Building a Lent that Becomes a Life
The new season of Lent began this week, making me wonder what meaning and sense of urgency this renewed journey of Lent can bring to me and to us. Through most of its history, Christianity has inclined towards individual salvation programming. Every Protestant knows the famous formula for redemption: repent – convert – be saved. You may notice that concern for the rest of the community is barely considered in this formula.
I was first introduced to spiritual life in the Protestant church when I was in my early twenties, after a mystical encounter with Jesus. At the time, I thought that my own spiritual breakthrough belonged solely to me and God, and that my unique revelations helped me gain a higher understanding of how God works with individuals. My questioning mind was stilled; all of these remarkable leaps of faith were enough for me. I’m done, I thought. I’ve reached the mountain top. I was finally satisfied, feeling relief and delight and joy. The programming of individual salvation, however subtle it may seem, is profoundly and fundamentally hard-wired in Christianity. It was only when I studied at theological school in Vancouver that my self-sufficiency was challenged. I learned that individual salvation is just a part of Christian spiritual tradition. I learned that the historical Jesus’ main concern was not focused on a narrow perception of individual salvation; his primary concern was the Kingdom of God. In today’s reading, the first chapter of Mark, we hear what Jesus’ first message was: “The Kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”
Lent has been, for many people, a special period of time when we are encouraged to practice spiritual habits of self-denial. Giving up what we normally enjoy eating or drinking has long historical precedence; supporting a worthy charitable cause with the proceeds from the abstinence is a modern twist. It’s good to accept the invitation for a spiritually intentional time to engage with self-reflection, prayer and meditation, and abstinence. The ultimate purpose of these practices is self-awakening and inner transformation. There’s that word again - inner. I wonder how our intentional mindfulness can be expanded to use this time to promote and engage with ‘social’ transformation.
I grew up in the Roman Catholic Church in Korea. The ‘programming’, the spiritual teaching I received, particularly during Lent, was, as far as I remember, to sit and learn and meditate on “the suffering of the Christ Jesus, crucified on the cross.” That’s how I can sum up all my lessons of 20 years in the Roman Catholic church; my earliest faith education taught me to focus and meditate on Jesus. That’s all you do: meditate on His crucifixion. His suffering. His death. Then on Easter, we celebrate His resurrection. Such emphasis on looking up to Christ, as the Immaculate one, The Super-hero, The suffering Divine, does not help us to see and befriend the historical Jesus who was always in community; the community of friends and family - his disciples, the crowd, women, children, outcasts, his opponents. The historical Jesus, far from being singular, far from looking down, knew the ‘messiness of belonging.’
I ask us to imagine Lent, this intensive period of 6 weeks, as any other season in the Christian calendar: a holy invitation for us to learn how to be and build up the ‘body’ of Christ - the communal body of Christ. What was the most pronounced and pressing concern for Jesus, during his lifetime? Jesus had a greater picture than the impossible fasting in the desert – 40 days and 40 nights: His vision was of the radicality of God’s justice, which does not fit with the habits of a civilization that tries so hard to maintain normalcy and prefers practicality. His concern for the Covenantal community among and for God’s beloveds radically challenges any society which produces statuses and classes, in-groups and outcasts, the wealthy and the poor, the cosseted and the neglected.
On February 9, I went to a forum that was held at the University of Winnipeg: Inquiring Minds: Understanding the call for, role of, and limitations on an inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women – including girls, the transgendered and the two-spirited. Why did I want to go there? What was I looking for and expecting? This may be a better question: “Why did I want to witness a part of history that’s incomplete, ongoing, unfinished?”
There were two reasons: first, I think that the church’s apathy to the pressing concerns of our indigenous neighbours is a shameful thing. I wonder what generates this apathy, hesitance, lack of energy or interest. Second, I realize that taking part in this unsettling journey to understand the troubling and negative consequence of the colonizing past AND present helps me to listen deeply to myself – and to know my own marginalization and privilege. Recently someone challenged me by saying, “Do you think you are in the margins? You are middle class.” In my own working definition, the sense of marginalization is unique to each individual - it’s contextual – it’s a question of where you find yourself on society’s continuum. Where do you get a comfortable sense of belonging and inclusion? Which groups? Which places? Since I learned about Canadian history, the colonizing legacy of residential schools and the ‘covenantal’ journey towards TRUE reconciliation, in theological school, I have wondered and asked myself how I am part of this unfinished, transformational journey as a new immigrant – a new settler. Am I a settler?
We don’t take this journey as our shared communal path just because of guilt; it comes from courage and genuine interest to learn how I and we should stand on this beautiful territory we share. This Treaty One land. Few immigrants enter Canada knowing the whole painful story and history of residential schools and the relations between the aboriginal and the settler communities. As an immigrant, as someone who is middle-class and a visible minority, what is my role and responsibility, what would be my own story-telling about this communal journey that asks us to carry the covenant – the treaty.
The church, since its birth, has been called to be a covenantal community. In today’s reading, we hear about the rainbow hung on the clouds as a sign and covenant God has made between God and the whole human and non-human community. Jesus has made a beautiful covenant with us with the feast of bread and wine symbolizing his body and blood. As followers of Christ and God we are called to learn the quality and prominence of covenantal relationships and what they require of us. I was a little late when I entered the Hall, and it was the time when a chief greeted “all genders” and welcomed us, saying, “I am part of Treaty One. Welcome to Treaty One.” In her crying she said to her people, “This country was ours. Don’t forget that.” I looked around to see those who sat with me in the Hall. Among the big crowd, I seemed to be the only one who looked like me, an Asian, a new immigrant, who did not speak English as her mother tongue. Am I a settler, or are people like me simply too new to be considered part of this history and dialogue?
Thinking about these questions, I feel confused, challenged, yet also invited. God has no individual boundary. God does not possess a territory. We speak of individual faith, but God doesn’t give us claims to stake out and possess - God GIVES the territory to all of us to share with deep respect. 13th-century German mystic Meister Eckhart said, God is not a being; God is the Ground of being, the Ground of all relations. Then what is our call, when God is the ground of all beings? Eckhart also challenges us: God does not exist - God INSISTS.
Find your way and practice that will help you meaningfully engage with the God who relates you to the community – the whole body and breath of Christ. Build a Lent that does not confine you to a very narrow programming of individual privation and salvation but that expands you to embody the hope and concerns of the community. Build a Lent that does not look up at the face and body of the crucified Jesus, but which gently invites us to look below where the eyes of the crucified Jesus rest - the body of the community; the body of each one of us. The body of the Other. The Body of all people, all genders, all creation who equally INSIST care, justice, covenantal relationship among all.
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