THE SPIRIT IS WILLING, BUT THE FLESH IS WEAK

Matthew 26:41 – “Stay awake and pray that you may not come into the time of trial; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

One of the notable things to me about the Civil Rights Movement is that the people worshiped together in order to gain the sustenance and strength to go into the streets to face whatever came at them that day. They held prayer meetings, sang together, socialized together. All of these were necessary to build bonds of love and trust that could withstand the hatred and cruelty they faced. They kept each other’s spirits up, held each other when they grieved, they were stronger together than they were alone. They needed both prayer and a trusted community, because it’s so much harder alone.

Because the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

Howard Thurman calls community a crucible, “a place or situation in which concentrated forces interact to cause or influence change or development.” It shapes us and forms us. If our communities (families, churches, neighborhoods) are supportive and loving, we become shaped and formed by love. If not, well, that’s the crucible, the challenge. Those in that situation must learn to adjust, adapt, accept, change, recover, heal as necessary. Churches, families, neighborhoods are all communities with both comfort and challenge. Let’s be honest, we often think of the church as sanctuary, the place where we are safe, where we go to assure ourselves that God loves us. It is that.

But it is also a place of challenge in the form of practices we don’t like, others who might irritate us, people who are mean or make others uncomfortable, people who can’t sing in tune, predators, and, well the list goes on. The church is nothing more than a microcosm of the world, not heaven. These challenges are necessary for our growth in the faith and in our spirits. Without them the flesh will not rise to the task the Spirit has set. What is that task?

Here’s Thurman again:

The profoundest disclosure in the religious experience is the awareness that the individual is not alone. What [we discover] as being true and valid for [ourselves] must at last be a universal experience, or else it ultimately loses all its personal significance. [Our] experience is personal, private, but in no sense exclusive. All the visions of God and holiness which [we experience], they must achieve in the context of the social situation by which [our] day-by-day life is defined. What is disclosed in [the] religious experience, [we] must define in community. That which God share[s] with [us, we] must inspire [our] fellows to seek for themselves. [We are] dedicated therefore to the removing of all barriers which block or frustrate this possibility in the world. [We are] under judgement to make a highway for the Lord in the hearts and in the marketplace of [our] fellows. Through [our] living [others] must find it a reasonable thing to trust [God] and to trust one another and therefore to be brought nearer to the great sacramental moment when they too are exposed to the love of God … beyond the evil and the good.

That’s a lot of words to say that our experiences of God must be interpreted through our context, the communities of which we are a part. in seminary, we were required to clarify our context in our papers, because we read the Bible from a perspective that no one else can share. Yes, many people share some contexts, but no one else can live our lives. That context includes our social location, our “race,” our financial situation, our family situation, our cultural background, our experiences of injustice or privilege. All of these impact how we read the Bible and interpret our experiences of God. We need a church community to help us discern what those experiences mean in our lives. We cannot do it alone, just as the Civil Rights Movement was not accomplished by one person, and just as Peter will not do his work in the church alone either.

Because the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.

So we all need community existentially. Norman Wirzba makes this point by writing that we have always been a part of a community. From the community of our mother and ourselves, to our families, to schools and neighborhoods, to churches, to other communities that we belong to. We need people at every stage of our lives. We need community in order to eat, see, drive on roads. But more than that, we need community to live and thrive. That is one reason why the ongoing pandemic has been so destructive; it has exacerbated the loneliness and isolation that are becoming more integral to our society. How many of us have missed hugging other people? How many of us miss being in others’ company in peace and joy? Human beings have evolved as a social species. Without other human beings around, we die. Loneliness is more than a soul death; it can lead to physical death, because our flesh is weak.

Let us pray together that we may find community that supports us and that challenges us to be all that we can be and do all that God is asking of us, so that our spirits AND our flesh can face the trials and challenges that await us.

B

 

GRIEF AND DENIAL

Matthew 26:40 - Then he came to the disciples and found them sleeping; and he said to Peter, “So, could you not stay awake with me one hour?”

Last post, I discussed the disciples not being up to the task of supporting Jesus or carrying on his work. Here, we see some evidence of this. Although Jesus only talks to Peter, all the disciples are asleep. They cannot or don’t want to comprehend the urgency, the significance of the moment.

We see this in the US today in people who don’t want to wear masks or don’t want to get vaccinated. They, on some level, cannot comprehend the urgency of the moment. We are still in a worldwide pandemic, and people are prolonging it simply because they don’t have the courage to face it. They would rather deny that it is that big a problem at all. Contrast this attitude with Jesus’ honesty in the previous verse.

So, even though Jesus has told them several times that he is going to die, they still cannot comprehend it. And they act accordingly. They sleep because they are tired, which is good self-care, but in this case is not particularly supportive of Jesus. And his grief about what is going on is compounded by their inability to understand. We cannot be a support to someone if we do not understand what they need.

Grief and denial are closely intertwined. Ask anyone who has had a serious medical diagnosis or had a family member or loved one receive such a diagnosis. It becomes hard to wrap our minds around it, so many thoughts go through our minds, it’s difficult to focus. Yet, if we want to heal or get well, we must face what is happening. The alternative will cause even more grief, our own or others’.

Let’s ask God for help this week recognizing the reality of life, the fragility of life, and acting accordingly. Especially if that seems difficult. Only by facing reality can we be free and joyful.

 

RADICAL TRUST

Matthew 26:39 - And going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want.”

Going a little farther. Jesus’ grief is so overwhelming that even though he needs his friends around him, he needs to be alone as well. Grief is like that, isn’t it? We want people around and yet we want to be alone. Things become fuzzy and unclear. We slow down; our thinking processes are slower and our bodies move more slowly as well.

In his grief, Jesus does what he knows will help. He prays. He laments what is about to happen. He pleads that another way might be found. He asks the cup be passed from him. Jesus’ grief causes him to ask God to give him a break. We’ve all faced situations we wished we could avoid. Although grief is individual, we’ve all known the kind of grief that asks God to just have it be over. We even bargain with God. If you’ll do this, I’ll do that.

This is such an honest, human response. Jesus tells it like it is. He pours out his grief and his heart to a God familiar to him through many hours of prayer. This is an example for all of us. Some of us were raised not to complain or lament to God – at least it wasn’t a recognized thing. Even in the death of our loved ones, there’s a sense of them being in a better place, so we shouldn’t hurt. But Jesus here is showing us a better way. Honesty about our feelings with God, even if we are angry at God. God can take it!

What if, though, Jesus' grief is about more than just losing his life or suffering torture? Howard Thurman adds profundity to this scene – or should I say exposes profundity – by noting, “But to die with such a sense of ‘my work not done.’ And if I can convince myself that no one else can do the work, then death is a terror.” I can see his point. At this juncture, the disciples are not yet up to the task, and Jesus knows it. Is he perhaps thinking that all will be lost? Again, that is a very human reaction to his situation.

But Jesus doesn’t stop there. Nor does Thurman. Later in the same essay, he writes, “… the fierce hold that we have on our lives, again and again, is the most real thing that we have. To relax that and to trust God - … to trust God with just you, with me, to say, ‘It’s all right, my times are in Thy hands.’ – is the most difficult dimension of the spiritual life.” That is what Jesus must push through in order to accomplish his work on earth. That is what we all must push through in order to accomplish our work on earth.

This radical trust in God doesn’t come easy. In fact, it’s painful. We like to think of ourselves as being powerful, capable, and in control. Jesus, and we as Christians, are being asked to give up that illusion and trust God. Yes, sometimes what God asks of us is painful. Following Jesus isn’t always pleasant; it’s work. Sometimes, the only way we can continue is by recognizing it’s God’s will, and that God will carry us, somehow.

And when we’ve poured out our hearts to God, there is then room for God’s grace to pour in, grace that allows us to radically trust God with our very lives.

 Can we be open to that grace and that trust?

B

COMMUNITY

Matthew 26:37 - He took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be grieved and agitated.

The first Sunday that the church I attend was back in the sanctuary was the 20^th of June. I could not attend, because summer sucks for me. When the service and the clapping for joy of being together in the sanctuary began, I felt forgotten, abandoned. Of course, this was no one’s fault. You see, while the church was meeting virtually, my spouse and I had gathered some friends from the 8:30 service we usually attend and watched by zoom. But at the end of May, they go to one service at 10 am. I cannot attend this during summer, because of the light and heat. For various reasons, no one attended our zoom session that Sunday.

I was devastated.

Now, Jesus’ grief and agitation comes from a different place, but we both wanted the same thing in that moment; someone to be with us and understand. I grabbed my spouse to cry on his shoulder. Jesus takes James, John, and Peter with him to pray.

I want to make two points today. First, I want us to notice that Jesus makes no move to make himself feel better. He prays for the cup to be removed, but he doesn’t deny his feelings; he feels them. He wants his friends there to support him as he grieves. We so often act like feelings are inconvenient things. But that’s true only if we’re invested in looking put together at every moment of the day. Sure, there are times when our emotions are inappropriate, but how often have we apologized for being sad or for crying when crying is an appropriate response? If you’re a woman, I suspect you have done so more than once.

Feelings are uncomfortable. That’s the other, possibly truer reason, we don’t like feeling them. Right? They can be ugly and sometimes they can be overwhelming. Many of us were taught not to have them or not taught how to deal with them. In this situation, avoidance seems like a great strategy. But Jesus is going to feel them, and I think being okay with feeling whatever we’re feeling is a good lesson to take from this verse all on its own.

However, as I was laying down feeling hurt, I began to think about other people who were probably feeling like I did. Left out and forgotten. People like myself who cannot go to their sanctuary for whatever reason and are watching services alone. I’ve learned that no matter what I’m feeling, I’m almost never the only one in any group that feels that way. So, I began to think about how to include those people in a communal worship experience.

This is yet another benefit of feeling our feelings; the possibility of coming out the other side with more awareness. If I had tried to “suck it up,” I never would have realized my part in not reaching out to people who cannot worship in person. Having had my experience, I became aware of a situation that I was not paying attention to AND I came up with a possible remedy. We could reach out to all the people on the church rolls and let them know we could zoom with them. We can share community at the same time as everyone at church, even if we cannot be in the same room. If I had stuffed my feelings, I wouldn’t have been able to think about turning them into something beautiful. The Buddha calls this turning arrows into flowers.

My second point arises from this first: the question that comes to me from thinking about his is Why does caring for the worship experience of those who cannot come physically every week or at certain times or temporarily seem to be an afterthought rather than an integral part of our worship planning?

B