On Proximity

The writing block continues. Blegh.

But, I want to stay consistent, and I want to put things out there that might help, so here we are.

Yesterday (as of writing this blog), I opted to take notes on the sermon at church - something I’ve gotten out of the habit of, for better or for worse.

And no offense to yesterday’s preacher or any other I’ve listened to, but when I’m listening to a sermon, my mind is responding to the message while it’s being given - sometimes with agreeance, and other times with thoughts on how I would frame the same subject given the scripture.

By God’s grace, maybe someday I’ll be able to just listen and receive and do the thinking later.

So, this post will be an attempt to pour out some of the reflection I was doing during that sermon.

And thank you, Royce Evans - I’m doubting you’ll ever read this, but you gave a great sermon and you’d likely see a lot of crossover on our thinking in this writeup.

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54 They seized him and led him away, bringing him into the high priest’s house. But Peter was following at a distance. 55 When they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat among them. 56 Then a female servant, seeing him in the firelight, stared at him and said, “This man also was with him.” 57 But he denied it, saying, “Woman, I do not know him.” 58 A little later someone else, on seeing him, said, “You also are one of them.” But Peter said, “Man, I am not!” 59 Then about an hour later still another kept insisting, “Surely this man also was with him, for he is a Galilean.” 60 But Peter said, “Man, I do not know what you are talking about!” At that moment, while he was still speaking, the cock crowed. 61 The Lord turned and looked at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said to him, “Before the cock crows today, you will deny me three times.” 62 And he went out and wept. (Luke 22:54 – 62, NRSVue)

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Distance is safety. Or so it would seem.

Peter is an interesting character in the moments of Christ’s arrest. One moment, he’s on the charge, slicing off the ear of a perceived threat, and then the next, withdrawing at the press of a theoretical threat. One moment set to kill, and not too soon after, on the opposite end of the spectrum.

There is an irony in Peter’s decision to strike the high-priest’s servant - he was out to inflict death, whether that was just a wound or a fatal blow. A controversial opinion, but I’d say that to incite violence towards another  - an action that reeks of death, at least figuratively but sometimes literally, - is to choose death  (unless it is in ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY DEFENSE). Death entered the system in the garden, and it’s been wreaking havoc ever since.

But his choice to withdraw and save his skin while Christ offered his own up was choosing death as well, dieing to quite a bit in the process. 

He died to sticking with Christ to the “very end”. 

He died to entrusting his own life into the hands of God in the face of possibly losing his temporary one. 

And, undoubtedly, he died inside when that rooster crowed and Christ’s prediction came true, putting to death Peter’s bold vision of what he “knew” should happen.

An interesting question to ask is this: what if Peter was his best, whole self? What if his head, heart and body were in perfect flow? What if Peter’s character and soul-state were steadfast in staying perfectly centered?

We can’t know for sure, so we can only wonder - which leaves me wondering if he wouldn’t have just given himself over to the circumstances.

What would have happened if Peter had trusted Christ’s words enough to really have heard Him? That he would have to be given over to the authorities to be killed? Would Peter have held back from striking another with a blade, acknowledging in actions what Christ said in words? Would he have said “Yes” the first time, entrusting his life into the hands of God, just as Christ did?

Matthew’s account says it as such:

52 Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its place, for all who take the sword will die by the sword. 53 Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? 54 But how then would the scriptures be fulfilled, which say it must happen in this way?” (Mt 26:52–54, NSRVue)

Poor Peter. He hadn’t TRULY heard it before. He was still stuck in this frame:

21 From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised. 22 And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” 23 But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me, for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” (Mt 16:21–23, NSRVue)

So, when death came to the door of Peter’s soul, in the form of threats both to be confronted and to run from, Peter was the one who blinked, not death.

When Peter was offered closeness to God by trusting God with his life and with the plan, Peter chose his own plan, and so then, distance.

Can I just say it? I don’t want to have been Peter in that moment, but I choose that in my own moments. 

I want to blame Peter for not choosing the right path given God’s character, words and ways, but I have plenty of blame to account for in that category.

To be clear, I’m not trying to equate my daily struggle with death and life to Peter’s one-for-one.

Peter’s life was at stake in quite a real way in the gospels. His hopes for what the messiah would have been a major relief in the face of Roman occupation. His momentary decision to whip out a sword and strike a perceived enemy was probably a mix of self-defense and what he thought he needed to do to defend Jesus. And his decision to flee in the face of possibly being arrested and killed - perhaps THEN getting the point of Jesus’s words on what would happen to Him - the lizard brain took control and convinced him to flee.

While such factors are on the table for my daily life-or-death choices, I’m not under that kind of physical threat. What I share with Peter is the threat to my soul and my ability to fully receive union with God.

When God’s overarching will and intention for my life (as well as for others lives) knocks at my soul’s door, I’m quite blessed if I go along with it, but too often - often without words or conscious thought - I’m saying “God forbid it!” In that sense, I am my own “satan” - my own adversary.

I might not be trying to prevent Christ from going to the cross, but I’m avoiding carrying my own cross - that is, to die to be raised to new life.

I might not be whipping out a blade to chop off someone’s orifice, but I protest far too much when a pivotal moment of choice in my life comes and I miss the point - that is, the point God has to offer me.

I might not flee from physical death and condemnation, but I flee from necessary deaths that will help me to better receive the union with God that Christ died for, and in some sense condemn my own self.

In the midst of the sermon on this bit of scripture, I was having my own little “life or death” fork to deal with. 

And as I say that, I will say that it wasn’t dramatic. Maybe a bit of sighing over things that I’d rather “be there with” that had come knocking for the hundredth time, along with some internal fist-pumping to signal my hope that “I’ve got this now, I’ll start tomorrow!”

When our guide for the day at church mentioned the concept of what causes us to be either close or distant from Jesus, I knew exactly where I was at with that - my Rule of Life.

My daily rule of life disciplines right now are pretty lightweight - which, I am convinced, is the best way to do it. 

Prayer - at whatever part of the day I can get some quality alone time with Jesus. 

Engage with scripture - I keep this loose so I don’t put too much pressure on it, just some reading will do. 

Read my pages for the day - whatever amount of my current focus book is to be on track to finish within 5-7 days. 

And finally, take in a podcast or an hour of an audiobook - which, I only really listen to content pertinent to my faith and formation because that’s what interests me.

There were two ways I was faced with my ROL (Rule of Life) during that sermon.

1) Sometimes I have to let something go from the list on a given day, and the question becomes: did I skip something because that was the right action to take given my circumstances, or did I let it slide because I was giving into sloth - the choice, conscious or unconscious, not to engage with what is best for my soul. To be clear, this is one of those wisdom bits that I’m praying will become more intuitive and automatic over time by God’s grace and dedication to restoring me to my true self, but for now is something that I can only assess properly in the sobriety of hindsight.

2) That prayer discipline is the most important, and I’m not where I’m sensing would be best to be with it. I sometimes skip prayer if I don’t have the right circumstances - or, really most often, if I don’t want to carve out time from the other disciplines to engage that one. On top of that, I’m at a point with my prayer life that needs to shift to include more silence and receiving, but I’m hesitant to engage that shift because it’s uncomfortable.

So, with my daily ROL, the thing I know I need to help me to be closer to God, I’m letting distance creep in - or rather, my union with God is frustrated by things that fracture it. And it’s not like I’m pushing myself to be more hard-nosed about this - a good rule of life might push you a bit, but it should eventually become second-nature and require less “spiritual energy” as we engage with it consistently.

Like Peter, I think I’m reading what’s best for me as better than what God knows is best, but am instead acting as my own adversary.

Like Peter, in the face of a particular, much needed death, I’m prone to overreact or underreact - causing me to act incorrectly or not at all.

Like Peter, I’m mistaken to think that distance will keep me safe from suffering, but it’s actually the opposite - it causes more suffering.

And again, while we aren’t wise to try and square up our circumstances one-for-one with Peter, who’s physical skin was under threat, we each have to assess the threat to our souls that keeps us from the closeness (union) with God that we were created to have.

We all need to constantly discern what brings us closeness or distance from God to have that ingrained wisdom.

We all need to ask The Spirit to highlight what we think is bringing us that closeness, but is instead causing distance.

We all need to put our lives into the hands of God, knowing that God can guide each of us into the little deaths we need to constantly be brought into new life.

And please, don’t over-spiritualize this. I know I gave examples of spiritual disciplines in my life that are off, but I’ll give you some other less “spiritual” ones that I’m wrestling with as well:

• I’m not as present to my family, one of the greatest gifts God has given me as I ought to be.

• I don’t get outside by myself nearly as much, to soak in God’s presence and creativeness in nature, yes, but also to give my nervous system some much needed “air”.

• I need to be more conscientious about my diet, because when my body is out of sorts, so are my heart and my mind.

• I need to read more fiction, because only reading non-fiction is strangling the part of me that loves to imagine and wonder.

So, what is it that you need to engage with to become closer to God?

Is it addition (adding disciplines or habits) or subtraction (weeding out what seems like it would bring you closer but actually doesn’t)?

May the God who seeks the best life for all of His beloved creations give you the wisdom to know and the courage to choose.