Ever Ancient, Ever New
Lenten Series – Lent 2006


Introduction
“Time Like An Ever-Rolling Stream”

Jesus said to Peter a third time, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, "Do you love me?" And he said to Jesus, "Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my sheep. Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you girded yourself and walked where you would; but when you are older, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish to go." (This he said to show by what death he was to glorify God.) And after this he said to Peter, "Follow me." (St. John 21)

As we begin another Lent, we do so a year older than we were at the start of the last one.

Strange isn’t it? We say that we have an eternal destiny but we notice the passing of time with a unique emotion. We find ourselves burdened with a strange longing for where we are now no longer. We speak of our younger years with dedicated fondness. And we are a world that worships youth.

But why? Why would we, if we had our dithers, give up the years of experience, learning and wisdom to go back to a time of ignorance and silliness? Why do the glory days of life burn out with the first grey hair or morning commute to the office?

Human beings, as St. Augustine said, choose only what is good. Perhaps it can be a lesser good, but it is still a good. If we hold youth in such veneration, there must be something to it.

And there is. It is why we emphasis the importance of education from the earliest days. And this is not just handing on data but the skill of thinking – a skill that grows as we do. Maturity and development are the tools of processing the data, not the goal. Sadly, a fair education only hands on the data. A poor education never teaches the process. Youth is that excitement when the individual comes to discover the process. We see ourselves as active and not just passive. Chronological age is meaningless save for the natural limitations of human capacity. What counts, in this life and in the Life to come, is an energy the world calls ‘youth’ and we call ‘grace.’

This Lent is our time of grace. We begin Lent again with youthful excitement of learning once again and deeper the mystery of the God who is among us and within us. We are in school once again to learn the thoughts of God.

Yes, I have found the fountain of youth. It is the perception that life is “ever ancient, ever new.” Young people are those who refuse and who discover. They slowly understand the freedom and the responsibility. They are defined by choices and the ability to make them.

And so are we. Let’s be young again.

1. Refusal

The first sermon I remember hearing was the observation by our local pastor that children say ‘no’ before they say ‘yes.’ Not being all that far from this observation, it resonated. My siblings proved it as well. The young person is very good at refusing. Teens can get around work faster than parents can assign it. There is a marvelous destruction implanted in the psyche of the young. The infant discovering the artistic union of nail polish and carpeting is not that different from the vandal spray-painting the overpass. Of course, one is cute and one is not.

Is this just an effect of original sin? Is God getting His just pay-back from former teen-agers? It is more than that. It is a refusal to accept the world as it is presented to us.

Refusal is at the heart of Christianity. It rejects the present state of affairs for the viable possibility of hopeful grace. It draws with the images of the times while pointing beyond them. It ignores the limits and is irrationally hopeful. This is a good, working definition of mercy. Only the young heart can see sin and expect forgiveness. The jaded opt out of conversion because they have lost their power to refuse reality. Like a student starting another school year, there is hope and a reason to hope.

Lent is our time of refusal. We steadfastly see the old and work to dispose of it. While we may not always follow through as well as we would like, we reject the cynicism that says we shouldn’t even try.

What are you refusing? Or better, what is God asking you to refuse? God’s been dealing with His kids for some time now. He knows we can do it because we already have. And to prove it, to a defiant humanity, He’s given us another Lent.

So go on. Refuse to be less than you are.

2. Freedom

So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, "Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. I knew that thou hearest me always, but I have said this on account of the people standing by, that they may believe that thou didst send me." When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, "Laz'arus, come out." The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with bandages, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, "Unbind him, and let him go." (St. John 11)

It is amazing what people will do to be free. They will risk life itself to get it. Taking advantage of freedom has always been a characteristic of the young. They have the ability to grab an opportunity as well as the energy needed to exercise that possibility. The older folks among us know how they – in so many ways - are no longer free do as they once did.

But that’s not all bad, is it? Life, and all that goes with it, diminishes the freedom we think we have. The obligations of charity and family should prevent us from a selfish independence that neglects or ignores the needs of others. A child does not have the obligation of caring for others as an adult. And as far as possible, nor should they. Maturity is about the discovery of freedom. As we grow we encounter that allure of liberty to view the options of life. Perhaps it is the option to eat the carrots or throw them against the kitchen wall. Or maybe it is the two diverging roads of doing your homework or playing a game. Maybe it’s about marriage or a career. Maybe it’s about surgery and treatment.

Profound or routine, freedom is something we human beings discover and value. The Christian is some one who understands how essential it is to faith. A vibrant faith is ultimately a free one. It is free of compulsion and never forgets the independence of the soul. It is never interested in limiting the freedom of others and sees judgment as contrary to liberty. The Christian soul wakes every morning and faces the freedom of a day of prayer and union with God. God’s mercies are new every morning for those who have the freedom to see that. Even with the routine of habit and daily life, faith never forgets that the maturing soul must freely choose to live that faith each day and each hour.

Religion grown old does not like this. It demands and can enforce a practice that insures only its continued existence. The empty churches of Europe are a testament to this. Robbed of freedom by social and cultural standards, the ‘Old Church’ has withered. Yes, people still find the fresh vitality of the Gospel beneath the encrusted shell of the post-Christian West. It’s just so much harder. There is a fascism at the heart of even the most liberal that denies the freedom to embrace whatever they reject. One painfully ‘progressive’ pastor who admits of no dissention, once asked me in an angry tone why the recently ordained priests are so ‘conservative.’ I responded, “Look who our pastors were.” He didn’t like that or for that matter, me.

Youth has a natural attraction to freedom and an equally natural repulsion to the lack of it. It embraces what it can freely choose and bristles at what is forced. There is an inner compass guiding people to freedom because when the human is free, the human is most human.

Faith is about freedom. We discover that we are empowered by grace and nature to be and to act in freedom. We are at home with the options we face to do good or evil, to live for ourselves or our God. We rightly fear a religion without these many paths. A young faith daily rejoices and acknowledges that what we believe and do, as well as what we deny and fail are ours in the liberty of the children of God. We are not robots but the free-born heirs of Kingdom.

Are you free? Is your faith a matter of freedom? As you seek the renewal only grace can offer, is your practice of it an exercise of liberty? All that we need is a quick question and cursory glance. Do I believe what I believe because I am able to believe it? As I do good, do I see that I am doing good because I am free to do it? Do I call out to God when I am not free, when I am bound by sin and limited by weakness?

Jesus Christ freely chose to give us a freedom beyond words. His will is that we find that liberty of the redeemed. What binds us and destroys that grace is the old leaven, good only to be cast off.

Grace has made you free. So live free.

3. Choice

I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live, loving the LORD your God, obeying his voice, and cleaving to him; for that means life to you and length of days, that you may dwell in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them." (Deuteronomy 30)

I find it amusing that we live in a world where a social virtue is to be pro-choice. It amuses me because it refers to a decision that is the result of a failure of choice. In others words, it is an option to do something as a result of a bad choice. On the flip side of this social virtue is the social vice I just committed. It is a serious offense to say that any decision is bad or has a moral character. We have reduced choice to a political football played by the shifting rules of moral schizophrenia.

Children do not have these issues. Life is rather black and white for them. They have no complicated systems to rationalize or extricate the choices they make. Limited in scope and number, the young prize what they can choose simply because it is there. Adults try and tap into this. Marketers see an athlete in every bottle of water or new sneaker. The lazy and lethargic see their better selves in a fantasy of prowess and performance. The choice to be other than who we are is esteemed far more than the reality of it. And God help those who say otherwise. I hear this too often at funerals. The potential of the deceased is extolled far beyond the merely ordinary they achieved. The skills of the living are seen in the choices they have rather than in what they have chosen.

The young are not fooled by this. They see the results as choices made and judge the world on this alone. They see the panoply of options as normal. They expect it even if they do not actively demand it. They intuitively know that freedom is useless without choice and that options must be varied. The young fear a life without choices and the older fear too many. Is this a generation gap? No. It is more like a chasm.

The Gospel has always been about choice. In the freedom of rejecting the hopelessness engendered by sin, the Christian message has been and continues to be the presentation of the Other Way. There is always another choice that can be made. It is never a matter of a simple and solitary yes or no. Grace creatively finds a way not expected or often traveled. Accepting the limits of nature, it rises above or below, up or around to find a choice guided by the Holy Spirit. For example, the choice is not healing or suffering but experiencing mercy. The option is not between making money or serving others, but doing the will of God. We often quote the saying that God does not close one door without opening another one. The question of Lent is do we really believe it?

Ask yourself if you have choices. No, you do not have the options you had when you were 14. Nor should you; you’re not 14. But do you see the varieties of living your faith? Have they been lost in the rut of time? If faith is life-giving, it is also newly-presenting. This is far more than some silly theory of positive thinking. It becomes a matter of transformation when God whispers yet another choice. A Christian whose heart is open to that youthful grace is always ready for one more.

4. Responsibility

Martha received Jesus into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving; and she went to him and said, "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me." But the Lord answered her, "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things; one thing is needful. Mary has chosen the better part, which shall not be taken away from her." (St. Luke 10)

We were told that we are responsible for what we do and fail to do. From the first simple tasks entrusted to us to the most serious of situations, it all depends on us. Some can take this too far. Others ignore it entirely. And still others cast it into multi-dimensional terms that leave us…well with nothing. I think we often determine our maturity (and that of others) by how burdened we feel when it comes to the responsibilities of life. Like a criminal on trial, we are judged on how well we show remorse rather than on how truly we feel it.

It bothers us when others do not take responsibility as seriously as we think we do. Like Martha whining about Mary, we are put off that others do not feel as we do. Knowing the weight of responsible behavior distinguishes the young person from the fool, we have established a world where adults are convinced that laws and contracts are more than enough to keep everyone in line. But failing these, there are always more educational programs at all ages to re-tool the population for responsible behavior.

Guided by the banner of “actions have consequences,” we salute the idol of the Good Person while we continue to try children as adults and let adults act like children. We’ve made Responsibility a god whose every demand ends with the principle of disclosure. In other words, we are responsible only in as much as we can be caught. In a world where you can fool some of the people some of the time, do your best to fool ’em as best you can. And if you can’t, speak to a lawyer or an image consultant.

Why are the young not responsible? Well they are; it’s just that they haven’t figured out a way of fooling every body. They don’t ‘act’ responsible so we think they are not. Trust me, they understand. They know about justice and fairness. They understand right and wrong. They may not always live it, but it is never far away. And they truly see that every person is responsible for what they do even if everyone is more than ready to excuse them. The young live, more than most, the consequences of others’ actions. We adults say mournfully that the children are the ones to suffer but that rarely stops us from inflicting that very suffering.

So let’s take our notion of responsibility down a notch. Let’s strip away the affectation and the drama. Like a child, let’s accept the cause and effect of our own doings, both singularly and collectively. In that raw and even difficult form, we find a great and refreshing quality that gives a new vigor to our days. We find simplicity and honesty that frees us from carrying the awesome task of playing God. No longer do our overblown estimations of failure doom humanity to irrelevance. The exalted mediocrity of our basic skills will be released from their destiny of perfecting the world. What we have done wrong can be forgiven by God. What has been done for His glory has been offered in thanks and absorbed in the splendor of the Beatific Vision. Real responsibility is saying, “yes, I did that” or “no, I didn’t.” The young are hopeful because there’s no need to add any more. They stumble as they learn to walk but keep going. They often do not realize the future implications of infantile advancement.

And freed of guilt and that false importance of human standards, they run with strength and conviction into their next amazing mistake or glory-streaked achievement.

In the rejuvenating grace that is ours, we hope to be no different.

5. Discovery

Thus says the LORD, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, "Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert to give drink to my chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself that they might declare my praise. I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins. (Isaiah 43)

While photographing the fireworks at our parish festival, I used a cheap plastic filter that casts a rainbow to every point of light. Well, watching the fireworks next to me was a four-year old and his father. Being curious, he wanted to know every feature of my camera and its setup. I handed him the filter and told him what it did. He looked through it and could barely contain himself. He started screaming, “Look Daddy, I’m making rainbows!”

Do we have a child with a God-complex here? No, I don’t think so. But the excitement was evident and it pointed to what I consider the heart of our Lenten reflection. It is the spiritual gift of discovery. This child discovered that the familiar could be seen as new and extraordinary. The place where he spent hours playing with his friends was now a vision drenched in rainbows. There was nothing physically new in this place. The material world had not been altered or transformed. The people in his life had not been regenerated or reconstituted. But in the timbre of his voice and the light in his eyes, something had definitely changed.

As a person grows up, the world – even the familiar world – begins to appear as an uncharted land waiting to be explored. From the daily to the spectacular, all is new. And this is more than a proverbial change of perspective. This is as real as it gets. After years of passively interacting, the human person begins to discover they actively encounter the whole universe.

Whether a baby discovering their hand, the teenager getting a license, the newly married buying their first home – all of these are moments of importance. There are, as well, moments of the same impact which are not what we call happy. We face mortality when a pet dies. We perceive weakness in times of medical problems. We encounter limitations through disappointment. All of these – the good and the bad – are moments of true discovery. We find an alternate understanding of common reality and a new appreciation for the basic components of our existence. The gift of discovery is the grace of renovation. It is what St. Augustine found when he first experienced grace. He discovered something in the eternity of God that was “ever ancient, ever new.” And it was this grace that gave him the ability to see every aspect of his life through that filter.

Somewhere along the way, that filter of grace gets smudged with the fingerprints of experience. We find, in the words of our happy friend Quohelth, that there is nothing new under the sun. We see the same old visions and dream the same old dreams. We loose that experience of discovery and find ourselves bogged down in the mud of boredom. As we settle in, we fall victim to the deadly poison of cynicism. By the time we’re not even old, we’ve seen it all before.

Grace never stops finding the new. Hopkins noted that there is a ‘deep down freshness’ as he saw the world as a place ‘charged with the grandeur of God.’ For the person of faith, there is no other way to describe the world – and our journey through it. There is no rock, tree, person or situation that is not electrified with the presence of the Divine. The joy of discovery is the joy of the disciple. They always touch the hope of God’s mercy as they run their fingers along the abrasions of human folly. The world is neither their oyster nor their burden; it is their sacrament. It communicates the grace it embodies. There is always a shimmer or glitter of God’s majesty under everything and especially what is right in front of them. Their eyes are bright because they keep finding hints of this glory.

Do you see it as well? Do you find that reflected majesty all around? We imitate that radiance in the art and music of our faith, but the grandest, soaring spire can never raise the heart that won’t look up. If gleaming holiness is found only in the gilded ecstasy of an altar, it will never shine beyond it. The dullness of a cynical faith does not appeal to the young. The abstract symbolism cannot speak to those who see the reality in the surprise of living.

Look at the wonder of this life. Faith tells us that there is a glow to what God has created in nature and what He has even more marvelously re-created in grace. “Forever young’ is about seeing forever and thusly, remaining young. It is about discovering the will of God each day as if we had missed it yesterday.

The Last Word


At the ripe-old age of 39, approaching 40, you can tell that I have been a little selfish this Lent. I have taken advantage of the passing of time to ponder with you a while. But I am glad that I did. I believe that the rejuvenating vitality we think we loose is ours to find again. You and I exist in a dangerous world that repeats too much its stern warning that the good things will be gone before we know it. Its cynicism decrees a conformity that binds us to routine and forbids the in-breaking of grace. In freedom, we reject that. We accept the responsibility of living in the freedom of God’s children. We stake our claim on the eternally new shores of uncharted living.

Forget the grey hairs and the halting limbs; they are not what says we’re young. Go to the end of the Book and hear the final words: “Behold, I make all things new.”

Yes, He did and now, so are we.