But are you ready? For Easter? The Great Feast will be here in precisely 13 days.
My guess is there are right now 3 reactions. One is “oh no, only 13 days I need more time!” Another is “13 days? I can hardly wait! Wish it were tomorrow!” And another is “what in the world is he talking about?”
Those three very natural reactions correspond to the three things guests must do to prepare for a feast. And we have received an invitation to the Paschal feast, on Ash Wednesday 32 days ago. We have been given six weeks to prepare.
And how does a guest prepare? By knowing the way to the feast. By cultivating a certain emptiness. And by anticipating the joy.
We hear a strange parable form Jesus today–one of the toughest for the scholars to crack. The best solution to its riddle is its all about preparation–about being ready for the master when he arrives, like so many of Jesus’ parables.
We want to be ready in 2 weeks. Think in the images of Jesus’ parable. So many of his stories are about people who come up empty-handed when called to account: bridesmaids who haven’t got their lanterns ready, householders who fail to lock their doors, workers who fail to use their heads. Tenants who have failed to do their work and now panic and act in desperation.
1. If “what’s he talking about” is your reaction, do not feel isolated. You are with the majority. Most people don’t regard Lent as anything much anyway. And many others, even within the Church for their lifetimes, think of Lent as little more than the time when people give up things. Which is like saying the Philharmonic is a place where some violins play.
But you do need to be shown the way to the feast.
So in case some of you have felt that, let’s make things clear. The Church year has its contours and textures. IN its way it is a kind of 12 month performance art. And at this moment we are approaching the heart of the matter. What Graham Greene calls the dark and magical heart of the faith–the night when graves open and the dead walk. We are in Lent not just practicing some kind of mortification. We are, in the words we hear in worship this season, preparing with joy for the Paschal Feast.
Let me direct your attention to the first lesson. It is form the prophet Isaiah, the prophet the Christians got in the habit of calling “the” prophet, because they could discern in him so clearly the outlines of the faith.
Those traits are very clear in today’s lesson: “God, Yhwh, who made a way through the sea/ a path in the raging waters,/ who led out chariot and horse....” The Exodus is the mirror image of the events we are swiftly approaching: events we will do so much more than simply remember. The week after next we shall make anamnesis of Christ’s last week in this life. Anamnesis does not mean “remember–though that’s how it sounds when we say “do this in remembrance of me,” when he said “anamnesis.” It means making the past available, making history present, entering the moment of eternity.
The prophet days we need not remember past events no need to think about what was before. Not because it’s “over and done.” Because on the contrary in eight days it will be with us again.
So if you wondered what I am talking about, now you know. That is what I meant when I asked if you are ready for Easter. Are you ready for that.
2. Secondly, if you found yourself thinking Oh no, so soon, I assure you you also are not alone. I definitely have that feeling this year. In all this excitement Lent seems rather to have slipped by. Even if you have kept a Lenten rule, your mind may have somehow been elsewhere.
That is in a way completely understandable this year. After all, there have been some moments in the past four weeks which may prove historical –time alone can tell us that, but they definitely had gravitas.
But this will mean we feel “full.” We need to cultivate a certain emptiness. Or, to use a word Bp Andrew introduced at Adult Ed this morning, we need an element of the apophatic. Lent is our apophatic season, the empty season, when we take things away, when we do without, when we practice the absence of images.
But most of us I believe are what Paul in his very helpful letter to the Church at Philippi today calls “mature” persons of faith. By that he means we are not rank beginners nor are we perfect in sainthood. And he freely admits that’s where he is at the time of this writing, the very best of his letters I think. He says he is in the race, well into it, but certainly not closing in on the tape.
We are what a very good book of a generation or two called Christian “proficients.” Not perfected, not catechumens, proficients, making progress, on the way, as the first Christians said.
Christian maturity involves keeping the essentials on balance. Out ethical aspect has been sorely tried and engaged lately; the challenge is to acknowledge that honestly and yet keep it in balance with our belief, our worship, and our personal spirituality.
I doubt that your worship life can suffer too much, given the richness of our parish. What a gift that is. But if your personal spirituality–the soul in fact of Lent–has suffered a little neglect recently, let me make a suggestion.
I had a good friend at General who always waited till the last minute. He then would turn in his paper and get excellent marks. But I once asked him, why not just start earlier. He told me, “I can’t. I’ve tried. But I just can’t do it. Not until the alligators are biting at my heels,” or some such phrase.
You can make this final week before Holy Week work for you, if you have let your mind wander or your rules slip. Make it a mini-Lent. Refocus everything. Re-read that wonderful invitation we received 32 days ago:
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"I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by
self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and
meditating on God's holy Word. And, to make a right beginning of repentance, and as a
mark of our mortal nature, let us now kneel before the Lord, our maker and redeemer."
Actually that can work for anybody: for Lent is a spiral learning experience in many ways, so if you have had a good season this week allows you to return to the source and starts at another level.
3. But thirdly, if you did find yourself saying “I cannot wait,”that means Lententide has worked for you. That is actually how you are supposed to feel by now. That craving for the Lord’s arrival, that taste for resurrection, that is what Lent is supposed to whet within us. But if you feel that way you already know that. You don’t need me to tell you.
You have only one thing left to do: anticipate the joy.
Here is what I do invite you to do. Focus that craving, that taste, by working this week with the Collect. It is there today for a reason. The Collects are matched very carefully to the contours of the Church year–you may not know this but they are in an almost continuous process of fine-tuning. This collect for the 5th Sunday of Lent is perfect for the person who has rsvp’d to the Lenten invitation and practiced 4 weeks of meditation and prayer and self-denial and -examination. It is a true “next step” prayer–one of the prayers in our tradition that takes us as they say to the next level. Absolutely perfect agenda for personal spirituality as Lent draws to its climax in Holy Week
If you are feeling you can’t wait for Easter to get here, you are able to pray this prayer with real intent:
Let me love what God commands and desire what God promises.
Think about it. We do not normally “love” commandments and laws. Consider Commandment 8. No theft. We may love the safety they provide if we are wise, but it is a little silly to say “I just love not stealing.”
But the great secret to Christian ethics is simply to state positively what every other law code states in a negative way. “You shall never steal” becomes “you shall give cheerfully, God loves this.” And so can you. Giving is something we really all can love.
Peter of Damascus, whom I commend to you if you don’t know him already, says it beautifully: the Christians Laws are not the Ten Commandments. Our Laws are the seven beatitudes. Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who grieve, blessed are the gentle, blessed are the makers of peace, blessed are the single of heart. They are there, says Peter, not just for our information but for our edification: they are commandments, direction signals along the route to the kingdom.
Listen to just one example, as he explains the third commandment of Christ:”In this way God’s grace, our universal mother, gives us gentleness, so that we begin to imitate Christ. We then become a firmly-rooted rock, unshaken by the thorns and tempests of life, on balance whether rich or poor, in ease or hardship, honored or disrespected. Become gentle and realize that what happens happens, that patience becomes us, and finally we begin to find what God does wholly and beautiful “ We of course cannot get there entirely and keep the first commandment, which is to be solid with the poor and the grieving: but we can achieve that crown.
And so as you enter this last curve on the route through Lent, you are approaching the Paschal Feast. The host has seen to it that your place is set and waiting for you. Be a well-prepared guest for the Supper of the Lamb.
You have the tools you need. Focus on the Lord who leads out of bondage. Practice the art of emptiness., so that Lord can fulfill you. Learn to love what God commands.
And you will arrive on time, you will be hungry for resurrection, and you will have anticipated the joy so it will not take you by surprise.
