Between Intention and Action

I suspect that we have showed up here today because, on some level, we’re willing to work on ourselves.  Not that Ash Wednesday is a self-improvement seminar, nor an opportunity to take another crack at the New Year’s resolutions that already didn’t stick this year, and definitely not a day to wallow in guilt for how sinful and broken and possibly beyond-help we are. 

We’re trying to be disciples of Jesus.  And just like we saw in the Gospel reading, discipleship is hard.  Even James and John, some of the disciples who were the very closest to Jesus, are ready to call down fire from heaven to smite the Samaritans denying them a hearty welcome, and Jesus has to rebuke James and John. 

Then we get a series of comments from other would-be disciples:

“I’ll follow you wherever you go.”  Jesus replies to them, essentially saying, follow me only if you’re ready to be unhoused in this world. 

Jesus even instructs someone else to follow him, but they say they need to take care of their elderly parents—which sounds perfectly reasonable, there’s even a commandment specifically about that.  But Jesus says to them, somewhat callously, “Let the dead bury their own dead.” 

Responding to this, Dr. Mindy McGarrah Sharp writes,

“It’s almost unthinkable to imagine the request to abandon unburied family.  Marking a generation’s passing is one of those times to show up to the hard work of being human. 

“But zoom out to communal readiness: activating intentions to change while the fresh death of old, harmful—yet beloved—ways of life hasn’t even begun to be collectively buried and grieved.  In this Scripture, I don’t hear Luke denying the grief work that keeps getting bumped off our to-do lists that are utterly overwhelming.  I hear: How long will this humanity ask for extensions?  How long will we say, Hold up, I’m almost ready?”[1]

And this snippet of Jesus’s travel journey isn’t really about how harsh Jesus can be to those who want to follow him—it’s really about how serious are you about following Jesus and proclaiming the reign of God?  How much are you willing to sacrifice?  No one who puts a hand to the plow and so much as looks back is fit for the kingdom of God. 

We might be very much on board with Jesus’s teachings.  We might endorse his healing ministry.  But are we willing to get involved?  The theme for this Lenten season, developed by theologians and artists known as A Sanctified Art, is “Everything in Between”—a way to explore how God works between extremes. 

Today’s theme is “Between Intention and Action,” and oof, if that doesn’t call you out right away.  Because I think we’ve heard that there’s a road to somewhere that’s paved with good intentions…where does that road go?  Oh right, to hell. 

There are people who study ethics, which is a kind of philosophy of what moral action looks like in light of the common good, and one of those people is Brian Hamilton.  A few years ago, actually during the first summer of the pandemic in 2020, he wrote an article about intentions and moral failure, and the title of that article is a statement in itself: “Good Intentions Can’t Redeem Voluntary Ignorance.”[2] 

Hamilton notes that part of the terror of the pandemic was the inability to see the disease coming, since carriers could be highly contagious two days before even showing any symptoms of sickness.  Which means everyone is a potential threat, silently spreading disease.  He writes,

“…since this virus has killed almost half a million people in the last six months, the moral stakes of my not-knowing are incredibly high.

We might say something similar about anti-Blackness: Its carriers rarely know they are carriers. This disease — ancient and no less lethal — spreads in part by hiding in plain sight, masking itself as the natural order of things. White people like me internalize the habits of anti-Blackness, and we reproduce them unwittingly.”[3]

Hamilton then breaks down ways we slither out of responsibility, like thinking we are only morally responsible for the things we do on purpose: if my actions hurt someone else accidentally, it isn’t fair to be blamed for it, right?  He says, we want to be judged on the quality of our intentions alone. 

He writes this,

“Our intentions mark out our moral orientation in the world and are thus a good measure of the kind of people we aim to be. But they are not always a good measure of the kind of people we actually are. I may intend to play a Chopin nocturne on the piano, but if I don’t know how to play, my efforts won’t amount to much. Loving my neighbor is no different.”[4]

In other words, your actions will reveal who you really are.  And if your intention is to follow Jesus, to grow as a disciple, what are you willing to do about that?  Are you willing to sacrifice your time to think about it?  Are you willing to sacrifice your money or your wealth?  How does your devotion to God show up in your life? 

Maybe you want to be a better person.  Maybe you’re one of those people who loves to “start over” as if somehow overnight you’re going to transform into an entirely different person who has motivation and discipline and gentleness…we gotta take a breath and slow down the self-improvement routine. 

I’m intimately, frustratingly familiar with the neuro-diverse habit of making huge goals and having no idea how to accomplish them.  That’s a manifestation, I have learned, of one of the brain’s executive functions—my brain doesn’t understand very well how to break a huge task into smaller parts.  If you struggle with this, too, it’s entirely possible your brain also works this way, which is not your fault. 

This doesn’t excuse you from goals or big tasks, however.  It just means you have to learn a different way and find what will work for you.  Just because your body isn’t good at something doesn’t mean you don’t do it. 

We do all sorts of things to support our bodies when our ability decreases.  If you have trouble seeing things in the distance, that doesn’t mean you’re condemned to a blurry life—you can try glasses.  If your balance is poor, that doesn’t mean you never walk—you can try walking with a cane or another assistive device like a walker. 

And if your brain is struggling to figure out where to begin on a huge task, well, it’s challenging to figure out this is a problem because we don’t quite have something for the brain that’s equivalent to an assistive device like eyeglasses or a cane.  But it can be done. 

And I think that’s kind of what this time during Lent is for—figuring out how to accomplish the tasks of discipleship by trying on spiritual disciplines to discover what fits and what will help you grow as a disciple of Jesus. 

Maybe you commit some time every day to sit in silence and gratitude before God—that’s prayer as meditation.  Maybe you come to worship because you need the physical experience of showing up somewhere—gosh, what a privilege it is to be able to show up after experiencing a pandemic that shut down so many in-person gatherings.  Maybe you listen to the midweek worship in playback mode while walking around your neighborhood—that’s prayer too. 

I’m not here telling you things you gotta do to be a good disciple—it’s pretty simple instruction, follow Jesus and just give up everything.  And the threat of not doing any of these things isn’t hell or damnation or whatever.  If you ever had a goal that you didn’t reach, you already know what the consequences are. 

And I’m not here giving an accounting of salvation for everybody on earth, that’s not my job.  I’m not preaching to everybody: I’m preaching to YOU.  You are the ones who showed up, which means you’re at least trying.  And if you’re listening to the livestream or in playback mode, you made an effort.  There’s always more to be done but we’re all doing the best we can.  Lent is kinda like discipleship coaching: it takes quite a bit of effort, but the payoff is huge. 

I mean, Paul kinda named those payoffs in the best way:

“As servants of God, we have commended ourselves in every way: in great endurance, afflictions, hardships, calamities, 5 beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; 6 in purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, 7 truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; 8 in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as impostors and yet are true, 9 as unknown and yet are well known, as dying and look—we are alive, as punished and yet not killed, 10 as sorrowful yet always rejoicing, as poor yet making many rich, as having nothing and yet possessing everything.”[5]

Amen. 

 Pastor Cheryl

[1] A Sanctified Art

[2] Brian Hamilton, “Good Intentions Can’t Redeem Voluntary Ignorance,“ Sojourners Magazine, July 1, 2020, https://sojo.net/articles/good-intentions-can-t-redeem-voluntary-ignorance 

[3] Ibid

[4] Ibid.

[5] 2 Corinthians 6:4-10