A TREASURE MAP
Canon George M. Maxwell, Jr.
The Cathedral of St. Philip
Atlanta, Georgia
16 February 2005
Ash Wednesday – Year A
It must be Ash Wednesday. I woke up at 5:30 a.m. this morning craving an oatmeal raison cookie. And not just any oatmeal raison cookie. I wanted one from the OK Café with their cinnamon in it.
I give up sugar and alcohol every Lent. I do it to strengthen my faith. I do it as a symbolic form of surrender to remind myself that I am not in complete control of my life. I do it to create just a little separation from the defenses that I have put up against the Truth.
I have found that giving up even little things every year teaches me something new about myself. It, for example, makes me ask myself why I think I need an oatmeal raison cookie in the middle of the afternoon to perk up, or why I think I need a glass of wine at the end of the day to calm down. The questions are always the same, but the answers seem to be different each year. Each year I realize that I have come up with new and creative ways to get more control over my life. I have come up with new and creative ways to feel like I’m in charge.
This is even true of my Lenten discipline. I have found that sometimes my giving up is really a taking over in disguise. I’m really not surrendering control to the Spirit as much as I am trying to assert more control myself. Giving up wine and cookies, after all, does have the benefit of making me look better and feel better. It’s true. I know that within two weeks I will be sleeping better, losing weight and gaining energy. I even start to look forward to it.
This is when it hits me. I stopped paying attention for only a moment and somehow looking better and feeling better has become my goal. And it doesn’t stop there. I can almost feel a growing sense of pride in what I can accomplish. I will be able to measure my accomplishment on the scales. The people who are closest to me will admire the difference. Everyone recognizes that taking care of ourselves is a virtue.
But, while taking care of me may be a virtue, it is hardly a surrender to the Spirit that will strengthen my faith. It carefully avoids bringing up anything that is really new about me. It doesn’t risk any real contact with the Truth.
It is, after all, the Truth that I’m afraid of. The Truth is the thing I can’t control. That’s why I have all of those defenses against it in the first place. And that’s why I am willing so quickly to subvert even small attempts to expose myself to it.
Truth, in this sense, is not information. It is not the correct analysis or the right beliefs. Truth is an experience of God acting in our lives. And it is this experience that strengthens our faith. Our Lenten discipline should be about living into this experience.
I have found that I can gauge the real motivations behind my Lenten discipline by asking whether it leads me to care for others, particularly for my family and for those who have less than I have. Real surrender, for me, tends to express itself in compassion. I know I have managed to give up control when I find myself doing something for someone else just because it needs to be done. I don’t think about it, really. I’m not looking for anything. I just do it.
So, I try to take more time during Lent to ask myself whether I have spent enough time at Emmaus House, with my wife and with my children. I ask myself when I last took out the garbage or cooked dinner. And I look at the stubs of my checkbook. They often tell me more than I want to know about whether I have surrendered to compassion.
It is in these moments that I feel like I have been exposed to the Truth. It is in these moments that I know where my treasure is. And where my treasure is, there my heart will be also.
Amen.
Comments? Contact George Maxwell at: GMaxwell@stphilipscathedral.org