Intention and Action

This year during the season of Lent we are going to be following the theme by Sanctified Art of “Everything in Between”. We have already experienced some of that in the liturgy we have spoken today and we will continue to experience it throughout our weeks in Lent. Today we explore the ideas of what lies between intention and action.

It’s interesting how we see both intention and action play out in our scripture reading today for Ash Wednesday. The first two encounters of Jesus are ones of action before thinking of the intention. In the first encounter there is a Samaritan village who does not welcome Jesus and James and John think that the response to take because of the way the Samaritans acted is to act by calling down fire from heaven to consume them. You may by thinking that this is a rather harsh response from these two disciples of Jesus and you’re probably right. It may be that James and John had the image of Elijah in their minds when he called upon fire to destroy some soldiers, but clearly Jesus does not approve of this kind of action. Their intention to protect Jesus is good, but the response is not an appropriate one.

I think we can clearly see that this kind of action is a bit too much on the violent end of the spectrum. And while we see that Jesus rebukes them it’s not until when Jesus sends out the seventy-two followers that we see that the response Jesus would have them make is to brush off the dust from the city and walk away. Maybe that’s even when Jesus told them as he spoke sternly to them.

In the next example there is a follower of Jesus who says he wants to follow Jesus. This man clearly wants to act by doing the right thing. However, we can tell by Jesus response that Jesus knows something of this man that isn’t explicitly stated by the gospel writer, Luke. Jesus is informing this man that even the most basic comforts that God provides for the animals of this world will not be provided for Jesus and if not for Jesus then not for his disciples. I see this encounter in light of what actually will come later in Luke 18:18 where Jesus tells a rich man to sell all his possessions and give the money to the poor. Jesus sees the good actions and intentions of these two followers, but they are not able to fully commit to what Jesus is calling them to do.

In the next two examples we have the roles reversed: Jesus calls the people to action and while they have good intentions to do that, they are hesitant to act on what Jesus is calling them to do. The first example is a person who needs to bury their father who has died and the second has a similar hesitation because of family obligations. One commentary I read said that they read a recent survey that 40% of people say that family and spending time with family was the most important part of life while only 20% say that faith is the most important.

I don’t believe that Jesus is is telling these people they absolutely cannot do these things in order to follow him, I do believe Jesus is challenging this idea that we care for those who are important to us, and we don’t always care for those who are outside of what we might call “our people”. Jesus is challenging them to see this whole world as “their people”. We should count the work of sharing the Good News to everyone just as important as to those who are close to us. We should be willing to find the balance of good intentions and good actions. In fact, Sanctified Art calls that balance between intention and action discipleship. And I really like that idea. The balance of intention of what we want to do and what God is calling us to do and acting on it in faithful and loving ways is a healthy path to discipleship.

So this Lent I encourage all of us to get off the fence of indecision, stop worrying too much about whether or not I am doing the right thing. Too much thinking about things and hemming and hawing about it will eventually lead to good intentions without any real action. Take this Lent to walk the path of Jesus balancing the intentions we have, whether it’s giving something up for Lent or taking on something new. Follow in the way of Jesus knowing that as he heads to Jerusalem we are all called to follow him even into those difficult places so that we can care for each person in this world as if they were our own family. For it is in that in between space of acting on our intentions that we see our journey coincide with that of Jesus’. Amen.