WEEK THREE
March 12 - March 18
COSTLY DISCIPLESHIP (PART II)
One of the Church’s ancient prayers, taken directly from Scripture, and used on a daily basis by Christians around the world today is “Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me a sinner.” Our God is a God who continually exercises mercy. Indeed, his mercies are “new every morning.” All acts of mercy are performed to eliminate the suffering and sorrow of those in need. God’s greatest mercy was sending Jesus to take upon himself the sins of the world, conquering death in the process.  Comprehending Christ’s sacrifice as much as is humanly possible, helps us as we respond in gratitude to his compassion. In fact, mercy motivates us to offer ourselves in service back to God. Author John Piper writes, “Build your lives on this mercy. Sink your roots in this mercy. But before you give yourselves away in mercy to man, give yourselves away in worship to God. It is your living that is the act of worship.”  This week we ponder some of the ways our Lord has called us to follow in his footsteps as we cling to Christ’s words, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.” And the Apostle Paul responds, “Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Day 12 - Sunday, March 12
A Living Sacrifice
Scripture: Romans 12:1-2 & 9-21
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Poetry:
"The Covenant Prayer"
by John Wesley
I am no longer my own, but thine.
Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed for thee or laid aside for thee,
Exalted for thee or brought low for thee.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal.
And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
Thou art mine, and I am thine.
So be it.
And the covenant which I made on earth,
Let it be ratified in heaven.
Amen.

RENUNCIATION AND EMBRACE  
When I was in junior high, I was required by a teacher of mine to memorize Romans 12 (along with James 1).  It’s vivid beginning, picturing the body as a living sacrifice, has been seared into my consciousness ever since.  As a fast maturing junior high boy, the idea of presenting my body as a living sacrifice to God was charged with much immediacy of meaning.  Here was a clear charge to stay pure and to reject the opportunities for sin that seemed to be multiplying daily.

Lent is traditionally a space for the examination, and recalibration, of the patterns of our physical lives, including those elements we automatically turn to for comfort, relief, or plain old distraction.  A few years ago, my family began to observe the season through individual and corporate fasts.  In a given year one of my daughters may give up sugary foods, or we might collectively abstain from Netflix for the seven weeks.  Often we find it difficult to make even minor shifts to the patterns of our minds and bodies.  Though my sin has become more subtle and sophisticated, I am very often still that teenage boy trying to keep myself from wriggling off of the altar.

Presenting your body as a living sacrifice has never been a simple matter, and it certainly is not simple now.  Contemporary American society, of which I am a product, has a very conflicted relationship to bodies.  Despite a cultish obsession with athletics, obesity is prevalent.  Healthy and grounded understandings of sex are rare, but pornography is ubiquitous.  Our clever cyber creations have only accelerated our conflicted and contradictory visual discourse about our bodies.  Never have we had more access to seeing such a multitude of bodies offered as sacrifices on the altars of our appetites.

In the past few years my wife, who is generally better at sticking to any given fast than I, has encouraged my daughters and me to also take up new positive habits during Lent.  Physical exercise, dedicated prayer time, or eating something healthy allows one to form habits of body and mind that are honoring to God and oneself.

In this humble Lenten practice I discern what the teenager could not: abstaining from sin is only the beginning of holiness, and the acceptable worship that is a living sacrifice is not characterized by absence, but active presence.

Paul seems to say as much in the final verse of the chapter: 
“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

There is an easy temptation to reduce much of our lives to the first half of this compound sentence.  In this vision of the Christian life our goal is fundamentally one of negation.  While renunciation of evil is necessary, Christianity is not ultimately a religion of negation.  Christianity is fundamentally creative.  My life as an artist has been an attempt to live out this verse, and there are many spaces in each of our lives in which we have the responsibility to create overcoming goodness.

The two images of male bodies in today’s visual art might help us meditate on this negation/creation dyad.  Father Moses’ Nothing pictures a torso, the gesture of which suggests a crucifixion, the ultimate image of renunciation (and simultaneously the greatest act of re-making).  Wiley’s Sleep makes visual allusion to many historical images of the dead Christ, challenging this tradition with a highly sensuous, photo-realistic, contemporary depiction of a dark-skinned model.  Wiley seems to celebrate this body, placing what might normally be an image of mourning into a complicated space, celebrating the beauty of the body.  I encourage you to spend some time with each image today.

PRAYER
Father, show us today what we should give up.
What parts of our dead selves we drag around
For the comfort of familiarity,
The safety of old sorrows and old fears.
And also today,
Show us what good we might take up
And what evil it might overcome.
To the praise of your name.
Amen.

JONATHAN PULS
Interim Dean of SAS, Fine Arts and Communications
Associate Professor of Art History and Painting