Last week I introduced Henri Nouwen and Lent as a journey of the heart; this week let’s consider Eugene Peterson and Lent as a season of reorientation.
I met Eugene Peterson at a campus ministry gathering in the early 90s. I took classes from him and consider him my spiritual father, though we had only a handful of times together. Lent, as an annual remembrance, was, like other practices, a time for reorienting one’s life toward God’s kingdom. He emphasized what he might even have called the countercultural nature of Lent by which Christians learn to resist the pull and lure of consumerism and self-centered living.
Obstructions and distractions
Peterson said that fasting is a way to recalibrate the soul. He wasn’t only talking about fasting from food, but from anything that distracts and acts as an impediment. On his way back to the Oregon fire station where he works as a paramedic, my grandson’s car met the remains of a semi truck’s muffler in the road. The damage was severe. Obstructions are like distractions—anything that takes our minds from Jesus.
As I got to know Eugene through his writings and personal conversations, I became aware that he believed very much that our spiritual practices are an opportunity to create space for God’s voice to be heard. Always, he taught us, God’s word is first. God’s call is first. God’s invitation is first. Too many of us rely on our own “agency” or power or practices. Eugene would be the first to caution us that the timeline does not start with us. Our part to play is to listen, respond, repent, and obey.
Lent is an extended time for us to get that straight. God’s word always precedes; God’s action is always first. The content of our obedience? “Follow me, run along behind me! That is all.”[1] Eugene said, “prayer is never the first word, it is always the second word. God has the first word. Prayer is answering speech; it is not primarily “address” but “response.”[2] Lent is when we learn to pray in response. It is when we reorient ourselves to the heart of God. We reorient as we immerse ourselves afresh in scripture. “We read Scripture to listen again to the word of God spoken, and when we do, we hear him speak. Somehow or other these words live”.[3]
Reorientation with Jesus’ words and way
Eugene understood that “Christ is the revelation of God in the person of Jesus: God in the flesh, God incarnate.”[4] Lent is a season to recalibrate and reorient the most essential and defining moments of Jesus’ words and way. And Eugene was a realist saying,
“Death is the defining act, the reason of Jesus’ life: in his words, it is for this “reason” that I have come to this hour… Jesus’ death is a real death. His death is a historical fact. Nothing in Jesus’ life is so meticulously documented as his dying and death… This is a great mystery, perhaps the greatest mystery in the Cosmos, in Heaven and Earth, and strictly speaking, unfathomable…. The death of Jesus on the cross can be understood and accounted for easily enough on a physical and historical level, but the salvation Jesus accomplished on the cross cannot be…. We are not at the cross to remember or do homage. We are here to probe the meaning of our own daily dying in the company of Jesus dying for us.”[5]
-Lent asks us to stay near the cross when our busy lives are so distracted that we hurry away.
-Lent insists that we see what we know of Jesus’ suffering and death as a mirror for our own journey to the cross.
-Lent places before us the way of Jesus—it is a path of humility, obedience, and trust in God.
-Lent will not let supermarket flowers, cards, candy, and ham distract us from the journey within to the reorientation of our lives to follow Jesus.
Practice: Use this week in Lent to be honest about the alignment of your words and ways as a follower of Jesus.
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- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, p. 62.
- Eugene Peterson, Working the Angles: The Shape of Pastoral Integrity, p. 32
- Ibid. p. 78
- Eugene Peterson, As Kingfishers Catch Fire, p. 256
- Ibid, 257-258
2 Comments
Thanks, Keith. We spent the first part of our staff meeting discussing this. A group resonated around Peterson’s “We are not at the cross to remember or do homage. We are here to probe the meaning of our own daily dying in the company of Jesus dying for us.”
We are going to be walking with this a bit this week and beyond… “daily dying in the company of Jesus dying for us.”
Rob and the VantagePoint3 team,
It seems that many North American Christians have softened the weight of Christ’s call—to take up our cross and follow Him. We are drawn, understandably, to messages of joy, freedom, and the promise of abundant life. And yet, the path of discipleship cannot bypass the road to Calvary.
For this reason, Lent becomes not just a season but a necessity—a time to reckon with the cost of grace, to walk in the way of the cross as Jesus did, knowing that resurrection only comes through crucifixion. In embracing the suffering of Jesus, we are drawn to find our own daily cross. These are not merely daily irritations but a pathway to rediscover the fullness of His love, the depth of true obedience, and the hope that is forged through sacrifice and honest spirituality.