The Evangelical Ascetic

Thoughts on spirituality in practice from Bishop Stephen Scarlett

Ascetic: One who engages in a pattern of spiritual exercise to pursue holiness and grow closer to God.

Epiphany

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Christmas celebrates the historical event called the Incarnation; the Son of God became man. Epiphany is the way that event is made known. God reveals the Incarnation to his chosen people. Christ was revealed to certain shepherds as they watched their flocks by night. Christ was revealed to Simeon and Anna in the temple. The magi were led to Christ by a star. Epiphany season highlights the revelation of Jesus as the Son of God in his baptism, in the miracle at Cana, and in the healings of a leper and a centurion’s servant.

Christ is revealed but also concealed. The magi asked, “Where is he who is born king of the Jews?” They asked this question publicly in Jerusalem because they assumed that an event of such universal importance would be known to all, or at least to the leaders of the nation. If the stars were speaking to them at a distance, surely all who were actually there would know. But all who were there didn’t know. In fact, very few who were there knew.

This is the mystery of Epiphany. God reveals his Son to certain chosen people, and God conceals his Son from others. As Jesus said,

I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight. All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him (Luke 10:21-22).

Epiphany continues in our own stories of how we have come to know that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. We have all had some form of epiphany, some star, some event or series of events that led us to Christ. The star may have been a faithful parent or relative. It may have been something wonderful or tragic that happened. It may have been a miracle or some experience of prayer. It may have been the ability to discern how God has worked providentially in our lives to bring his good out of suffering. But, there is not faith without an epiphany.

God continues to reveal Christ to us. The event or series of events that led us to faith were only the beginning. We grow in in our understanding of Christ and his will and we continue in the life of prayer, and we look forward to the Day when we will see him clearly, “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face” (1 Cor. 13:12). Thus, Epiphany is a season to think about how we have been led to Christ, and to pray that God will continue to reveal Christ to us. As Jesus said, “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you” (Matthew 7:7).

Humanity and Christ

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The word “human” is, for us, synonymous with words like “flawed” and “sinful.” We excuse our foibles and failures by saying, “We’re only human.” Christmas reveals this to be a false premise. For Jesus is human, but not flawed or sinful. In fact, our sins reveal that we are yet fully human. We are only in the process of becoming by grace what Jesus is by nature.

Jesus is fully human. He will eat, drink and celebrate. He will fast, weep and mourn. He will experience pain and pleasure, joy and anger, disappointment and frustration. He will be popular, then rejected by all. He will suffer and die and then he will rise from the dead—because he is also God and God cannot be held by death. Easter is the inevitable result of Christmas.

But Jesus will never worship an idol or act in malice. He will never use another person to get something for himself. He will never gossip about others to make himself feel good. He will never ignore the will of God and the good of others for pleasure, power or profit. He will never mistake lust for love. Jesus will bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things (1 Cor. 13). In other words, Jesus will be fully human.

In the Christmas collect we ask God to grant that “we, being regenerate, and made thy children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by thy Holy Spirit” (BCP 96). Through baptism and faith, we have become fully human sons and daughters of God. We have become by grace what Christ is by nature. Thus, we are no longer stuck in sub-human patterns of behavior.

The twelve-day season of Christmas is a time to experience again the gift of genuine humanity—and then to bear witness to what we have experienced. The Word made flesh has come to us; now the Word made flesh comes to others through us. As fully human sons and daughters of God, may our renewed humanity change our homes and families and the places where we work and play. For Christmas enables us to be not “only” human, but fully and genuinely human.

Advent and the Comings of Christ

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One of the paradoxes of Advent is that it seems to call us to get excited about the prospect of Christ’s coming. Yet, we cannot adequately prepare for the coming of Jesus by temporary excitement. Few things discredit the church more that Adventist movements that exhort people to urgent action by saying that Jesus is coming soon. They are invariably followed by disappointment when Jesus doesn’t come as expected. Enthusiasm then gives way to disillusionment.

Unfortunately, such movements and messages do not pay attention to what the Bible says about how to get ready for the coming of Jesus. For example, in the Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins (Matt. 25:1-14) and The Parable of the Talents (Matt. 25:14-30), Jesus emphasized that we get ready for his coming by being continually faithful in the things God has given us over long seasons of time. As the master in the parable of the Talents said to the man who had been diligent with the money he had been given: “Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord” (Matt. 25:23).

Adventist movements that proclaim the coming of Jesus miss the central point of the church’s liturgy, which is that Jesus comes to us now. The Second Coming of Jesus is foreshadowed every Sunday in the Eucharist. The Bible tells us that at the end of time, Jesus will descend from heaven and his saints will be gathered to meet him. In the Sacrament of the altar, Jesus descends from heaven to meet us, and we are gathered around his presence at the altar to receive him now.

We meet Christ at the altar on the Lord’s Day to prepare to meet him in person on the Day of the Lord. Thus, we get ready for the final Advent of our Lord by faithfully preparing to meet him now. Perhaps one Sunday we will say, “Behold the Lamb of God” and, rather than his Sacramental Presence, will see our Lord in person. As Jesus said, “Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes” (Matt. 24:45-46).

Preparing for Lent: Behold, we go up to Jerusalem

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PREPARING FOR LENT
BEHOLD, WE GO UP TO JERUSALEM

Preached on Quinquagesima 2016 at St. Matthew’s Church in Newport Beach, CA

“Behold we go up to Jerusalem and all things that are written in the prophets concerning the Son of Man shall be accomplished. For he shall be delivered unto the Gentiles, and shall be mocked, and spitefully entreated, and spitted on: And they shall scourge him, and put him to death: and the third day he shall rise again.”
Luke 18:31-34

THE BLINDNESS OF THE DISCIPLES & THE GIFT OF UNDERSTANDING
The key verse for understanding the gospel today is St. Luke’s commentary on these words of Jesus. St. Luke tells us, that the disciples “understood none of these things: and this saying was hid from them, neither knew they the things which were spoken.”

What didn’t they understand? They certainly knew what it meant to be beaten and humiliated; what they didn’t know was what this had to do with Jesus the Messiah. The Messiah would defeat Israel’s enemies—the idolatrous Gentiles who were outside of God’s covenant promises, the “goyim.” The Messiah was not going to be defeated by them. The disciples did not understand how the suffering and death of Jesus were essential to his work as Messiah.

This lack of understanding, this blindness, was remedied six chapters later, in Luke 24, after the resurrection. The Risen Christ appeared to the disciples. He “opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures.” Then he said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day” (Luke 24:44-46).

“It was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead.” Suffering must come before glory; death must come before resurrection. The cross is the way Jesus will defeat the enemy and justify Israel. This is the truth that was first hidden from and later revealed to the disciples.

OUR BLINDNESS AND HOW WE COME TO SEE
We also lack understanding. We believe Jesus is the Messiah. Consequently, we can’t understand why we have to face all the trials and challenges we face in life. Isn’t Jesus just going to conquer our enemies? He certainly isn’t going to let them defeat us, is he? We have this attitude even though the New Testament tells that we must take up our cross and follow him (Matthew 10:38). It is as though we are okay with the cross as an idea in our minds, but we reject the cross when we are called to share in it. Then, “We understand none of these things and this saying is hid from us”!

In order to see what Jesus is doing in the gospel, in our lives and in the world, our eyes have to be opened to see that the cross is the necessary preparation for resurrection and glory. It was necessary for the Christ to suffer, and it is necessary for us to suffer with him.

AGAPE LOVE
Our collect and epistle talk about the theological virtue of charity, which modern Bibles translate as love. The Greek word being translated as love in 1 Corinthians 13 is “agape.” When the early church translated the Greek into Latin, agape became “caritas.” When the Latin was first translated into English, caritas became “charity.” The word charity was used instead of love because charity had developed a formal meaning as one of the three “Theological Virtues” mentioned in the epistle—faith, hope and charity.

It is still a useful translation because it distinguishes agape or charity is different from other kinds of love. What we call love is often not agape. Sometimes our love is mere sentimentality—feelings devoid of concrete expression. Sometimes our love is manipulation. We love to get something back. Our natural love does not rise to what St. Paul describes in the epistle:

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy…is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things (1 Cor. 13:4-7).

The outstanding characteristic of agape is the willingness to suffer for the sake of the beloved. Agape is expressed through the cross. “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son” (John 3:16). The nature of agape love is precisely what the disciples did not understand at first.

We come to know and understand agape in two ways. First, we receive God’s love when we put our faith and trust in Jesus. Faith or trust is how we receive the baptismal gift of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit can be properly understood as love; as Romans says, “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit” (5:5).

The second way we come to know agape is that we share in the sufferings of Christ. Through the gift of the Spirit, we are drawn into a new mode of life. We live “in Christ,” in his kingdom. We participate in his cross as we fight against temptation and strive to remain faithful in times of testing. We participate in the cross as we struggle to obey the commandments, and try to love and serve others for Jesus’ sake. This is our vocation of redemptive suffering. We embrace it because we live in Christ and have within ourselves the very hope and promise of resurrection. We go up to Jerusalem with Jesus because we know that we will also rise from the dead with him.

LENT AND GROWTH IN GRACE
We enter the season of Lent this Wednesday. We are asking, what are we going to do for Lent? It will be best if we reframe this question. “What disciplines will help us enter more fully into the cross of Jesus, and enable us to love God, ourselves, and others with greater honesty and sincerity?

Our collect reminds us that “All our doings without charity are nothing worth.” We must guard against discipline without love. The measure of every discipline is how it helps us to grow in love. For example, fasting is beneficial if it helps us to turn from ourselves towards God; if it helps us to develop self-control so that we are less attached to things and more able to love. But fasting is not beneficial if it is done merely be look holy and pious (cf. Matthew 6:16). But we must also guard against love without tangible expression, for this is mere sentimentality. We must fast and pray and give alms. Jesus expects us to do these things (Matthew 6:1-18). But we must do these things in Christ, in love.

We can offer some guidelines. Practice a form of bodily self-denial for the season that challenges your particular excesses of appetite. Include some form of disconnecting from t.v., and electronics; this is a means of excess for almost everyone. Practice some measure of stillness and silence each day. Add some disciplines of daily prayer. Do something for others in the name of Jesus each day for the season. Work on your relationships. Be with people. Talk with them and listen to them. Confess your sins to others, forgive others and accept forgiveness. During Lent, ask God to reveal to you what you he wants you to see about yourself, and how he wants you to grow. Spend Lent listening for the answer.

“Behold, we go up to Jerusalem.”

The Rt. Rev’d Stephen Scarlett is Rector at St. Matthew’s Church in Newport Beach, CA and Bishop of The Diocese of the Holy Trinity. You can follow St. Matthew’s on Facebook here.

Fasting and Prayer for Mission during Trinity Season

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In our diocese, we are resuming the practice of fasting and praying for the mission of the church on Wednesdays during the Trinity season. To fast means to abstain from or reduce our intake of food or some other pleasure or activity. We ask people to pray The Litany for the Church and Evangelism. Thus, the discipline is some form of fasting and a particular form of prayer.

Fasting should take into account our health, stage of spiritual growth and practical circumstances related to our daily work or activities. Some may be able to fast all day until Evening Prayer or Communion. Some may fast one meal. Some may abstain from snacks and eat in a simpler manner.  Electronics ought to be included; turning off the radio and practicing silence; avoiding non-work related computer and social media usage. We should fast from our main pleasures. Fasting (at least) a day a week from our main enjoyments helps us not to become captive to them. Our fast may adjust and grow from week to week as we listen to the voice of God and learn to enjoy our separation from things.

We can contrast the ongoing Trinity season fast with the Lenten fast. Lent is a focused season of fasting with the defined goal of Easter. Our Trinity season fast deals with habits of life over a longer period of time. Lent is the intense workout. Trinity is the sustainable program. We should adopt a practice we can continue for an extended season, but that also challenges us to grow. If we practice this fast for the next half year, it will cultivate in us detachment, self-control and contemplation.

The Bible expects us to fast (Matthew 6:16), but fasting is an under-practiced discipline. In our overindulged culture, people get trapped in compulsive and addictive behaviors. Fasting, combined with prayer, is the main tool God has given us to combat excessive appetites. The only way to learn self-control is to practice going without the things we enjoy. Fasting creates a space; Christ enters that space through prayer and fills our emptiness with himself (Philippians 4:11-13).

How is personal growth in self-control and virtue related to the mission of the church? It is, in fact, the essential thing. Our mission is to bear witness to Christ; this means to bear witness to what Christ is doing in us. Unless we are experiencing the power and grace of God in our lives through prayer and the practice of spiritual disciplines, we will have little to show. This is the main problem in contemporary evangelism. There is too much talk about Jesus, but not enough experience of God’s power—too much intellectual explanation and too little growth in holiness and virtue.

The practice of fasting during Trinity is an opportunity to grow in our main areas of struggle. What is your main area of weakness? What is your most besetting temptation? Make this a focus of fasting and prayer during Trinity. If you persevere in it for this season (and beyond) you will experience progress. Your growth will add to the story of what Christ is doing amongst us.

Whatsoever Things Are Excellent

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When we think about spiritual disciplines we tend to focus on the details of our prayer. There are, however, other important questions. What do we give our attention to? Where do we invest our emotions? We can unwittingly waste much energy on worthless things.

If we observe the nature of the discourse that is presented to us in the various forms of media, we have to come to an unavoidable conclusion. Much of the discourse that fills time in our world is shallow. The details of the tragedy, political fight or stock market performance are communicated clearly enough, but when we get to analysis and narrative, the issues are seldom unpacked in meaty ways. The discussion invariably devolves into the idea that there are only two ways to look at any issue, and with the representatives of those views yelling at each other. Media forces all conversation into its popular shape—and then it’s off to three minutes of inane commercials.

The best representatives of a view are almost never on the popular shows. When they are there is not sufficient time to articulate the nuances of the truth—there is only so much time before the next commercial. The internet can be worse because all sources look alike. The latest crackpot with a decent looking website becomes the expert. A while back there was an internet debate about creation and evolution. The contestants were a popular TV science teacher and someone from a “creation research” organization, who believes in a “young earth” (a view held by a small minority of Christians worldwide). With all due respect to the combatants and their training, they did not present the listeners with the full range of current ideas in their highest and best forms. Nonetheless, many listeners thought they were hearing the case for science or religion—there is a popular media fiction that you can’t have both.

I recently attended a parents’ weekend at my son’s college. A professor gave the parents a thirty minute talk about the lessons Lawrence of Arabia can teach us about the current Middle East conflict. There was more wisdom in those thirty minutes than I’ve heard in ten years of news coverage about the region. The nature of the media conversation does not allow for intelligent, reflective discourse.  The only options are to choose a side and argue with the goal that your side will win.

I offer a couple of counsels in response. First, Christians should resist getting sucked in to this continuous and mindless chatter that is largely driven by commercial interests. It is easy to get caught up in the fight and invest great emotional energy in a battle that will not be won, has little to do with reality, and is created specifically so that people will watch, listen or log on. It is spiritually distracting and fuels all sorts of unworthy emotions. The virtue of not getting caught up is called “detachment.”

Second, we should beware of the temptation to fight the genuinely good fight by the rules we unconsciously adopt from the media. It is tempting to enter into the fray and argue for God as though we must win public opinion via the media to win the spiritual battle. Marshall McLuhan taught us that “the medium is the message.” When we choose a shallow and argumentative medium, we send the message that faith in God is just another opinion vying for 51% of the vote. The church should cultivate a more thoughtful conversation, and the church should be better at listening.

This is not an exhortation to put our heads in the sand and avoid all media. It is an exhortation to be watchful (Revelation 3:2). Our habitual engagement with media has a profoundly formative impact on us. We should be aware of this and make wise decisions about how we will invest our time and emotional energy (Philippians 4:8).

Lenten Practicalities

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Lent is once again upon us–along with the question, “What are you going to do for Lent?” The overall theme is that we will “eat less and exercise more.” We will cut down on our consumption of various things, and we will add spiritual disciplines.

Rule versus rules

The great danger of Lent is that we will observe it as a list of “rules” rather than as a “rule.” A rule is a standard or pattern for the life of prayer. Some sort of rule is necessary for progress in most areas of life. “Rules” tend to become laws that we keep on a merely human level, and they come to define our sense of righteousness. The difference between the two is highlighted by how we look at failure.

The purpose of failure

We may fail to observe our “rule” in some way for a few reasons. First, a given circumstance may call for relaxation. For example, I used to take communion to a older woman in her home. She always enjoyed having a glass of wine with me afterwards–a sort of social hour. I took her communion during Lent and afterwards she offered me a glass of wine. Even though my Lenten rule included abstinence from alcohol, I had the glass of wine with her because it meant a lot to her. A healthy rule is able to give way to the demands of agape.

Second, we may fail to keep our rule because of our human weakness. We may eat or consume the thing we said we wouldn’t because we “give in” in a weak moment. Our reaction to this is the litmus test of whether we keep a rule or rules. If we see our Lenten observance as a list of rules, we will view our weakness as a complete Lenten failure. We will feel guilty and be hard on ourselves. Our failure will likely become habitual and it may lead to us to give up our Lenten rule altogether.

If we observe a rule, we will see our failure as a revelation of a weakness that we need to work on. We will pray that God will give us more self-control in that area, treat the failure with grace and simply resume our rule the next day–without guilt or self-recrimination. The proper analogy here is to physical exercise. If we resolve in our workout to do four sets of forty pushups, and then discover as we exercise that we are only able to do one set of forty, one set of thirty and two sets of twenty, we did not fail. Rather, we discovered that we were not as strong as we thought we were. It would obviously be counterproductive to stop working out because of our failure. The workout is precisely the thing that will make us stronger. When failure leads us to give up our practice of fasting, it reveals a spiritual pride that is far more serious than the failure. Fasting is not about you; it is about what God is doing in you.

Third, we may fail because our rule is too ambitious. It is a common error for those who take on a program of exercise to try to do too much. Lent should challenge us but not crush us.

Factors to consider in establishing a rule

There are specific things each of us ought to consider when determining what our own rule will be. The first is our level of spiritual maturity. How long have you been a practicing Christian? How long have you practiced habitual spiritual disciplines? How many Lenten fasts have you observed? For example, I think this is the thirty-fourth year that I have observed Lent in some serious way. My approach to Lent will necessarily be different than it is for someone for whom this is the first or second practice of the season.

Second, our practice of Lent should be connected to the areas in which we need and want to experience spiritual growth. In what areas of life are you experiencing temptation? What bad habits are you stuck in? What appetites are you not able to control? We should practice doing without the things that we have trouble doing without. When this kind of fasting is combined with prayer that connects us with God and fills us with the Spirit in new ways, we will experience new freedom as a result of the fast. We should pray in particular for the virtues that stands opposite our most besetting temptations. It is less helpful to abstain from things that we have no trouble abstaining from. For example, some people have no trouble with self-control with regard to food. The fast of food is not a big deal for them. A fast of electronics or media might hit closer to home.

Electronics and media are the primary ways that our contemporary fast should be different from that of the ancients. They did not have electronics. Most of us must include this in our fast if our fast is to be meaningful. In general, younger people should focus on disconnecting from their cell phones and computers for specific and extended periods of time. The constant connection to electronic devices keeps us from listening to God and being present with others. Older people should focus on disconnecting from their T.V. I often hear from some how angry the news makes them. Lent is a good time to turn the news off, add times of prayer and silence and remember that Jesus is Lord. Most of us have way too much “noise” and distraction in our lives. To grow in the life of prayer we must necessarily learn to grow in the practice of stillness and silence.

Third, age and station in life should impact our observance of Lent. The fast of food should be relaxed with age and for reasons of health. The goal is to grow spiritually, not destroy yourself physically. Also the fast must take into account the demands of work and family. As we grow in our practice of spiritual disciplines, we will have less trouble combining fasting with work. But beware of trying to do  too much too soon. Spiritual growth is a long term project. Stretch yourself, but don’t crush yourself.

The basic rule as a point of departure

Our basic rule is this. Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are days of complete fasting from food. The daily fast is one full meal and two smaller portions. Additionally, we fast from pleasures like alcohol, tobacco and sweets. The calendar calls for “abstinence” on Wednesday and Fridays. This means no flesh meat. Our added prayer will begin with faithful Sunday participation in the Eucharist and, perhaps, the addition of a mid-week mass. We should be more disciplined in our praying of the daily offices, and we should include additional times of conversational prayer, meditation, or contemplation. This basic rule should be embraced and adjusted by each person in accordance with the discussion above.

Lent is an opportunity for spiritual growth. We enter into the wilderness with Jesus for forty days in order to create space in our lives for God to do new things. If we view Lent in the right way, it is an exciting season of opportunity that will prepare us for a joyous celebration of Easter.