slow

Shalom Mennonite Church

Sunday, February 17, 2013

Season of Lent: Ashamed No More

Lent 1: God will show us salvation

Texts: Deuteronomy 26:1-11 and Luke 4:1-13

Eric Massanari

“slow”

This sign sits alongside the driveway

on our church property.

It is not an indication that the children

of Shalom are particularly slow;

it of course means that drivers should

slow down and be careful

because children are often out playing

and walking to and from school

around our church building.

Unfortunately, the sign is often ignored.

Parents who are dropping off and picking up

their children before and after school

are sometimes in a great hurry,

and they drive too fast around the blind corner

on the east end of our church building.

The windows of my office happen to look out

on that very spot of the driveway,

and I have witnessed too many close calls.

Once I went out to talk with

a young mother in the parking lot

after she nearly hit a group of students.

She was not pleased with my

reminder to slow down.

She was in a hurry.

She had her own kids to get places,

herself to get places,

and much to get done that day.

There was not time

to slow down,

to pay attention,

to listen,

to look,

to be aware,

to be.

Slowing down can be difficult.

When we slow down it seems

we can't get as much done;

we don't feel as efficient or productive.

It might feel like we're wasting precious time.

Slowing down may seem a privilege

and a luxury we simply can't afford.

That is, until we may be forced to slow down.

Have you had that experience when you

come off a really busy time and suddenly

that's when you get sick—your body says, “Enough!”?

Sometimes it's a cold or flu, and sometimes far worse.

Or, perhaps we are suddenly slowed

by a relationship that has finally atrophied

from extended neglect, but we just hadn't

really taken the time to notice until

it reached a point of crisis and separation.

Or, perhaps, we are finally slowed down

by an addictive pattern of thinking or acting

because it has taken us to a “rock bottom”

sort of experience we can no longer ignore.

Slowing down,

clearing out,

making room,

paying attention

seeing your self with honesty,

facing your own fears,

your temptations—

many sorts of experiences in this life

can invite us to this important work.

Sometimes the slowing is chosen,

and sometimes it chooses us.

In his book “The Wisdom of Wilderness,”

Gerald May reflects on such experiences in life:

the slowing that came to him as he aged,

the slowing that came as death grew near,

and the slowing that he willingly chose

when he would venture out into the silence

and the solitude of wilderness places.

As I drive into the Appalachian foothills, a little obsessiveness comes to me; I filled the tank with gas, but I don't think I checked the tires. What if I get a flat up in the mountains and my spare doesn't have enough air? I pull into a gas station and check. Everything's fine. back on the road, I am a little ashamed for the worry. But it was a reasonable concern and I had become only just a tiny bit paranoid. I smile. I realize now that I'm starting to guard against obsessiveness; I'm trying not to be paranoid, and somehow that doesn't seem right. For God's sake, I don't want to obsess about becoming obsessive, be paranoid about getting paranoid. I take a grinning breath, A prayer comes. "God, I don't know what you want. Hell, I don't even know what I want. But I want to want what you want. I just want to be available, open, for...whatever."

I relax again as I drive into the mountain forest's arms, feeling an encircling warmth, more and more. The closer I get to the State Forest, the stronger the welcoming becomes. I feel it like a caress, and I sense myself responding to it, wanting to be welcoming myself, wanting to enter gentleness...Somewhere on the final road the words actually come: "The Power of the Slowing."

It is a naming, and the name is absolutely right. What I am experiencing is exactly the Power of the Slowing, yet I have no idea what it means. I cannot get my mind around it--and that also feels absolutely right. It mystifies me...I have been beautifully, exquisitely mystified.

[He continues on the road and eventually reaches his backcountry campsite.]

I am still sitting behind the wheel when my mind suddenly erupts with ideas of things to do. Get the tent out, set up camp, light a fire, get everything arranged so I can start enjoying myself. The impulses are almost desperate, as if my mind has awakened startled, terrified by its own depth of peacefulness, abruptly afraid of dying from inaction. I respond immediately. I have the car door open, my foot on the ground, ready to unpack, when I am simply stopped by something. I feel it within me, inside my very muscles, yet it seems to come from somewhere outside me. It is powerful, as if a great gentle hand has taken my arms and legs and simply stilled them, and a sweet irresistible voice is speaking in my belly, "Be still now." It is not a real voice, not actual hearing, but the message is clear: no rush, no need to do anything, just be.

May, Gerald G. The Wisdom of Wilderness: Experiencing the Healing Power of Nature, San Francisco, HarperSanFrancisco, 2006. pp.15-19    

As he captures so very well,

the “power of the slowing” has a great tension.

Entering such a space

may cause us to confront the hard stuff:

our busy minds, our assumptions and judgments,

our temptations and our sins—

the places where we “miss the mark.”

At the same time, by slowing down,

by accepting the invitation to enter

the wilderness places of our own being,

we also receive the gift of grace and peace.

We open the door of possibility

to an encounter with our own goodness and blessing,

and the goodness and blessing of all life. 

The ancient Israelites and Jesus of Nazareth

are both led by this path.

Their journey must pass through the wilderness,

Not just a physical wilderness

but a wilderness landscape within themselves.

It is a time when they are tempted and tested;

they must confront evil,

not in some exterior form,

but the potential for sin and evil 

within their own being.

It is an experience of trial and hunger,

and it seems that this must be

accepted and passed through

in order for a deepening to happen.

There's the old childhood play chant

about going on a bear hunt.

With each obstacle encountered on the bear hunt

there's the refrain:

can't go over it....

can't go under it....

can't go around it....

gotta go through it.

The children of Israel,

in their flight from slavery

and journey to the promised land

come to the wilderness and

they “gotta go through it.”

They don't even get to pass

through it by the short path

according to the ancient story.

It seems they will need to linger there,

and know hunger, and confront

their impatience, their need to be in control,

their misplaced desires, their fears.

They also confront there

their God in whom they hoped.

Jesus is led by the Spirit into this arid wilderness,

his forty days of fasting there

a remembrance of his people's

forty year desert sojourn.

Luke and Matthew speak of him as being “led” there.

Mark puts it even more pointedly:

And the Spirit immediately drove him

out into the wilderness.

Driven into the silence,

the solitude

and the slowing.

Couldn't Jesus, the Messiah,

have spent those forty days

far more productively?

Couldn't he have faced

temptation a bit more efficiently

and maybe with a little less

silence, solitude and hunger?

There were multitudes to feed,

sick people to heal,

broken lives to mend.

This wasn't very Christian of him,

to leave all that behind and

head out into the wildlands.

Wasn't he squandering precious time

and the power of God within him?

This was, in fact, the very nature

of his temptations:

Be all-powerful!

Be relevant!

Be in control!

Be the answer the world is looking for!

Jesus, too, needed to pass through the wilderness,

and the “power of the slowing.”

He had to face the demons in his own being,

and by doing so, to discover the

true blessing of his own being.

He couldn't go over it,

he couldn't go under it,

he couldn't go around it,

Jesus had to pass through it

before he could be prepared

to journey through all

that came beyond it.

It seems this is the path we all must take.

Evelyn Underhill once wrote:

No Christian escapes a taste of the wilderness

on the way to the promised land.

It will come to us in many forms.

We will have the choice whether or not

to receive it as an invitation or as a unwelcome burden.

We are also given the opportunity as we live

to willingly choose to enter the wilderness,

to practice the “power of the slowing.”

We practice it in those moments when we

literally slow our pace, when we make room

for quiet, for solitude, for Sabbath,

for things our culture considers wasted time

like playing and praying.

Why choose such things?

Why pray when there is so much to do?

Why observe Sabbath rest when

there is so much necessary labor?

Why slow down if it means you aren't

helping as many people as you possibly can?

Why fast when you're surrounded

by much good food and drink?

Why go to the wilderness when there's

much more fun to be had right here?

Why silence and why solitude when

it makes us so vulnerable and uncomfortable?

Why observe Lent when Easter seems

much more happy and reassuring?

Perhaps it is because we truly need these things.

Perhaps we are better able to confront

the temptations and fears of the world

when we first recognize them in ourselves.

Perhaps we are better able to serve our neighbor,

and to respond to injustice and evil in the world,

when we first see that the line between

good and evil is drawn within our own hearts.

Perhaps we can better recognize the blessing of life

all around us, when we seek, look, listen

and find that blessing in our own being.

May God lead us, alone and together,

through the wilderness, to our true home. Amen