Shut In.

13 On that very day Noah and his sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, together with his wife and the wives of his three sons, entered the ark. 14 They had with them every wild animal according to its kind, all livestock according to their kinds, every creature that moves along the ground according to its kind and every bird according to its kind, everything with wings. 15 Pairs of all creatures that have the breath of life in them came to Noah and entered the ark. 16 The animals going in were male and female of every living thing, as God had commanded Noah. Then the Lord shut him in. — Genesis 7:13-16

Before we get into our Lent reflection, I want to acknowledge the pandemic environment and the diversity of people reading this:

• Some of you find all of this a little bit ridiculous. You may be hypersensitive to the political back-and-forth over the seriousness of COVID-19 and feel that “social distancing” is being overblown.
• Some of you are quite troubled. You are feeling at a very personal level the seriousness of both the economic and health ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic and are struggling to understand why everything isn’t closed until we get the all-clear.
• Many of you want to be respectful of the authorities, but don’t know where the lines are. You aren’t personally feeling a lot of anxiety, but are struggling with how to handle the massive changes in your work, leisure, or parenting responsibilities.

We will absolutely NOT be playing Suffering Olympics here. I believe people come to this blog out of a longing to have their experiences validated, their wandering journey counted for, their disillusion with American Christianity pastored. I am, at my deepest places, a pastor. Though I don’t imagine—in our current religious climate—ever being offered that professional title again, it is the lens I bring to everything I do, even in the darkest days of my rebellion.

In that voice, let me say we do not belong to our particular ideological camps. We do not belong to our fear. We do not belong to our positions on whether church should or should not cancel or whether children should be going to school. We have the opportunity, in these fragmenting days, when the empire and its religion are fraying at the seams, to say clearly: we belong to Jesus.

As we Lent together, we embody new training, new awareness, new stillness, to relinquish our memberships to everywhere else, and to sink our roots into the ground of Holy Love.

The First Lent

Every ancient culture tells a flood story. This is probably for two reasons: 1) A massive regional flood in the fertile crescent actually happened and 2) because the story of systemic destruction and its aftermath provided all ancient cultures a way to tell what kind of god they served.

If you read the Hebrew Origin stories (Genesis 1-11) in context without the contamination of a modern lens, their story is clear: an intimate God who creates, loves, and partners with humanity and humans hell-bent on violence and self-destruction.

By the time we get to Noah, we are meant to wonder why this God is even allowing these people to continue to destroy themselves and the good world. Original readers would have seen the flood story as long-overdue justice, not a shocking betrayal by a gracious God (as modern readers often struggle with). In Hebrew, the story reads very clearly as an UN-creation. Genesis 1 is unwound by the actions of the humans (creation’s caretakers) until even the barriers holding the waters in sea and sky give way.

Noah enters the scene as “spotless in his generation,” a phrase that echoes the description of a lamb worthy of sacrifice. Noah presents in the story as High Priest, new Adam, holy offering. Creation gets recollected, an ark gets built.

We think of “Ark” as a big boat. But the word references three related things in the Hebrew Bible: Noah’s boat, Moses’ basket, and God’s traveling presence with Israel’s kings. An “ark” is a container for holiness: a place where the creative energy which makes the world is collected and held safe, ready for the remaking that is to come.

When the first Ark is complete, the first Lent is about to begin, 40-days trapped together inside a storm. And YHWH (the unspeakable name of God) shuts them in.

It’s Dark in the Ark

So we’re all a little shut-in. I hate it. I’m quite happy to choose to stay home all day, but being told I can’t go out triggers all my rebellious tendencies. We are told this is good for us; we can take care of our neighbors, choose to social distance. All of this is good (potentially) and let’s listen to doctors, etc. etc. But neither you nor the world needs one more person (me) adding to what is not encyclopedic levels of advice on how to be a good person during a pandemic.

As I re-engage Lent this morning, as many of you are either reminded of your church-less-ness or staying home from church uncharacteristically, we are entering the Ark. The Ark is a pressure chamber. A locked-from-the-outside encasement where the wifi is  off and we miss our favorite allegiences. We go in by choice. We are closed in by God.

I hope—years from now—we can look back on this strange Lent as an uncommon gift. When Noah and his family entered their Lent, they were being separated away and renewed. They were being expunged of their membership in the self-destruction club and instead formed for a New Creation. We are being asked to separate ourselves too by events outside our control. I am not in the camp of people who say that God is making it rain. But I do believe God is in the rain.

We are being put into the ground and plunged into the dark. Seeds buried below the light of the sun. It feels like a tomb down here. But the tomb is a womb. New life is being formed in us if we will allow it. If we stop fighting for our rights to our engagements, our events, our mass gatherings, and our surplus, we will begin to feel the nutrient richness of the dark soil in which we’ve been stored.

The frost will fade. We will begin to feel the warmth of the sun ignite the chilled soil for growth. The floods that isolate us will recede. But who will we be when the darkness awakens? Will we be:

• Embittered people who held on to our right to eternal sun, demanding that suffering should not affect us?
• Judgemental people who wagged our fingers at everyone who wasn’t social distancing the way we thought right?
• Numb people who chose the blanket of apathy and self-certainty?

We do not get do define the terms of what pulls us into the Ark. But we do get to determine whether this dark is a womb or a tomb.

God, I did not choose this storm.
I would never have chosen this storm.
I have deep commitments to my thoughts, feelings, opinions and preferences.
None of them are doing me any good.
I willingly walk into this Lenten Ark.
I willingly accept the dark of a remaking soil.
I invite you to shut me in.
I welcome the day when you open up the sky and we meet on the highest place.
Amen.