Thursday, March 24, 2016

Be careful what you pray for: A Lenten meditation

Be careful what you pray for; you just might get it.

This year, I gave up alcohol for Lent. It's not like I drink that often anyway - a glass of wine or a beer with dinner once or twice a week. I figured it'd be a small thing to give up, just a little occasional sacrifice to make me just a little more mindful of the sacrifice Christ made for us. Not a big thing, I thought - I wasn't up for a big thing, but was hoping to take Mother Theresa's advice and do little things with love.

My advice to anyone contemplating giving up alcohol for Lent is:

NEVER do that.

I've never in my life been so tempted to drink.

So MANY crappy things happened this Lent. Work-related crises, the deaths of two of my favorite people, injuries, loved ones going through hardship - just so many things that would tempt anyone to drink. And also, so many times we were with groups of people who were having a beer or wine with a nice dinner, and it'd just have been nice to have one with them.

That seems to be how things work, sometimes. When we ask God for a virtue, or commit to God to work on a virtue, it seems that God grants that virtue. The problem is, the only way for human beings to gain a virtue is by being put in situations that FORCE us to have that virtue. Soldiers become courageous by being forced to be courageous in battle. Parents become patient by being forced to be patient through tantrum after sleepless night after tantrum. So when I commit to temperance for Lent, there's really only one way God CAN respond.

I should have known this already. I once made the mistake of praying for humility.

NEVER DO THAT.

The only way for human beings to learn humility, is to have humbling things happen to them. This is one of the few times in my life I ever got a direct and immediate answer to prayer.

The context was a "missionary trip" to Mexico City with my church youth group when I was a senior in high school. For those who didn't grow up Evangelical, the idea was that we would share the Gospel with whoever we came across, starting with skits about God to draw a crowd, followed by a brief sermon. Since we were in, well, Mexico, and most of us spoke little or no Spanish, the skits were mostly mimed to music. We also had a group of us dressed as clowns, to interact with the kids. I was part of that group.

Every evening we'd gather and we'd pray. One of the things I prayed for was humility. The other was to see Jesus in the people we reached out to.

Be VERY careful what you pray for...

On the last day we went out into the city, we went to the garbage dump, where thousands of people live. We helped hand out beans and tortillas, and then we did our skits and sermon. Afterwards, we started playing futbol with some of the kids. The ball went into a ditch, and I went in after it. I think several people shouted at me not to, but I didn't know enough Spanish to understand what they were saying.

Turns out, they were saying "Hey, kid, stay out of the ditch, it's full of sewage!"

Well, of course, being 17, I was too mortified by the fact that I was ankle-deep in sewage to pay much attention to anything else for a while, but I do remember that after I climbed out, one of the little abuelitas got a bucket of water and did the best she could to help me rinse the crap off my shoes (and pants).

I got some good-natured teasing at youth group for the next few months, and the nickname "Sewage Man". At the time, the lesson I felt I was being given was to consider the humility of Christ - for Him to come to earth as a human was, I thought, equivalent to being covered in sewage, since human nature and the human body are inherently dirty and sinful. (This is a common line of thinking in Evangelical Christianity, and explains a lot about the way Evangelicals talk about human behavior in general and sex in particular).

Several years later, when I joined the Episcopal church, we were preparing for Maundy Thursday. "Maundy" being a shortened version of "Mandatum Novum" - "The New Commandment" - "A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you... Since I, your teacher and Lord, have washed your feet, so you must wash one another's feet". Our priest pointed out that most religions have sacraments that are similar to the Christian ones: a holy meal like Communion, a holy bathing or cleansing ritual like baptism, a rite for marriage, a rite for burial, even in some religions a rite celebrating the death and rebirth of the god... but alone of all the gods, the Christian God washes feet and calls that sacred. Alone of all the gods, our God comes not to be served but to serve, and commands His followers to do likewise.

To wash feet is to take on the role of Jesus.

And then, as my priest washed my feet that Thursday, and I in turn washed the feet of fellow parishioners... I remembered that abuelita washing sewage off my feet in the garbage dump, and realized the true significance of how God had answered my rash prayer all those years ago.

He had shown up in person, robed in the flesh of an ordinary woman. And I didn't notice, because I thought I was there to be the hands of Christ to her, and was embarrassed at needing her help.

THAT was the moment I finally had a brief flash of real humility.


Be careful what you pray for. You just might get it.




(So Lord: I hope You won't mind that I don't EVER intend to pray for patience. I see a pattern here...)