40 Days of Lent: On the Road Again with Jesus, Day 2

The Wilderness is something which few of us have ever encountered. Yet the Wilderness is a critical and important starting point in the story of Jesus as he moved from his construction business into a traveling, itinerant ministry and as he moved from waiting and preparing to moving forward and doing.

It was in the Wilderness that John the baptizer appeared in anticipation of Jesus’ arrival. (Matthew 3: 1-3) And after Jesus had arrived and been baptized there, it was on to yet another Wilderness that Jesus was led for spiritual nurturing and maturing. (Matthew 4:1) So, according to these two citations, the Wilderness is conducive to discovering, knowing, and learning to follow God better.

Most people would say the opposite. We like padded pews, the coffee on, and the thermostat set at a perfect 72 degrees, with no drafts! It even becomes possible, after so much such pampering, to mistake familiarity and comfort themselves for God. And if I am controlling my environment, if I have been able to successfully tame my environment, and remove all impediments to my personal safety from my environment, then what does that make me? I become kind of my own God in that case: God(me) and God (the pleasant and harmless environment)) and God (the status quo).

A god in three parts, blessed (perverse) trinity!

Thus, the need for Wilderness. The unpredictability of that which is wild reminds us that we are not in ultimate control- not at all. The real world in which humans live does, in fact, have sharp edges: tsunamis, tornados, and tooth decay among many others. The Wilderness doesn’t merely remind us that we are one part of a much larger and complicatedly inter-related scenario, it forces us to act within that scenario, or die. The Wilderness, in short, gives us many (infinitely many more) opportunities to discover God and God’s Continuing Creation, and our part in that Continuance, than any thermostat ever will.

Behind the noise of the familiar, even beyond the endless noise of our yapping egos, there is the voice of He/She/That Which will whisper in our ears, and in our hearts, “Beloved..”

On the Road Again with Jesus, Day One

The lectionary for Lent,  and all Lenten devotionals I have ever seen,  follow Jesus from his baptism at the River Jordan all the way to the cross. It a journey, a road..ok? And we’re going on the road (again) with Jesus, so let’s  let Willy sing us into the mood:

“On the road again

Goin’ places that I’ve never been

Seein’ things that I may never see again

And I can’t wait to get on the road again..”

I’ll walk along the edge of the road, listening for and watching Jesus scripturally, while I look for junk in the ditch curiously. Jesus looked for junk in the ditch, too, and found it- because he was looking for it! “Junk” in religious law at the time of Jesus included human junk, unclean and not-to be-touched! Jesus found, and spoke about, and DID SOMETHING ABOUT junk that others didn’t want to see, or chose to step around- like a bloody man in the ditch. Or a woman who the men in town could tsk tsk tsk their pointy- nosed morality over, before they picked up stones to smash her skull in- so that she would know they were serious! Or junk like the crazy man out by the reservoir who lived with pigs.

“Goin places that I’ve never been..”

The more I walk behind and just off to the side of Jesus, and the older I get, the less time I want to spend being polite, or nice, or doctrinally protected by layers and layers of cushy meaninglessness. I might embarrass myself, or you- sorry! But I promise to do my best to talk/write about Jesus, the 1st century rabbi, who went sideways across the grain of the status quo, and showed us, if we have the courage to look, how to love. How to survive. And- most importantly- how to do those two things on behalf of others.  So I promise not to embarrass Jesus. But if I do, I figure forgiveness will be forthcoming.

“Seein’ things that I may never see again..”

When Jesus said, “blessed are the poor in spirit” he was talking about that drunk who just came into her first AA meeting ever, smelling of Pabst Blue Ribbon and vomit, and cried “Help me!” before passing out. You know that, yes? And he was talking about that young man who escaped from a years-long story of abuse in church and swore he would never set foot in such a place again and never will, but who watches the world in wonder and awe anyway. Him, too: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God.”

I can’t wait to get on the road again.