Digging Deep
Fifth Sunday in Lent
March 18, 2018
John 12:20-33
Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.
“Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.
You may remember from last week the bizarre story of Moses lifting up the statue of the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness and then when the Israelites looked up at the image they were saved. We have this kind of language again in our Gospel reading for this morning – Jesus talking about being lifted up and through being lifted up on the cross, Jesus saves the world.
So unlike the story of the bronze snake where we do not get an explanation about how looking at a statue saves anyone – the Gospel of John spends more time spelling it out. John believes that when Jesus is lifted up on the cross, the cross itself makes a connection between heaven and earth. So through the sacrificial death of Christ, which John calls the “glorification” of Christ, it is like a metaphorical ladder has been built between heaven and earth – and that connection between heaven and earth is open to all who believe in Christ. The act of the crucifixion means that we who believe in Christ are no longer separated from God, but have a connection with God (available to us by the cross).
The image of lifting our eyes, or being lifted up is a powerful metaphor for how we meet God. For example, “I lift up my eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help” are the words of the first verse of Psalm 121.
But I wonder if for some of us another metaphor might be equally or perhaps more helpful, and, that is of digging deep. Rather than ascending, in our culture we tend to use the metaphor of depth and becoming “deeper”. I think of this particularly this week as we begin in what is known as Passiontide in the High Church movement of Anglicanism. It is a term that is hardly used anymore, but when I was first ordained the pattern of Lent was the following – the beginning of Lent with Ash Wednesday and the start to Lenten disciplines, Laetare Sunday or Mothering Sunday which was last Sunday where you got a little break from Lent, and then this Sunday, which used to be called Passion Sunday – was an indication to ramp things up in Lent. The vestment colors changed from unbleached muslin or purple to crimson, and the congregation became very focused liturgically and spiritually on the final days of Jesus’ life.
So on Passion Sunday, you were invited, first of all, to reexamine your Lenten disciplines and exercises, and secondly, to make a concerted effort to come to the Holy Week services with the view that the deeper we dig into Lent, the deeper we will live into the Risen of Life of Christ during Eastertide.
Incidentally, Nan Malone, a member of our congregation, was sharing with me recently that at one of the churches in Florida that she attended, St. David’s by the Sea, they had in their narthex a large table and on it a larger planter with dirt and a full size shovel standing in it with a sign that said “This Lent dig in, and get to work” – as in get to work on yourself, in service, in prayer, etc.,
And on this same theme, my husband Adrian, who in his former life was in finance and then became a second career clergyman, was reading a book earlier in Lent that came highly recommended by The Wall Street Journal called Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, by Cal Newport. Cal Newport is an assistant professor of Computer Science at Georgetown University, who before that spent time at MIT. His book is mostly about business, but my husband thought I would like it because it has some spiritual lessons in it too, so I read it last week.
And what is interesting is that the recommendations for deep work that help you succeed in the arena of finance, or technology, or the creative arts, are at their core, spiritual lessons.
So as we head into Passiontide – I would like to share with you some of Cal Newport’s observations for deep work –
The first is to develop deep work habits by building routines into your life which include specifics like time and location. For example, a member of our congregation Joan Clark, who has said I could share this story with you, said when her two children were young she would tell them in no uncertain terms, that when she was in her prayer chair they were not to disturb her unless there was blood or bodily harm. And by her chair she kept and continues to keep her bible, her forward day by day, and other such material, and a view to the front yard to take in the changing seasons. When she sits down she was and is ready for business of prayer.
Second, make your spiritual goals accountable. Don’t make a vague goal like “I want to have a deeper relationship with Christ” – instead set some concrete goals how to do this. So, what I learned, when I used to work in the fitness world and we used to tell our clients to make SMART goals – specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and recordable, and timebound. So in the realm of spiritual disciplines, instead of saying “I want to read more spiritual books” you say, “I want to read 10 pages a day of works by C.S. Lewis, at 6:30am in the morning Monday through Saturday during Lent. I will order them through Minuteman Library today, and if they are not there I will buy them at Barnes and Noble. After Easter I will re-evaluate.
Here’s one that is tough. Embrace boredom. What proponents of deep work point out is that the enemy of deep work is distraction – for example, when we get bored with focusing on work, we are tempted to divert our attention to something that is more exciting and thrilling. We live in an age of instant gratification and the author notes that we have developed a tendency to give up when something is not instantly rewarding. But as we all know, anything that we succeed in takes concerted time, effort, and practice. The author writes “efforts to deepen your focus will struggle if you don’t simultaneously wean your mind from the dependence on distraction…[you will] struggle to achieve the highest levels of concentration if you spend [your] time fleeing the slightest hint of boredom. (Deep Work, 2016, p. 157)
And related to that point, the author recommends quitting social media, or at least severely limit social media. Ironically, in this book Deep Work, the author cites many software developers who are the most successful at building social media platforms are individuals who most resist using electronic communication and social media so that they can concentrate on their work and their personal lives. So you might want to develop SMART goals around social media.
So back to the gospel – unlike Matthew’s Gospel depicted the Kingdom of God coming at some unknown time in the future, in John’s Gospel John thought that God was breaking through into our lives all the time – and this was exemplified by miracles such as the Wedding at Cana, the feeding of the 5,000, Jesus walking on water, just to name a few. And John believed that the access to God, after the crucifixion was ever more available.
During these two weeks of Passiontide, and truth be told throughout the year, we are invited to become even more aware of that breaking through, the breaking through of the presence of the glory of God, by digging deep into our faith. But this does not happen by chance – it happens just like how we get fit by through exercising, or heal our bodies by doing what our physical therapist prescribes – faith is something to practice –namely though conscientious spiritual disciplines and by coming to church.
Amen
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