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

 

PRAYER

Matthew 26: 36 - Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane; and he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.”

We see from this abrupt change of location that the conflict between Jesus and Peter regarding what Peter will or will not do is unresolved. However, Jesus now has an inkling, and maybe more than an inkling, that his disciples are unaware of the true nature of his situation. As such, they will be less supportive and that shows itself in this next pericope. (A pericope is a section of text with some sort of cohesion.) Fortunately, Jesus has more than just his disciples for support.

God.

The way to God is prayer. It is said there are no atheists in foxholes (or trenches). Insulting as that phrase is to atheists, it means that in times of extreme stress, everybody looks for help; everybody prays. What presumably they are asking for is help, get me out of this, or don’t let me die. Jesus will do this too, he will ask God to “remove the cup” from him, because he is human being and doesn’t want to feel the pain and humiliation of crucifixion. Who would? Yet, prayer for those who are not atheists is more than an occasional asking for help. It’s an essential part of spiritual practice. I would go so far to say it becomes part of our identity.

Kathleen Norris, in her excellent book, Amazing Grace, tells a story about how this spiritual practice can transform us and become part of our identity. A bus driver whose bus was taken hostage responded calmly and, in the process, saved herself and all the children on the bus. Afterward, “when asked by reporters how she had managed to talk the man out of using the gun he was waving in the air, she said, ‘I pray a lot.’” Not prayed, but she habitually prays and that gave her the strength and calmness to deal with the situation.

Daily prayer can also give us strength to go on when we think we cannot. When I was first showing symptoms of lupus, my leg swelled up so I couldn’t bend it. Every morning, I woke up and just said, “God I need your help to get through this day. I can’t do it on my own.” And God would somehow give me enough strength to get through the day. I can’t explain it; I only know it’s true for me.

Prayer gives us strength, and it steadies our minds and hearts if we let it. If we pray daily for such steadying, we, or at least I, come to find that our outlook is not fear-based. With the ongoing insurrection, that is so important right now. Acting or speaking from fear only increases our fear. If we are able to give our fear to God, a tall order(!), we can act through love instead. Prayer is a spiritual practice that is easy to talk about, but hard to do.

Finally, prayer is a way to help us let go of what we cannot change. There is so much in the world that we cannot control and that still affects our daily lives. Focusing or obsessing on these things only keeps us fearful and gets in the way of what we are trying to do each day. Working on letting go of what we cannot change gives us time and energy to do something positive or enjoyable. Prayer is a way of helping to focus our minds on what we can do, on what God is calling us to do.

Jesus will do all these things in this story. He is continuing his habitual practice of prayer, he will soon be asking for strength of body and steadiness of mind, he’ll soon be asking God to spare him and, if not, to be with him in the trial he is about to face, and finally he will let go of what he cannot change by saying God’s will be done. It is from his experience of daily prayer and meditation that he knows that God is trustworthy and will get him through.

And that is a practice we can emulate. Paul tells us to “pray without ceasing.” In other words, it should be part of who we are. We are those who pray. “Even if our prayer is only “help,” or “thanks,” or “wow!” as Anne Lamott would say, we are given grace in that moment.

B

IDENTITY

Matthew 26:35 - Peter said to him, “Even though I must die with you, I will not deny you.” And so said all the disciples.

I’m trying to decide whether it’s a good thing Jesus doesn’t comment again. On the one hand, saying nothing is a bold move. Peter will find out how wrong he is the hard way, and, in the meantime, there is work to do before Jesus is taken. Time is certainly running out and this argument has become fruitless due to Peter’s impulsive intractability.

The time for teaching must be over, because, in my opinion, Jesus missed a perfect opportunity to say something like, “Get you behind me, Satan” as he did before. I say this because, Peter at this moment, is a stumbling block for Jesus. He’s refusing to accept Jesus’s assessment of him and the other disciples. He’s not only denying Jesus’s words, he’s denying the reality of who he, Simon Peter, is.

Thomas Merton, in New Seeds of Contemplation, has something to say about this, although indirectly:

… we are even called to share with God the work of creating the truth of our identity. We can evade this responsibility by playing with masks, and this pleases us because it can appear at times to be a free and creative way of living. It is quite easy, it seems, to please everyone. But in the long run the cost and the sorrow come very high. To work out our own identity in God, which the Bible calls “working out our salvation,” is a labor that requires sacrifice and anguish, risk and many tears. It demands close attention to reality at every moment, and great fidelity to God as [they] reveal [themselves], obscurely in the mystery of each new situation.

Lying to ourselves and others about who we are is evading responsibility. We cannot sustain the masks, though; at least not without becoming that masked person and losing our own self. That is the cost and the sorrow; losing our sense of self. Because while we may become the mask, what we are deep down, is still there, crying out to be heard. We can never find happiness or joy in denying our own self.

Yet, Merton says the other alternative also requires risk, anguish, sacrifice, and tears. The difference, of course, is that this way, the way of working with God creating the truth of our identity, holds the possibility of happiness and joy. Serenity and peace come when we know who we are. Only then, can we see our faults and frailties as beautiful, as part of being human. It seems counterintuitive. But one only has to look at the previous president to see the end result of playing with masks and denying our identity.

If, Merton is right, and I think he is, then denying who we are is working against God, and Peter is actively working against Jesus. That’s what happens when we stay in denial, right? I’m expanding this to think about denial not just about who we are but also about other things as well. Again, all we need to do is look at those Republicans who support the previous president to see where the road ends. We end up working against not only our own interests but also against others’ interests.

Such denial comes from fear; of rejection, of acceptance, of pain, of punishment, of loss, of responsibility, of blame. That list goes on and on. We all know that fear. That is the fear that hides God’s love from us. It’s there, but we cannot see it. It’s there for us just as it was there for Peter. Jesus’s warning in these past few verses came from his deep love of them. He wanted them to be prepared for their future. Peter’s denial, his rejection of that preparation, was a denial of God’s love.

B