by Rev. Dr. Daniel C. Wilburn

Remembering Passion Week, we should recall that yesterday, Monday, Jesus visited the Temple in Jerusalem.  He rode in on the donkey colt as royalty.  He looked around the temple.  Depending on which gospel evangelist you pay attention to, Jesus then cleared the temple outer court of the money changers.  I think we misunderstand the money changers.  They weren’t just crass profiteers making a shekel off the worshipers.  No, they had a righteous function: changing dirty Roman coinage into holy coinage – they kept worshipers from defiling the temple with pagan money.  Good men.  Jesus clears them out.
No matter which evangelist you read, one thing was certain: today, Tuesday,  the religious leaders decided Jesus was a big problem.  “By whose authority do you do these things?  Who authorized you?”  Power struggle.
Today is the most evil day.  Today and tomorrow.  For today normal men, good men, family men, holy men, loyal men got together and plotted how they can kill Jesus according to the law.  Think of the conversations… “He has got to go.  He’s going to bring down the whole Roman garrison down on us.  He’s going to cause a riot.  Innocent people will ruthlessly get killed.  Our nation, our temple and our families are at stake.  All our religious deals we’ve swung with the Romans are in jeopardy.  Herod won’t stand for some pretender king.  He’ll do something rash and stupid and really mess it up with the Romans.”
I think it was Thomas Merton who said, “It is always the good people who do the most destruction.”  Why? Because the good men are just like all the rest of us – all of us silently, quietly endorse great evil… we pitch in to straighten out and police a middle eastern oil nation, or quietly endorse Jim Crow laws (but these days they are polite geographic boundaries: inner city vs. suburbia), and defend health care for the middle class at the expense of the oppressed uninsured.  Good men do nothing but wag their heads and say, “Such a shame that Jesus man had to die.  I suppose he just spoke his mind too often.  So what can anyone do?”
Good men do little and defend the status quo.  Good men play the game.  This day, this Tuesday is the day good men devised a scheme to kill Jesus.  I don’t want to be a good man.

by Rev. Dr. Daniel C. Wilburn

I keep throwing around a few cryptic terms when I discuss spirituality.  Here’s a few definitions:
Askesis – Greek word, to do one’s best, to endeavor, to apply rigors to our living.  Discipline.
Asceticism – the doctrine of askesis, that is, the study of spirituality.  It is interesting to me that though I ran across this word I was never taught much about asceticism.  I think this is because Evangelicals were so scared of its history since it comes from the desert fathers, monks and mystics. Also, Reformer Martin Luther and the other Reformers threw out the monasteries, and therefore most of the spirituality of asceticism and replaced it with information and doctrinal disciplines.  Martin Thornton called ascetical theology “the technique of loving God.”
Exercitant – one who exercises spiritual disciplines.  (pronounce it by just ignoring the first “t” – X-er-sant)
Contemplative – Eugene Peterson said that contemplation is imagination, and meditation is means study.  By “imagination” he means that we should pick up the Bible’s story and put ourselves into the story – the story continues with our lives.  To meditate means we study to find out what the text meant back then; but contemplation means we start the text’s story where history left off. 
That’ll do for now – too many terms and we’ll choke our brains!

by Rev. Dr. Daniel C. Wilburn 

​Several people at Lakeland decided to experiment with forming a Spiritual Order at Lakeland this Lent.  There are expectations… Lectio Divina at least once a week, celebrate the divine hours three times a day, make contemplative retreat three times a year; do some spiritual reading, pray for some area of the church, come to a Sunday-in-between-services Eucharist… and some more.
How’s it going?  Comment below if you so desire.
For me, I am getting into the Daily Office (divine hours).  I downloaded www.Universalis.com and set my phone alarm for 8:35am, 11:35am and 4:35pm.  The Hours show up on my phone.  I can read the Psalms and other prayers wherever I happen to be – provided I have the time and place (like NOT  driving).
This whole Spiritual Order is a grand experiment.  (Hey my 11:35 alarm just went off – be back in a few minutes…  ….  …. …. Okay, I am back).
The experimental theme has much to do with the complexities of a “check list” spirituality – will we get caught up in the “legalism” and performance of the Order’s demands?  We decided to error on the side of the check list this time around because most Protestants are so averse to a “works mentality” that they actually just don’t have any rigorous spirituality, no habit, no spiritual rhythm, no expectations.  And then they sit around a beat themselves up for not having a quiet time, or complain that they want to feel closer to Jesus, but haven’t committed themselves to effort.  As Dallas Willard puts it “spirituality done wrongly is the cause of some much pain in our world” (my lame paraphrase from memory).  Since we tend to suffer from the errors of a do-nothing spirituality, let’s just test this supposed check list slippery slope – let us tempt the works-demon – let’s just see if this fear is grounded.  I am winning! How about you?

by Rev. Dr. Daniel C. Wilburn

Fifteen of us just returned Sunday afternoon after a two-night contemplative retreat at Conception Abbey, Conception, Missouri.  We did not make retreat to “do our spirituality on retreat” and then return to “normal living” back home.  No, we made retreat to re-learn how to be present to g-d AT HOME.  Retreat is simply an exercise room – a place to learn new ways of listening to the voice of g-d, and a new way of loving others.  To make retreat just for our own selfish introspection is the exact opposite reason why anyone would follow Jesus:  “Follow me and I will make you fish for others.”
To seek union with God that would imply complete separation (from others) would be to a Christian saint not only absurd but the very opposite of sanctity. – Thomas Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert, p.17
The reason we make retreat is to go home.  Home is where the fruit of the Spirit is eaten:  love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  No one needs these virtues while on retreat (though I’d find it very difficult to be in solitude, silence and prayer without some patience and self-control!)  But to go home – now we will need kindness, patience, self-control, etc.
We went on retreat to face our sin and demons.  We made retreat to stand up to our self in the mirror – and see our false self and call it out: Judger, Fornicator, Liar… and then receive from Jesus our new name, our new identity, our true self: Rock, Sons of Thunder, Friend, Brother, Beloved, World-Changer, Holy One, Fishers-of-Others, or even Martyrs.
On retreat we hear from Jesus, “I like you.”  Jesus doesn’t love us because he has to, because of some “theological necessity.”  No, it is more like this…
You fish, and then we will cook and eat the fish together, and sit around the fire together.  I have all of heaven at my beck and call.  But I have no where else I’d rather be than to be with you. – Jesus
Go home – but do not follow your old pattern of the day.  It is time to disrupt the status quo.  How?  For starters attend Lectio Divina each Wednesday morning, 6:30 a.m. at the Soul Sanctuary’s Prayer Circle.  Bring your journal, Bible and pen, and continue to listen for the voice of g-d in Scripture and with others.
Do this:  set your phone alarm during day and stop for a prayer or reading at lunch time or mid-morning.  Yes, it will come as an interruption – that’s what we are talking about!  Do life different.
More: turn off the radio on the way to work or at home.
The church celebrates the resurrection of Jesus April 4th this year.  Begin your new habit or rhythm today and continue at least until Easter.
No one ever drifted into a deeper abiding with Jesus.  No one ever continued to do the same thing and got different results.  This makes me think of the old Dallas Cowboys’ coach, Tom Landry, quote:
My job is to get you to do the things you don’t want to do, so you can become the men you always wanted to be. 
Thank you Jesus.  Amen.

by Rev. Dr. Daniel C. Wilburn

I remember sitting in my counselor’s office a few years ago and he told me, “Sex is biological.”  He meant ‘sex is a natural function and urge.’  Sex is not a habit or an emotion.  It is biological.  But like all biological urges sex is within the control of the will.  Sex is not evil or bad, no more than hunger is evil or bad.
“All of the seven deadly sins are rooted in the flesh. But unlike Buddhism, which sees desire itself as the root of all evil, Christianity has never identified desire itself as sin.  It is inordinate and excessive desire expressing itself compulsively that is seen as sinful.  Natural pleasures like food and sex, being part of our true humanity, are good.” – Simon Chan, Spiritual Theology, p66
[Seven deadly sins: vainglory, envy, anger, melancholy, greed, gluttony and lust – John Cassian (360-435)]
Augustine described the cardinal virtues as directed towards the world – prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance (as opposed to the theological virtues – faith, hope and love, which direct us to g-d).  He states… prudence is “love making a right distinction between what helps it toward God and what might hinder it.” (Chan, p92)  Temperance and its Chastity are related to the disciplines of abstinence, because they “manage” the will, they control the temptations of the flesh – in our case lust.
The flesh is always the battlefield.  Our will either serves the Spirit or serves the flesh.  The way of the flesh is slavery, a bad slavery. Whereas slavery to the Spirit is life-giving freedom and peace.  No wonder Paul says “I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should.” 1 Cor. 9:27  This is why we cannot present ourselves to temptation unaware.
We are caught between a good biological necessity and sex’s appetite for indulgence.  Dallas Willard thinks therefore, that sex cannot be done away with (read: “the monks got it wrong again”).  This is why Paul says “it is better to marry than to burn” 1 Cor. 7:9.  Sexuality is indeed a deep drive, a core feature of our identity.  No wonder abuse destroys so deeply.  No wonder self image and self worth are so integral to one’s sexuality.  Those men who think no one “good enough” will ever marry them settle for someone with equally low self esteem – as low as themselves and they then proceed to duplicate the same broken dysfunction as their family of origin.  Years of pastoring have brought to my office a full array of sexual dysfunction, broken identities, sin, deviance and abuse.
But rather than pronouncing “everyone should work extra hard on controlling their sexual appetites” I’d rather say a) sex is biological – don’t try to kill it or you’ll end up worse off than before, and b) learn from your sexuality – it is a part of your identity and so it has a massive voice about your neediness, your self-worth, your intimacy quotient.  And then c) don’t give the devil a foothold – watch over your soul with all care.  You’ve been bought with a very expensive price.