Turn Your Face to Jerusalem
As we walk the hard road of Lent, our faith tradition tells us that a time soon coming will lead to our necessary public statement of faith amidst conflict and upheaval. The rigors of Lent prepare us for what is to come. Jesus turns his faith to Jerusalem, the holy city, where so many of the prophets have been killed in the name of political expediency and religious conviction. Holy Week awaits.
As I have shared, a baptism tradition in the ancient Christian Church was to have the candidates for baptism prepare through rigorous spiritual practice and devotion during Lent. Prayer, politically, was about giving our heart to the things devoted to by the Heart of God. Fasting, politically, was about detaching the will from the direction of a Domination System caught up in war, slavery, and violence. Almsgiving, politically, was about recognizing that the wider system was not as how God intended it and a necessary connection we have to the poor.
Baptism was a difficult decision. It was a definitive cut from the values and things espoused by the wider world. Who wants to be that radical? That devoted? Lent was about proving our mettle for the wilderness that would certainly follow after the baptism.
This year our Holy Week corresponds with the sacred seasons of so many other historic faiths. Passover is around the same time. Ramadan begins. A holy convergence is taking place. A reminder of the holiness of the whole earth is being placed before us. Holi. Vaisakhi. Ramadan. Passover. Holy Week and Easter. Vesak. Naw Ruz. Ridvan.
These religious holidays - which take place between March 17th and May 6th - attract billions of people. The Equinox, Earth Day, and World Water Day, which also occur during this time, engage even more people.
Green Faith (www.greenfaith.org) is referencing this as a sacred season for climate justice. My plan is to participate in one of the street seders corresponding with Passover. This action will spill out into prayer and fasting around a large financial institution to see transformation occur so that the fossil fuel industry, crumbling as it is, no longer receives the large welfare checks from these financial institutions and governments. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that the fossil fuel industry receives welfare checks from these large banks and governments to the tune of $11 million dollars a minute! And the IMF has long been considered a very conservative institution.
What will we do in these sacred seasons? How will we be people of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving? How do we devote ourselves to those values which go straight to the Heart of God? How do we show our freedom and balance to fast from that which destroys and makes war? How do we show our connection to those who have been spit out by the system?
Holy Week beckons to us this year. It calls, as it always has, to those who are willing to turn their face to Jerusalem and show the mettle of their faith. May all of us remember our baptism in preparation.
Blessings,
Mike
