March 29, 2009

A few days ago, I called an old friend I hadn’t talked to in a long while and asked, “Hey you, how are you doing?”  She said, “Fine, fine, everything’s good here.”  Then I asked, “So, how’s your Lent going?”  And she answered, “Good grief, it’s just awful.  It’s the worst Lent of my life.  Nothing, nothing is going as I planned.  I’m worthless and worse than a worm.”  As you hear, my friend is slightly dramatic.  So I asked the logical follow-up question.  “Gracious, what’s the trouble?”  “Well, I had a very detailed plan.  I was to give up or take on a new discipline in every area of my life.  I had everything I needed on hand.  I bought N.T. Wright’s new book to study.  I cleaned all the sweets and white flour out of the kitchen.  I bought new running shoes.  I dug out my book on centering prayer.  I bought new stationary to write letters to my crazy sister-in-law to try to re-connect.”  “And what happened?” I asked.  “Nothing good,” she replied.  “I haven’t read past the introduction of the book.  I haven’t lost any weight.  In fact, I think I’ve gained 6 pounds.  The new shoes are still in the box.”  Have you mailed a letter?”  “No.”  “Have you had any success at all?”  “Well, I haven’t had a cigarette since Ash Wednesday.”  “Dawling, you’ve never smoked.”  “Exactly.”  “Well, I don’t think you can count that as Lenten discipline.”  “Then, I’m completely sunk. I’m so disgusted with myself.  I had such high hopes and such good intentions.  I was ready for real sacrifice and dedication.  Jesus died for the sins of the world, for my soul’s salvation, and I couldn’t even stop snarfing brownies for 40 days out of respect.  I told you, I’m a worm.”

Our conversation was lighthearted, but I heard real disappointment and nagging worry in her voice.  I think my friend’s “failure” is a universal experience.  I think all of us have made plans to serve God or live as Christ lived, only to lose our focus and commitment and fall back into less dedicated habits.  I believe the most faithful among us have set some lofty spiritual goals and soon find ourselves distracted and weak-willed.  How many times have we said, this is the year I’ll read the Bible cover to cover, or this is the summer I’ll start saying Morning Prayer each day or, the kids are all in school, I can do some service project one morning a week now for sure.  We have the heart for faithful devotion, but our follow through is unimpressive.

After so many false starts and falling offs, we can become discouraged and nervous.  We begin to wonder, what is wrong with me?  I have no will power.  Am I completely ungrateful?  Am I so disorganized or fixated on temporal affairs that I can’t make real time for God?  Am I weak in character or am I weak in faith?  If we ponder these questions long, and frankly, we can become adept at pushing them far from our consciousness, we can experience a welling-up of unease.  Wanting to please God then falling short so frequently is demoralizing.  We begin thinking, what’s the point of trying.  I will never be that spiritually evolved person.  I am no saint of God.  I am a worm of God.  My good intentions count for nothing.  In fact, there is that well-known saying everyone can quote.  “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”  I wonder if hell is my eventual destination.

The thing is, my friend, the one with the lackluster Lenten exercise is a very compassionate person.  She is funny and eventually gets around to reading the new theology.  She seems like a person God would want in heaven.  She gets along well with others and would be a good conversationalist.  She’d have informed questions to ask.  So, I’m thinking that old saying is inaccurate.  I do not believe the road to hell is built on good ideas not fully recognized.  It is far more likely that the way to hell, the highway away from God, is built on selfishness and complete disregard for anything good.  It doesn’t seem logical that setting one’s sights on God and on faithful living, then stumbling on the way would result in a complete reversal in direction.  Intent, motive, heart’s desire is critical.  Hoping to please God and not meeting the expectations we set or those we presume God holds out for us is not the same as living in complete disregard of his will.  Falling short is central to the human condition.  Failure is our inherited legacy.  Hope, attempts, desire, return is what is required of us.  Perfection, absolute success, continuous achievement in righteous living is not the expected standard.  Every one of God’s chosen vessels proved to be flawed.  And, those companions handpicked by Jesus himself fell asleep the one night he asked them to stand watch. 

All of us will miss the mark.  Each of us will lose focus and determination in our pursuit of a Godly life.  We will give way to worldly pressures and general laziness.  We will put our desire for instant pleasure above our long-term satisfaction of resting in the arms of our Lord.   With disturbing frequency, we will be inordinately willful.  We will turn away from God and lose our way, for we are sinners.  This willful determination to follow the desires and devices of our own hearts is part of our reality, but it is not the only or even the larger part of our essence.  The greatest, strongest human attribute is the ability to right ourselves.  We fall, but we rise.  We turn away, but we turn back.  As God’s own creation, we are constructed with a conscience and a deep-seated desire to be in relationship with the one that made us.  We know God’s broad plan and intent for us.  We know the way to better living.  When we falter, we know how to regain balance and begin again. 

This truth is pointed out in the words we recited from Psalm 51, a work attributed to King David.  Of all the men in Israel, God selected David to unite his people and lead them into a new age of righteousness, security and prosperity.  God equipped his new king with all the skills necessary to attract and motivate his people.  His armies were victorious. His courts were filled with learned, adept counselors.  His top advisor was the proven prophet Nathan.  David was on the straight path to heaven when he veered badly.  After his ill-conceived affair with Bathsheba, after the betrayal of Uriah, after Nathan’s confrontation, David writes these poignant words in his Song of Penitence.  “Have mercy on me O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions.  For I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me.  Indeed, I have been wicked from my birth, a sinner from my mother’s womb.”  David speaks to the condition of all humankind.  We are given all we need to live in Godly, steadfast love and righteousness and we mess up- continuously.  This reality should be enough to dishearten and paralyze us, but there is a way out of our predicament.  God’s appointed king gives us the answer.  He continues his prayer of penitence.  Having acknowledged his misdeeds, he asks for help in living a new life and beginning afresh.  “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.  Cast me not from your presence and take not your holy spirit from me.  Give me the joy of your saving help again, and sustain me with your bountiful spirit.”

Dear friends, in this psalm, David speaks to our hope and confidence.  When we fall short, as we inevitably will, we pray, “Please God, do not lose faith with us.  Do not withdraw and leave us utterly alone in our willfulness and misguided pride.  Help us regain our footing and corrected direction.  Create clean hearts and right spirits, renewed to us so we can start again in our way to you and your kingdom.”  The psalm lifts up our assurance that God’s grace exceeds our weakness.  We will fail, but he will forgive.  We will lose focus and determination, but he will not be distracted.  He will come after us if we call out.  Over and over on the long road to God’s perfect kingdom, we will misstep, but if we reclaim our desire to continue the journey, God will make the way known and passable.

If your Lenten disciplines have eluded you, if you’re eating more Oreos than ever in this season of fasting, do not despair.  Be gentle with yourself and pray the psalm.  If you are shouldering your right intention well, if this is the best Lent of your life, appreciate your good faithfulness, but keep your Bible marked to David’s words.  A time will come when you are less resolute and you will need this prayer of apology and request for renewed dedication.  May we take comfort in knowing God’s speedy response to our plea, “Give me the joy of your saving help again and sustain me with your bountiful spirit.”  Amen.  Amen.