tests. It’s an indication that the season of Lent assumes that we will have encounters with temptations. It’s a season of challenge, and I think we’re led to a sense of how to navigate such challenges as we read that Jesus went through the same thing.

The temptations Jesus faced were not notorious sins, not outrageous temptations about lust or greed. Jesus’ temptations included a quite reasonable need for food (After 40 days without food, turn stones into bread, a temptation to use God as quick-fix magician or valet). A second temptation had to do with trusting God for protection. (A temptation to take a leap off a skyscraper to see if God catches you, if God is really looking out for you, a test of how strong faith really is, with a hint that God might not be up to the task). A third temptation had to do with worship. (The devil says if you worship me, I’ll give you unlimited power, a temptation about where we give our heart, whether we will really love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, strength).

Jesus makes his way through these tests by making reference to the words of scripture. He knew where to draw strength. That may be one of the reasons why one of the things we’re invited to do in Lent is to read and meditate on God’s holy word. Scripture was clearly a resource to help him through. Have you found that to be the case in your own encounters with temptation?

Here’s another resource, suggested by a hymn that is not in the 1982 hymnal but one that I often find myself mulling over. What a friend we have a Jesus.

I’m taken with the phrase: Oh, what peace we often forfeit, oh, what needless pain we bear. All because we do not carry, everything to God in prayer. I forfeit peace on a daily basis. You?

Later in the hymn we find the phrase: Jesus knows our every weakness. Take it to the Lord in prayer. The story of Jesus in the wilderness tells us that he knows what we’re dealing with. Have you found prayer (however you pray) to be something that helps you in the wildnerness experience?

The premise of the collect we heard yesterday in church is that because Jesus knows our weaknesses, we can find strength to deal with our own temptations. There’s challenge for sure in this season compared to the wilderness. But as we tap into resources like scripture and prayer, along with other spiritual practices that we might take on in this season, we are not only challenged. We are also formed into what God calls us to do and be.

As the season begins, what are the resources at your disposal, that will help you as you encounter manifold temptations? How will you put them to work in your life this week?

-Jay Sidebotham

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Mountaintop experiences

When have you had a mountaintop experience?

Speaking literally, it can be that exhilarating moment at the conclusion of a hike or the end of a ski lift when you are transported to a place where you get the long view, where beauty grabs your soul and takes your breath away, where worries suddenly seem small. It may be an experience of success, a sense of accomplishment after prolonged striving. It may be a spiritual moment. People speak of retreats as that kind of experience, when daily routine is interrupted and clarity comes with a change of venue. It can be an epiphany in a time of quiet contemplation. It can be a moment when in our grace-starved world you give or receive some kind of grace.

Yesterday in church we read about a mountaintop experience for Jesus and a few disciples. The collect above reflects that story of the Transfiguration, read every Sunday at the end of the season of Epiphany, just a few days before we launch out on the season of Lent. The collect indicates that the mountaintop experience came as those disciples get a clearer glimpse of who Jesus is, as they hear the voice of the Holy One describing Jesus as the beloved, someone worth listening to.

That revelation, that epiphany comes with purpose. While in the story told in the gospel, Peter seems to want to freeze the moment in time (maybe even build a visitor center), that apparently is not what this mountaintop experience was all about. As Pope Francis has said, there’s no such thing as a stationary Christian.

Jesus and the disciples are not meant to stay on the mountaintop. Rather, as they descend, Jesus turns his face toward Jerusalem, toward Holy Week, with all that meant for him. Our church reenacts that movement with the 40 day journey of Lent starting in two days, taking us to Easter. Yesterday’s collect tells us what it’s about two things: being strengthened to bear our cross and being changed into Christ’s likeness.

So we start a journey which will entail bearing our cross. That’s why Lent is presented as a season loaded with challenge. The season is compared to the wilderness, marked by deprivation, hardship, testing. The season resonates because we all know something about those challenges. They come in great variety for sure, but we all have them. I believe we can face them fortified by some recollection of a mountaintop experience. For those of us who swim in the Christian stream, we can face them based on some clearer vision of who Jesus is and why he matters. What has been that epiphany for you? How does your understanding of Jesus give you strength to face challenge?

At the same time, Lent is not just a season marked by challenge. It’s a season for formation. As described in the collect, it’s about being changed into Christ’s likeness. In the same way that we all face challenge, we also all have room to grow in terms of becoming more Christ-like. Where do you see that possibility in your own life? What vision of Christ (what mountaintop revelation) have you had that sets that goal, and allows you to glimpse that possibility?

This Monday morning, give thanks for any mountaintop experience you have had, especially one that involves a clearer vision of who Jesus is and why he matters, why he is worth following. If you have the opportunity, tell someone else about that experience, not to brag, but simply because clarity comes with articulation. Then as you celebrate that recollection, let it sustain you in the challenges ahead as you bear your cross, whatever the challenges may be. (It’s a pretty safe bet that those challenges will show up.) Let the recollection of mountaintops shape you in your own spiritual journey, as you are changed into Christ’s likeness.

-Jay Sidebotham

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Be Strong in the Lord

When I first showed up at an Episcopal Church as a young adult, there was a lot that was mystifying. I’m okay with mystery, but some things were just confusing. For instance, I noticed in the bulletin that in addition to the offertory, there was this thing called a collect. I thought: Well, that’s cheeky. And entrepreneurial. Two opportunities to take in cash. It was only after a while that I learned that a collect is really a prayer that collects thoughts reflecting the theme of that day in worship.

Where am I going with this? One of our readers recently asked: “What’s a collect?” Each Monday, we’re looking at the collect for the Sunday that begins the week, reflecting on themes in those prayers, in the confidence that praying shapes our believing, in the hopes that readers will carry the collect with them throughout the week. This week, the theme I want to explore from yesterday’s collect has to do with strength and where it comes from.

In that collect, we pray for strength because we recognize that strength comes as a gift from God. It’s a matter of grace. We count on that holy help, strength from a power greater than ourselves. I can think of people, some famous, some that I’ve run across in congregations where I’ve served, some whose lives unfold outside of the church, who show a supernatural strength of spirit which I can only describe as a gift. I’ve encountered people who in life’s darkest moments and deepest challenges show a resilience that goes well beyond what human beings can muster on their own. Have you run across folks like that?

And as yesterday’s collect indicates, we’re not passive objects in the process. The mystery of grace in our lives suggests a synergy by which we participate in the strengthening, as we look for help to keep God’s commandments.

Which brings to mind a parish priest I admire a great deal. The Rev. Doyt Conn leads a great church in Seattle. In a part of the world that has been characterized as “unchurched,” Doyt leads a vital and growing congregation. He talks about his church as a spiritual gym, a place people go to gain spiritual strength. A lot of that strengthening process has to do with spiritual practices. He notes, by way of analogy, that if you spend time each day at Equinox, lifting weights with your right arm, your right arm is going to get stronger. It simply will happen, whether you believe it or understand the process. He thinks that spiritual practices (like prayer, scripture reading, regular attendance at worship, commitment to service in Jesus’ name) will offer the strength we need, as long as we practice them.

I’m wondering where you experience spiritual strengthening. One of the places where I experience spiritual strengthening comes in the eucharist. As my friend Doyt indicates, I don’t need to understand or explain how that strengthening happens. But the grace of strengthening is suggested in the prayer we say after communion. In that prayer, having been fed with bread and wine, we ask for strength and courage to love and serve God with gladness and singleness of heart.

We could talk at length about each of those words: strength, courage, gladness, singleness of heart. Today, we focus on strength. Pray this week for strength. Where do you need that holy strength?

And let your spiritual practices, whatever they may be, be part of this prayer. Here’s a thought: Use the upcoming season of Lent as a chance to begin to make those strengthening practices part of your life. As the psalmist encourages: Be strong in the Lord.

-Jay Sidebotham

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Freedom

Freedom is the theme explored in the collect heard yesterday in church (see above). From earliest days, we each may have encountered that theme as we have employed the childhood refrain: You’re not the boss of me. (Some adults apparently find it is still useful.)

We’re conditioned to imagine we are free agents, independent players, blessed with free will. It surfaces in our individual life choices. The topic of freedom also pervades political discourse (e.g., Don’t tread on me.) Freedom appears to be one of our highest values, equated with independence and autonomy.

The biblical narrative suggests that we may not be as free as we imagine. We see it in the confession of St. Paul in his letter to the Romans, as he shares his own internal struggles. He writes:

“I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But in fact it is no longer I who do it but sin that dwells within me…For the desire to do the good lies close at hand, but not the ability. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that, when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched person that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:15-24)

Have you ever felt stuck in that kind of psychic and spiritual loop? I’m wondering where you feel restriction or restraint in your life. It may be contention with addiction. It may be an inability to move beyond resentment. Upon his release from prison, Nelson Mandela said that if he couldn’t forgive his captors, they would still have him in prison. It may be habitual dynamics in families, when we just can’t help saying that thing that we know is going to trigger discord and dispute at the holiday dinner table. We come to the meal swearing we’re not going to get into it. We’re not going to play the old tapes. And then we simply can’t zip the lip. Lack of freedom may result from brokenness of body, mind or spirit. It may be a matter of being bound in an unhealthy relationship. It may be captivity in the systemic flaws of our society like racism or materialism or classism. There’s no shortage of limits on our freedom. We may join with St. Paul and wonder who is going to rescue us.

Which brings us to Jesus. He spoke often about freedom. Here’s a bit of a conversation from the Gospel of John, chapter 8 (vv. 31-36): To those who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”  They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?” Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”

So what is the freedom that Jesus offers? Again, St. Paul picked up the theme in the letter to the Galatians (5:13,14) when he said: “For freedom Christ has set us free… For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become enslaved to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

I’m taken with the phrase offered by St. Augustine who suggested that in service is found perfect freedom. That’s the holy paradox that represents the path to freedom: It’s about service. It’s about love. Try it this week in some new way. And be free.

-Jay Sidebotham

Interested in RenewalWorks for your parish? Learn more about how RenewalWorks works!

RenewalWorks: Helping churches focus on spiritual growth