Lenten Reflections

Every Monday morning I leave my home in Point Loma at 7:45 to drive to my church in Mira Mesa for a staff meeting that starts at 8:30. It ends at 8:50. Then I drive back to school. It’s absurd...spending 45 minutes driving to a meeting that lasts 20 minutes long is ludicrous! It used to get my goat like no other, but I realized one day that having one's goat gotten first thing every Monday morning is not a good way to start the week, so I decided to surrender that time to God. And I tell you the truth, I look forward to that commute now, because God shows up every time, without fail. On more than one occasion, I have driven home with tears of gratitude streaming down my face, and the prayers I offer during that time are some of the most heartfelt and holy words I've ever spoken. Making space for God is a good thing.

Consider The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, found in Luke 18:9-14:

"To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'

"But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.' "I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."

The prayer of the tax collector, which is the same one the desert monastics used to repeat over and over again in their desire to "pray without ceasing," is the perfect example of making space for God. I don't think the crux of this passage is the breast beating and utter misery of the tax collector - rather I think it is the space his prayer makes for God's grace to have its way in his life.

We are in the season of Lent right now, which has a lot to do with space-making. This is such a spiritually rich and poignant time of year for me: taking steps to replace my Pharisaiacal self-confidence with humble awareness of the gaping sins in my own life. In Lent, I acknowledge the pits and potholes that I fall into over and over and over again, and wait in humble anticipation and reverence for the deluge of grace that flows from Christ's hands and feet on Good Friday...the grace that is completed in the glory of the resurrection on Easter Sunday. This grace, like rain, falls from heaven and pools in our deepest pits, those we have uncovered in our search for sacred space.

"Lord, as we search for you may we indeed find you, and may the world find you as well, in the love that flows from the cross, and that binds us together as family. I pray for these my brothers and sisters - may the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, oh Lord our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen."