Lent -

Fig Tree

“I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. And if you had known what this means, …” (Matt 12:6-7)

Each person has their own mental or spiritual image of what Church is. For many, it is the Church of their past. For others it is what Church “ought” to be. Either way, it is personal.

In a book titled, “Models of the Church,” by Avery Cardinal Dulles he writes:

“Christians cannot agree about the measure of progress or decline because they have radically different visions of the Church. They are not agreed about what the Church really is.”

He defines five models that people typically set as their “personal” Church.

Each bring their own favorite set of images, its own rhetoric, its own values, certitudes, commitments, and priorities. It even brings with it a particular set of preferred problems:

The Church as Institution,
The Church as Mystical Communion (People of God),
The Church as Sacrament,
The Church as Herald,
The Church as Servant, or Healer

Another visage which (I believe) gets too little attention is the family unit: where we first learn who God is and prayerfully seek His will for us. In this sense, Vatican II considers the family as a “domestic” church. (LG 11).

Interestingly, the bible (RSV2CE) shows 353 occurrences of the word “temple” and 109 occurrences of the word “church” mostly referencing a physical building where we encounter the Holy. Once Jesus is raised, the locale where we encounter God changes:

“Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If any one destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and that temple you are.” (1 Corinthians 3:16-17)

Now to the fig tree…

Check out Monday and Tuesday

The below aerial view shows the physical distance (about a mile) between Bethany and the Temple

In the Synoptic account of Jesus’ last week, before he enters the temple, he finds and curses a fig tree, a prophetic symbol of God’s judgment on that temple that was bearing no fruit.

The significance of this scripture for us today, is that it points us to reflect upon our own selves, our families, religious institutions, social groups and to the extent in which we serve interests that would earn Jesus’ outrageous rebuke.

I find the chart offers a wonderful scriptural map to “Walk with Jesus, a bit more closely, during Holy Week.

My plan is to read, meditate, contemplate, and journal each day with the prescribed scripture passages. It will be my prayer and search for “fruitfulness,” or lack thereof.

I’ll close with a beautiful reflection from Frank Ostaseski which speaks to a grace that is modeled for us by Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection:

Suppose we stopped compartmentalizing death, cutting it off from life. Imagine if we regarded dying as a final stage of growth that held an unprecedented opportunity for transformation. Could we turn toward death like a master teacher and ask, “How, then, shall I live?” . . .

ps. Feel free to comment, or share your “Walk with Jesus,” during Holy Week.

Tabgha

Ever stop and wonder who was around to write down the conversation between Jesus and the devil in the desert?

“If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” And Jesus answers: “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” (Matt 4:3)

Most scholars indicate Matthew was (re)framing the Israelite failure to overcome their temptations during their Exodus in the desert. In Matthew, Jesus does not fail. He knows who he is and trust in the Father’s will for his life.

We too are tempted on our desert journey. In this life we face constant temptation to grab for the lessor things which can never fill us: sensual pleasures, power, and honor.

The good news is that we come by this biblical truth without ever reading scripture. We have received our “first translation” of God’s Word simply by listening to God’s Spirit throughout our own lived experiences.

Lent is a time to wake up – again. Yet, Lent (for me) is also a time of contradiction. Perhaps it is a byproduct of the Mardi Gras culture in which I grew up.

I remember as a young child my mother taking us kids – to a local Mardi Gras parade. I would see people on the float throwing trinkets and desperately wanting some for myself, but was too introverted to even raise my hand and frantically yell “throw me something.” It took me many years to realize that was the necessary behavior for people on the floats to throw something my way.

When I was 17, I tagged along with my uncle to Mardi Gras in New Orleans. We had to scheme a lie to my parents for their approval to let me go. Some of the things I saw are still seared in memory. I do not regret going but once was enough. It was my first glimpse of this world’s level of craziness.

Nowadays, Mardi Gras is even bigger. Local newspapers and TV begin their promotion weeks in advance, showing pictures of all the Carnival Royalty and their Courts. The white folk get their promotions and the blacks get theirs. Civic leaders do their similar promotions since the more people who participate over the weeks that come to the various parades and parties spend money in town. The Mardi Gras flag flies at City Hall. Hotels and restaurants are making money and sending their tax receipts to government. Bakeries and donut shops are selling thousands of king cakes, with or without the baby. Even Fedex and UPS get to play.

Come Ash Wednesday, the promoted debauchery is over. Media now promotes where you can donate all the beads that you clamored for but never really wanted. There is even a front page article to show where you can go get your holy ashes in a drive thru. Before the week is over the local media now shifts to promoting the message that during lent “Seafood is King.” Restaurants advertise their Friday Lenten menu of meat abstinence: Fried and etoufee Shrimp, Crawfish, and Catfish: po-boys and plate lunches. It’s our opportunity to fast on Friday. Even the Knights of Columbus selling fried catfish dinners over eating meat on Friday.

Its all about worshiping our great idols.

A week into Lent, and our local newspaper runs a front page article of our Lt. Governor pardoning a crawfish for its sins. How cute is that?

Mardi Gras is history and soon Lent will be over. Next up: Easter season. We can go to Walmart or Hobby Lobby and purview all the pastel Easter decorations that are available to spice up our homes. Something to put us in “the spirit.” And tons of chocolate rabbits and baskets of candy for our children.

Today is the business of corporate executives in our consumer society to assure advertising and merchandise for the next (commercial) holiday is on its way for our consumption. Or, as we find ourselves in the old traditional “Courir de Mardi Gras,” …we hide our faces and keep chasing the rooster.

“Our noise, our business, our purposes, and all our fatuous statements about our purposes, our business, and our noise, … these are the illusion.”.

Thomas Merton

I do not automatically abstain for Lent but this year I need less consumption of this world’s noise which only distracts me from God’s Word for my life. I also need to be “less noise” for others. The latter is most difficult

ps. The title of this reflection “Tabgha” which is the name of an area situated on the north-western shore of the Sea of Galilee in Israel. It is traditionally accepted as the place of the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes (Mark 6:30-46) and the fourth resurrection appearance of Jesus (John 21:1-24) after his Crucifixion.

The site’s name (Tabgha) is derived from the Greek name Heptapegon (“seven springs”). Its was eventually changed to “Tabgha” by Arabic speakers. St. Jerome referred to Heptapegon as “the solitude.”

The featured art is a representation of the mosaics in front of the altar at the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes, at Tabgha Israel. The charred rock is where tradition says Jesus ate fish with his disciples after the resurrection (see below).

pss. feel free to comment on your Lenten journey.

The Chew

In one sentence, how would you describe evil?

In the primordial story, male and female were both naked, and were not ashamed. Then follows the voice of evil laying its trap of self-doubt unto Eve. She yielded, ate the fruit and gave it to Adam who also ate.

As the story goes, God turned him out of the garden and guarded the way to the tree of life, that is to say, God prevented Adam from getting back as a fallen being.

Why, to this day, do we continue to chew the fruit?

After the Fall, God called out, “Where are you?” Adam answered, “I heard you in the garden, but I was afraid… for I am naked”

Why did being naked (now) make Adam afraid?

Adam, was saying, “Because I feel shame and guilt, I fear and must hide.” Then God asked Adam: “Who told you that you were naked?” That is, “Who told you that you were bad, …who told you that you were less than what I created you to be?

Adam chose to judge good and evil. To be independent from God. To be “boss” over himself. He wanted to be his own god and his first judgment is against himself. He lost his true identity.

Adam’s plight is universal to all humanity. We can see in this primordial story, of man’s original sin, the connection of “self-worship” which leads to fear and self-alienation.

Adam (literally, “the one from the earth”) in answer to God’s question as to why he had hidden himself, said simply, “I was afraid (Gen 3:10). Seeing himself as guilty and mistakenly thinking God would see him the same way, Adam became afraid and passed judgment on himself. Adam (humanity) was afraid God would punish him for his “sin” so he hid himself. In other words, he moved against himself, he acted contrary to who he was.

Which of us has not acted upon that same voice – tempting us to believe that we are somehow “less than what God created us to be.” And who has not judged oneself and others “to be less than what God created them to be.” It is the personal and social sin of this world.

It is certainly difficult to avoid since we are tied to our judgmental world with its guilt and punishment. It is where we developed our model of good and bad, of what “should be” and what “should not be.”

If this earthly life with unavoidable suffering is all there is, then so be it. If not, then to what end should we direct our free will? How are we to restore our personal “God-given” identity?

In Galatians 2:20, Paul says that his destiny is no longer self-realization, but Christ-identity, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”

Perhaps we all have our say in what this means, but for me it means that new life is found by understanding my life in conformance to Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection. It is not a sentimental journey of prosperity. Its validity is only proven through a lived experience on the grounds of what Our Lord did on the Cross. It is the great paradox which confuses the mind.

To most, the cross symbolizes pain to be avoided. To others, it symbolizes a shedding of pain. On its other side is found new life.

With no intention to boast, I have experienced this passage several times and quite convinced that every other human has, as well. It is just not easily recognizable. I accept it as God’s promise, as a beloved child, who is invited to experience divine and human nature in its fullness. It is to participate in the unity of God’s divine life. I can only recognize it when putting on “the mind of Christ.”

To put on “the mind of Christ” is to accept God’s Word that I am good enough, exactly as I am (warts and all). I do not need to be more than who I am, in order to be loved. And yes, I need to constantly remind myself of this.

Through our Lenten experience, let us take off our Mardi Gras mask with confidence that we can live our remaining days accepting our true selves, as God created us to be. Let us stop chewing on the forbidden fruit of self-judgment and condemnation and rather “put on the mind of Christ.”

Let us be open and kind to ourselves, and love others “only in truth.”

Feel free to offer any comments