The Wilderness of Relationship
Often, when we get to the Lenten season, we might think of the need to withdraw from groups for some period of time in order to have an extended window of prayer and reflection. From a quiet day at our parish church to a full silent retreat of a week or more, Lent is a season of the church year in which the pull towards quiet and isolation feels fitting to the season. It is a time of the church year that invites us into the observance of a holy season of preparation by “self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God's holy Word.” (BCP, p. 265) In a normal year, it might be that we feel particularly drawn to these ideas as one of many ways to have a wilderness experience within our Lenten practice. For many of us, the draw to a day of quiet contemplation will still resonate with our souls and will be the invitation that we are hungry to accept as part of our own preparation for the glory of the Holy Week pilgrimage.
It is true that quiet and isolation for contemplative practice is a wild space in the midst of today’s culture. The simple invitation to turn off the noise of the outside world is appealing and one that many of us will say yes to before we leave the Lenten season of prayer, self-examination, and of reading and meditating on God’s holy Word. But, I find myself wondering if perhaps the wilderness we need to enter a little more fully in this year is the wilderness of relationship with one another.
The weariness of our souls is in part something that was brought on by the pandemic as we practiced compassionate distancing. As creatures, we are created to be in relationship with one another. We are created to exist in communities that gather to celebrate one another and to practice the holy practice of friendship. We are invited to be in the wild space of relationship and to know God’s love precisely because we are in relationship with one another.
Practicing relationship is something that can challenge us to grow beyond where we are today. Relationship demands something of a give and take if I seek to remain in relationship with the person sitting in front of me. It is a time in which I have an opportunity to receive a new gift from God, if I have the eyes to hear it and the ears to see it as a gift. In his book Being Disciples, Archbishop Rowan Williams writes, “Yet it can’t be said too often that the first thing we ought to think of when in the presence of another Christian individual or Christian community is: what is Christ giving me through this person, this group?” It seems to me that this is quite the radical practice of hospitality and of welcome. If I am able to ask that question not only of other Christians but also of other people more generally, it seems that I am open to receive the gift that God is putting in front of me in the moment that I might call now. Williams goes on to say, “It doesn’t mean that you will agree with everything the other Christian says or does; simply that you begin by asking, ‘What is Jesus Christ giving me here and now?’” (Williams, 9)
I rather think that a very real wild space or wilderness we can enter as part of our Lenten journey is to go deeper into relationship with one another. We have been separated for far too long during this pandemic. Now, it seems that Christ is inviting us to come together, to practice relationship with one another, and to be reminded of the gift of community and of relationship.
The expectancy that Williams writes about in his little book on discipleship is a radical call for the Church to be a bit more faithful in the practices of Jesus Christ. If we can enter relationship with others with this view of expectancy, of expecting to receive a gift in the exchange with another, then we might be living in a church that is radically practicing the discipleship of the Bible. It would be a church that is stripped of the purity culture which would also lead towards a church that is no longer relying on shame or guilt as the motivating factor for being part of the community. It is, instead, a church that is motivated by the love shared between people who, at some level, are immeasurably different one from the other.
How is Christ inviting you into the wilderness of friendship and relationship? What is one way you can enter the practice of friendship this Lent?
In Christ,
Hunter+
