A menacing trio of potentially debilitating powers is pummeling our bodies, minds and souls, and does not appear to be departing anytime soon. Pandemic devastation, political and social divisiveness, and prevailing despair are taking a terrible toll.
Echoing the Psalmist’s lament, departed Wartburg Seminary Professor Ralph F. Smith paints our present time into his memorable text:
The evil lurks within, without,
it threatens to destroy
the fragile cords that make us one,
that bind our hearts in joy. (ELW 698:2)
Naming a trio of menacing disturbances, this Lenten season provides us opportunity to identify and initiate a tried and true trifecta of spiritual practices for resilient living. A term used in sporting events, trifecta can also describe any group, set, or series of three; a triad.
Consider now a time-honored trifecta of spiritual practices as modeled by the Apostle Paul, for such a time as this. Not intending to claim a 1:1 comparison between the persecution facing the Apostle Paul and the early church with our personal experience in the midst of the pandemic, we do well to identify and employ his effective trifecta of spiritual practices which strengthened and encouraged Jesus’ followers during especially trying times.
Paul exhibits three linked practices available to strengthen and encourage us moving forward through these daunting days with faith. “(W)ith prayer and fasting they entrusted (the disciples) to the Lord in whom they had come to believe” (Acts 14:23).
Prayer. During this liminal time of limited clarity, it’s not so much what we know for certain about God and ourselves, rather it is acknowledging what we don’t know, that will deepen our prayer. Which leads us to….
Entrusting. In both micro and macro issues faced each day, we are wise in pausing at Step Three in the Twelve Steps of AA and Al-Anon: Made a decision to turn our will and lives over to the care of God. We entrust ourselves and one another to the Lord. In other words, we let go of control.
Professor Smith again provides a text for this time of unknowing, a time for entrusting:
“How long, O God?” the psalmist cries,
a cry we make our own.
Though we are lost, alone, afraid,
our God will lead us home. (ELW 698:5)
Fasting. Praying acknowledgment of how very little we know for sure; entrusting our lives and others to the care of God, we seek God’s guidance for “giving up” whatever habits, distractions, opinions and obsessions delay or deflect a palpable experience of God’s encouragement and strength for us, and through us, encouragement, healing and restoration for our neighbor. Humbly exercise a discipline of prayerful self-examination. Suppose you and I stopped thinking of giving up something for Lent, and began considering what we might give up for life!
Stephen J. Cornils ('70)
Chair, Board of Directors
Wartburg Theological Seminary
