Through Stained Glass: The First Friday of Lent - Alone

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the
conversation. ~David Whyte

 

Alone

As the world spiral faster into destruction and despair, I turn my eyes to the Earth. In the flight of tiny birds I find comfort and hope -- like Francis and Mirabai, in their presence, I remember I'm not alone. I need their presence in these wayward times the way I need Scripture!

Today's readings – are timely.

Take, for instance, Psalm 22.

Typically, this psalm is reserved for Good Friday. That's where we know these opening lines from:

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

Jesus prays these words from the cross. In them, I find comfort knowing that even Jesus knew the deep pain of being human. It was theologian Jurgen Moltmann who upended the theological conversation when in the twentieth century, he re-introduced the idea that in the suffering of Jesus who became the Christ, God suffers with us.

The Gospel lesson today is the prayer Jesus prays for his disciples.

"9I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours….14I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. 15I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. 16They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world…18As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world."

Jesus's life and ministry were in radical fidelity to God and in service to people whom he loved. Jesus remained faithful to his calling on behalf of others, so now the disciples were to do likewise. It was one of invitation and collaboration – to repent from the myth of scarcity and return to a life abundant. In the final hours with his closest colleagues, Jesus prays for their protection as they are now sent into the world to embody the unfolding reign of God's love. 

The psalmist and Jesus, in hours of great unrest and distress, turn to God in prayer. The psalmist lays their deepest fears and objections before God, a type of "working out their salvation" in conversation with God. Jesus prays for the disciples as they soon encounter the rejection he knew from the world. But 'world' here isn't the Earth – but the socio-political climate in which Jesus and the disciples existed. That world rejected Jesus – not the Earth from which the Christ dwells.

The psalmist's distress – as they name the ways they are bullied, the ways their community rejected them, and how they feel abandoned by God – is palpable.

The urgency with which Jesus prays – for protection and holy collaboration – is pertinent.

These words are timely. As war wages on; discriminatory policies pull us farther apart; pipelines penetrate parts of the Earth without permission, all for the sake of consumerism. Abandonment. Fear. Uncertainty. Hope.

What do we do?

We pray. We protect each other. We participate with God in dismantling the destructive ways of this world. We resist throwing our hands up in defeat because of the enormity of evil. We start close in. We show up for one another. We listen to those who experience violations in our communities. We open our windows, and we pay attention to the birds – messengers of hope that sing out, "Be here, here, here. Be here, here, here."

On Fridays, we remember that God is with us amid heartache and pain. We undo death's methods by being creative with how we care for all creaturely life. We trust, just as the birds do that God holds us in Her tenderness and mercy. Even now, the Undoing One is softening hearts and transforming minds – healing is on the way. It's already underway.

On Fridays, during Lent, we remember we are not alone. But God is with us. And you have me, and I have you – and we have the birds.