Luke 13:1-9
There is so much going on. This Scripture passages from Luke compiles a long string of events. Maybe they all happened chronologically one after another or maybe the evangelist strung together these precious memories of Jesus like beads to make a narrative bracelet.
Either way, the passage lists event after event. Most are laden with conflicts, complicated backgrounds, social conventions to be challenged. We read of coy battles over what days of the week healing is legal; the divine and human graces of dinner seating arrangements, a banquet to be filled with strangers when friends and family are too busy to attend, and one of the great hard passages of Scripture, hate your family and follow me.
Our own days are not so different. The news bombards us with stories of events of the world. Some of us are running out of understanding as the world changes. There is much to do at church to implement our plans for Lent and prepare for Holy Week.
What if, this year, we did… less? What if what we “gave up for Lent” is… giving up things for Lent?
Jesus went into the desert for 40 days. He did not bring his smart phone. He did not demonstrate his commitment to spiritual growth by “checking in” at church or at home or even “circle back” John the Baptist.
In American literature, Henry Thoreau wrote, “simplify, simplify, simplify.” What if we found our inner editor this Lent and shortened it to “simplify”?
Jesus went into silence. Jesus went into the wilderness to immerse himself in doing less.
Do we want that kind of silence? Does the stillness frighten us… or purify us?
Sometimes, silence frightens me. “Frighten” may not be exactly the word I am looking for. At least, I seem to sometimes distrust my relationship with silence.
It is a bit like getting off the couch to go for a walk or (gasp) the gym. I know what it is to resist silence. Maybe you know some of the resistance signs too. From the state of the world and our lives, clearly someone is filling the days and nights with activity. And much of our activity is good activity! Holy activity! We work, love, fulfill duty. And maybe binge watch TV. Or scroll through one minute videos that intermingle fact and fiction, algorithmically chosen to beckon us when we wake up early or go to bed late, when we are reluctant to surrender to silence.
One of my favorite devotions the past few Lents is a short video called “40.” It’s five minutes and sixteen seconds. The pictures are by Si Smith and the music is by John Mark McMillan.
It is forty simple drawings and a consonant melody imagining Jesus’s forty days in the desert. Putting away his tools in the shed, Jesus walks into the desert, going from drought to quenching rain, staidness to the wonder of an animal family, desert sun to moon-filled sky. Later, when the devil appears in order to tempt him, the silence has already helped Jesus know who his is, and whose he is, leaving the devil’s temptations of noise, action and power with no allure.
In the silence, God reveals himself and invites us to make ourselves available to him in gentleness. We are invited to stop hurrying and to slow down with Jesus. It is an invitation to sample the first Lent and taste a bit, perhaps, of why Jesus did it.
Meditation by the Very Reverend Bob Fitzpatrick
Grace Episcopal Church, Merchantville
Diocese of New Jersey