Approaching Lent and its Call to Be People of the Cross in this Unique Time of Crisis

I don't think I have ever lived in a time that made being a person "of the cross" of greater moment. I wrote earlier that I am reading a book by Brian Zahnd entitled The Wood Between the Worlds. What I didn't mention was that my own prayer life these days is focused on suffering with Christ in a way that places me very solidly and strangely between two worlds. I think there are several ways to understand where I find myself; one of these is in a world of incredible political change, not to say chaos as the conventional order of our country and global community is turned upside down by an incompetent and self-centered administration and its sycophants who are bent on destroying our constitutional democracy. (This is true and a moral issue whether one voted Independent, Republican, or Democrat!) Also, the Catholic Church is finding itself in something of an increasing crisis of leadership as Pope Francis battles a life-threatening illness. At the same time, and by the power of the cross, we stand in a world on its way to becoming part of the new heaven and new earth, a world in which God is truly sovereign and truth and life triumph over sin and death. It is very clear to me that the only place to stand upright in such a world is provided by that same cross and all that God did and continues to do with it.

In Luke's Acts of the Apostles, as I've noted before, the early Church found itself standing in light of Jesus'death, resurrection, and ascension, between two worlds, namely the world where God is not sovereign, the world of idolatry, unjust power, greed, ambition, self-dealing, and utter lack of compassion for the poorest, least and lost, and the world of the new creation, the world where God is indeed sovereign, where all things are held in common and, as is sometimes necessary, the wealthy sell what they have to provide for their brothers and sisters in Christ. The early Church stood in stark contrast with the Empire, with the dominant religious traditions and leaders of the day (even though they stood in profound continuity with the narrative these leaders claimed as their own but no longer represented), and with the Greco-Roman culture and standard philosophies -- the "wisdom" of the day. We Christians have looked at this early Church and marveled at how it could be so powerfully inspired and inspirational that it grew and took over much of the globe. 

Several centuries later, we saw it become "permissible for Christians to be" with Constantine while Christianity was made the state religion by Theodosius just a decade later. My own eremitical vocation was born during this time as the Desert Abbas and Ammas retreated to the desert to embrace a more radically authentic and less domesticated Christianity. And so, I find myself standing in a place I have read about, prayed over, imagined, taught, written about, and both marveled and shuddered at throughout the whole of my adult life. What I recognize in all of this is that both Christianity and the US Constitutional Republic are in danger of being swallowed up by inauthentic and antithetical versions of the real things unless and until Christians find the courage to be people of the cross in all of the ways that implies, and non-Christians similarly embrace the authentically human values that lead them also to fight with compassion for the dignity and freedom of every person in this world.

Lent begins in just a couple of days and it is one of the most important Lenten seasons we Christians have ever faced. What is called "Christian nationalism" (facism co-opting the name we hold to be above every other name!) must be countered, and we must find ways to make sure that the injustices piling up in our country are righted while the least and lost of our world are recognized as God's very own and given what they need to pursue the lives God calls them to. We are called to work towards a Kingdom where God is truly sovereign and justice is done in mercy while retribution and carelessness are condemned as the marks of a demonic realm. We must embrace the cross of Christ with all of its selflessness, sacrifice, fear, suffering, loneliness, uncertainty, hope, and faith. This is no time for simply "giving up chocolate" or a beloved television program we could certainly have lived without anyway, or any of the more or less unserious forms of Lenten "penance" we have made do with (and been able to make do with) in the past. The situation before us is very much more serious than that and calls for a less rote, more thoughtful, and more personally demanding sacrifice!

We have been presented with a crisis (from the Greek κρισις, meaning a time or occasion of decision) few of us have seen before; this crisis is, therefore, also an opportunity to incarnate and reaffirm what we truly believe. Though God certainly did not create or will the situation in which we find ourselves, we have been asked to suffer with Christ so that through his resurrection and ascension, God's victory over sin and death can be fully realized in this world. As was true in the Acts of the Apostles, the Church of Jesus' disciples grew miraculously by the power of the Holy Spirit. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer reminded us as he moved through incredible activism and towards red martyrdom, the way to real discipleship will be both costly and grace-filled. If we can't be the Christians we claim to be, our world is in greater peril than I believe we have ever known.