G.K. Chesterton: Suffered a shipwreck

“I happen to think the whole modern attitude towards beggars is entirely heathen and inhuman. I should be prepared to maintain, as a matter of general morality, that it is intrinsically indefensible to punish human beings for asking for human assistance. I should say that it is intrinsically insane to urge people to give charity and forbid people to accept charity…Everyone would expect to have to help a man to save his life in a shipwreck; why not a man who has suffered a shipwreck of his life?”

G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936) in Fancies Versus Fads as recounted in Lent and Easter Wisdom from G.K. Chesterton (Liguori: Liguori, 2007) 90.

Chesterton was brilliant with words. His society decried the giving and receiving of charity–the very heart of the gospel–and he was not ashamed to show them how absolutely crazy they were. He had a knack of doing it with disarming statements like this one, which is worth repeating: “Everyone would expect to have to help a man to save his life in a shipwreck; why not a man who has suffered a shipwreck of his life?”

The power of charity for a shipwrecked humanity is the way in which God personally delivered it. “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8). The question for each of us is will we succumb to society’s expectations or imitate our Savior for the shipwrecked lives around us? Know anyone who has “suffered a shipwreck” in life? Do something to aid them today.

“The soul that stops praying stops loving Jesus Christ. Prayer is the holy furnace in which the fire of holy love is enkindled and kept alive.”

Alphonsus Liguori (1696-1787) in Lent and Easter Wisdom from St. Alphonsus Liguori, comp. Maurice J. Nutt (Liguori: Liguori, 2011) 101.

How is the discipline of prayer changing you this Lent? Has the shift taken place yet? About this time in Lent I find something happens within me. Having set aside special time for prayer for many days in a row, I find that even though it’s a feast day, when I can rest from my disciplines, that I don’t want to stop. I want more time with the Father in prayer.

Paul exhorted the Thessalonians church (and us) to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). Why cherish prayer? Prayer is the pathway to communion with God by the Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ our Lord. Sit with someone today and talk about your lenten experience so far. Finish these sentences: In prayer, I am learning…   When I fast, I find…   In giving, I discover…

“Know that to serve God is nothing else than to serve your neighbor and do good to him in love, be it child, wife, servant, enemy, friend; without making any difference, whoever needs your help in body or soul, and wherever you can help in temporal or spiritual matters. This is serving God and doing good works.

O Lord God, how do we fools live in this world, neglecting to do such good works, though in all parts of the world we find the needy, on whom we could bestow our good works; but no one looks after them nor cares for them.

But look to your own life. If you do not find yourself among the needy and the poor, where the Gospel shows us Christ, then you may know that your faith is not right and that you have not yet tasted of Christ’s benevolence and work for you.”

Martin Luther in “The Doctrine of Faith and Good Works” (56) in Through the Year with Martin Luther: A Selection of Sermons Celebrating the Feasts and Seasons of the Christian Year (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2007) 80.

While Luther’s message to the Church can be summarized as “salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone”, He rightly exhorts us, as recipients of Christ’s benevolence, to serve the needy. We are to help with “temporal or spiritual matters”, which means aiding those who are suffering some personal crisis and those who may need our help spiritually.

What about you? As a recipient of divine mercy do you find yourself among the hurting, materially and/or spiritually? Or do you buffer yourself from such people? If you “look at your own life” what do you see? Open your calendar. How do you spend your time? Mark one thing you can do next week to place yourself among the temporally or spiritually needy. Why do this? In the same narrative Luther adds these insightful words.

“Therefore, behold what an important saying it is, “Blessed is he whosoever shall find no occasion of stumbling in me” [Matthew 11:6]. We stumble in two respects. In faith, because we expect to become pious Christians in a different way than through Christ and go our way blindly, not acknowledging Christ. In love we stumble, because we are not mindful of the poor and needy, do not look after them, and yet we think we satisfy the demands of faith with other works than these.”

“Not that we are to imagine, the performing the bare outward act [of fasting] will receive any blessing from God…No, surely, if it be a mere external service, it is all but lost labor…But let us take care to afflict our souls as well as our bodies. Let every season, either of public or private fasting, be a season of exercising all those holy affections which are implied in a broken and contrite heart. Let it be a season of devout mourning, of godly sorrow for sin; such a sorrow as that of the Corinthians, concerning which the Apostle saith, “I rejoice, not that ye were made sorry, but that ye sorrowed to repentance…[2 Corinthians 7:9]

And with fasting let us always join fervent prayer, pouring out our whole souls before God, confessing our sins with all their aggravations, humbling ourselves under his mighty hand, laying open before him all our wants, all our guiltiness and helplessness. This is a season for enlarging our prayers, both in behalf of ourselves and of our brethren. It remains only, in order to our observing such a fast as is acceptable to the Lord, that we add alms thereto; works of mercy, after our power, both to the bodies and souls of men: “With such sacrifices” also “God is well pleased.” [Hebrews 13:16]

John Wesley (1703-1791) excerpt of Sermon 27.4.3-7. “Upon Our Lord’s Sermon On The Mount: Discourse Seven” on Matthew 6:16-18.

Wesley is spot on: fasting, prayer, and almsgiving must not just afflict our bodies, they must afflict our souls. They must change us to the core. As we journey through Lent, we may feel a change in our bodies, but the real question is whether or not we are feeling it in our souls? Do we have broken and contrite hearts?

In Joel 2:13 the prophet proclaimed: Don’t tear your clothing in your grief, but tear your hearts instead. Return to the LORD your God, for he is merciful and compassionate, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. He is eager to relent and not punish. and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity.

Before doing acts of mercy this Lent, let’s make sure our hearts are right. We are just getting into Lent, and if our hearts aren’t broken before God, the whole journey will be, in the words of Wesley, “lost labor”. Take five minutes in silence today. Ask God to show you sin in your heart, confess it and experience the gift of forgiveness. Then pursue acts of mercy toward others even as you have received mercy.

“During the troublous times of Scotland…late on a certain night, John Knox was seen to leave his study, and to pass from the house down into an enclosure behind it. He was followed by a friend; when, after a few moments of silence, his voice was heard as if in prayer. In another moment the accents deepened into intelligible words, and the earnest petition went up from his struggling soul to heaven: “O Lord, give me Scotland, or I die!” Then a pause of hushed stillness, when again the petition broke forth: “O Lord, give me Scotland, or I die!”

Once more all was voiceless and noiseless; when, with a yet intenser pathos, the thrice-repeated intercession struggled forth: “O Lord, give me Scotland, or I die!” And God gave him Scotland, in spite of Mary [Queen of Scots] and Cardinal Beaton; a land and a church of noble Christian loyalty to Christ and His crown, even unto this day. How could it be otherwise? The history of the salvation and sanctification of human souls hitherto is the history of such praying as this, in spirit, if not in these, or any, uttered words. Such humble earnestness never offends the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, through Him, is the God of all grace and consolation.”

John Knox (1510-1572) as recounted in The Christian’s Penny Magazine (London: John Snow & Co., 1868) 4.181-182.

Not only does our Father in Heaven welcome our persistent prayers in humble earnestness, they can impact even the hardest people and whole nations. It was widely known that John Knox prayed and fasted regularly and the wicked Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots said “she feared no weapon like she feared the prayers of John Knox.”

Why cite this example in Lent? Last week we considered the gift that prayer is. Today let us assess the power of this gift. It’s unfathomable! But do we pray like we believe this. The God of heaven invites us to approach His throne boldly (cf. Hebrews 4:16). Do we? Let us not just practice the discipline of prayer daily this Lent; let us pray boldly!

“Before three thousand people were brought into the Church on the day of Pentecost, the disciples had spent fifty days in prayer, fasting, and spiritual travail…John Knox travailed in prayer, and the Church in Scotland expanded into new life. John Wesley travailed in prayer, and the Methodist movement was born. Martin Luther travailed in prayer, and the Reformation was underway.

God desires that Christians be concerned and burdened for a lost world. If we pray this kind of prayer, an era of peace may come into the world and hordes of wickedness may be turned back. “As soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children” (Isaiah 66:8).”

Billy Graham in The Secret of Happiness (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1985) 36-37.

Why pray, fast, and travail in Lent? Through trailing saints God transforms hosts of sinners. I don’t have to convince people that our world today is filled with wickedness. I am suggesting that the answer for our world is not to legislate morality but rather to pray, fast, and travail persistently (cf. Luke 18:1-8). Do you pray for the lost be locked up behind bars or, like Graham, do you pray for them to find life in Jesus?

Today marks the beginning of the second week of Lent. We have six weeks to go on our journey to the cross. One thing I pray each of us discovers through prayer and fasting is the fruit of travail. Here’s my lenten challenge. Identify one lost soul for which you are willing to travail daily this Lent. Ask God to draw that person to Christ. Commit to sharing the Gospel with them if He opens the door for you.

“It helps and profits in the spiritual life to abhor in its totality and not in part whatever the world loves and embraces, and to accept and desire with all possible energy whatever Christ our Lord has loved and embraced. Just as the men of the world, who follow the world, love and seek with such great diligence honors, fame, and esteem for a great name on earth, as the world teaches them, so those who proceed spiritually and truly follow Christ our Lord love and intensely desire everything opposite.”

Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556) in “The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus and Their Complementary Norms” 101, as recounted in Lent and Easter: Wisdom from St. Ignatius of Loyola, comp. by James L. Connor (Liguori: Liguori Publications 2009) 64.

Letting go of the things of this world and embracing the things of Christ is precisely the function of fasting, prayer, and giving in Lent. Ignatius elsewhere calls Christ-followers to consider through meditation and contemplation what “inordinate attachments” or worldly affections must be cast aside in the journey of life (Spiritual Exercises 1; cf. 1 John 2:15).

In modern terms, Ignatius is calling each of us to think about what we desire with “all possible energy” and ask ourselves how that compares with Christ and the world? We do this so that nothing thwarts the expression of His love through each of us. What do you desire? In what do you invest time? On what do you spend money? Would onlookers say your actions look like the world or appear as Christ?

Ignatius concludes his Spiritual Exercises by stating that “love ought to manifest itself in deeds rather than words” (230). Let’s pray to that end: Father in heaven, we come to you in the name of Jesus asking You to graciously reveal to us our worldly affections by Your Holy Spirit, and help us replace them with the things that You love, so that our lives, in word and deed, make You known to the world. Amen.

“Take a look at your heart. Everything you see in it that might sadden God, remove. God wants to come to you. Listen to Christ your Lord: “My Father and I will come to him and make our home with him” (John 14:23). That is God’s promise. If I were to tell you I was coming to stay with you, you would clean your house.

Now it is God who wants to come into your heart. Do you not hasten to purify it? How could he dwell with avarice? …God has commanded you to clothe the naked. But avarice induces you to strip the one who is clothed…I am looking at your heart. What do you have in it? Have you filled your coffers but thrown away your conscience? …Purify your heart.”

Augustine of Hippo (354-430) in Sermons 261.4 (PL 38,1203-4) as recounted in “Passions Transfigured, Thoughts Transcended” in The Roots of Christian Mysticism by Olivier Clément, 2.4.

Lent is a great time to clean house, both in our hearts and in our homes, so that God will dwell in them through faith. In Augustine’s thinking, giving to the poor, which in those days would have been put in “coffers”, is absolutely meaningless before God if our hearts, our “consciences”, are not right.

Where’s your conscience? Before approaching any coffers this Lent, ask God today to show you areas of your heart in need of cleaning. Come close to God, and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world. James 4:8

“Whether we give alms, pray, or fast, we are to do it in a hidden way, not to be praised by people but to enter into closer communion with God. Lent is a time of returning to God. It is a time to confess how we keep looking for joy, peace, and satisfaction in many people and things surrounding us, without really finding what we desire. Only God can give us what we want…Lent is a time of refocusing, of reentering the place of truth and reclaiming our true identity.”

Henri Nouwen (1932-1996) from Sabbatical Journey: The Diary of His Final Year as recounted in Lent and Easter Wisdom from Henri J.M. Nouwen, comp. by Judy Bauer (Liguori: Liguori Publications, 2005) 8.

On this, the first “feast day” of Lent (if you are new to lenten practice, a “feast day” means a break from the 40 days of fasting), let us pause to reflect on why we are doing this. Why are we learning the hidden way? It’s not for others. It’s for us. It’s to help each of us recalibrate our lives to Christ.

For today’s feast, let’s read (“feast on”) Jesus’ instructions for us in Matthew 6:1-18. In this text, I see Jesus reorienting giving, praying, and fasting from pathways for seeking human recognition (“give…pray…fast…to get praised by others”) to pathways for gaining heavenly reward (do this, as Nouwen said, to refocus, reenter the place of truth, and reclaim our true identity).

What do you see in this passage? Do you sense the Holy Spirit speaking to your heart as you read God’s Word. How do you give? How do you pray? How do you fast? Identify one thing you have learned about the hidden way today and put it into practice this week. Don’t talk to anyone else about it, but in your daily prayer time, talk to God about what you are learning.

“The fact that we can pray is not something to be taken for granted. It is true that prayer is a natural need of the human heart, but that does not give us any right before God…We pray to the God in whom we believe through Christ…We can know that God knows what we need before we ask for it. That gives our prayer the greatest confidence and a happy certainty. It is neither a formula nor the number of words but faith that reaches God in his fatherly heart, which has long known us. The proper prayer is not a deed, not an exercise, not a pious attitude, but the petition of a child to the heart of the Father.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) in God is on the Cross: Reflections on Lent and Easter, trans. by O.C. Dean, Jr., comp. and ed. by Jana Riess (Louisville: WJKP, 2012) 4.

As I explore prayer in silence this lenten season, I am realizing that I can’t do anything to be loved, because I am already fully known and deeply loved. My true self slowly comes into view as I discover that the Father is profoundly safe. In sweet communion, prayer appears as a gift enlivened with “happy certainty” and confidence. I learn to rest, and I find peace knowing that He knows my needs and I shall not want.

So why does He encouraged me to ask for things I think I need? It’s not because He does not know them, it’s because I don’t know Him. When I consider how loved I am, I get a glimpse of the heart of the Father, which causes my love for Him to grow (cf. 1 John 4:19). That’s what I am learning so far with regard to prayer this Lent. What a gift of happy certainty! What are you learning? Share it with someone today.