As often happens with seasons of the liturgical year, I having a running conversation with the Holy Spirit and the scripture readings grouped together for this season. Parts of scripture that from each week weave together to tell a story of how this particular season is resonating in my soul, life and the world.
This season of Lent I keep thinking about The Holy Spirit leading Jesus up into the wilderness. I keep thinking about being born of the flesh AND the spirit; how these work in harmony together while other times they feel fraught with tension as if flesh and spirit are working against each other. This week I’ve been thinking about those angels from a couple weeks ago in the reading from the 1st Sunday in Lent. After the third temptation Jesus says to the devil, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’” Then the scripture reads “Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.”
Those angels keep floating around in my mind and in my heart. I mean 40 days and nights, repeated temptations by the devil and THEN the angels suddenly appear and wait on Jesus. Really? What I find myself wondering about this week is that maybe those angels were there all along and Jesus knew it. Maybe the angels were tending to him as he fasted and even more so when he was tempted. Maybe, just maybe, the angels were there all along reminding him that no matter how tired, hungry, or tempted, God’s love prevailed and angels were there to keep him company and remind him he is never really alone. Matthew was telling the story from his human perspective which prevent him from seeing the full story or fully appreciate Jesus’ perspective and experience.
Matthew tells the story in a way that I think very much reflects our human experience. When we are feeling tired, exhausted, rundown, hungry, angry or hangry (hungry and angry at the same time!), lonely, we are more likely to get stressed by little and certainly big things. When we are stretched thin, we humans tend to have more reactivity, not less. In our stress response, our view narrows, we become focused (whether we are consciously aware of it or not) on staying alive, managing the situation, staying safe. In this state with our narrowed perspective we literally have a limited capacity to experience God’s angels and assistance with us. We are fighting off temptations right and left and not always winning. Often our experience in the heat of the moment is to have no awareness of the presence of a loving God. None. There is no room for divine intervention. No reliance on angels. It is us and the world trying to make it through the next crisis. And, it doesn’t matter if the crisis is perceived or real. It is all real in our minds at that point and therefore very much alive in our bodies.
As Matthew puts it I think it’s only when we feel that the devil, the temptations in our life go away, when we refuel with food, sleep, healthy connection with people, and/or allow ourselves to be seen by someone we love that we can suddenly see the angels in our midst and how they are tending to us. Until we get a bit or a lot shored up, it’s hard to access the angels, much less experience them tending to us. We have to surrender on some level, reopen our capacity to broaden our perspective; there has to be room to trust. Oftentimes it is looking in the rearview mirror that we are suddenly able to see there were angels tending to us through the crisis. We couldn’t see or appreciate them in the moment, but looking back with less stress in our bodies and a wider perspective, suddenly we can see they were there all along.
There are all kinds of amazing and quite common (in that happen frequently) stories of people experiencing the angels when they are sick or near death. So, this is not to say we cannot experience the angels unless we are already healthy, happy and whole looking in the rearview mirror or access the present moment. This is not what I’m saying at all. It’s when we are so wrapped up in our stress response trying to manage our the crisis and the fears it has created in our minds and bodies that we tend to limit our capacity to experience God’s angels tending to us. As a palliative care chaplain, I found that most people had spiritual experiences of God when there was some kind of surrender to reality. There was a letting go that opened people up to experiencing the holy and seeing angels in their midst whether that angel was sitting by their bed, up high in the corner of their room, or appearing in the face of a nurse in the middle of the night. The clench, the contraction, the withdraw, reactivity of being under stress tends to block us from accessing the help of a loving God and his angels.
So, I’ve been thinking about how this applies to our current state of affairs in this country and abroad regarding COVID-19. I am experiencing my own and many, many people around me not to mention the news both near and far experiencing fear around what is happening here in the States and worldwide. We seem to be living in a heightened state of fear and uncertainty as people get sick, the virus spreads, plans, meetings, trips are canceled, travel is prevented, businesses and churches are closing for a time, food disappears from the shelves in grocery stores. Life is not the same right now. There is frenzy in the air. And, it’s not just some people are affected; we all are affected in some way, shape or form. There is an interconnectedness that cannot be missed by this virus that is leveling the playing field. COVID-19 is an equal opportunity virus leaving the very young, the elderly and those with compromised immune systems with the greatest sense of vulnerability. It is the responsibility of all of us to ensure and protect ourselves, our neighbors and especially those most vulnerable. In claiming that responsibility and protection we are living our faith of loving our neighbors as ourselves in this way we truly are loving the lord our God with all our strength, mind, and spirit.
The collect for today the 3rd Sunday in lent could not be more perfect for where we are in the world. We confess to God that God knows we humans have no power in ourselves to ultimately help ourselves. We can wash our hands, we can use Purell, we can eat healthy foods, take our vitamins, get some exercise and sleep. We can socially isolate. We can help out neighbors. We can do so many things and yet ultimately most of us cannot 100% prevent getting this virus without complete confinement. How does this not raise fear and uncertainty for people worldwide? We have to accept a certain amount of powerlessness if we are to move through this time of fear and uncertainty. The collect then says we ask God to “keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls.” Here we hear this theme from last week’s gospel reading again with Jesus and Nicodemus; Jesus saying we are born of water and spirit. We are flesh AND spirit, and we must tend to both as we move through all times and especially times with fear and uncertainty. We need healthy food and plenty of water. We need to be mindful of how our decisions not only impact our bodies but others’ bodies too. AND, we must tend to our souls and the souls of others; in all our obsessive news monitoring, we need space and time away from that frenzy to connect with life-giving friends or family by phone, email, text, Facetime, Zoom, time to dwell in Scripture, prayer and meditation, and in safe ways reach out to the neighbors we don’t know as well to tend in healthy ways to their bodied and souls. I’ve seen people on Facebook offer to pick up groceries for the elderly and deliver it to their house. Another neighbor has offered to bring food to families whose children may not otherwise eat since schools are closing. No need to get overwhelmed with the idea of helping your neighbor, friend. Pray about it. Ask God what you can do with God’s help. Allow the Holy Spirit to guide you into whatever little part might you offer your neighbor in the spirit of sharing God’s love and peace that you have already received.
Our fears and uncertainties can be a wind of its own, and we are not called to go with the wind of fear and uncertainty. It takes work to stay grounded, rooted, centered in a loving God both receiving God’s love and extending it to others. We continue to pray that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body; we pray we will and all people, all creation may be defended from this virus and other bodily adversities. This last part of the prayer is key too… we pray that we will be defended from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul. Those evil thoughts can come from within or they can be when we share our evil thoughts with others or they share theirs with us. Sometimes we take “evil” way out on the edge defining evil as “very, very dark.” And, yet I believe there are all kinds of garden variety evil thoughts we have and sometimes share with others that can be harmful in their own way. I’m starting to ask myself in this Lenten season what thoughts do I have that do not serve God? What thoughts do I entertain about myself and other people that work against a loving God dwelling within and moving about this world? What thoughts do I share with others that potentially block or work against their capacity to access a loving God? We all need close friends or family to vent and share with. People who we can share our darkest, inner thoughts; it helps take the thunder out of evil thoughts to share them aloud with someone we trust. This is incredibly helpful. Oftentimes I need someone to reason things out with me when I’m having dark thoughts. So, I’m not advocating never sharing our evil thoughts with anyone; on the contrary, I think it is helpful and restores us back to God at our center. We oftentimes cannot find our way home to God’s love at our core without help from trusted friends or family. And, are there thoughts that I can let go of? That I have already reasoned out, and now the work is letting them go? The work is NOT entertaining them; the work is letting them go. Are there boundaries I need to draw with other people about what I share and what I don’t?
As we read about Jesus and the Samaritan woman, once again we are mindful of flesh and spirit. Water for the physical body and living water that for the spirit in which Jesus says, “the water that I give will become in you a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” He says those who drink of the water he gives them will never be thirsty. It is my experience that receiving water for the flesh and water for the soul have something in common- neither is a once and done gig. I no longer read Jesus saying, “If you drink the living water, you’re done. You will never be thirsty or need my water again.” What I read is that I have to continuously stay open to receiving water from Jesus. It is in continuing to drink the water that Jesus gives that I will never thirst.
As we move through this strange time of fear and uncertainty, I pray that each of us will lean individually and as a community into living our faith in more embodied ways. I pray we won’t try and tough out the stress of this time only experiencing isolation and fear, hunkering down with irritation and panic. I pray that when these natural human emotions arise, we might notice they are present and take them to our loving God and pray: Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul. I pray we might reach out to a dear friend or family member and connect reminding ourselves that we are not alone. We might practice loving kindness for ourselves and each other. In the darkness we might more fully and deeply receive God’s love anew to strengthen our capacity to endure hard times, and that each of us may have the courage to reach out to a neighbor (whether known or unknown) and extend God’s love into this crazy old world. May God’s love and peace be with you this week, friends, and may you be blessed by the presence of angels through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.