Lectio Divina with the Apostles

Predictably, every spiritual author has a chapter, somewhere, in which the method of Lectio Divina is described.  Typically, it goes something like this "over the course of three, slow readings, the practitioner is to answer three questions: first "what word or phrase jumps out at me?" second "Why is that word or phrase jumping out at me?" And finally "what do I believe this scripture to be calling me to?"

This method is fine and good, I suppose.  But it can lead to simple confirmation bias--we see what we want. And It leaves in place the very thing that humility seeks to reduce: ego. Luckily, the apostles had a different method.  [bxA] Be forewarned: it is not fun.  It demands a great deal of those who practice it.

In this method, tension gathers at the question words.  Initially, because we're looking for help outside ourselves, we become focused on "empty space" (as it is written "watch, therefore, for you know not when the master of the house is coming.") We have heroic work to do.  See, we're inclined to see it emptiness as negative--because silence surfaces the heart's negativity.  But this is only so that we can recognize our appointed conversion experience, "aha" that moment when the background becomes foreground and emotional options expand.  Only after he was nailed to the cross did Jesus find the means to forgive his persecutors.

Let me clarify what I mean when I say "tension gathers at the question words."  Faith isn't a matter of certainty or doubt.  It's keeping our attention and intention focused on time, distance and agency until the answer is given to you, by intuition instead of intellect, realization instead of reason, in the here and now.  In this process, the ego-cancelling tensions will outlast the self of the questioner. Nebuchadnezzar attempted to execute 3 youths in a fiery furnace, saying "who is the God who will deliver you out of my hands?"  Scripture says they were unharmed in the flames, and that a fourth appeared, looking like a God.  Psalm 121 says "I lift my eyes to the mountains, from where shall come my help?"  As if answering his own question, the psalmist says "My help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth."  St. Paul is meditating on the prophet Isaiah, which says "at an acceptable time I have heard you, in a day of salvation I have helped you."  Paul later reports "now is the acceptable time, now is the day of salvation."  So you see, three things have happened here. First, questions like "who, where, and when" have become unbearable--and they've surfaced fears of being wrong, being judged.  Second, the "self doing the asking" has been, at least, purified, if not cancelled out entirely.  Finally, the solution we expected to be remote has come close. 

There are further things to say: done in this way, lectio divina corrects misconceptions.  One misconception is causality.  The apostles ask "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" Jesus replies "this happened so that the works of God might be revealed in him."  In other words, our sense of cause and effect aren't always accurate. Another misconception is avoidance.  Of the cross, one thief said "if you are the messiah, save yourself and us."  Another thief said "remember me when you come into your kingdom."  But Jesus knew the kingdom wasn't later: and he had already said "if this cup could not pass unless I drink it, thy will be done." Christ's robust acceptance opened the moment to everything, and even suffering was transformed.  A third misconception is dualism.  When Abraham's servant asks Laban and Bethuel for their permission to wed Rebekkah to Isaac, they reply "we cannot speak to you bad or good, the thing comes from the Lord."  In the book of Ezra, a group of mixed returned-exiles attend the consecration of the second temple.  The old remembered the first temple, and mourned.  The young had no such memory, and rejoiced.  The text says "the weeping was indistinguishable from the laughter.

First we imitate Christ--we do what he did, simply because he did it.  Then we are intimate with Christ--we take him into our own experience, especially what is difficult.  Finally we internalize Christ--he disappears from our sight because it's our own eyes he sees out of, our own ears he hears out of.  And all of this transforms how we read the scripture--we recognize increasingly difficult emotions by seeing them on the page, and see our shadow side by the extensive list of rogues with whom we are brought to identify.  This is the kindness of the scripture: that we see who we are, gently, looking back through the mirror of the page.

Greeks desire order: indeed, the logos is pitched as "the order of creation."  But we proclaim Christ crucified, and that broadens the word's definition.  What we're talking about, here, is "word as paradox."  And this is a wake up call: we find that we cling to what we enjoy, push away what disgusts us.  This is why it's important that Christ suffered--so that we can be devoted to the very thing we have a tendency to push away.  This is why Christ chose what is low and despised in the world, to teach us to set our faces like flint, show devotion to the things that are not instead of running from them.  In the end, death and life are happening simultaneously--not to us, so that we can be filled with self pity, but to Christ, to God's glory. 

To sum up "Allow your questions to crucify who you think you are" said the apostles. "What is remote will draw close, and what's left is who you are." This is the truest way to do lectio divina. All that's needed is waiting, watching, prayer.