One of my favorite American poets, James Weldon Johnson, opens his book God’s Trombones with a poetic prayer, which begins like this:
O Lord, we come this morning Knee-bowed and body-bent Before Thy throne of grace. O Lord—this morning— Bow our hearts beneath our knees, And our knees in some lonesome valley. We come this morning— Like empty pitchers to a full fountain, With no merits of our own. O Lord—open up a window of heaven, And lean out far over the battlements of glory, And listen this morning.*Continue reading “The God-Fountain”→
Wednesday 4:45am. My six-month-old daughter is screaming and has been for the last hour and a half. I’ve been doing what the method we’re using says to do: go into the nursery every five minutes and say the same script. Don’t pick her up. Just assure her you’re there: “It’s time for sleeping baby girl. Mommy and Daddy are right outside. We love you very much.” Then leave, start a new five-minute timer, and hope she settles down. Over the last six weeks or so, most nights have been pretty good. The twins are waking about once per night, but going back to sleep after a bit of nursing. We’ve been getting used to this wonderful new routine.
But Wednesday something is different. My daughter will not settle down. She just keeps screaming. With each five-minute check, my patience wears just a little thinner, which is bad because you’re supposed to be calm when you go in and say the script. During each five-minute interval, I sit at the top of the stairs, watch the timer, grind my teeth, and resist the urge to start banging my head against the banister.
By about the ninth or tenth interval, I am downstairs pacing the living room. And a new voice has joined the cacophony upstairs, a voice inside me telling me to let loose my frustration. “Stomp around. Punch the couch cushions. Kick over the laundry basket. It’ll help.” So I punch the couch cushions for a bit, swearing under my breath. And you know what? It doesn’t help at all. It just gets me more worked up. The only way to help my daughter calm down is to be calm myself, and punching couch cushions is not exactly the ideal definition of serenity.
So the questions I have are these: why do I perpetuate this pattern every time one of my babies has a bad night? Why do I give in to this irate voice time and again? And a final question, one which the voice does not want me to ask: where do you come from? When I’m calm enough to ask this last question, I see with sudden clarity my interior landscape. The demonic forces, of which the irate voice is ambassador, are marshaling to attack. They control a small, but strategically significant piece of my inner territory, and they want more. They want me to give in to anger and pride and the desire to isolate myself. Isolation, you see, makes me an easier target. And anger and pride are to these demonic forces like the marbling in a rib-eye steak. One look at their territory tells me why they want more. They’ve spoiled it: polluted the rivers, clear-cut the forests, and trampled the grass until all that’s left is mud sticking to their boots.
On the other side of the battlefield, the territory of God’s kingdom stretches to the horizon: Vast tracts of land waiting to be tilled and cultivated; fruit trees in blossom; rivers overflowing their banks with fresh, living water. But as my eyes scan this interior landscape, I’m horrified to discover no heavenly forces marshaling to defend God’s side of the battlefield. There are no walls to keep the invaders out, no minefield, no anti-infantry firepower of any kind. Surely the demonic hordes clamoring behind their pickets will overrun and despoil this good land.
I look again. Why aren’t the hordes charging? Why hasn’t the attack begun? And then I realize the horde has no leadership. No one down on the battlefield is in command. Demonic forces are experts, I’m sure, at disobeying orders, but you have to receive an order to disobey, and the horde hasn’t received one. They just stand there, calling out challenges and cruel taunts – to no one apparently, as the other side is empty.
But then, as I continue to survey this inner battlefield, two things dawn on me. First, their challenges and cruel taunts do have a target: Me. And second, they do have a commander. Me again. They won’t charge into God’s territory until I cede it to them. They will do all in their power to trick or persuade me to do so, but until I give in, they’re stuck in their own little cancerous kingdom.
Then a third thing dawns on me. My daughter is finally asleep again and the sun is rising outside. The sun rises over my interior landscape as well, and I look closer at God’s territory. It seemed so empty when I was focusing on the hordes clamoring for martial action, when all my attention was drawn by the demonic forces trying to force-feed me anger and pride. But now that I’m focusing on God’s territory I see the emptiness was just an illusion; a reverse mirage, so to speak.* God’s territory isn’t empty. It’s full of God’s love and grace: so full, in fact, that my normal narrowness of vision misses the fullness completely.
The season of Lent, which we began the same day as my daughter’s early morning wakefulness, offers us the invitation to expand our normal narrowness so that God has even more interior space to fill. We accomplish this expansion, paradoxically, by doing its opposite – by fasting. A fast is a series of intentional choices not to partake of something that has power over us. Most often we think of fasting as having to do with food, but that’s only if food has power over you (and it does over many Americans). But each of us has those things – the correct term is “idols” – to which we cede God’s territory within us. Whatever your particular idol is, that’s the thing from which you should be fasting. Right now mine is my anger at my own frustration when my babies don’t sleep when they’re supposed to.
I found the phrase “anger at my own frustration” in the Litany of Penitence, which we pray on Ash Wednesday. The Litany gave me the language I needed to put my idol into words. If you have trouble discerning what your idols are, take a look at the Litany. You can find it on page 267 of the Book of Common Prayer. I invite you, during this season of Lent, to take an honest look at your interior landscape, see what demonic forces are marshaling at the edge of God’s territory, and then choose each day to fast from whatever the horde is persuading you to do – or not do.
Fasting is our way of telling those demonic hordes that there won’t be a battle today so you might as well go home. The more we (their commanders) fail to issue the attack order, the less interested those forces get in standing sentry at the battle lines. They get bored. They retreat, not because they have been beaten, but because the internal violence they so revel in never occurs. As they retreat, God’s territory nips at their heals; replants the trampled, muddy ground with fresh orchards; and reclaims the land as God’s own. And the little cancerous kingdom diminishes.
I commit this Lent to fast from the anger my own frustration causes me. I hope you will join me in your own fast, whatever it may be. Don’t listen to the voices urging conquest. Instead, allow God’s territory to grow rampant across your inner selves. And then be part of the same rampant growth of God’s territory out in the world.
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*I’m pretty sure I got this idea from C.S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce, which I just read again, but I can’t find where it is in the book.
Sermon for Sunday, March 9, 2014 || Lent 1A || Matthew 4:1-11
If you asked a certain subset of people to describe in one word how they relate to you, what might that word be? Your child might say, “Daddy” or “Mommy.” Your wife might say, “Husband.” Your husband might say, “Wife.” Your boss might say, “Employee.” But there’s one description that tends to override all the others, especially here in the United States. That description is the one given you by the Marketing Department. That description is “Consumer.”
We consume about a quarter of the world’s energy, and yet we make up only one twentieth of the world’s population. Several of our most popular ways to die involve over-consumption of food or drink or drugs. I mean, have you seen how they deliver French fries at the restaurant Five Guys? They fill a cup with a fairly generous, but not outrageous, serving and then dump three or four more scoops into your bag! Who could possibly eat all those fries?
In our society, we fill ourselves up with fast food and fast cars, all the while buying stuff that we tell ourselves we need, but we really don’t. We fill ourselves up with anxiety over making sure our lives and livelihoods are secure, all the while ignoring the vast majority of people who will never have security. And we fill ourselves up with the sensational, yet banal, details of the lives of the rich and famous, all the while daydreaming about what we would do if the paparazzi followed us into a restaurant.
We fill ourselves up by hoarding stuff, by worrying about our security, by coveting fame. We fill ourselves up until there’s no room left within us for anything that we ourselves didn’t squash in there, until there’s no room left within us for God.
In the Gospel reading this morning, the Holy Spirit leads Jesus into the wilderness immediately following his baptism. After more than a month in the wilderness, Jesus meets the devil. And the devil can’t pass up such a juicy opportunity for temptation.
“See that rock over there,” says the tempter. “I bet you could turn that rock into bread and fill yourself up.”
“See the ground way below,” says the tempter. “I bet you could jump and be secure in the arms of angels who would never let you hurt even your foot.”
“See the kingdoms spread all over the world,” says the tempter. “I bet you’d be the most famous ruler of those kingdoms who ever lived if you first swore fealty to me.”
These three attempts at temptation make up the industry standard. Worrying about getting stuff, getting security, and getting fame – they’ve worked for centuries, thinks the devil. Surely, they will work on this Jesus fellow. Not to mention, Jesus has been out in this wilderness for forty days. I’ve got him right where I want him, thinks the devil. Surely, the industry standard temptations about stuff, security, and fame will work on a guy who has been living out in the elements alone with no food for forty days!
Of course, the industry standard temptations fail. Jesus isn’t worried about getting stuff or being secure or finding fame. Why not? Well, the devil has misinterpreted Jesus’ time in the wilderness. Rather than being a benefit to the devil in the tempter’s scheme, Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness help not the tempter, but Jesus himself.
You see, Jesus wasn’t just killing time during those forty days. He wasn’t twiddling his thumbs waiting for the devil to turn up. Jesus was fasting.
A fast is a way to make a space, to open up a hole within ourselves. A fast is an active and difficult denial of something that has influence over us (traditionally food, though fasts certainly are not limited to that area). When we fast, we forego the things that we usually use to fill us up, the things that we mistakenly depend on to keep us going. And when we cease to fill ourselves up with all the junk of the world and all the anxiety about our own security and all our envy of the famous – when we cease to fill ourselves up with these things, we make room within ourselves for God.
Fasting intentionally opens up a hole for God to fill. When we clear away the rubbish that has piled up in our interior selves, we make a space for God to come in and dwell. And the more interior square footage we devote to God, the better we will be able to listen and respond to God’s movement in our lives.
This is just how Jesus fends off the devil in the wilderness. After forty days of fasting, he’s not empty, but full – full of God. Notice that each time the tempter goes on offense, Jesus dredges up from within himself words of scripture that speak to the believer’s relationship with God.
“Bread alone can’t sustain you,” Jesus says. “But every word that God speaks gives sustenance to creation.”
“I’m not going to jump off the temple,” Jesus says. “I don’t need to test God to trust God.”
“I’m not going to bow down to you,” Jesus says. “I serve God, and only God instills in me the desire to worship.”
Jesus combats the industry standard temptations of stuff, security, and fame. He beats off the tempter by filling himself up with God. And he fills himself up with God by emptying himself through fasting. During our own forty days this Lent, how will we make spaces within us for God? How can we clear away the rubbish so that God can move in and walk around? We can make a start by choosing to fast.
If you tend to fill yourself up with stuff you don’t really need, then promise not to buy anything beyond basic necessity and you may find basic necessity is more than enough. If you tend to fill yourself up with worry about the security of your livelihood, then stop and pray when you find anxiety setting in and you may find new sources of blessing. If you tend to fill yourself up with desire to live as the rich and famous do, then skip the grocery aisle magazine racks and you may find enough fame within your own close circle.
As you deny yourself the things that normally fill you up, actively invite God to enter the newly cleared space. Choose to fast. Clear away the rubbish, hollow out your insides, and give God a place to fill.
(Sermon for Sunday, March 13, 2011 || Lent 1, Year A || Matthew 4:1-11)
At dinnertimes growing up, I was often accused of having “a hollow leg.” I kept piling mashed potatoes on my plate and polishing them off and by the time I was on my third helping, my grandmother would be commenting on the vacancy in my lower extremities. In eighth grade, I weighed all of 85 pounds soaking wet, and still, I could put away the food. It has to be going somewhere, my relations would say. “He must have a hollow leg.”
"Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (1977)
During my overly literal early years, this commentary on my anatomy confused me terribly. Both of my legs seemed full of bone, ligaments, and muscle tissue. How could I have a hollow leg? And even if I did, wouldn’t the appendage fill up with mashed potatoes over the course of a few meals? Over time, I learned about metaphor and imagery, so I stopped wondering about the mutant connection between my stomach and leg. Then sophomore year of high school and my growth spurt hit simultaneously. My already ravenous appetite doubled, and my mother began saying that I had not one, but two hollow legs.
Every day, I filled myself up with carbs and fruit and sweets and the odd vegetable. And the next day, I had to fill up again. My hollow legs got longer, which was a good thing, considering all the food I was packing into them. My metabolism was so high that I often found myself parked in front of the refrigerator half an hour after dinner looking for a post-prandial snack.
In our society, we consume as if we have not only hollow legs, but hollow arms and hollow torsos, not to mention, hollow heads. We fill ourselves up with fast food and fast cars, all the while buying stuff that we tell ourselves we need, but we really don’t. We fill ourselves up with anxiety over making sure our lives and livelihoods are secure, all the while ignoring the vast majority of people who will never have security. We fill ourselves up with the sensational, yet banal, details of the lives of the rich and famous, all the while daydreaming about what we would do if the paparazzi followed us into a restaurant.
We fill ourselves up by hoarding stuff, by worrying about our security, by coveting fame. We fill ourselves up until there’s no room left within us for anything that we ourselves didn’t squash in there, until there’s no room left within us for God.
In the Gospel reading this morning, the Holy Spirit leads Jesus into the wilderness immediately following his baptism. After more than a month in the wilderness, Jesus meets the devil. And the devil can’t pass up such a juicy opportunity for temptation.
“See that rock over there,” says the tempter. “I bet you could turn that rock into bread and fill yourself up.”
“See the ground way below,” says the tempter. “I bet you could jump and be secure in the arms of angels who would never let you hurt even your foot.”
“See the kingdoms spread all over the world,” says the tempter. “I bet you’d be the most famous ruler of those kingdoms who ever lived if you first swore fealty to me.”
These three attempts at temptation are the industry standard. Worrying about getting stuff, getting security, and getting fame – they’ve worked for centuries, thinks the devil. Surely, they will work on this Jesus fellow. Not to mention, Jesus has been out in this wilderness for forty days. I’ve got him right where I want him, thinks the devil. Surely, the industry standard temptations about stuff, security, and fame will work on a guy who has been living out in the elements alone with no food for forty days!
Of course, the industry standard temptations fail. Jesus isn’t worried about getting stuff or being secure or finding fame. Why not? Well, the easy answer is that Jesus is the Son of God and therefore more than a match for temptation. But that’s not much help to you and me, so try this on for size. Rather than being a benefit to the devil in the devil’s attempted temptation, Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness actually help not the tempter, but Jesus himself.
You see, Jesus wasn’t just killing time during those forty days. He wasn’t twiddling his thumbs waiting for the devil to turn up. Jesus was fasting.
A fast is a way to make a space, to open up a hole within ourselves. A fast is an active and difficult denial of something that has influence over us (traditionally food, though fasts certainly are not limited to that area). When we fast, we forego the things that we usually use to fill us up, the things that we depend on to keep us going. And when we cease to fill ourselves up with all the junk of the world or all the anxiety about our own security or all our envy of the famous – when we cease to fill ourselves up with these things, we make room within ourselves for God.
Fasting intentionally opens up a hole for God to fill. When Leah and I moved into our new place a few weeks ago, we had boxes piled up all over the living room and dining room floors. But each day, we unpacked a bit and tidied up a bit, and now, we can walk around the house unhindered by all our stuff. This is what fasting does for us. When we clear away the rubbish that has piled up in our interior selves, we make a space for God to come in and dwell. And the more interior square footage we devote to God, the better we will be able to listen and respond to God’s movement in our lives.
This is just how Jesus fends off the devil in the wilderness. After forty days of fasting, he’s not empty, but full – full of God. Notice that each time the devil attempts a temptation, Jesus dredges up from within himself words of scripture that speak to the believer’s relationship with God.
“Bread alone can’t sustain you,” Jesus says. “But every word that God speaks gives sustenance to creation.”
“I’m not going to jump off the temple,” Jesus says. “I don’t need to test God to trust God.”
“I’m not going to bow down to you,” Jesus says. “I serve God, and only God instills in me the desire to worship.”
Jesus combats the industry standard temptations of stuff, security, and fame. He beats off the tempter by filling himself up with God. And he fills himself up with God by emptying himself through fasting. During our own forty days this Lent, how will we make spaces within us for God? How can we clear away the rubbish so that God can move in and walk around? We can make a start by choosing to fast.
If you tend to fill yourself up with stuff you don’t really need, then don’t buy anything beyond basic necessity. If you tend to fill yourself up with worry about the security of your livelihood, then stop and pray when you find anxiety setting in. If you tend to fill yourself up with desire to live as the rich and famous do, then skip the grocery aisle magazine racks and E! Entertainment Television for the next six weeks.
As you deny yourself the things that normally fill you up, actively invite God to enter the newly cleared space. Choose to fast. Clear away the rubbish, hollow out your insides, and give God a place to fill.
Aidan Davies bared his teeth at the cement lion, which guarded the steps to the church. The lion snarled back and pawed the air. Davies hefted his projectile, took aim, released, and the snowball exploded on the lion’s face. Defeated, the beast slunk back to his dozing pride in the corner of the boy’s imagination. A triumphant Davies took the steps three at a time and entered the narthex.
He knew that today was special because he was in church on a weekday. I even got to miss the bus this morning, he thought as he stepped into the sanctuary. The coughs and groans of the overworked heaters echoed off the vaulted ceiling. The church hovered in pre-dawn stillness, awaiting the riot of color that would dance down the chancel steps when the early morning sun reached the stained glass behind the altar. Davies looked around in the dim light. The nave was empty. I guess no one came. Sighing, he glanced at his watch.
“Aidan,” a voice boomed from the sacristy door, “I thought you were coming.” Davies looked up and smiled at his father. Alastor Davies met his son halfway down the aisle and pulled him into an embrace. Aidan buried his face in the soft silk of Alastor’s purple stole, and his short arms got lost in the folds of his father’s surplice. “Doesn’t look like anyone is coming this morning,” Alastor said. “We should probably get you to school.”
Aidan extricated himself from the hug and stepped back. “But what about the service?”
“It’s just the two of us. I think your math class is more important.”
Aidan scowled. “One-quarter plus one-eighth is three-eighths. See, I already know how to do fractions. And I want to wear my ashes to school.”
Alastor couldn’t help but grin at his son. Aidan’s scowl softened into an expression of earnest, insistent innocence that only ten-year-olds can pull off. “Well, I guess missing one hour of fourth grade won’t do too much damage,” said Alastor with mock resignation. Then he winked at his son conspiratorially: “We can stop for pancakes on the way. Just don’t tell your mother.”
The pair processed to the altar rail hand in hand. Kneeling together, Alastor handed Aidan a Bible and a Book of Common Prayer. Aidan read the lessons aloud, determined not to stumble on any of the big words. “Do you know what fasting is, son?” Alastor asked after finishing the Gospel lesson. “It’s when you don’t eat for a long time,” said Aidan.
“Right,” chuckled his father, “but it’s more than that. We fast in order to make room for God in our lives. We are so full of all kinds of things all the time that we often forget that God is the one who should be filling us. When we fast we intentionally open up a hole for God to fill. And the more parts of us that God fills, the better we are. So, can you think up something to give up to make a space for God this Lent?”
“Can I give up giving up stuff?” Aidan said. Alastor raised an eyebrow. Aidan retracted quickly, “Just kidding. How about I give up irritating Brigid?”
“I’m sure your sister would appreciate that. Alright, are you ready for the ashes?” They rose and walked to the altar. Aidan stood on his tiptoes to see the ashes in a small glass bowl sitting on the fair linens. The ashes were made from the dried fronds from last year’s Palm Sunday. They were gritty and a few shades lighter than black. Aidan held his breath and closed his eyes. His father knelt down and swept the hair off of Aidan’s forehead. “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return,” Alastor whispered. Then he scraped his thumb gently in two lines, vertical and horizontal. Bits of ash fell on Aidan’s nose, and Alastor brushed them off. Aidan let out his breath.
“Your turn,” said Alastor, and he offered the glass bowl to his son.
“You mean…I get to do yours?”
“I hope you will.”
Aidan took the bowl in trembling hands and dabbed his thumb in the ashes. For a moment, his imagination sprinted to moon rocks and volcanoes. Then it returned, and Aidan looked up at his kneeling father. He scraped the vertical line. “Remember that you are dust.” He scraped the horizontal line. A few silent seconds passed. Alastor whispered, “And to dust…”
“And to dust you shall return,” Aidan finished. They looked at each other for a long moment. Then Alastor pulled his son into a second embrace, and Aidan left an ashy thumbprint on the back of his vestments.
Suddenly, the sun crested the stained glass window. Blues and purples and reds and yellows sparkled on the altar rail and choir stalls. The riot of color danced down the chancel steps, and the cement lion roared a salute to the morning.
Fifteen years later, someone asked Aidan Davies when he knew he was going to be a priest. “I think some part of me knew that Ash Wednesday morning,” he said. “Not the part that does the thinking. I didn’t know in my mind. I knew in the part that helps you catch your balance when you’re slipping on ice or that lets you know when it’s time to get up when you haven’t looked at the clock yet.
“I knew in that deep place inside. I knew in the space that God filled that day, but which got buried soon after and took a dozen years to excavate.”
Wednesday 4:45am. My six-month-old daughter is screaming and has been for the last hour and a half. I’ve been doing what the method we’re using says to do: go into the nursery every five minutes and say the same script. Don’t pick her up. Just assure her you’re there: “It’s time for sleeping baby girl. Mommy and Daddy are right outside. We love you very much.” Then leave, start a new five-minute timer, and hope she settles down. Over the last six weeks or so, most nights have been pretty good. The twins are waking about once per night, but going back to sleep after a bit of nursing. We’ve been getting used to this wonderful new routine.
We consume about a quarter of the world’s energy, and yet we make up only one twentieth of the world’s population. Several of our most popular ways to die involve over-consumption of food or drink or drugs. I mean, have you seen how they deliver French fries at the restaurant Five Guys? They fill a cup with a fairly generous, but not outrageous, serving and then dump three or four more scoops into your bag! Who could possibly eat all those fries?
Where the Wind... 