Lent Two - Finding our Way

As Jesus continues on the journey of his few short years of teaching and his progress towards Jerusalem, he encounters obstacles and dangers, distractions and competing demands. So too, we who seek to follow the Way of Jesus, to continue on the soul’s journey, will encounter obstacles. Like Jesus we are called upon to discern our path through the murkiness of real life. (Lent Two. Genesis 15:1-12; Psalm 27; Philippians 3:17-4:1; and Luke 13:31-35.)

I encourage you to read the reflections on these texts from three years ago.

You may also like to follow the theme of Lent as the Path of Descent. (Go to Week Two of the study page 15 of 53)

On the first Sunday of Lent we reflected on how Jesus was driven by the spirit out into the wilderness and how his experience of struggle and trial was part of his initiation and formation. And I encouraged us to think about the way in which wilderness experiences can bring us closer to God and who we can be.

Now this week we have more hard readings, dark and murky stories, particularly the gospel. We hear Jesus being warned that if he continues in the direction he is going (towards Jerusalem) that he is in danger. Jesus understands the warning but rather than leading to him back down it seems to help clarify his purpose and to acknowledge the cost. As we are reflecting this Lent on the journey from baptism to the cross and the empty tomb as the soul’s (or anti-hero’s) journey we might want to reflect on how this moment speaks to Jesus’s journey and our own.

Last week we thought about Jesus in the wilderness and how his temptations and trials led to his deepening self knowledge and reliance on God his father and on his tradition so that he came to a greater understanding of who he was and what he was called to do and be. All of this helped him to trust himself to God and the work given to him. But this wasn’t once only. Formed for life’s purpose by his childhood, by everything that came before his baptism, and tried and tested in the wilderness, his development was not over. The wilderness experience was the beginning not the end of formation and courageous journeying. Having proved himself, Jesus did not then find the task easy.

If we are looking at this journey as one of ongoing development and refinement, we could read that the warnings and difficulties helped Jesus become clear about his true task and what was required of him. In this text he is both clear about the intentions and implications of the sly fox that is a danger and the risk of going to Jerusalem the city that kills prophets, and Jesus is filled with compassion for those around him. It is not judgement (discernment) or compassion but both.

How does this relate to our soul’s journey? We too need to work out our direction, our purpose – the Way – in the real and murky world in which we find ourselves. We too face dangers and distractions, obstacles and consequences, and these obstacles can be detours or an essential part of our formation and transformation. How we respond is important and can mean that these difficulties become times of clarification and refining of character, theology and direction, our very sense of purpose and true nature.

But in thinking about how obstacles might be part of formation and transformation it is important, I find, not to be seduced into thinking that we are on a journey of conquering and winning. Remember that in the wilderness Jesus decided that to be placed at the pinnacle would be a temptation not a goal. Jesus is on the anti-hero’s journey, the journey of self-emptying love even unto death. And while hopefully our death shall be a natural one when we are full of days the journey of the soul is surely that of many small deaths of the ego and the giving away of one self until we have truly surrendered and given ourselves over into the embrace of God.

Too much contemporary spirituality is about how to succeed rather than how to grow, let go and serve. Part of the gift of Lent can be the reminder that we are not called to be on the winning side, or to necessarily be successful in any worldly external sense! Neither of course do we seek out suffering or failure for the sake of it. But when life brings difficulties, this is not necessarily evidence of us “doing it wrong” rather it simply means we are alive in a world that is conflicted and limited, and sometimes it is that our particular world is systemically wrong! Push back and rejection can sometimes be an affirmation that we are on the right path. Indeed, the further into Lent we go, the closer to Jerusalem we get, we will be confronted with the terrible possibility that losing is winning when it comes to spirituality! So, it is not so much the trouble we encounter as it is how we respond, within the limitations of our ability, that is important. Do we respond with clarity, courage and compassion? Do we accept the work given us by the spirit – to serve, to heal, to feed others?

While I do not presume to interpret for others what the specifics of the right path are I am aware that at this time many are living in situations of conflict and injustice and that to be a follower of the Way of Jesus, to attend to life as the journey of the soul, does require discernment and courage. Thank goodness that we rarely have to travel the whole journey alone. Jesus had his disciples for much of the way and he had his intimate relationship with God, his source and beloved father, to sustain him. We have each other and our relationship with God. We also have our tradition and the wisdom of those who have travelled the Way before us.

So, as we companion Jesus as he turns his face towards Jerusalem, we feel the disturbance of all that does not want to acknowledge the demands of his self-emptying love. And we take courage and join him on the journey. Let us pray for one another and for those we will encounter on the way. Even so, come Lord Jesus the Christ, come meet us on the path.

This is my work informed by everything I have heard, read and experienced. I am indebted to the wisdom of others. This week I am particularly grateful to:

Father Richard Rohr: Daily Meditations – Losing is Winning @ www.cac.org/daily-meditations/losing-is-winning-2015-06/19/

John T Squires writes a very comprehensive background to all of the texts @ An Informed Faith www.johntsquires.com