Friends,
Throughout this Lenten season – due to our readings of Kathy Escobar’s Turning over Tables, as well as our discussions in our book and text studies – I have been attuned to the process of transformation. It seems very complicated to me, starting with the character- and habit-formation that I learned at an early age. Some of who I am was taught intentionally by parenting, example, mentoring, Sunday School lessons, and the like. I learned much of it by simply observing and conforming to the habits of those around me. Much of it was good. I learned kindness, forgiveness, responsibility, and things of that nature. But, along the way, I also took on racist, ableist, patriarchal, heteronormative, and cis-gender presumptions. Nobody taught them deliberately, but I learned them anyway. And, like many of you, I have tried to eradicate many of those lessons from my heart and mind ever since.
In the Christian tradition this eradication process is called sanctification. We don’t need the musty term to know the process. Think of the story of the People of Israel, journeying for 40 years in the desert to forget how to think and act like slaves in Egypt in order to live as God's people. In their anxieties about hunger and thirst - real anxieties, mind you - they often reverted to their enslaved mentalities. When God provided manna, they gathered more than they needed, because they did not trust that God would provide again the next day. For many of us – perhaps in a pique of anger, or when lowering our guard through intoxicants – we revert to the things we thought we had overcome, find ourselves saying or doing things that we regret, and later claim "That is not really who I am."
But "Who am I?" we might ask, echoing Bonhoeffer's profound poem with that title. Are we the greed, racism, ableism, patriarchy, or heteronormativity that many of our communities taught us to be along the way? Or are we the disciple of Jesus Christ, refusing to conform to the world and being transformed as the Holy Spirit renews our minds? Are we both? Are we half-and-half? Wishy-Washy? Lukewarm? More good intention than good deeds?
In the church, we tend to use the language of "yet, but not yet" to describe how the Reign of God comes through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. We may find it helpful to use similar language to describe the "yet, but not yet" nature of our sanctification. I think of the old hymn that says, "O to grace how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be." It does indeed seem that the journey out of the old habits and into new ways of being are a daily task, perhaps even a daily struggle. In plain language, the grace that brought us into the family of God through Christ is the grace that we rely on daily to live into the love and justice of Christ. We are, and we are not yet, saved from sin.
But it is still complicated. I think one of the great deceits of our time is to imagine that we can simply ‘learn’ our way into transformation. I look at the “self-help” section of the library and wonder, “Who is the Mark that needs help and who is the Mark that is going to offer help to that Mark? Aren’t I the same guy?” And, during the season of Lent, I can focus on some determinable, conscious habits, like foregoing chocolate or reading a devotional daily. But chocolate is not the cause of my internalized racism or sexism, so I’ve been wondering how the cultivation of habits is connected to the transformation of character. Jesus once accused religious leaders tithing mint and dill, while ignoring the weightier matters of justice. I feel that if all of my Lenten energies are on what I’m eating or reading, I may also be ignoring weightier matters of character.
That said, the season of Lent, for me, is that time when I attend to my daily, outward habits as a window into my inward need to be transformed at my core. And because I realize how much I struggle with the simple task of giving up or taking on something deliberately, I am keenly aware of my constant need for God’s grace to be transformed from within.
What a humbling journey it is,
Mark of St. Mark
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