"One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light..."

Walking in the neighborhood the other day, Estee and I visited with a neighbor couple. We listened to them speak of how much they are going to miss being at church for Easter. Knowing that we are pastors, our neighbors asked if we were going to have worship this weekend. We said that we would have worship service on Thursday, Friday and Sunday.

My neighbor asked, “Why are you having worship on Thursday?”

Estee, being the more eloquent one of the two of us, said that Thursday is Maundy Thursday and that we remember the new commandment of Jesus at the foot washing to love one another.

The other neighbor said, “We plan to attend worship at our church on Saturday.”

I asked, “what do you all do for worship on Saturday?”

Our neighbors began to share how their church is so large that they have Easter services on Friday, Saturday and Sunday the weekend of Easter. And it was at that moment I realized that the church our neighbors participate in does not celebrate Maundy Thursday or Good Friday. They only celebrate Easter this weekend.

I get it. Easter is fun and delightful. It is full of light and hope. It is perhaps the story and season we need right now more than anything. I am very pro Easter. Listening to my neighbors, I was reminded of something Carl Jung wrote: “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. The later procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular.”

Compared to Easter, a day of light, Good Friday is not popular. We are drawn to light and hope and resurrection. This is great. Again, I am pro Easter. However, as appealing it is to rush to Easter Sunday, perhaps it is worth reflecting on Jung’s words here. Christ did not transform the world by showing us just where the light is. Christ transformed the world by bringing to our awareness just how much darkness there is. If there is no awareness of the darkness, then we will not join with God in Christ to repair the world.

Christ feed people not because he saw there was an abundance of food the world could produce, but because he saw the darkness of injustice around him. He healed people not because he only wanted us to have life abundant, but to bring to our mind that there there is injustice in the healthcare systems that favor the rich and ignore the poor. Christ did not forgive the sin of the world purely out of the mercy of grace but in the hopes that we all would see that we too are in need of forgiveness and to be gentle with one another.

This Good Friday is Good because it brings darkness to our consciousness. It forces us to look into the darkness of the world, not to turn away but to look and discover that the darkness is good because it brings “enlightenment” in ways we otherwise would have never seen if we only chased the light.

Preacher Barbara Brown Taylor said that she has spent her whole life “with seekers of enlightenment” and that she n”ever once heard anyone speak in hushed tones about the value of endarkenment.”

It is popular to celebrate Easter this whole weekend. We all are pro Easter.

But do not forget that we could only see the Light of Sunday because of Friday’s darkness.

Slave, Hired Hand, Friend - Relating to God

So many in the world now are experiencing a level of cloistering that we never imagined. We are all looking for “coping” mechanisms and hacks to navigate this new sense of being isolated. For Christians, there is a deep tradition of social distant practices which we in the Protestant world have sort of misunderstood and eschewed. Those are the practices developed by the Abbas/Ammas of the deserts of Syria and Egypt. These proto-monastics have many stories of how to be in relationship with one another and with God while practicing social distancing.

For those of us new to the disciplines of silence, solitude and mystery, it may be tempting to consider how we relate to God before we engage in these practices. Because how we understand our relationship with God, influences how we practice these disciplines. I find the Gregory of Nyssa had a decent way to think about different stages of how we relate to God.

First we could serve God or practices these disciplines out of fear, like a slave would do. Fear that if we do not then God will be displeased and we will bear the wrath of the Master. Gregory goes on to say that rather than that of a slave, sometimes we serve God or practices these disciplines like a hired hand looking for a reward or payment.

Perhaps you have experienced or seen these ways of being in relationship with God. That we should do things so that we don’t get punished or that we should do things for a heavenly reward. The motivation to do things in service for God may be motivating but it also dismisses how the incarnated God known as Jesus, calls us friend.

This is where Gregory suggests we should be serving God and practicing the disciplines - out of friendship with God. Out of pure love of God like that of a child who identifies God as their parent.

So this season of practicing different disciples, consider do you feel like you are slave, hired hand or friend of God. And do not forget that only one of those is Good News.

Letting Go of Righteousness

These past several days I, like you, have experienced a level of anxiety that is beyond my collective experience with anxiety. Of all the things that I have noticed in my inner life, I have noticed the presence of righteousness in a new way. Because I am anxious over the situation, I begin to read and listen to all sorts of voices, only to come to the conclusion that I am now an expert on the situation. I have been transformed into a world-class epidemiologist in just five days, and I know what is right and what is wrong about people’s actions and motives. And, because I am so confident in my judgement of right and wrong, I begin to feel more and more righteous in my actions (or non-actions). And the more righteous I feel the more I am able to condemn others for their actions (or non-actions).

I have noticed that my sense of righteousness is really just a veil that I use to separate myself as superior to others. Righteousness is the rationalization I use to justify my anger toward others and even the reasoning I lean on to cut people from my life. In the weaker moments, I find that I even am willing to kill a relationship under the banner of my own sense of righteousness. It is for this reason that perhaps what I, and maybe you feel, is “unholy righteousness.”

The more I am convinced of my own righteousness more consumed I am with anger. Of course the irony is that being consumed with anger moves us farther from righteousness. This is the cycle, allure and power of unholy righteousness. It makes you feel powerful while also accelerating anger and loneliness. The more angry and lonely I become the more I am sure that others are wrong, thus fueling my unholy righteousness.

So what to do in this unholy righteousness cycle? I do what I normally do in such times and look to the desert.

Abba Poemen said to Abba Isaac, “Let go of a small part of your righteousness and in a few days you will be at peace.”

There is wisdom in this to be sure. Letting go of many things leads to peace, even letting go of righteousness. Perhaps the lack of peace in our world is how addicted we all are to our (unholy) righteousness. Perhaps this season of a collective heighten anxiety will give us the courage to let go of a small part of our righteousness and discover the peace that passes all understanding was with us the whole time.