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Lent 2023 | Week 5: Imitation

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Imitation is the Real Deal

Throughout the season of Lent we have been thinking about the theme of desire. Last week we took a detour to discuss the importance of contemplation. This week we’ll look at one particular question we need most to contemplate which is, “Who am I imitating?”

Who we imitate is inextricably tied to the question of what we desire. Working off the keen insights of the French thinker, René Girard, we have seen that our desires are mimetic. Simply put, our desires mimic the desires of others. To help us answer the bewildering question, “What do I want?” we look to others to give us an answer. So when we scroll through Yelp to figure out where to eat, we filter for those restaurants not just with the highest rating, but with the most reviews. We don’t know what to eat so it helps to let others decide for us.

This happens in all phases of our lives. For better or worse, it is just how we are wired. At its best, mimetic desire is what makes it possible for the development and flourishing of human cultures. It is what allows us to learn to speak a language, to come to agree on basic values that hold us together and to live toward general goals that we hold in common. At its worst, mimetic desire turns us against one another. It fragments us into hostile rivalries, turning our neighbor into an enemy to be overcome because we know they want what we want and they know we what we want they want. If this kind of enmity is not held in check, jealousy and envy can quickly turn into violent aggression.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves. For now, we want to recognize that we often look to models to help us navigate the question, “What do I want?”. When we are born, our parents are our primary models. And then in school, our teachers become models for us. As we grow up, different people come into our lives like coaches, counsellors, advisers – all of whom we may call mentors – who guide and shape our desires in various facets of our lives.

Advertisers know we are always in search of models and they are more than happy to provide us with some. And of course, with the rise of the internet, we now have a new category of model – social media influencers. It is big business to help steer or manipulate our desires in certain directions.

The point is not to say we should not have models. As we said, for better or worse, our desires are mimetic and therefore, we are drawn to models. So the question is not whether we will imitate someone. Rather, the question is, “Who to imitate?”

As we head toward Holy Week and Good Friday, we want to start considering what all this talk about desire has to do with Jesus’ life in general, and his death on a cross in particular.

One way to see Jesus’ life is to receive it as a model. Jesus is our exemplary model. The human model par excellence. Jesus, in short, is God’s answer to the question, “What do I want?”.

You don’t know what to want?

Try Jesus. I think he may have more followers than Justin Bieber.

Show Me What I’m Looking For

One of my favorite songs, the title of which, I think, is one of the best prayers we can pray. Given our time and place, in which we are bombarded with desire upon desire placed on top of desire and there are more models than we know what to do with, it is not a bad idea to pray this simple prayer daily, “Show me what I’m looking for, oh Lord.”

Interestingly enough, as I was looking up this song, the YouTube algorithm suggested a song I’ve never heard of entitled the American Dream by the Federal Empire. The song automatically played and well, turns out, it captures to a “T” all that we’ve been talking about in terms of desire gone amuck. Check it out:

The song reminds me of an old blog post Timmy wrote on desire years ago (Lent 2016!). You can read it here.

Faith and Imitation, Imitation and Faith

Christianity is a believing and a very particular kind of existing corresponding to it—imitation. We can put faith first and imitation second, inasmuch as it is necessary for me to have faith in that which I am to imitate. But we must also put imitation first and faith second. I must, by some action, be marked in some measure by conformity to Christ, and thus collide with the world. Without some kind of situational tension, there is no real opportunity of becoming a believer.

— Søren Kierkegaard

This is a wonderful quote by the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard on the relationship between faith and imitation. I think we intuitively get what it means that imitation follows faith. As we have been saying, we must have faith in and desire that which we are to imitate. But what would it meant for imitation to precede faith? Kierkegaard talks about the need for faith to “collide with the world.”

  • What do you think Kierkegaard means when he says, “Without some kind of situational tension, there is no real opportunity of becoming a believer”?

Scripture

It might help to think of Kierkegaard’s quote in terms of the Scripture passage we have been looking at throughout Lent: Matthew 20:20-28

As we looked at last week, James and John, ask for these positions of power next to Jesus even after hearing Jesus teach them about how actually things work in God’s kingdom. Namely, that the last will be first and the first will be last.

And yet they still seek to be first.

What Jesus does in response to their question is to present them with a “situational tension” (in verse 25), where what James and John believe (but not yet truly) is set to collide with the way the world works. Jesus means to provide for James and John, as Kierkegaard puts it, the opportunity of becoming true believers.

Sometimes we don’t know what we believe until we our imitation of Jesus collides with the world. It is only in those moments of collision that we are able to come to a deeper understanding of what it means to be a believer.

  • What are some moments in your life where imitation to Jesus caused you to “collide with the world”?
  • Would you say it helped or hindered your belief in Jesus?
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Lent 2023 | Week 3: The Life Giving Magic of Tidying Up Our Desires

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The Multiplicity of Desires

Throughout this season of Lent, we have been looking at the role desire plays in the Christian life. In particular, we want to answer the question, “What is it that I want?”

Part of what makes this question so difficult to answer is the multiplicity of desires that we find competing within us. We want many things and often times we don’t have any criteria to help us order or rank those desires. Our lives end up being overrun by too many desires.

One rubric we have introduced to help tame our desires is to categorize them as thin or thick. Thin desires are those that are here today gone tomorrow. They are attached to things we want that are short-lived, transitory, fleeting. Our closets are filled with the pursuit of our thin desires.

Thick desires, on the other hand, carry more weight. They have to do with the things that really matter to us. They matter more but are harder to quantify. Here we have in mind things like giving ourselves for the sake others, of caring for the least of these, of loving God and neighbor.

To have faith in God is to say that these thicker desires are the desires awakened in us by the work of the Spirit through the ministry of Christ’s life, death and resurrection. In short, our deepest desires are addressed by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

When our thin desires out pace our thick desires this is what Jesus calls living on bread alone. It is what so much of our capitalistic economy is based around. Chasing after bread. Bread in all its forms. So many it is hard to count.

Ours is a culture in which our desire for bread is multiplied to a dizzying degree.

Lent is a time to do some spring cleaning. Like our offices and homes, our hearts, the seat and sanctum of our desires, can get disorganized and overrun by over-accumulation. And so it would do us well to take a look at all the desires that have accumulated in us and take stock of how, perhaps, our thin desires have run amuck, leaving little or no room for our thick ones.

The Christian name for this kind of tidying up is the life-changing magic of renunciation.

Renunciation

Take some time and read this short blog post by Christian psychologist Richard Beck. In it he talks about renunciation and why it is necessary in terms of fulfilling our thicker desires – namely, to love God and neighbor. The big question for us is:

  • What are the desires in our lives that need to be renounced in order to free us up to love?

Scripture

We come again to Matthew 20:20-28. It is interesting to note that Jesus, here, does not eschew the disciples’ desire to be great. To be great, in a sense, is to be exceedingly good. And this is a good thing.

The problem is not our desire to be great, but the multitude of visions of what greatness (or goodness) looks like. Which brings us back to the multiplicity of desires in our life. To believe in a crucified God is to have a radically singular vision of greatness, which provides us criteria to help tidy up (renounce) the many competing visions of greatness constantly being sold to us.

None of this works, however, unless we see faith and desire as more or less synonymous. To have faith in Jesus is to say everything that is worth wanting is found in Jesus. This is the logic of verse 28, “just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” We serve others “just as” Jesus did. But this “just as” holds no power unless we have found it to be true that all our deepest desires find their fulfillment in this one who came not to be served, but to serve.

If our faith in Jesus does not hold our desires, then everything that Jesus asks of us will feel like duty and obligation. Following Jesus will amount to the never ending frustration of our desires.

  • Does the Christian life feel like a constant frustration of your desires?
  • As the great theologian Marie Kondo says, “The best way to find out what we really need is to get rid of what we don’t.” How might tidying up your desires help you see that what you truly desire is found in Jesus?

Idolatry is Always Polytheism

Once man has lost the fundamental orientation which unifies his existence, he breaks down into the multiplicity of his desires; in refusing to await the time of promise, his life story disintegrates into a myriad of unconnected instants. Idolatry, then, is always polytheism, an aimless passing from one lord to another. Idolatry does not offer a journey but rather a plethora of paths leading nowhere and forming a vast labyrinth.

Pope Francis

Can you relate to the experience of feeling like your life is a “myriad of unconnected instants”? I can’t think of a better way to describe the experience mediated to us through social media. Scrolling through Instagram is pretty much scrolling through “a myriad of unconnected instants.”

The alternative is to find ourselves part of a journey. A journey is one in which our wandering is given a direction and end; a “fundamental orientation” as Pope Francis puts it. The irony is that many of us probably feel the same about our faith as we do about social media. It too feels like a path “leading nowhere and forming a vast labyrinth”.

  • Brass tacks: Do you experience your faith as a journey or as “a myriad of unconnected instants”?

Part of my own journey, I think, has been to identify how limiting the lesser forms of Truth, Goodness and Beauty (facts, legalism and entertainment, respectively) are to the Christian faith. Moving beyond facts to Story (a truthful story), beyond rules to Character (the character of Christ) and beyond entertainment to Beauty (the beauty of a crucified God) is what helps us find some kind of unifying vision for life. This work of moving “beyond” is not easy. It is one we all embark on together. It is for this work that God gave us the community we call church.

Formation

Lent 2023 | Week 2: Where Do We Look To Figure Out What to Want?

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Mimetic Desire

Last week we asked the question, “What is it that you want?” We might like to think that what we want is unique to us. Our desires are our own and fulfilling them is what sets us apart from everybody else. But what if desire works differently?

What if what I want is not singular but mimetic?

Mimetic is a technical word coined by the French social theorist René Girard to describe the nature of our desires. We can hear in it the echo of the word ‘mimic.’ To understand desire as mimetic is to recognize that what we want often mimics what others want. We see what someone else desires and then adopt it for ourselves. It might be hard us to swallow, that we are imitative creatures, because it works against the high value we place on personal authenticity and self-expression. Imitation, we judge, is for lesser life forms: Monkey see, monkey do.

We are not monkeys.

But if we can have the humility to see how it is so often the case that our desires ape the desires of others we will be able to see the mimetic dynamics at work in our lives.

As Girard points out, “Man is the creature who does not know what to desire.” It is not to say that when we are hungry we don’t know to want food. Or that when we are cold we don’t know to want shelter. We are not working at the level of instinctual desire. To say that we are creatures who do not know what to desire has to do with those higher level, more abstract longings particular to being human. Who am I? What is my meaning? What is my purpose?

These questions do not have obvious answers. It isn’t clear to us what we ought to do to fulfill these desires. We can’t just go to McDonald’s and order some meaning. So what do we do?

We look for models. Not fashion models (though they are included here), but those things which model for us what is worth desiring. Not just clothing, but the whole gamut of desires.

We don’t know what to desire so we look to models of desire.

Take Netflix or PlayStation. What is going on when we binge a show or a game? In part, I think what makes us want to keep watching, or keep playing, is the intoxication of desiring what these characters desire. The most powerful stories not only make us feel or think, but also to desire. We don’t know what we want so we go to movies, shows or video games to be told, if for only an hour or five!, what to want – to get the girl/guy, to move a boat, to level-up, to save the world.

Of course, the big elephant in the room when it comes to mimetic desire is social media. What are we doing when we endlessly scroll through Instagram or Facebook (is Facebook still a thing?). A lot of things are going on, but the best (worst?) social media sites, have spent billions leveraging the power of mimetic desire. We scroll because we want to want something. In part, we are looking to and for models of desire.

What do I want?

I don’t know. Let me scroll some more.

Social Media Addiction

Social media can be seen as a mimetic playground. Author Luis Burgis explores some of how these dynamics play out when we engage with social media. He gives us some categories to think about models of desire (internal and external) and how social media can distort the influence such models can have in and on our lives.

  • What are some of the external and internal models in your life?
  • One way to think about desire is that desire comes from a place of lack. We want what we feel we lack. How might your time on social media help you put a finger on what is it that you feel you lack?
  • Burgis encourages us: “We have to know when our models are enflaming us with a desire that will bring real fulfillment or whether it’s going to bring a dopamine hit or allow us to fantasize about a life that we’ll probably never have and even if we did have would probably make us miserable.” How might this help you discern what is going on when you engage with social media?

Scripture

Take some time again this week to sit with Matthew 20:20-28.

  • In what ways are external and internal models at work in this passage?
  • How have your desires been shaped, for or better or worse, by the various models in your life?
  • Is it strange to think of Jesus as a model of desire?

Let Us Not Falter in Desire

“When Christ appears, your life, then you also will appear with him in glory.” So now is the time for groaning, then it will be for rejoicing; now for desiring, then for embracing. What we desire now is not present; but let us not falter in desire; let long, continuous desire be our daily exercise, because the one who made the promise does not cheat us.

St. Augustine
  • Take some time to sit with this quote.
  • Read Colossians 3:1-4.
  • What does Augustine think we ought to be desiring for?
  • How are we prone to falter in desire? What would it look like to “let long, continuous desire be our daily exercise”?
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In Such a Time as This: Celebration as a Spiritual Discipline

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By Serena Lee

“In such a time as this…” my professor emphasized to our class last Thursday. We had just found out that our classes would be converted online and all of a sudden had to prepare to say goodbye to our classmates until next fall.

“In such a time as this, you have to remember why you chose to become a social worker. Right now, people are panicking. They are losing jobs, their homes, the people they love. Though tragic, you have a very unique opportunity to be the help you chose to become.”

For some reason, I wasn’t panicking. I felt grounded and filled with hope and inspiration, even though the world around us was turned upside down by the novel coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic, and life as we knew it would completely change. This prompted me to reflect on my own seasons of darkness and hopelessness, as if recalling memories of my despair was an attempt to empathize with others in their deep pain. I remembered feeling such severe anxiety that my body would shake violently like I was trying to crawl out of my own skin. I remembered the depression that clouded my ability to see any choices other than the choice of death and destruction. I remembered how much of my brain capacity was occupied by existential dread and the longing for my existence to be annihilated.

Still, I somehow have not succumb to the darkness. Right now, I almost feel guilty that I am feeling light. And then it dawned on me: I survived my experiences of darkness because others around me were beacons of light. They did not succumb to my darkness, but held me as they demonstrated that life could be different, filled with hope and laughter and joy and celebration. Their lightness helped carry me forward so that when I was hopeless, I could at the very least hope in their hope of God’s promises. 

It is a strange time to discuss the spiritual discipline of celebration. I had a difficult time reflecting on how I might share my thoughts on celebration during this season of Lent…and especially during this season of social isolation, fear of uncertainty, and disorientation of routine. What is there to celebrate now? Our world is collapsing from the weight of human pain and weakness, evil intentions and selfish greed. We fight with those we love and remain indifferent to inequality. Our planet is dying and still we grasp for more. What is there to celebrate now?

For several years up until I was prompted to write this blog post about celebration, I have been a champion for ushering in the genre of lament into the Church. I saw celebration as empty and fake because there was so much to lament and I felt that celebrating in such a time as this would be inauthentic and dismissive of people’s darkness. How dare the Church celebrate as people fall by the wayside, hidden under the shadows of our steeples? How can I celebrate GOD when I don’t feel like God has intervened in the way he has promised? Is this a God worthy of celebrating? 

I’ve come to the conclusion that celebration is only made empty when you do not acknowledge darkness, are blind to the world in pain, and ignore blatant evilness. Celebration in its truest form is a proclamation of victory, like a battle cry of strength and resilience knowing not whether you will make it out alive. Celebration is the recognition that the Church knows the end of the story: Jesus wins. For all that he bore on the cross, we know that his silencing of sin and death through the resurrection is all the more powerful, meaningful, and victorious.

So here we are, the Church, living through the Lenten season, lamenting our sins and yet waiting in hopeful anticipation for Resurrection Sunday. We are the “already-not-yet.” We inhabit a liminal space that is sacred and messy and full of God’s love all at the same time. We have the unique privilege of being able to entangle our lament with our hope, our joy and our sorrow, and our celebration and mourning because church is where heaven and earth collide and Jesus is called God With Us. I hope that in this pivotal moment of our history that we will celebrate God—not to trivialize the decomposition of our societies—but to demonstrate the alternative way of life that God has offered us to partake in. 

I end with an example that the slaves of the South in the 1800s exemplified for us. What came out of their pain and struggle were songs of praise. They understood how heavy it was to suffer and be victims of injustice. Yet, their spirituals and hymns portray that beautiful dance with Darkness because the dance itself is how you make darkness into light. Church, hope so that others may borrow your hope. Rejoice so that the sorrowful may feel joy through you. Laugh while others argue with rage and dividing accusations. Celebrate when you feel like complaining. In such a time as this, may we exemplify the same spirit and celebrate our lives and God and all that he has done, is doing, and will do. Glory Hallelujah!

Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen
Nobody knows but He knows my sorrow
Yes, nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen
But glory, Hallelujah

Sometimes I’m standing crying
Tears running down my face
I cry to the Lord, have mercy
Help me run this all race

Oh Lord, I have so many trials
So many pains and woes
I’m asking for faith and comfort
Lord, help me to carry this load, 

Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen
Well, no, nobody knows but Jesus
No nobody knows, oh the trouble, the trouble I’ve seen
I’m singing glory, glory glory Hallelujah

No nobody knows, oh the trouble, the trouble I’ve seen
Lord, no nobody knows my sorrow
No nobody knows, you know the trouble
The trouble I’ve seen
I’m singing glory, glory, glory, Hallelujah!

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The Spiritual Discipline of Service: Becoming the Living Expression of God’s Kindness

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By Meridith Mitchellweiler

In light of what the world is currently facing, the beauty of the spiritual discipline of service is striking. I don’t know about you, but when I think about service, I often become stymied. I feel like the troubles of this world, of my community, are so big that anything I do is merely a drop in a leaking bucket. As I reflected on service as a spiritual discipline, I was reminded that service is not about what we do, but rather about who we are. We are a people loved by God, who, out of response, want to show that love to those around us.

Acts of service gently guide our hearts towards humility. When we become servants, as Richard Foster says, “we give up the right to be in charge.” We become “available and vulnerable.” Jesus, as our ultimate example of what it means to be humble and vulnerable before God, made his ministry on earth all about the “other.” Jesus served because it was what he was called to do, it was part of his very nature. 

There are many ways we can practice the spiritual discipline of service. We can volunteer at medical clinics, serve meals to those in need, or take a neighbor to the grocery store. These types of service are all conducted in the open where we can see our impact, which is meaningful and rewarding, but what struck me the most this week is what Foster calls “hidden service.” This type of service is conducted in the background and often goes unnoticed. Foster says, “It is a ministry that can be engaged in frequently by all people. It sends ripples of joy and celebration through any community of people.” I can certainly attest to the fact that when someone goes out of their way to show kindness to me, I’m inspired to go out and do the same. Service doesn’t have to be out in the open to be impactful. If service is about the other, about humility, it doesn’t matter how small or unnoticeable the act is. 

With the fear and anxiety surrounding the coronavirus, I keep thinking about how we are uniquely positioned to serve one another. The simple acts of washing our hands thoroughly and staying home when possible can quite literally save the lives of those around us. By engaging in these hidden acts of service we can protect our grandparents, a friend with asthma, or the stranger going through chemotherapy. At this unusual point in time, our small acts of service have the capacity to change the world. What a poignant example of what happens when we all put each other first. 

Mother Teresa captured the essence of service when she said “Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God’s kindness: kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile.” I invite each of us this week to ask, how can we leave our neighbor better, happier?

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An Unexpected Step Toward the Spiritual Discipline of Simplicity

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By Michelle Chung

The spiritual discipline of simplicity is in its essence the refocusing of our attention on the things of God and away from the many enticing things of the world. The practice of simplicity can take many forms. For example, it can be the practice of being content with what we have, holding loosely to our material possessions, and uncluttering our lives from the noise, excess, and unnecessary distractions that make it difficult to see God and remember the great wisdom, peace, and freedom He offers us. 

As some of you might know, one of the things I’ve chosen to give up this Lent is Instagram. In an unexpected and unintended way, my decision to fast Instagram has become a small way that I have been able to practice the spiritual discipline of simplicity. 

Instagram is one of the only major social media outlets that I still use regularly. I’m often browsing new and suggested posts on a daily and sometimes hourly basis (depending on the day), usually when I’m waiting for something, have downtime at work/home, or am just bored. My feed is full of photos of friends, cooking recipes/tips, celebrity gossip, workout videos, news, cute puppy videos, and travel recommendations, among other miscellaneous things. 

All these things on my Instagram feed are not intrinsically bad things. But as I take time during Lent to reflect on my use of Instagram over the past year, I have realized that my constant and unbridled viewing of these things throughout the day/every day, had led to an addiction that I didn’t realize I had until I gave it up.

I had joked on Ash Wednesday how I had accidentally browsed through my Instagram three times that day without even realizing I was doing it! Though somewhat funny at the time, it is also kind of frightening to think about how deeply addicted I had become to this brightly colored app on my phone, to the point where my hands, without thinking, would automatically take me there when I would unlock my phone. 

Giving up Instagram this Lent (and writing this blog post) has given me some time to step back and reflect, and I am reminded that we are constantly being shaped and influenced by the things we look at each day; and the more we look at and focus on these things, the more they preoccupy our minds and influence our desires, often times allowing addictions to slowly creep into our lives unnoticed. 

From looking at Instagram multiple times each day/every day, my attention and desires were constantly being directed and focused on consumerism through ads and achieving happiness through instant gratification. On a smaller scale, Instagram has allowed ideas like YOLO and FOMO to creep in and preoccupy my mind on a perpetual basis. All these things, when given free rein, can contribute to greater feelings of anxiousness, impatience, envy, discontent, fatigue, among other unpleasant things, and ultimately can cloud our vision and purpose as Christians aspiring to follow Jesus. 

As I remove Instagram from my daily routine, this has opened time and space to reflect and remember that God’s love for us is uncomplicated and abundant; God’s wisdom is sure and unwavering; He teaches us how to live a life that is good, beautiful, and true; and He provides us with purpose and a path to genuine peace and freedom to choose what is good. 

In my small step of removing Instagram from my daily routine (and undo my addiction), I have been able to exercise simplicity by slowly uncluttering my mind from some of the noise, excess, and distractions of the world; and by removing even just a little bit of distraction from my life, I have been able to see God a little bit more and a little bit better in my day-to-day. 

I share this blog post with you all, first to acknowledge that it’s not easy to practice simplicity, particularly in this day and age, where there is just so much stuff around us, vying for our attention at all times (I often found myself replacing Instagram with some other form of distraction, e.g. online shopping, podcasts, etc.); but also I write to encourage you to try and challenge yourself in taking one small step toward practicing simplicity this week (or longer if you choose!). And in your practice of simplicity, I hope you can unclutter your life/mind from some of the distractions that surround us, redirect your attention to God, and experience God’s abundant love, peace, and freedom, in small and big ways. 

— Tips/References —

Some ways you might be able to exercise the spiritual discipline of simplicity this week:

  • Buy things for their usefulness rather than their status
  • Reject something that might be producing an addiction in you
  • Work on giving things away
  • Enjoying things without owning them
  • Express gratitude for the things you have

Footnote 1 – A quote Ken shared with us a long while ago, that I really like, defining freedom:

“Freedom means knowing how to reflect on what we do; knowing how to evaluate, which are the behaviors that make us grow. It means always choosing the good… being free to always choose the good is challenging, but it will make you persons with a backbone, who know how to face life, [and live as] courageous and patient persons.” – Pope Francis. 

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Lent & Submission

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By Andrew Tai

Submission is the spiritual discipline that frees us from the everlasting burden of always needing to get our own way. In submission we are learning to hold things lightly. We are also learning to diligently watch over the spirit in which we hold others— honoring them, preferring them, loving them. 

Submission is not age or gender specific. We are all—men and women, girls and boys—learning to follow the wise counsel of the apostle Paul to “be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ (Eph. 5:21).” We—each and every one of us regardless of our position or station in life— are to engage in mutual subordination out of reverence for Christ. 

The idea of “submission” as a spiritual discipline is about choosing others’ interests above our own, demonstrated most dramatically in Jesus’s submission to the cross out of love for us.  It is I think core to what it means to be a Christian, and yet it’s an often uncomfortable idea for me to think about because I’ve most commonly heard it weaponized by those in power to force others to do what they want.   

Because of how it’s often been used, it makes sense that nowadays “submitting” is often viewed as weakness, since the submitter is most commonly doing so out of fear.  Yet Christians throughout the centuries have recognized submission as a critical spiritual practice, especially in a world where we are increasingly taught that our needs are more important than others’; that we “win” in relationships by getting our way.  Christian submission is not borne out of weakness, fear, or respect for hierarchy, but out of reverence for Jesus and love for one another.   

I have been privileged to see this type of submission lived out in our community.  In fact, I think submission has become so core to our community’s shared life together that many of you perhaps don’t recognize how deeply sacrificial and remarkable your actions are.  I don’t say this to pat ourselves on the back or imply we are without fault, but simply because I think there is a power in translating feelings into words, and I want you all to know and reflect on the type of people I see you all becoming. 

A few weeks ago, my family decided we needed to move my dad’s bed downstairs since he was having trouble going up and down the stairs.  Unfortunately, the only room that would work had been used by our family as a study for over 25 years, and so had accumulated mountains of junk and trash, along with heavy desks, bookcases, computers.  I worried that to get the room prepared would take several weeks of cleaning, rearranging, and moving.   

On Super Bowl Sunday–literally, during the Super Bowl–about ten members of our community came to come help us with the move, and in less than two hours had completed the lifting, cleaning, and rearranging work necessary to turn the study into a new bedroom.  These folks came and helped out even though they could’ve been munching on wings, chips, and beer, not because I offered them reward or recognition, but because they were willing to choose another’s interests–namely, my family’s–over their own.  They did so because they believe Jesus has called us to love and support one another not simply with thoughts and prayers but with real, concrete acts of love and service.  That they did so on Super Bowl Sunday, a day which in many ways exemplifies our culture’s obsession with desire, greed, and excess, is simultaneously ironic and perhaps entirely fitting given these folks’ desires to live out of the example of Jesus.   

I look around and see these types of things happening all the time in our community–not necessarily always in huge gestures, but in the day-to-day goings on of a people I am proud to call my family.  I see submission out of love in folks’ willingness to sit with and listen to one another; in others’ choosing to confront conflict with each other; in others’ attempts to live more simply that they may give more generously.  I see these things and want to name them not simply as nice things that nice people do, but as remarkable things that I have seen as part of folks’ following of a remarkably loving and giving God. 

As we continue during this Lenten season, I pray we might continue to have in mind our Lord Jesus, who chose and continued to choose the interests of imperfect people like us over himself.   

Amen. 

Formation, Uncategorized

Ash Wednesday & Fasting

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By Katie Heemstra

“When we come forward to receive ashes on Ash Wednesday, we are saying that we are sorry for our sins, and that we want to use the season of Lent to correct our faults, purify our hearts, control our desires and grow in holiness so we will be prepared to celebrate Easter with great joy.”

-Father Michael Van Sloun

As many of you know, today is Ash Wednesday and we are entering into the season of Lent.  Over the next six weeks we as a church will be celebrating this season of Lent together through giving up something or possibly taking on a spiritual discipline, but each of our individual celebrations of this season may look different from one another.  Because of this, we wanted to take time to explore different approaches to Lent and disciplines that could be practiced during this Lenten season. So keep checking back weekly for new posts on different spiritual disciplines.

The Discipline of Fasting

The season of Lent is one of reflection, one of looking inward and asking God to show us ways in which we can grow closer to him and become an even clearer reflection of who Jesus was while he walked on this earth.  One of the most common things we hear of people doing for the season of Lent is fasting. Whether it is fasting a certain food item (like chocolate or coffee) or certain food groups (like meat or sweets), this is what we hear most answered when we ask Protestants, “What are you giving up for Lent?”  But fasting can truly be so much more than that if we really bring God into the process.

Fasting itself is when a person abstains in some significant way from a certain item that is necessary in (and if not necessary a huge part of) our life.  Most commonly it is food, but in recent years people have been fasting other things more commonly, like social media and entertainment. By abstaining from a very usual part of our daily routine, fasting creates space in our lives that we can intentionally fill with the presence of God.  

This abstinence is not easy, there is a reason this is called a discipline.  But I’ve heard it said that every growl of hunger in your stomach or craving for that chocolate bar (or itch to pick up your phone and scroll through IG), is just a marking point in our day of fasting to stop and thank God for his provision.  His provision of enough food to eat on a normal basis, his provision of the sweet things in our lives (and not just dessert), his provision of good relationships with those we love.  

As Dallas Willard says in The Spirit of the Disciplines, fasting, “certainly proves humiliating to us, as it reveals to us how much our peace depends upon the pleasures of eating,” and I would go further to say the pleasures of this world.  Fasting can be a very frustrating experience and looking at our frustration can be humbling. What does it truly mean to us to delete our social media accounts for 40 days? If we don’t drink coffee for a month and a half?  If we choose to abstain from using our car for 40 days and choose to focus on how God provides a path before our feet to lead us closer to him?

There are so many things you can fast if you choose to try this discipline over the next six weeks.  Just ask God to show you, “Is there something in my life right now that I am relying on for comfort, sustenance, affirmation, (fill in the blank), more than you?”  And if he shows you something ask what it might look like to give that up for Lent.

Personally, the most unique thing I have fasted for Lent is control.  Last year God revealed to me that I was relying on myself and what I wanted for my life far more than I was relying on him and I was quickly leading myself toward a train wreck.  God stopped me and met me at my absolute lowest and asked me to give up control for six weeks, to let him lead me, and to trust him with whatever happened. Since burying myself at rock bottom (which was my other choice) sounded way less appealing, I decided to give up control.  What did that look like? It was painful. It looked like giving up some dreams I had. It looked like giving up the exact future I had pictured for myself. It looked like forgiving instead of holding past wrongs against someone. What did I gain in return? Complete freedom. I have never felt so free in my life and so in the center of God’s will before I gave up control last year.  Do I sometimes get tempted to take the reigns again? You bet I do, but I quickly remember the bullet train to destruction I was on just a year ago and it gets easier and easier to leave those reigns in God’s hands.

So, my question to you:  Is God asking you to let go of something for the next six weeks?  Whether the answer is yes or no, I dare you to ask him!

Other Resources:

If you want to know more about Ash Wednesday and Lent, here is a great article from Christianity.com giving an overview of the history, practice, and heart behind this season of reflection and confession.

Here is an open-source version of the Spirit of the Disciplines by Dallas Willard for your reading pleasure if you want to dive deeper into fasting or other spiritual disciplines.

Formation

The Elephant and the Rider

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A few weeks back at Christ Kaleidoscope we talked about the critical role self-control plays in Christian discipleship. Because of our affluence, there is very little to limit our desires. We can pretty much get or do what we want, when we want. This kind of “freedom” is a blessing for sure, but it can also be(come) a curse. What often happens is that over time we become slaves to our wants and appetites, which, when given no compelling vision of the good, grow wanton and unwieldy. We see this bondage most poignantly when we want to effect some kind of change in our lives. We try to change, but we find we can’t. In the famous words of St. Paul, “I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do,” (Romans 7:20).

An apt analogy for this is that of an animal with a person sitting on its back. It dates back to Plato and has recently been popularized as the elephant and the rider. Compared to the strength of a 6 ton animal, the rider is small and weak. But the rider is smart and is able to point the elephant in the desired direction by pulling hard on the reigns she holds in her hands. But the rider will soon grow tired and when she does, the elephant will roam where it wants.

There are a variety of ways to understand this analogy. The elephant represents our wants and desires and passions. When there is no direction given, the elephant wanders and can stray in some troublesome directions. Willpower, on the other hand, is represented by the strength of the rider. While we may be able to exert some degree of self-control for a period of time, over the long haul, exhuasation sets in and the elephant ends up, once again, going its own way.

In terms of Christian discipleship, the elephant might be understood as our “old self” with all its ingrained and deep-seated practices. Pulling the reigns on these lingering habits often feels like trying to tame a 6 ton beast. Nonetheless we are told in Scripture to put off these practices, to take off the old self and put on the new.

What might this look like?

Well, if we use the analogy of the elephant and the rider we might put together a two-pronged strategy: (1) keep the rider rested and strong and (2) train the elephant.

(1) We might think of self-control as a muscle. If you exercise it for too long the less effective it becomes. And so like a muscle, we need to make time to rest. Here, sleep becomes a spiritual discipline. We all know we tend to get more cranky and unruly when we have gotten enough sleep. Well it seems there’s a reason for it. Sleep replenishes us to do the hard work of taming our elephants, so to speak. (We might also mention, diet and exercise here as critical elements to keeping our bodies energized for the task of Christian discipleship – things we don’t normally label as “spiritual.”)

(2) We can also train the elephant. That is, train our desires so that they become more in line with the good God envisions for us. The primary practice here would be worship. To put ourselves in a place with other believers where we are confronted with the beauty of the one who invites us to become “holy as I am holy.” Through prayer, through lifting up our voices in song, through hearing the reading and proclamation of Scripture, through confession and onto the central practice of gathering around the table, receiving the body and blood of our Lord, to being sent out into the world with God’s blessing, these become ways in which we align our wants and desires and passions to the wants and desires and passions of God.

A secondary practice would be to spend some time in a passage like Ephesians 4:17-32 or Colossians 3:1-17 and focus on one thing that needs to be put to death in our lives: anger, gossip, lying, lust, filthy language, etc. There’s a lot to choose from in these passages). But we single out one and instead of expending our energy on figuring out how to grasp the next rung on the corporate ladder or how we can experience the next cool thing, we channel our attention and initiative on how we might rid ourselves of that one thing we need to put to death.

The hope is as we put all these things together we can cooperate with the work of the Spirit in us so that we find ourselves bearing the fruit of Christ’s character in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and (of course) self-control.

Formation

Three to Read (Mar. 8, 2017)

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This week’s Three to Read contains some explicit language. But it is explicit language used to help us discern what is going on in the wider world, as well as uncover what so often goes unnoticed in our own.

The word is bullshit.

It’s probably a word we say under our breath whenever we hear Trump open his mouth. And so the first article is entitled, The Bullshit of the Trump Administration. It asks the question, “What do we mean when we say someone is “bullshitting”? In answering that question we are better able to see how bullshit differs from and is more dangerous than simply lying.

The second article wants us to know that There’s One Thing Pope Francis Wants Christians to Give Up for Lent. It’s easy to point out all the nonsense coming out of the White House, but Lent is a time where we turn the finger back on ourselves, when we stop staring at the bird turd in our neighbor’s life and start cleaning up the steaming pile of bullshit in ours. (NOTE: The harrowing passage about Lazarus that Pope Francis references is Luke 16:19-31.)

The last reading is just some practical advice on How to Break a Bad Habit That’s Holding You Back. For many of us, our problem is that we just do the same crap over and over and over. As the saying goes, bad habits are so easy to make and so hard to break. This article will give us a good starting place to do the latter.

As we continue in this Lenten season let us keep in mind what the first article concludes: “The bullshitter is the greatest enemy of the truth.” If Jesus is the Truth, as we Christians claim him to be, let us not be his greatest enemy when it comes to our witness of him in the world.