The Surrendered Life

Not that long ago, we engaged in an amusing experiment in the Percy household. We were interested in Laura Doyle’s bestseller, The Surrendered Wife. The book is anti-feminist, and its message counter-cultural; you keep your man (or husband) by saying ‘yes’ – not ‘maybe’, or ‘no’. Women are to forget about breaking through the glass ceiling in their careers, and instead concentrate the cobwebs on the ceiling at home; and focus on their man. Performing miracles in the kitchen, we are told, will soon lead to happiness in all aspects of married life. The book took America by storm – for awhile – and also appealed to a handful of women in Britain. Perhaps unsurprisingly, most of the critics reviewing the book in more laudatory tones were…men.

To be serious for a moment. I am willing to bet that nearly everyone has tried, at some time or other, a new diet book, a self-help book, or a new form of therapy that ‘guarantees’ success. The culture of self help books is not new. They have been going well since the 1950s: remember Charles Atlas? But in the last 20 years, there has been a huge expansion in the market for self-help/quick-fix/DIY/Diet/Super-Excellence/How to Get to the Top/books, CD’s and DVD’s. All promise instant results; even a money back guarantee if not fully satisfied.

Strangely, our Gospel reading today offers some helpful hints and wisdom as we enter Lent. We are reminded that Jesus was tempted. And we are reminded to repent. Because the temptations that Jesus are offered all cluster round seminal issues that are not that alien to our culture: diet – you will perform miracles with food; career – you will rule; and longevity – you will live.

Yet the temptations are more subtle than they first appear. For a start, like all true temptations, they are not ridiculous, but only slightly less true than something more worthy. These temptations are all things that Jesus will have to negotiate in any case. But the questions are: Will the end justify the means? Is the shortcut worth it? Does what is offered really match what is true?

After all, Jesus does perform miracles with food – he feeds thousands with a few loaves. Has he not succumbed to the tempter here? Does Jesus not get to be lifted up, and glorified? What then is the tempters’ problem? It is only giving Jesus his due a little earlier – like opening the Christmas presents the day before. Does Jesus not throw himself before to the Romans, perhaps knowing he will be raised up? Why not simply prove it now? In one way, you could say that Jesus lives his life giving in to the temptations; for he does test God; he does concoct some food into more; and he does rule and reign.

But the key is timing. The Kingdom of God is a slow process of building, and unlike our quick-fix, instant self-help guides, the kingdom cannot be done in 30 or 40 days. Put simply, the three temptations of Jesus are really only one: why not take a short cut. And why not? Well, three reasons occur.

First, shortcuts don’t usually work – they cheat the faith journey. Second, God’s work is slow; the Christian life is a marathon, not a sprint. Discipleship and holiness are built slowly, with years of patience, practice and learning. Lent is about this. Lent can’t be done in ten days or two minutes; its forty-plus. Short cuts can cheapen a ministry. Third, shortcuts rob other people of the chance to respond and grow. It is possible to grow a church, or a College, or a ministry very quickly. The results can be spectacular. But now try and sustain it. Not so easy. There is no substitute for hard work. That’s why miracle diets don’t really work. So don’t try a 30 day wonder; slowly change the way you eat; effort and will are better than quick-fix cures.

So in one way, Lent is all about slowing down, and leaving quick-fix solutions behind. It is about the patient deepening of our relationship with God, and doing so in a thorough and methodical way. The aim is not to achieve instant success, but steady and deep growth. Fruit that lasts comes from hard graft. Jesus, in his Lent, turns his back on instant glory, instant results and an easy, happy ending. He will be glorified; he will get results; there will be a resurrection. But it has to be in God’s time.

So, Jesus is the archetype. In surrendering his life to God, he turns his back on cutting corners, short cuts, the end justifying the means, and our instant culture. Instead, he invites us all to walk, slowly, with him to Calvary. Be sure you don’t run, and don’t take short cuts – you’ll miss something. You’ll miss the slow God, who’s often found in the slog of ordinary life, and not in the impostor of instant results and quick victories. A surrendered life is Jesus’ path; its all he asks of you. Small wonder, then, that the first time Jesus appears, in the first gospel, the first instruction he gives is ‘Repent’. From then on, it's his most consistent message – it is what he says to temptation.

In all times and every situation, his advice is to repent. Not just the scribes and Pharisees, not just the powerful – he tells even the poor and oppressed that repentance is the key to life. Talk of repentance makes modern-day Christians nervous, even squeamish. We are embarrassed by the stereotype of old-fashioned preachers hammering on and on about sin, and making people feel guilty. We rush to assert that Jesus isn't really like that; he came out of love, he wants to help us. He knows us deep inside and feels our every pain, and his healing love sets us free. That’s true, of course. But this also needs to be set alongside the fact that Repentance is the doorway to the spiritual life, the only way to begin. It is also the path itself, the only way to continue. Anything else is foolishness and self-delusion. Only repentance is both brute-honest enough, and joyous enough, to bring us all the way home. But how repentance could be either joyous or vibrantly true is a foreign idea to most of us.

The starting point for the early church was this awareness of the abyss of sin inside each person, the murky depths of which only the top few inches are visible. God, who is all clarity and light, wants to make us perfect as he is perfect, shot through with his radiance. The first step in our healing, then, is not being comforted. It is taking a hard look at the cleansing that needs to be done.

Interestingly, the ancient Christian literature on repentance is really quite beautiful – full of simplicity, humility, and spreading peace. There is nothing in it of masochism or despair. Those who know themselves to be so greatly forgiven are far from gloomy, but are flooded with joy and deep tranquillity. Those who are forgiven much love much. They find it hard to hold grudges against others; they find it hard to hold any thing in this life very tightly. For the Christian, two things seem to be ever linked: sorrow over sin, and gratitude for forgiveness. Repentance is the source of life and joy.

Terms from the ancient languages cast further light. The Greek word for repentance, metanoia, means a transformation of the mind, whereby greater clarity and insight are obtained. It doesn't refer to emotion. St. Paul says, ‘Be transformed by the renewal of your mind’.

Hermas, in his book The Shepherd, written about A.D. 140, writes, ‘Repentance is great understanding’. Repentance is insight, not emotion; it is understanding the conditions that enslave and corrupt. I once heard an enthusiastic preacher say, ‘Repentance means turning yourself completely around. It means turning around 360 degrees’. I could only agree that, too often, that's exactly what it means. Fr. Alexander Men, an outspoken Russian priest who was assassinated in 1990 at the end of Perestroika, wrote,

"The good news of Christ was preceded by a call to repentance...and the very first word of Jesus' teaching was 'Repent.' Remember that in Hebrew this word means 'turn around,' 'Turn away from the wrong road.' While in the Greek text of the Gospels, it is rendered by an even more resonant word, metanoite, in other words, rethink your life. This is the beginning of healing. Repentance is not a sterile 'grubbing around in one's soul,' not some masochistic self-humiliation, but a re- evaluation leading to action. ...The abscess must be lanced, otherwise there will be no cure."

If we are resolved to move daily further into union with Christ, we must be ready for a journey; to face our sins, the things that hold us back, and to let God begin to heal them. Repentance is the way back to the Father. It is both the door and the path to a new life. And to have the heart set on God is to choose wisdom, and to follow him who calls us. Not to a life where desires are fulfilled, but to one where the restless heart is finally set at ease and at peace. And, criticaly, this takes time. There are no short-cuts to deep, rich discipleship, and a relationship of quality and depth with God. We need Lent to help us clear things way; strip down; and focus afresh on God. R.S. Thomas, in his poem ‘The Bright Field’, puts it well:

I have seen the sun break through

to illuminate a small field

for a while, and gone my way

and forgotten it. But that was the pearl

of great price, the one field that had

the treasure in it. I realize now

that I have to posses it. Life is not hurrying

on to a receding future, nor hankering after

an imagined past. It is the turning

aside like Moses to the miracle

of the lit bush, to a brightness

that seemed as transitory as your youth

once, but is the eternity that awaits you.

Our questions for Lent, then, are: can we turn aside from the world, that sometimes threatens to seduce us all, and look for something deeper? Can we walk slowly and patiently with Jesus, as we journey into Lent? Remember what Jesus says to us all: ‘for where you treasure is, so will your heart be’.