“Because it’s hard.”

The wisest and truest words of the entire evening, from 17-year-old Bryce.

I spent some time this past week in conversation with a dozen or so of our high school youth about climate change. I was curious what they thought about it.

I asked lots of questions and did a lot of listening. I wanted to know if they thought it was real, if they had any sense of urgency, what they were doing about it personally, what they thought the larger community should be doing. There were moments when someone expressed a sense of hopelessness; “I’m only 15; what can I do about it?” Mostly, they believed that we’d figure out a way to turn the tide. And there was also a sense that the burden of the challenge would fall on the shoulders of their generation.

They pretty quickly came to the realization that our thoughts and attitudes about climate change are not matched by our behaviors. Intellectually, most of us are coming to the realization that climate change is real. And that there are no easy answers. And that there are a lot of big players out there who do not have much incentive to change. And that every last one of us individually has the responsibility to change our behavior. But we don’t.

So, I asked the group, “Why is there this disconnect between what we believe is true about climate change and our lack of change in behavior?”

That’s when Bryce spoke such true words. “Because it’s hard.”

Bingo. That’s why I still drive my car the two and a half miles from my home to church instead of walking or riding my bike. That’s why our family still buys most of our vegetables, even in the summer, instead of turning our front lawn into a garden. That’s why I don’t give a second thought to hopping on a plane to go visit my aging mother a couple of times a year.

My behavior multiplied by millions of people who have the resources to live pretty much the way we want and the way it’s convenient doesn’t bode very well for turning the tide of climate change. I’m afraid that the changes that we need to make are ALL hard, and we are not used to living like that.

So, what would it take to change our behavior?

I fast.

I know that according to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, I’m not supposed to tell you that.

But I have a reason for telling you. I think it would be a good thing if more Christians would engage in the practice of regular fasting.

I’m in my 50’s, a Christian pastor, and I’ve been fasting with at least annual regularity since I was in college when I fasted one year from dinner on Maundy Thursday to Easter Sunday breakfast. Over the years, I have found it to be a meaningful spiritual practice. Yet, I find that most people view it as an oddity, something perhaps even to be admired, but certainly not something to be emulated. For the most part, Christians in America will engage a whole array of spiritual practices except for fasting.

I think there are some reasons for the aversion to fasting that are rooted in our unique American culture. Culture is the thing we can’t really avoid. I live in it; you live in it; we all live in it; and we are all influenced by it, both positively and negatively. It’s the soup in which we swim. Let me make some cultural observations and then I’ll come back to fasting.

Observation #1 — we live in a culture of abundance. Most of us have not only what we need, but way more than we need. Closets full of shoes. All you can eat buffets. 3 and 4 car garages. We are really good at excess.

Observation #2 — We don’t have to think about where our stuff comes from.  When you ate whatever you ate for dinner tonight, did you give any thought to the ground where the grain was grown, any wondering about the name of the farmer who grew it or the truck driver who drove the grain to the mill or the mill worker who supervised the huge machine that milled the flour or those who worked in the test kitchen so that the proportions of ingredients were just right to make whatever prepared or processed food you ate work and taste like food? Or when you get in your car do you think about where the iron was mined to make the steel or where the crude oil came from that made the plastics possible or the workers on the assembly line that put the whole thing together? We don’t have to think about where things came from. We need them, we buy them, we have them. We don’t have to think any further than our own front door.

Observation #3 — We have an inordinate attachment to things. You name it — I’m sure there’s something for you — shoes or books or cars or cash or electronic gadgets.  Food is one of those things we get attached to. We obsess about diets and restaurants and what to eat and what not to eat.  When we get stressed, we eat; when we celebrate, we eat; when we meet friends, we eat; when we get together with family, we eat. I’m not saying that’s bad; I’m saying that food and eating are central to nearly everything we do. We may go all day without thinking about God’s presence in our lives, but we will never forget to have dinner!

Observation #4 — We live as if there are no limits to what we can or should do. If we want food, we take food. If we want new shoes, we buy new shoes. If we want a new cars, we get a new car. If we want new electronic gadgets, we research and we shop and we revel in how this new phone is going to make our life so much better.  The goal of life in this culture is always more — more things, more experiences, more stimuli, more capacity. We can have it all, do it all, and we deserve it all.

None of which, of course, is true. We have written a false story that we are dependent on no one but ourselves. A life that recognizes no limits has no place for God. When the things of this life become the object of life, then we no longer have life.

And here’s where fasting comes in. Fasting is a way to remember that I am dependent on God. When I interrupt that normal routine of sitting down for a meal, I remember why. Food is a wonderful gift. It comes from God.  I remember that my life is a wonderful gift. All that I am and all that I have come from God. When I feel that mid-afternoon pang of hunger and instinctively get up to get a snack, I remember.

When it comes right down to it, there is not all that much about my life that I can control. I am dependent on God’s goodness for almost every aspect of my life. It’s not normal to think that we are self-sufficient. In fact, that’s how sin got started in the first place, when Adam and Eve thought they could make better decisions for themselves than the one who created them. When they ate that forbidden fruit, they were saying to God, “I’ll decide; I’m the captain of my own ship.” But that’s not normal life in relationship with God. Normal life is for the creature to acknowledge the creator.

One of the mantras of lent is this passage from the prophet Joel: “Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.” So, could I be so presumptuous as to invite you to return? Return to normal life. Return to a life that acknowledges your dependency on God for all that you are and all that you have. And if fasting a meal a week or a day a week or whatever you decide can help you to do that, then what a gift it will be.  That’s why the discipline of fasting is so important. Fasting is renouncing something, it’s not depriving yourself of something — it’s a way to remember the good providence of a good God and because of that, it is a way for new life to be released in us.

This past Wednesday — Ash Wednesday — our pastoral staff stood at the local commuter train station with our Episcopalian counterparts offering an ashen cross on the forehead of commuters who were willing to take 30 seconds out of their busy day for a spiritual moment. We’ve done this now for 4 years and it always gets a lot of attention in the press. This year, my colleague appeared in a photo on the front page of our local daily newspaper. It’s good for the church to out in the world, right?

I’m here to express a pretty strong tension and ambivalence about this practice.

Four years ago, when we began the practice annual tradition, it was new and fresh; I’ve got the personality that is always eager to try something new, just to see if it will work or not. I had heard of the practice from St. Gregory Episcopalian parish in San Francisco, though I understand it was actually conceived by an Episcopalian parish in St. Louis. I talked to my colleague at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church; he also was aware of the practice and we agreed to make it a joint project.

Here’s what we do. We stake out a little corner of the parking lot near the commuter train station that the majority of the commuters have to pass by on the way to their preferred train. We have a little table, a cross, a sandwich board sign, and two or three clergy are positioned near the table. We seek to be upbeat and hospitable, greeting people as they pass by. Some ignore us, refusing to make eye contact. Some make eye contact, smile, say a warm “hello” and keep walking. Some actually stop and ask for the ashen cross. We ask their first name and then make an ashen cross speaking the words, “Roger, remember that you are dust; to dust you shall return.” Then we hand them a card with a one-paragraph explanation of Ash Wednesday, an Ash Wednesday prayer, and the service times of our parishes printed on the back side.

On the one hand, it’s good for the church to get out in the world. Too often we do our thing inside our safe buildings and we expect people to come to us. Except they’re not coming to us. We are seen as irrelevant or worse. So, it’s good to take our message of our mortality, of the temporariness of life, of our brokenness and God’s work of healing and reconciliation to the street. It’s good to communicate that we care about more than our members, that we can be warm and hospitable, and that we don’t have to be judgmental.

On the other hand, I wonder if we are not giving the wrong impression of the church. That our rituals are paper thin; that no commitment is required; that a little spirituality in the form of ashes on the head can’t do anyone any harm. See you next year, kind of thing.

What I hope for people is that people will know God and know the peace of God’s grace and mercy, and that know the joy of being called to something bigger than themselves and that they, too, will become part of the big thing that God is doing to bring fullness to all creation. I’m just not sure that drive-by ashes at the train station brings them any closer to being a part of that big, wonderful, life-giving project.

I had to make one of those tough pastoral calls today. I had to bid farewell to one of our senior couples, two people who had lodged deeply in my heart over the past 10 years. They’re moving from their senior living facility to a nursing home because their money has run out.

They’ve been members at Faith for 47 years. He’s 99; she’s a year or two younger. He’s had dementia for the past 10 or 12 years, but still physically pretty strong, at least for 99. She’s solid as a rock, physically, mentally, spiritually, and until recently emotionally. You can imagine the toll that such a situation would play on a woman who was an astute business woman and accountant — she kept the books for a local real estate agency until she was 92.

Until 7 years ago, they were living in their own house. She didn’t want to move out, but finally recognized that she could no longer care for him on her own. They could have moved into one of the facilities that promised perpetual care, but instead they moved into the one that they liked better and was closer to church. They knew it would be expensive and would likely use up most of the proceeds from their house and their savings. But they also knew their age and they knew that statistically, they’d die before the money ran out and they would still be able to leave something to their one living son and to the church.

Now here they are, after having spent close to $600,000 over 7 years. They thought that their substantial savings and the profit from the sale of their house would be plenty to carry them through; now it’s all but gone. And they have no choice but to move into a facility which will take the remainder of their money. After the balance sheet reads 0, Medicare will kick in.

There are way, way too many changes for them to endure. They were two blocks from church and church people would show up regularly just to say hello. Now they will be 45 minutes from the place that has been their spiritual and social home. They have been seeing the same doctors for decades. Now they will be faced with a whole line-up of new doctors because their doctors here don’t make house calls there. They go from an apartment where they were surrounded by their own furniture and pictures and keepsakes to a single room with two hospital beds.

Here’s the hard part: having to sit with good, good people who lived their life the right way, worked hard, and planned for the future, who have come to the point of having no good choices. In what will undoubtedly be the last years, or even last months of their life, they are forced to give up the last vestiges of their former life — furniture, photos, momentos, pots and pans, their bed —  everything. And go to a place that they don’t want to be.

I don’t really have any answers. I’m not sure what I would change. But to see the pain in her face and to know the many transitions that they are being forced to make that they don’t want to make, has brought me deep sadness.

I would like to believe the platitude that things always work out. But sometimes they don’t.

As old as I am (52 years), as many years as I’ve had in pastoral ministry (25), when it comes to learning how to pray, I feel like I’m still in elementary school.

I went to confirmation at a little Lutheran church in western Nebraska with a pretty rigid and guilt-inducing pastor. He was determined to instill in us the discipline of regular bible reading and prayer. He was fond of reminding us that we weren’t really Christians if we didn’t read the bible and pray regularly. So began my odyssey of trying to cultivate the discipline of prayer.

In those junior high years, I can’t tell you how many times I started reading the bible cover to cover. Usually I didn’t get out of Genesis. Sometimes I actually made it to Leviticus. I don’t think I ever got through Leviticus. Somewhere along the way, I think I read a couple of the shorter letters in the New Testament, but can’t remember if I ever got through one of the gospels.

And prayer. I was told that I should pray, but was given precious little guidance about how to pray — or at least that’s the way I remember it. In my home, we prayed regularly before and after meals, and occasionally had family devotions. I said, “Now I lay me down to sleep. . .” with my mother when I went to bed, but my daily prayer was nothing more than that. As a freshman and sophomore in high school, I got involved with a group of students from a variety of churches and traditions who gathered every morning in the home of a retired high school teacher across from Bridgeport High School. But I was with a group and could rely on the “pray-ers” in the group and didn’t have to work on my own prayer life.

My college years were pretty dry as I think back about my prayer life.  In the seminary, I tried again to cultivate the regular habit of prayer and failed. As a young pastor, I bought every prayer book around, used all of them for a short time, and could never develop the habit. Typically, I have been good with the parts of being a pastor that use my mind. Not so good on the spirit, or whatever part of me from which rises the impulse to pray.

And so here I am at 52 years old and 25 years in the ministry, still feeling like a novice at prayer.

A couple of years ago, I enrolled in Grace Institute, a two-year program of spiritual formation connected to Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. I can’t say that I’ve loved it. But it has been good for me. I’ve learned about the many streams of prayer through the centuries of the Christian church. And I’ve been given the opportunity to practice them. I’m still working on the practice part, still getting better at it, and still with a long ways to go. But for the first time, I’m finally developing the regular discipline.

At the Grace Institute, the two year program of 8 retreats includes readings in the particular discipline of prayer and practice that we are introduced to. I’m the kind of person that rarely meets a book I don’t like or at least one that I can’t give a fair hearing. So, I’ve kept up with the readings pretty well; still I’m still always on the lookout for other fellow pilgrims who are much more practiced than I am and who can help me on the journey.

I recently finished a little volume that I wish I had read a long time ago: Creating a LIfe with God: The Call of Ancient Prayer Practices, by Daniel Wolpert. After an introduction to the life of prayer, he includes chapters on a variety of standard prayer practices, including Lectio Divina, the Jesus Prayer, the Examen, and a whole lot more. The explanations are detailed enough to give an idea of what it’s all about without burdening the reader with an academic treatise on the practice.

As much as the descriptions were helpful review for me, what I appreciated most was the tone of Wolpert’s writing. He doesn’t set himself up as an expert, but shares instances of his own learning and struggles to learn how to pray. It feels real. I came away from my reading not with the burden of how little I have learned about prayer and how much I have struggled to develop a life of prayer, but with the encouragement of a fellow pilgrim that prayer is work. Sometimes it feels a little easier and sometimes it feels very difficult. But the journey is always worth the effort. And for the first time, I feel like if I never get out of elementary school, at least I am praying. And that is growth for which I am grateful.

In the aftermath of the Newtown shootings, 24/7 conversation goes on about how to make ourselves safer.  One side says ban or strictly limit access to guns or ammunition. The other side says we need more guns. And so the banter goes back and forth.

The conversation has branched out to a discussion of whether there is anything we can do to make schools safer, even though it appears that those in charge at Sandy Hook Elementary School did everything by the book. Just yesterday, the NRA proposed putting an armed guard in every school in the country. (It’s hard to take such a proposal seriously, not just philosophically, but practically. I can’t imagine the NRA supporting the kind of tax dollars it would take to fund such a proposal.)

I’ve also noticed a proliferation of self-help kinds of articles aimed at parents with young children. The 7 Things You Can Do to Make Sure Your Child Is Safe at School kinds of articles.

Behind all of this is a usually unspoken assumption that a breakdown in security is the problem. We just have to work harder and smarter at making ourselves safer and we can prevent the kinds of horrific crimes like Newtown. Figure out at way to control or eliminate the bad stuff and we won’t have to be so afraid.

The kind of security we yearn for is, of course, a fiction. As long as we are human, we will be vulnerable. So, the notion that we can get to the point where we can take refuge in our own security is an exercise in futility. It’s chasing after the wind. There is too much to get secure against.

Yet we try. And the movement proliferates. Our culture teaches us to fear almost everything, despite the fact that living in fear is a really lousy way to live.

In the Moravian Daily Texts earlier this week, one of the readings was the opening verse of Psalm 127:  Unless the Lord guards the city, the guards keep watch in vain. And then my mind went to the second lesson from the Third Sunday in Advent (Series C), which concluded. . . and the peace of God which passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

So, we can’t guard the city. But we can choose both to live in God’s shalom and to work for that shalom. Shalom is not just the absence of conflict, but the the presence of harmony. It’s creation as God intended it to be. Everything in the world and in life is in it’s proper place and function. It’s the opposite of chaos and disorder. It’s the opposite of fear. It’s the opposite of Newtown and and Aurora and Dekalb and Virginia Tech.

Protecting ourselves with guns may be on some level effective, but it’s not shalom. Instituting security measures that seem more and more to isolate ourselves from one another may prevent certain crimes. But it’s not shalom. One might show by research or anecdotal evidence that more guns or more security measures have some degree of effectiveness (an argument which I don’t buy), but they are not shalom.

So, let the policy wonks and legislators debate about security and safety. As members of faith communities, our questions ought not stay at the superficial level of how we can make ourselves safer, about what security measures are most effective, or how we can prevent violent crime.

As the church, our mission is shalom. Our commitment is to living in such a way that we bring shalom to all of creation.

It starts with all of us as individuals. What will I do to bring shalom in my closest community, my family? How do I talk with them? How do we solve problems and deal with conflict? How do I talk with them about other people? How do I practice generosity?

Then it moves into the other places where I interact with others: where I work, where I play, where I shop, where I go for amusement and entertainment, in social media. Does my speech build up or tear down? Am I interested in the advancement and development of others? How do I practice generosity in these places?

How do I foster shalom in the community where I worship? Anyone who’s been around the church for any time at all knows that congregations are not automatically places of shalom. In my congregation, how do I interact with others when there are things we disagree about? How do I talk at my church about other people? If I’m a leader, how do I model an inclusive way of coming to decisions?

And, finally, I think we have a responsibility to bring that shalom to the larger community. Shalom is nurtured when we turn from suspicion of others to embrace their differentness and discover anew the wondrous variety in the human community. Shalom comes when we work harder at building relationships than we do at isolating ourselves for the sake of security. And we will find ourselves much further along the path to shalom when we find a way to care for, support, and lift the most vulnerable: the poor, the aged, the disabled, the addicted, the diseased in body, the troubled in mind and spirit, and the imprisoned.

Maybe the notion sounds crazy, but I’m naive enough or jaded enough or hopeful enough to think that a lot of us committing to such behavior will make a difference. What do we have to lose? Living from fear sure hasn’t worked very well.

I can imagine that in many Christian churches — particularly ones that follow the lectionary — a lot of lectors are going to be choking on words come Sunday morning. And a lot of people sitting in the pews are going to be shaking their heads in disbelief or reaching with extended fingers to plug their ears.

How will we read what we will read and say what we will say, knowing what we know?

From the prophet Zephaniah:

Sing aloud, O daughter Zion;
shout, O Israel!
Rejoice and exult with all your heart,
O daughter Jerusalem!

From Paul in his letter to the Philippians:

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.

To say the least, it feels out of character, even inappropriate, to encourage such joy-filled, upbeat celebrating when our hearts are so full of sadness at the unspeakable horror of the murder of so many innocents. How can we say what we will say, knowing what we know?

For most of Friday, I was in my home in silence, reading and going about a lot of mid-December tasks, oblivious to what was going on at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. Not until mid-afternoon did I turn on the radio to find that another unspeakable tragedy had taken place. In terms of the tragic and violent loss of life, it’s no different than the other mass shootings that have become all too frequent. Yet this one feels different because so many young children were the victims. It’s truly heart-wrenching for me.

How will we read what we will read and say what we will say, knowing what we know?

It’s probably a good time to remind ourselves that when the prophet spoke these words, he wasn’t speaking in a time when the Israelites were on top of the world. In fact, he spoke the words in a time of national humiliation. The people of God had been carried off into exile. Their homeland was gone and their Temple — the visible sign of God’s presence and blessing — had been destroyed. And don’t think for a minute that when the Babylonians took over, property wasn’t plundered, homes and businesses burned, and people killed, including innocent children.

Need I remind you that Paul was not writing from his lakeside cabin in idyllic retreat? He was writing from prison, with the full expectation that he would not get out. This is where he would die, so he thought.

Yet they both have the audacity to speak not only of rejoicing, but of living in any circumstance with confident hope in a loving and gracious God who is still present even in the midst of the pain, suffering, and tragedy that is part of human community.

If I had to speculate, I’d guess that neither the prophet nor the apostle would find anything untoward about reading these texts in a time of national shock and mourning. In fact, these might very well be precisely the words they’d want us to read, because when we allow our faith to speak in the midst of tragedy, we hear of living in confident hope.

When we read these ancient texts on Sunday, we will stand in a long line of proclaimers who have spoken jarring words that bring hope in the midst of despair, rejoicing in the midst of sorrow, and life in the midst of death. We will have the audacity to proclaim what is at the center not only of these texts, but at the center of the Christian faith. That God’s love is not negated or overshadowed by tragedy, senseless violence, or the inexplicable horror that one human being might inflict on another. At the center of our faith is the truth that God is especially in these times and these places. These are the times and places when the comfort and hope of God’s coming speaks so forcefully.

God did not offer God’s love from the distance of a heavenly throne, but came to dwell among us, born of a baby. God’s love was demonstrated most forcefully in the midst of the unspeakable violence and cruelty of a crucifixion. And God’s penchant for life was demonstrated most profoundly in Christ’s resurrection, reminding us that while death is real and often horrible, it is never the last word.

So, we will read and we will sing. We will pray and we may even shed tears. And because we know what we know, we will rejoice.