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Learning for Life: Cultivating a Student Spirituality
Week 20
James Vanderberg, University of Guelph
Lent: Issues of Poverty
20.1 A Season of Preparation
“Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.” Luke 4:1-2a
God has an almost humorous obsession with deserts. Prophets have been known to wander among the cacti, while Israel stepped ever closer to exile. John the Baptist’s ministry began in the desert with a single, isolated voice calling out, “Prepare the way for the Lord.” And here, Jesus retires into the desert’s shifting sands just after his own baptism.
If you step back even further in history, you’ll see God leading the people of Israel out of Egypt, dragging their grumbling masses through the same desert. God didn’t lead them by the most direct route to the Promised Land. God used the desert to prepare them for their still-stumbled entrance into that land; and, when they finally stood at the Jordan and stubbornly refused to trust God, God sent them back into the wilderness for another 40 years.
The desert is God’s place of preparation—a university of sorts. With little shelter from the sun and unbridled wind, the desert puts those who wander there within arm’s reach of suffering. Its silence provides space for reflection and highlights our dependence on God.
We, however, don’t like deserts. We live in a culture of avoidance, prescription medication being the new drug of choice. We are conditioned to avoid suffering, to live happy-go-lucky, comfortably numb lives, desperately trying to convince ourselves, tempted to believe, that we can go it on our own, that we don’t need to deal with suffering, poverty, AIDS.
Lent is a 40-day season that undermines this culture of avoidance. It is a season of guided preparation and of focused attention on the passionate suffering of Christ. Lent reminds us that we are dependent on God, that there is suffering in this world and that we, ourselves, participate in the suffering of Christ. The Spirit doesn’t lead us into deserts of self-induced suffering, but she does lead us into Lenten deserts so that our hearts might be opened to the world’s suffering, its poor and those who bear the brunt of its injustice.
University life can serve as an extension of this Lenten season. Universities are places of preparation. Residence life is full of temptation, and, increasingly, our universities are mechanized means to prepare students for a specific career. But, led by the Spirit, our preparation can be of a different sort. Led by the Spirit, we are constantly being invited to see the suffering of this world and declare our dependence on God. Led by the Spirit, we are being prepared to place our trust in something besides ourselves, working for the good of others.
Prayer
Spirit of God,
Lead us into Lenten deserts and beside suffered waters;
Draw us in as participants in the suffering of Christ; and
Prepare us to be sanctuaries of your grace and compassion.
Amen.
Quote: “Every man and woman born into the world, and every believer, suffers under the shadow of his or her or someone else’s sins and the long-suffering punishment of God Almighty upon the sin, and somewhere in there is the hunting devils’ business.”
Calvin Seerveld, Take Hold of God and Pull, 184
20.2 From Solidarity to Minga Celebration
“He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.” Luke 4:2b
This might be the understatement of the century! Fasting for a day makes me grumpy and susceptible to temptations of all kinds. Forty days of scrounging for food is an entirely different story. (As an aside, it is worth noting that fasting was not a rigid restriction against all food. Implied here is that Jesus took nothing with him and encountered no Subway or Starbucks. He was forced to scrounge for food in a barren wasteland.) Jesus’ empty belly is more than just a statement of personal resolve or show of persistence; it amplifies a posture of solidarity.
This posture of solidarity becomes even more apparent shortly after Jesus’ return from the desert. In his hometown of Nazareth, Jesus entered the synagogue, grabbed the scroll of Isaiah and proclaimed the year of the Lord’s favour. He preached good news to the poor and release for the oppressed; and, before long, he was one among them, rejected and marginalized.
Craig Kielburger, the founder of Free the Children, speaks passionately about solidarity. In one of his many stories in Me to We, Kielburger writes about building a school in Ecuador with a team of volunteers. The project that they were working on fell behind schedule, and the date of the team’s departure loomed. When Kielburger attempted to relay the dire situation to the village elder, she responded by calling a minga. Men, women and children from the surrounding countryside dropped what they were doing, in the middle of a busy harvest season, to help complete the school.
Repeating the word again and again, Kielburger notes that we have no English equivalent. We have no single word to describe the compassion, the solidarity or the celebrative effort mustered on that particular day in the Andes Mountains.
Those men, women and children acted on the same impulse that Jesus did in his Lenten desert. Jesus’ ministry was not about aid or charitable handouts; it was about standing alongside those who suffer—God with us. Lent highlights this incarnational presence. Jesus’ ministry was about justice for the infected and solidarity with the poor. It was a ministry of celebrative suffering and restoration, through which the Kingdom comes.
In this season of Lent, the Spirit is inviting us to participate in the suffering of Christ by standing in solidarity with the suffering of all humanity. Solidarity, not just charity, will effect change and usher in the Kingdom of God.
Prayer
Lord of Life,
Give us the strength to stand alongside those who have none;
Proclaim the year of your favour through our solidarity with the poor; and
Whisper words of release through our opened arms.
Amen.
Quote: “In Africa, we have a concept known as ubuntu, based on the recognition that we are only people because of other people. We are all human, and the HIV/AIDS epidemic affects us all. If we discard the people who are dying from AIDS, then we can no longer call ourselves people.”
Nelson Mandela, Care, Support and Destigmatization:
Closing Remarks at the XIV International AIDS Conference
20.3 Consuming a Leaven Word
“Jesus answered, “It is written: Man does not live on bread alone.”” Luke 4:4
“He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna . . . to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” Deuteronomy 8:3
Genuine solidarity is rooted in our dependence on God. Much has been written about issues of poverty and debt relief as of late. The Make Poverty History Campaign continues to force discussions of abject poverty into the political arena, even though the silicone bracelet fad has long since died. And yet, there are so few genuine attempts to answer the question, “Why do we care?”
Why do we, as North Americans who study in high-tech computer labs and listen to our iPods, care about the suffering of others across continental divides? Why don’t we go on turning our stones (and other natural resources) into loaves of plenty? The answer lies, in part, in the windblown, Spirit-directed sands of the Lenten desert.
After 40 days in the desert, Jesus was hungry, and the devil knew it. His hunger placed him in solidarity with the poor and made him an apt target. Jesus was tempted to usurp the divine plan, sidestep the Spirit and take the hunger pains into his own hands. He was tempted to be an autonomous consumer.
But Jesus responded to the devil’s 30-second commercial by issuing a clear statement of dependence—a statement that echoes the sentiments found in Deuteronomy. Jesus’ strength, like that of the Israelites, came not from bread, but from the very mouth of the Lord. The Israelites, as they waited to enter the Promised Land, were reminded that the whole of humanity hungers, that we are all in want of a leaven Word to be spoken by God—a leaven Word that will heal our ailing bodies, shift our twisted intentions and stir our apathetic hearts. The Israelites were reminded that all suffer.
This is not to say that all suffer equally or that your suffering is not unique, but that the universality of suffering ought to shape our response to injustice. All of us wander in desert wastelands, and all of us long for the Word of God to restore our lives. There is no “outside” from which to address injustice. We are called to care for others because we are all in this together. We are all dependent on God. The presence of death, sorrow and suffering stirs within us a prophetic cry that cannot but be addressed to God. “Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly.” And it is that prophetic cry for restoration that motivates us to action even today.
Prayer
Our Lord and Saviour,
Remind us that all of us are dependent on you;
Stir our hearts, through your Spirit, to embrace the suffering;
Clear our intentions so that we can respond with integrity and compassion.
Amen.
Quote: “A recognition of the true universality of suffering . . . leads to a prophetic outcry, a call for reconciliation that is also redemption, a demand for divine justice.”
David Bentley Hart, The Beauty of the Infinite, 386
20.4 Just Give Me What I Want
“Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give you,” he said, “If you will bow down and worship me.”” Matthew 4:8-9
The decks, or balconies, of the Air Canada Centre were ringed with lights. On the floor, a stage of unearthly proportions gave birth to a circular walkway, also ringed with lights. On that stage, Bono, the lead singer of U2, announced the beginning of the tour’s anthem, Vertigo.
Before long, the lights started chasing one another and Bono circled the walkway. The dizzying rock spectacle was turning on its own self-critical centre. Bono sang about the vertigo effects of the music, the strange, jungled-world, the bullet-ripped sky and the girls with crimson nails. He described a world of power, greed and acquisition—a world he wished he didn’t know.
And then, the song reached its climax. With lights racing and spotlights directed toward us, Bono’s voice cried out, “All of this, all of this can be yours. Just give me what I want, and no one gets hurt.” All of this—all the power, all the money, all the fans, all the high reaches of the Air Canada Centre and its technological gadgetry—all this can be yours. Just give me what I want, and no one gets hurt.
But we know that someone gets hurt, and so does Bono. The cost of running after so many “kingdoms of the world” is not insignificant. The various empires of our world—the fast food industry, Hollywood, the NFL, to name but a few—have a way of tipping the scales of justice. Roughly 80% of the world’s wealth is owned by 20% of the population, at the cost of 30,000 starved lives per day. Bono, in the song Vertigo, wants to expose the devil’s lies. Take a look around—people get hurt. Not only does Christ bear the weight of this skewed world, so, too, do so many men, women and children.
Though it is our common suffering and dependence on God that motivates us to action, that action does come with a price tag. Running after God’s Kingdom is no cheap endeavour—it will cost you your life. The cost of following Jesus actually resets the scales of justice, as your life becomes oriented around someone else besides yourself. In order to reduce poverty, we will need to learn to want less and to live differently. The power, money and fans, if you’re blessed with them, cannot be your goal, they can only serve as the tools with which you engage the world and the means by which you kneel before God.
Prayer:
O Lord, our Rock,
Heighten our awareness of competing kingdoms;
Teach us to reset the scales of justice and set our selfish desires aside; and
Reveal your love to us as we kneel before you.
Amen.
Quote:
“We’re at a place called vertigo
Lights go down and all I know
Is that you give me something
I can feel your love teaching me how
Your love is teaching me how, how to kneel”
U2, Vertigo
20.5 God in Absentia?
“If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down from here.” . . . Jesus answered, “It says: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” Luke 4:9b,12
“Do not test the Lord your God as you did at Massah.” Deuteronomy 6:16
“And he called the place Massah and Meribah because the Israelites quarreled and because they tested the Lord saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?” Exodus 17:7
The other afternoon, I was playing downstairs with my 4-year old son, who happens to be inexplicably scared of being left in the basement alone. We kicked a ball around and played a quick game of Trouble. In the process of cleaning up, I momentarily slipped out of view. For but a moment, he was unaware of my whereabouts. In that split second, he let out a blood-curdling scream that called forth a great deal of fatherly guilt. It must have been awhile before I returned to view, because when my son saw me he let out a second scream. When I asked him why he screamed the second time, he said, “Because I was surprised you were still down here.”
In the context of Lenten suffering, we let out similar screams, scared by the perceived absence of God, but also caught of guard when God’s presence is too clearly evident.
On today’s campuses, both screams can be heard quite readily as social justice initiatives increasingly serve as the university’s new religious expression. Calls for cooperation are the new sermons preached from the offices of the Central Student Association, and a new found interest in volunteering could well be described as a growing piety movement.
In 2006, a number of campus partners at the University of Guelph collaborated in an effort to raise funds for an HIV/AIDS clinic in Africa. After working tirelessly for months and raising an astounding $50,000, several students were taken aback by the many doors God had opened. Their cries were of surprise to see that God was still so active in the world.
In the ebb and flow of the human temperament, though, the opposite cries could also be heard. At one point, students were disheartened by reports of patients still dying at the clinic’s front door. The winds of enthusiasm were sucked from their sails. One particular student turned to me and asked, “Where is God in all this?” Is the Lord among us or not?
The Israelites asked the same question in their Lenten desert, and Jesus was tempted to ask it as well. His response, though, was not to question God’s whereabouts, but to simply trust that God was with him. His incarnation models that for us. Jesus refused to test God; instead, he chose to operate from a position of complete and utter trust, come what may, even unto the cross. In the season of Lent, in the presence of remembered suffering, this is the burden of our faith as well: To trust that God is with us, even if we don’t always see God as we work for the furtherance of God’s Kingdom.
Prayer
Spirit of God,
Reveal God’s presence to us at times when we need reassurance;
Establish our default position as a position of trust; and
Prompt us to work in your Kingdom for that which we do not yet have.
Amen.
20.6 Forsaken, with Wood on Our Backs
“When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.” Luke 4:13
“Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife.” Genesis 22:6
“Carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the Skull.” John 19:17
The devil lies in wait. In the presence of abject poverty and raging pandemics, we are tempted to denounce God, to feel abandoned, to issue prayers of resignation. In these Lenten deserts, it’s hard not to feel forsaken.
I can’t imagine it would have been any different for either Abraham or Isaac. Isaac’s father, Abraham, was abandoned to do the impossible; he was asked by God to sacrifice the son God had blessed him with. As Isaac approached Moriah with his father, he is seen carrying the wood that would mark his death. He turned to his father and inquired about the lamb. Abraham’s response was both a prayer of desperation and a troubled statement of faith: “God himself will provide the lamb.”
As it turns out, Isaac was not the lamb of God’s own choosing—Christ was. After tempting Jesus in the desert, the devil left him until an opportune time. I can’t help but think of the cross.
Like Isaac, Jesus also carried the wood that would mark his death upon his back. With steel piercing flesh, he was suspended there at the place of the Skull, hovering on the edge of death. In his hour of suffering, Christ also issued both a prayer of desperation and a troubled statement of faith: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
I don’t believe that you can genuinely pray this prayer unless you believe God to be very real and present in your life. Though they felt abandoned, both Abraham and Christ issued piercing statements of faith. In these simple prayers, Abraham and Christ reveal God’s deeper, unrelenting, grip on humanity.
Feeling forsaken is often perceived as a sign of weakness, of helplessness, of being alone. But in these prayers, being forsaken is the beginning of a life initiated in death. We must die to ourselves, so that we might truly belong, body and soul, to God. We must die to ourselves, so that we might be resurrected in Christ. This is the counterintuitive beauty of suffering.
Prayer,
Gracious God,
Place the wood on our backs and lead us to Moriah;
Give us the grace to accept your provision and receive our lamb.
Amen.
Quote:
“let my words / sing a prayer
not a curse
to the tragic / & sacred mystery
of our beautiful suffering / eternal worth”
Bud Osborn, “Down Here”
20.7 You Give Them Something to Eat
“But he answered, “You give them something to eat.” . . . Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to his disciples to set before the people.” Mark 6:37, 41
Some like to argue that the pace of life is ever-increasing. We race from here to there, often at breakneck speeds, trying to squeeze into lecture halls unnoticed. We can’t handle dialup internet access, and we need Palm Pilots to keep track of all our assignments. We don’t even have the energy to truly enjoy our free time. Our language is revealing: We don’t refer to our times of rest as uptime, but as downtime. And during this downtime, we often crash or veg on the couch.
Well, guess what: Things were just as hectic and busy for Jesus and his disciples some two thousand years ago. As Jesus went from town to town, the crowds were unrelenting and they followed him everywhere. At one point, he tried to escape the rat race by taking a boat to a solitary place to pray. (It’s worth noting that he didn’t go to veg on a couch).
As he stepped onto the shore, though, he noticed that the crowds—5000 strong—had beaten him there. The gospel writer notes that they were like sheep without a shepherd, hungering for something, searching for a leavening Word from the mouth of God. Despite his hectic schedule and tired feet, Jesus had compassion on them and began teaching again.
As the evening hour approached, the disciples came to Jesus wondering if it would be best to simply send the people away, so they could get something to eat. Jesus’ response is startling, “You give them something to eat.” Despite being exhausted, Jesus presides at a communion feast served up by the disciples. They distributed the loaves and fish that God multiplied, and no one went hungry.
In this season of Lent, our attention is drawn both to the suffering of Christ and our participation in that suffering. Our attention is drawn to the hunger of the poor, the fear of the infected and the persecution of the marginalized. Jesus stood in solidarity with the rejected because he loved them, and he instructed his disciples to do the same.
As image bearers of God, we are fully incorporated into God’s good creation and plan. We are copartners, called to the task of extending our Lord’s compassion, serving the bread that he broke. It could be said that Christ so loves the world that he continues to send us out.
Prayer
Gracious God, Loving Son, Accompanying Spirit,
Deepen our gratitude for the baskets of plenty that you provide;
Bless the hands that seek to serve in your Kingdom; and
Restore the bride of Christ to her husband.
Amen.
Quote: “The prophets and Jesus issue the same dynamic challenge: Do justice, show mercy, practise faithfulness and demonstrate love as you humbly walk with God in fellowship with your neighbours. These biblical basics mean that we are called to affirm human dignity, build community, advocate justice and equity, and practise compassion and solidarity.” Gerald Vandezande, Justice Not Just Us, 76
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