Holy Discontent

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:3)

Today I came across this prayer from Robert Raines:

“O God, make me discontented with things the way they are in the world and in my own life. Make me notice the stains when people get spilled on. Make me care about the slum child downtown, the misfit at work, the people crammed into the mental hospital, the men, women, and youth behind bars. Jar my complacence, expose my excuses, get me involved in the life of my city and world. Give me integrity, once more, O God, as we seek to be changed and transformed, with a new understanding and awareness of our common humanity.” (Wittenberg Door, 1971)

Discontent becomes a holy gift when it pushes us toward change. It causes us to notice all that is wrong, the structures and systems that cause pain and keep injustice alive and well. To be restless is not to be wrong in this context.

I have always thought of Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount as speaking about grief, about a sense of being defeated by life, maybe a kind of “defeated” spirit flowing from a life that has gotten the best of me one way or another. The greek word for ‘”poor” is ptochoi — miserable, oppressed, lowly, destitute, afflicted, humiliated.

But I’m wondering about the poverty of spirit that comes and is engaged, voluntarily — that is, not the results of life’s journey and pain just for me, but the miserable oppression and humiliation of others in the world that bothers me deeply, that troubles my spirit. In this sense, it’s interesting to read the beatitudes as an expression of our corporate “un-doneness” from all the pain, all the sorrow, all the tragedy, all the suffering, all the poverty going on in the world. All the poverty in the world sinks into my spirit. Here the text not primarily about me (though I have my own sadnesses and sorrows) but about you, about others, about neighbors, about all the sorrows of the world.

That’s holy discontent, a blessing according to Jesus, a kind of willingness to take on the sorrows of our broken world with a vision of how they might be soothed in the here and now, and find their end in the kingdom of heaven. To care deeply about the world’s poverty and work for its end is a blessed life indeed, albeit painful.

I’m thinking about that oft forgotten moment after the grand parade of Palm Sunday, when Jesus leans out over the city and weeps, and says, “If only you knew the things that make for peace!” (Luke 19:41). Here is Jesus, roundly celebrated as king, choosing to embrace a poverty of spirit for the city he looks over. And then he gets to work redeeming it.

It all sounds rather bleak and morbid, a lot like the weather these days. But listen to what Diana Butler Bass says, in her book Christianity After Religion: “Religious Discontent is indistinguishable from the history of spiritual renewal and awakening. Religion is often characterized as contentment, the idea that faith and faithfulness offer peace, security, and certainty. In this mode, God is depicted in kindly ways, the church as an escape from the cares and stresses of the world…But religion has another guise as well — the prophetic tradition. In the prophetic mode, faith discomforts the members of a community, opens their eyes and hearts to the shortcomings of their own lives and injustice in the world, and presses for human society to more fully embody God’s dream of healing and love for all people. (p. 88).

To walk around this world with the love of Christ in our hearts leaves us no other choice than to carry the burden of religious discontent, to find ourselves poor in spirit. And Christ, who died for us and our world, calls us to the same work. So don’t allow yourself to be numbed from the pain around you. And work with self-sacrifice to make thing right.

For all its struggle, this is what Jesus calls a blessed life. What do you think?

Love from here

Peter Hawkinson

Holy Discontent

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:3)

Today I came across this prayer from Robert Raines:

“O God, make me discontented with things the way they are in the world and in my own life. Make me notice the stains when people get spilled on. Make me care about the slum child downtown, the misfit at work, the people crammed into the mental hospital, the men, women, and youth behind bars. Jar my complacence, expose my excuses, get me involved in the life of my city and world. Give me integrity, once more, O God, as we seek to be changed and transformed, with a new understanding and awareness of our common humanity.” (Wittenberg Door, 1971)

Discontent becomes a holy gift when it pushes us toward change. It causes us to notice all that is wrong, the structures and systems that cause pain and keep injustice alive and well. To be restless is not to be wrong in this context.

I have always thought of Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount as speaking about grief, about a sense of being defeated by life, maybe a kind of “defeated” spirit flowing from a life that has gotten the best of me one way or another. The greek word for ‘”poor” is ptochoi — miserable, oppressed, lowly, destitute, afflicted, humiliated.

But I’m wondering about the poverty of spirit that comes and is engaged, voluntarily — that is, not the results of life’s journey and pain just for me, but the miserable oppression and humiliation of others in the world that bothers me deeply, that troubles my spirit. In this sense, it’s interesting to read the beatitudes as an expression of our corporate “un-doneness” from all the pain, all the sorrow, all the tragedy, all the suffering, all the poverty going on in the world. All the poverty in the world sinks into my spirit. Here the text not primarily about me (though I have my own sadnesses and sorrows) but about you, about others, about neighbors, about all the sorrows of the world.

That’s holy discontent, a blessing according to Jesus, a kind of willingness to take on the sorrows of our broken world with a vision of how they might be soothed in the here and now, and find their end in the kingdom of heaven. To care deeply about the world’s poverty and work for its end is a blessed life indeed, albeit painful.

I’m thinking about that oft forgotten moment after the grand parade of Palm Sunday, when Jesus leans out over the city and weeps, and says, “If only you knew the things that make for peace!” (Luke 19:41). Here is Jesus, roundly celebrated as king, choosing to embrace a poverty of spirit for the city he looks over. And then he gets to work redeeming it.

It all sounds rather bleak and morbid, a lot like the weather these days. But listen to what Diana Butler Bass says, in her book Christianity After Religion: “Religious Discontent is indistinguishable from the history of spiritual renewal and awakening. Religion is often characterized as contentment, the idea that faith and faithfulness offer peace, security, and certainty. In this mode, God is depicted in kindly ways, the church as an escape from the cares and stresses of the world…But religion has another guise as well — the prophetic tradition. In the prophetic mode, faith discomforts the members of a community, opens their eyes and hearts to the shortcomings of their own lives and injustice in the world, and presses for human society to more fully embody God’s dream of healing and love for all people. (p. 88).

To walk around this world with the love of Christ in our hearts leaves us no other choice than to carry the burden of religious discontent, to find ourselves poor in spirit. And Christ, who died for us and our world, calls us to the same work. So don’t allow yourself to be numbed from the pain around you. And work with self-sacrifice to make thing right.

For all its struggle, this is what Jesus calls a blessed life. What do you think?

Love from here

Peter Hawkinson

A Halfway Lent Check

A couple of weeks ago, on the first Sunday of Lent, I preached about a different way to look at this season. Instead of making it the Olympics of self-denial or religious practices, I invited us all to take it as an opportunity to lean deeper into our identity as beloved children of God, and to take on whatever habits or practices helped us experience that belovedness. (If you missed this sermon or want to rewatch, you can find it here.)

Well, now that we’re halfway through the six weeks of Lent, I’m back to ask:

How’s it going?

Did you take up the invitation? Did you find that some of the things you were doing regularly left you feeling…something short of beloved? Did you find that there are practices or relationships or just things you can do that helped you feel special and valued and cherished by God?

Or did you sink back into the ordinary way of doing things, centered entirely around the hustle and bustle, the demands of each day that don’t cease, and did you find yourself listening again to the drumbeat of our culture: more, more, more? Did you succumb to the lie that no matter what you do, or how much you accomplish, you’re never enough?

You would be forgiven, of course, if you did. I admit that I have already more than a few times. It’s hard, to swim upstream against the flow of all the messaging that we get every day from our phones, radios, tvs, and computers. There’s always something more to buy, some more pounds to drop, some more muscle to tone, some new clothing to wear, to ensure that you are enough. To ensure that you are loved.

So says the world.

But the message of scripture, and I think especially the Lenten desert story, is that despite all these messages saying if you are God’s beloved child, planting a seed of doubt, the truth is: you are. Forever and always. No matter what.

I’ve been trying to practice my Lent in this way; to engage with the people, the habits, the behaviors and practices that help me really believe I am beloved, and feel it.

And I’ve noticed a couple of things.

The first is that this is hard. That the powers and principalities in this world do not want me or you to believe this. Because if we don’t believe we’re beloved, if we doubt it, if we refute it, then at the very least someone can make a profit off us. Selling us the beauty product or the home furnishing or the diet pill or whatever else will make us feel unique and special and important. But also we’ll be easily distracted from the call of the gospel and the building of God’s kingdom because we’re feeling too rotten in ourselves to do anything, to think we have a message worth sharing or help worth contributing.

There are probably many other reasons that this is so hard. Those are just two that I’ve come up against in a few weeks of this Lenten practice.

The second thing I’ve noticed is that God provides, even as we wrestle.

When Jesus withstood his own desert temptations, angels came and cared for him.

And I believe that when we stare down the voices and the influences that want to question our identity as beloveds, and when we bring those insecurities or fear to God, God will once again provide.

I was wrestling last weekend with feeling isolated, far from my community, too overwhelmed by all the tasks I had to do, to feel connected or valued. And I went on a retreat with some fellow ECC Clergywomen, and in a matter of two days I felt the opposite: wholly myself, wholly loved. It was not what I expected, but just what I needed.

Similarly, this Saturday I was having a hard day, feeling again lonely and disconnected, frustrated with some relationships in my life. And the next day, some dear friends I haven’t spent time with in a while invited me for dinner that night.

I wrestled, and God provided. And at the end of it all, I remembered that I was beloved.

I’m curious if you have experienced anything similar: the struggle, the questions, the gifts of grace. If you’re also finding it hard and ultimately very important to lean into your belovedness this way.

Whatever your experience in this season turns out to be, my prayer for you, and me, and all of us, is that we come to the other side of Lent assured and convicted: we are beloved. Forever and always. No matter what.

-Pastor Jen