Reflecting after Lent

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Jumping off of our community's discussions and comments over the last couple months, Hayley reflects on our Lenten practice of trying to give up unhelpful and incomplete beliefs.

SPEAKER NOTES

Reflections on Lent

HAYLEY

Story

• I can remember in my first year of college, I was in a theology class with one of my favorite professors. And we started a unit on feminist liberation theology- which I had never heard of before.
• Liberation theologies have had a huge impact on my beliefs and this was the very beginning of that journey. Although it was an interesting start
• Reading the work feminist liberation theologians created this immense dissatisfaction over androcentric- or male-focused- language for God that I had been surrounded by my whole life.
• Suddenly every “He” that was used for God in prayer or any worship song that referred to God as “He” made me so upset. I started to use “She” when referring to God to, in theory, cancel it out which was helpful, but incomplete. It felt like an endless process.
  • And I was so mad that I hadn’t seen before how limited my picture of God was
• And I can remember- deep in my wrestling - meeting with our campus pastor distraught about the many things a college freshman has to be distraught about but especially upset that I didn’t even know what to call God anymore.
  • I might even just give up praying altogether because I didn’t have the right words I remember telling her
• And she very calmly suggested “I think maybe you’ve missed the point.”
• She wasn’t trying to diminish the very real theological dilemma I was going thru but helped me talk through the possibility that if removing language for God wasn’t helping me experience God, maybe adding to language would be more helpful instead. Addition instead of subtraction
• And out of that conversation, and doing some deeper work with liberation theology, I began to add more and more beautiful names for and images of God into my understanding.
• And that process was inspiring rather than despairing.
• The reason this story comes to mind for me as we wrap up lent is because it feels like a little case study of our lent practice of giving up unhelpful and incomplete beliefs.
• I had to give up unhelpful limitations around my understanding of God but the first step of the process was incomplete and a little rocky
• It was with time and community that I arrived at a new, more sustaining belief. It was a process! And instead of judging myself along the way of coming to new conclusions, I had to extend grace to myself.

Intro

This morning I wanted to spend some time reflecting on Lent by talking about three themes that came up for me in our communal process of giving up unhelpful and incomplete beliefs.

• I really wanted all three of these themes to start with the same letter, but they won’t. Today we are going to spend some time talking through Grace, Grief, and Interruption.
  • (My words people you’ve got the task of figuring out something to call our last topic that starts with G ) Grace, grief, and interruption
• Just as a recap, this year we walked thru trying to give up self-punishment, giving up hell as eternal conscious suffering, giving up christian supremacy, and giving up retributive justice. So you know, just some light conversations.
• But I am always so encouraged by this process because it’s reflective of what we can do our whole lives- unlearn and relearn and embrace something new.
  • This may seem daunting but I think it’s exciting. To live in a space of “I don’t know!” Or “I’m not sure yet!” To live unafraid of apology or changing our minds.

Grace

• Which gets at our first topic of the day: grace. Grace seems like a worthwhile starting place.
• Grace, mercy, forgiveness- these all seem rather synonymous to me but I’m curious if they land differently for you - grace, mercy, forgiveness.
• When we zoom out and examine this process of unlearning and embracing something new, we have to be able to extend grace to ourselves and to others.

Nadia Bolz Weber says that “Grace is the cargo train that distributes into my life all the good and beautiful things that are un-earn-able: forgiveness, mercy, endless second chances, the good will of those who could write me off, the sun rising each day, a perfect peach in summer, and love.”

• I wonder what good and un-earn-able things come to mind for you when you think of grace
• The un-earn-able piece here is key. Because when we embrace that our grace isn’t always even deserved, we can learn to extend grace to those who still hold onto beliefs we may have left behind
• This un-deserved-ness (we’re making up words now) isn’t because we are dirty rotten sinners who don’t deserve goodness, but a product of being human.
• We are made up of the stories and people and conditions that have formed and shaped us, for better and for worse. Simultaneously sinner and saint as Nadia would say.
• We are in a better position to be able to forgive and be forgiven - to embrace grace - when we can hold goodness and limitations all at once.
• When we come to believe new things that feel more hopeful, more true, than our past beliefs we can sometimes withhold forgiveness. Forgiveness for others, forgiveness for ourselves.
  • How could I have believed that? How can they still believe that?
• Forgiveness is hard, especially when harmful beliefs are leading to harmful practices
• Something that came up in our Lent discussion group is that forgiveness gives us our power back- when we are holding onto bitterness or anger, though often necessary feelings to walk through, the person who has harmed us can still hold some power over us.
• When we forgive — which isn’t the same as forgetting, or letting off the hook — we return that power to ourselves.
• I think sometimes, it can be easier to sort out feelings of resentment toward others than resentment toward ourselves.
• It works similarly, when we don’t forgive ourselves — maybe for reasons of self-punishment— that part of our identity, that shame and guilt becomes the loudest voice. It can be hard to listen to anything else.
• This is where grace comes in — grace, forgiveness, mercy — the mysterious and yet dependable forces that offer peace. A steadier resting place than bitterness.
• We’ve used language before of learning to look lovingly at your past self.
  • To honor that you were doing the best you could with what you had.
  • To look lovingly at others, that they were doing the best they could with what they had.
  • A lens of love changes how we read scripture, how we read tradition, how we read one another.
• It can be difficult to sort through. Embracing grace is not saying that the sinned against should not be angry or should view their abuse or trauma or harm as inevitable.
• It isn’t hopeless because there is resurrection. Easter is a story of grace!
  • Hope for right now and hope to come.
  • Death will not be the end of the story, what an ultimate grace.
  • Embracing that grace in small and big ways now helps us restore power over our own stories and helps to humanize those around us, even when we have differences in belief.

Grief

• The next theme I’d love for us to think more about is grief.
• Giving up beliefs and coming to new conclusions can be an intellectual process. But it can also be brought about out of necessity.
  • We suffer some type of loss or life altering event and we have to come to new beliefs.
• I was listening to an interview with JS Park on Faith for Normal People (the Bible for Normal People spinoff)
• Park is a chaplain and writer and I’m looking forward to reading his new book As Long As You Need: Permission to Grieve.
• And in the interview he talks about his constant proximity to death and suffering through his chaplain work. And he talks about the necessary changes in his beliefs and views of God because of the suffering he’s surrounded by. A question he asks has really stayed with me since listening:
  • “The times when I lost my faith, I sometimes wonder, did I lose my faith? Or did I really lose ideas I had to lose?”
• Grief can cause us to change and grief can come about when we do change.
• We can grieve when any type of change or loss happens, even if we are embracing something new and beautiful.
• If grief is so all encompassing in our world, maybe we should learn to lean into it instead of trying to rush through it and return to “normalcy.” It seems like grief is part of the norm.
• The loss of old pieces of identity— or the loss of communities that were wrapped up in our old identities can bring about grieving on its own.
• We talked about this in our lent discussion group a bit. That it can be so complicated to recognize the limits of relationships or loss of communities when you change. Or when you’re fully open about who you are and that isn’t received with love.
• All of this informs our view of God and of community.
• Loss instructs us, grief is our teacher and we can value it as a wise voice inviting us into a deeper knowing. What has grief taught you? How has grief changed you?
• I think that grief can actually increase our capacity for grace because it increases our awareness of our limitations. Grief increases our capacity for grace
• Reckoning with death and limitations is a theme of Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent, and continues through the season.
• In fact, when Jen and I were giving out ashes on Ash Wednesday we had multiple encounters with people who shared that they had recent losses that were brought to the forefront that day. Ashes and tears.
• We don’t always think of it this way, but Easter is a story of grief. After all, there’s a death involved. And the resurrection doesn’t cancel out the grave.
• Jesus dies and the followers of Jesus are left grieving the loss of their Savior, someone people thought would be a victorious King overthrowing the empire. Instead, death is the way to new life.
• And this death models a self-sacrificial love that can overcome empire and restore hope. The story doesn’t go as expected but it has an even more redemptive course.
  • Echoing the pattern we see all around us- that dying gives way to renewal.
    • We don’t have to cling to overspiritualizing platitudes or toxic positivity that discount death.
    • We can lean into grief, we can weep at the graves of people and things and beliefs we have lost. And we are in the company of Jesus and of longstanding tradition when we do so.
• This in no way romanticizes grief but it does give us a sustaining trajectory to cling to.
• New life can happen even when death is the reality. The death of a dream, the death of stability, the death of expectations.
  • Even in the aftermath of death, hope does not have to give way to permanent despair.

Transition: So we have grace, we have grief, and our last theme for today is interruption. Again, I’m sorry it doesnt start with G for consistency’s sake.

Interruption

• The idea of interrupting cycles came from Vince’s message on retributive justice a couple weeks ago. Stopping cycles of revenge helps to interrupt retributive justice in the world. And there are so many other cycles worth interrupting as well.
  • I’m interested to hear if any cycles come to mind from you
• These cycles can be personal— the personal impacts of systems of self-punishment, generational trauma, imposter syndrome.
• And they can be far bigger than ourselves - the many cycles tied to racism, sexism, all the -isms. Often they are tied together, the cogs of a machine, interconnected and turning together.
• On auto-pilot, when the wheels are turning without disruption, the oppressed are further marginalized, the wealthy and privileged maintain their power. Militarism tears apart humanity and the whole Earth suffers.
• What can we do to stop the machine? To stop the cogs from turning.
• Our discussion during the lent group after the retributive service brought to mind a term I learned from listening to Bryan Stevenson- lawyer, author, and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative. You may be familiar with his work from his book Just Mercy, or the movie Just Mercy.
• I recently listened to a podcast episode of Kate Bowler interviewing Bryan Stevenson (already linked in the resources channel).
• In the interview he talks about his life’s calling and his work to help those on death row be released by challenging economic and racial injustice. About halfway through the interview, he talks about being a stone catcher.

I’m actually going to pull up the scripture that this idea of a stone catcher is referencing.

John 8

“Early in the morning Jesus came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and began to teach them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and, making her stand before all of them, they said to him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground. When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.” John 8:2-9 (NRSV)

• So. A crowd is about to stone a woman and Jesus interrupts by suggesting that classic line “Anyone among you who is without sin, cast the first stone”. And they put down their stones and leave - Beginning with the elders- which is a line I hadn’t quite noticed before until returning to this passage this week
• Stevenson talks about how those who put down their stones required a certain consciousness that they were not without sin. They chose not to throw stones
  • And I dont think the “beginning with the elders” is just a a throw away line- the elders lead the way in having this consciousness and leaving behind their stones
• But a contemporary struggle we have, he says, is that self righteousness is so ingrained that we throw stones anyway. Even though we are not without sin, we are still throwing stones
• And some of us, Bryan says, are called to be stonecatchers - to position ourselves to catch the stones that are thrown. To protect the victim, to say I don’t want them to be beaten down
  • AND (and this was the really compelling part to me) to give those who cast the stones one more chance to rethink their decision. To hear that we are called to justice and mercy, not throwing stones
• I’m interested to hear what comes to mind when you think of being a stone catcher- are there examples that come to mind? People or movements that have protested the status quo without returning violence to the oppressor?
• Being a stonecatched interrupts injustice in a way that humanizes everyone involved. Bryan encourages us to recognize we are all capable of harming and healing.
• We can’t love well on autopilot and I think of all the systems that bulldoze people when they run “business as usual”. How interrupting those systems can comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable
• In what ways are we still throwing stones? How are we called to catch them?
• Grace is wrapped up in stone catching. Stevenson says that “Mercy isn’t really mercy until we give it to the undeserving”

Closing

• As you look at the trajectory of things you believe to be true— whether it’s through this Lent project or a wider range of time, I hope it can be a a grace-filled process
• And would the grace be contagious- grace leading to more grace- when you look at those around you who are also doing the best they can with what they have
• In your own grief— whatever the loss may look like — would you experience comfort that you can take as long as you need
• And when you notice stones— stone markers on a trail, a rocky shoreline, stone pathways, even the rocks on the sidewalk (those ones always make their way into my three year old’s coat pocket) would it be a reminder of the call to be a stone catcher, an interrupter.
  • Humanizing both the oppressed and the oppressor
  • Stopping to pause and consider, am I tempted to throw stones of my own?
  • Or is there another way that leads to actual justice, true shalom

Lovingkindness prayer

• I want to close our time today with a lovingkindness prayer.
• This type of meditation got brought up in our lent discussion group so I thought it would be fitting to close out today with
• This prayer begins praying for yourself, then someone you care about, then someone you have a hard time with, and we’ll end with praying for community
• This is an exercise in extending lovingkindess beyond yourself, even to those you may want to withhold forgiveness from. Offering grace seems really complicated and difficult
• This exercise will not fix that. But it will give you a moment to meditate on that relationship and at the very least, offer them good will.

Breathe. Bring to mind a longing you have for yourself.

May I be well

May I feel loved

May I be at ease not because life is easy, but because I am not alone

Now extend that longing to someone you really love and care about:

May you be well

May you feel loved

May you be at ease not because life is easy, but because you are not alone

Extend that longing to someone you have a more difficult relationship with:

May you be well

May you feel loved

May you be at ease not because life is easy, but because you are not alone

Extend that longing to your community (maybe here at Brown Line, maybe another comes to mind)

May we be well

May we feel loved

May we be at ease not because life is easy, but because we are not alone

Jesus— thank you for beinging with us in our longings. With us as we learn to accept and offer grace more freely. With us as we grieve our losses and proclaim our joys. Would you guide us in our listening, in our curiosity and wonder. Would you be a sustaining presence as we pursue goodness, as we step into the possible ways of catching stones in the world. Keep us from throwing stones back. Amen