On a Day Late in Lent

Spring officially arrived two days ago, but this year it has felt like spring for a while already.  This picture of our intrepid concrete-defying daffodils was taken two years ago - on about April 16.  This picture proves how early spring is this year because the flowers look like this today on March 22.

A few years ago Steve and I were in San Francisco in early March.  The flowers were blooming, the fields were bright green and the farmer's markets were overflowing with local produce.  We'd flown out from JFK in some pretty dismal winter weather, so the contrast was striking.  My first reaction was to be uncomfortable with it.  "This is not very Lenten!" 

You see, I have lived in New England all my life and I have become accustomed to how Lent falls in the gray and chilly time of year - the time of year when the snow has gotten hard and dirty and the sidewalks are gritty and things just look - well - dead.  When the first crocuses finally start to come out - sometimes up through a late snowcover - and the soft green grass begins to bring life back into the gray landscape it gives Easter an added layer of meaning. 

So while I've enjoyed the beautiful weather lately, I realize I've also been feeling a bit cheated out of the yucky late winter weather that makes the spring so sweet in comparison and gives Easter a literal new life feeling.  And because of this, I can sometimes be a bit like the Lenten version of Ebineezer Scrooge or something. Spring? Sunshine? Daffodils? Bah Humbug!

What is wrong with that picture?  Today it's 75 degrees and sunny with a gentle breeze and I'm sitting in my office resenting it?  So at about 4 this afternoon, I realized I was nursing a stupid resentment and I went outside, took off my shoes and sat on a bench and enjoyed sitting in the sun.  They say it's going to get cooler again soon.  So I'm going to enjoy this day while I can and practice some gratefulness for small things. 

Yet, to add another layer to this onion, there is something very Lenten still at work here.  One of the reasons I know I have a Scrooge-like attitude toward this warm weather is because I know that the bigger picture of this lovely day includes the reality of an overall change in climate and the ominous environmental implications it reveals.  I've noticed many people's discomfort with this obviously drastic change in the weather, and it seems that we all feel powerless to do much about it.  So we say things like, "What a beautiful day!" but then kind of shrug and say, "It's so strange, isn't it?   Weird.  Almost unsettling."  We are hovering on the edge of acknowledging that the root cause of this early spring is perhaps the result of a collective character defect of our society - of our wastefulness as Americans and our disregard for the planet. 

There's a nice prayer in the prayer book.  I think it expresses the better intent of those Biblical words, "dominion over," which has always given me some measure of discomfort. 

Almighty God, in giving us dominion over things on earth,
you made us fellow workers in your creation:

Give us wisdomand reverence so to use the resources of nature,

that no onemay suffer from our abuse of them,

and that generations yet to come

may continue to praise you for your bounty;

through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

I guess that through pondering all this, I'm coming up with a new way to describe what Lent is all about.  It's a time when we intentionally invite our discomforts to lead to more than just resentments or denial.  It's a time when we have a chance to allow our discomforts (and life gives us no shortage of those...) to lead us to a deeper discovery of God's will for us.  May you have a blessed Lent which brings you deep into the heart of God and prepares you for a new and transformed life this Easter.

Open Hands

Fall is traditionally pledge drive time in churches, and we are having our Commitment Sunday today. As I write parishioners are travelling all over town visiting each other, talking about the church, sharing why it's important to them, and making their 2012 financial pledge by filling out their pledge cards. Later today, we will gather for a special service at 4:00, at which we'll gather all the pledge cards and dedicate our commiment to God and share in the bounty of God's abundant feast around the communion table. Then we'll enjoy a great supper together downstairs.

Pledge time can be an uncomfortable time for people in the church, because whenever you start talking about money, anxieties show up. Gertrude Stein said, "Money is funny," and I couldnt' agree with her more! But this year I have come to understand in a newly deep way how important it is for us to talk about money and to be generous in giving. I will be sharing at our service later today a quote from Bishop Mark Andrus of California, who wrote these words on his blog while attending the recent Bishop's Conference in Quito, Equador:

I was part of a group that stayed in Quito but journeyed a long distance in culture and economics, to Sector Comité del Pueblo, a community of poor and working class people who squatted some thirty years ago on a large swath of a valley that absentee landowners had left fallow. They finally received recognized land rights, and they have created a vibrant community, which has a wonderful Episcopal mission in it, Mission Cristo Libertador, Christ the Liberator. ... It was there I attended a worship service, and the opening song had this refrain: “May we always have hearts without doors; may we always have open hands.”

Immediately I remembered what I learned this past spring about the Guarani people - they call themselves the people with open hands. What that means is that as they receive something –money, material possessions, emotional investment, ideas – they are thinking about how they can enhance the gift, and pass it on.

The Guarani, through several centuries of experience with colonizing Western culture have learned to call us the people of the closed hands; people who immediately invest energy in how to hold onto possessions of all kinds.

I felt a sting of recognition when I was referred to here as a person of closed hands. And I have since been imagining how my life would be transformed by becoming a person with open hands. And I believe that is what Jesus calls me to be - even with my material possessions - even with my money -even though a voice inside me tells me I don't have enough and I'd better hold onto it just to be safe. I've been imagining how our church would be transformed by becoming a people of open hands - and how our community, our economy and our world could be transformed. This is a dream of no less than the kingdom of God - a vision of the gospel in action - this becoming and living as a people with open hands.

So I am grateful this year for our pledge drive, which reminds me in a kick-in-the-stomach kind of way that everything in this life is a gift, not a possession - and that as a disciple of Jesus I am called not to store up possessions, but to steward them, enhance them, and then give them away for the sake of God's love - in response to God's abundant love for me and for the whole world.

So I am praying this morning for Grace Church and for all our parishioners, out there talking to each other right now about the sometimes uncomfortable topic of money. And I'm praying that we may truly develop hearts without doors and become a people with open hands.