February 21, 2010
The First Sunday in Lent (Year C)
Deuteronomy 26:1-11; Psalm 91:1-2,9-16; Romans 10:8b-13;
Luke: 4:1-13
The thing about the story of Jesus’ life is that we can all relate to it. His story is our story, from birth to death to resurrection. If we think about the church year that liturgically deliberately follows the story of the life of Jesus, we can find ourselves in it and the resonance that we feel builds layer upon layer to the truth of our faith.
The year begins in expectation. Who of us has not known a time of expectation? When we wait, when we are pregnant with waiting and the waiting seems too wonderful and too awesome to bear, we wait for a child to be born, we wait for a wedding date or a graduation. We wait for a visit from a friend or family member. We know how to wait expectantly, and each of us has important waiting stories in our lives.
Just as we each have important birth stories, new marriages, new friendships, new jobs, new school, they are often followed by our Epiphany stories, times when we “saw the light” that had previously been shrouded in darkness, when we understood what had been incomprehensible before. (I think of division that way actually!)
And we also have Lenten times, times when we are in the wilderness – usually longer than forty days it seems to me, times when we are unemployed or going through cancer treatment or when we simply do not know what the answer will be, times when we are waiting, not expectantly, but dreadfully, times when our job is tough, our children are doing things we pray and hope they will recover from and learn from without too much damage. Lenten waiting is different from Advent expectancy. And even if it is not longer than forty days, it always feels like it.
Then we all know times of crucifixion, times when we feel we are being killed, professionally, personally, emotionally. Each of us knows such times, hopefully not many in our life time, but we know them – if not for our self, we know such a time for someone else.
We also know what it is to wait in the tomb – another kind of waiting, not expectantly, not in wilderness, not in dread, but waiting for resurrection, hoping, but not having any idea what that means. And then each us knows what it is to find new life, new hope, new being. We know resurrection! We find it in a new love after a divorce or in a clean bill of health after chemo or a new job or a new home or a new unplanned, previously unimagined, unfathomable, joy in our lives. We know resurrection. We believe in it. We are Easter people!
And then that time between Easter and Expectation of Advent, we know the “Ordinary Time,” time for stories and growing things and learning life’s lessons in the course of just plain living.
Yes, the story of Jesus, the Christian way of being is our way. And while we all can name these different times in our own lives as well as in the life of Jesus, it is also true that sometimes we are out of sync with the liturgical season, or our time in such a season is much longer or shorter than the church year allows.
And because we do spend most of our lives, like the church year, in ordinary times, it is important when we enter a liturgical season with which we are out of sync, that we take on some aspect of it deliberately, so that when we encounter that season for real in our own life, we are spiritually and emotionally prepared to deal with it.
We are now in the season of Lent, one of the waiting times, a time of waiting for our souls to learn perhaps, a time when we are to spend more time reflecting and less time partying, more time thinking and holding up a mirror to ourselves than commenting on the shortcomings of others, be they the world’s politicians, Olympians, even Tiger Woods, not to mention, of course, our friends and family!
This is time for being apart, apart from the ordinary times of our lives in a spiritual and reflective way. This time of Lent is a time that does not speak to or from the culture in which we live, for the culture would have us believe that we are each the center of our own universe and we are in control of our destiny. Yet Lent is the time when we let go of such fantasies and truly examine ourselves so that we are prepared when God’s voice leads or directs or carries us to a place we had not thought to go.
Our face, as was Jesus,’ is to be set on facing our own Jerusalem, whatever that is for each of us. We are not only to deny temptation but also we are to learn our weaknesses so that we can recognize temptation when it presents itself to us.
Jesus was in the wilderness for forty days. And while scripture tells us he followed the Spirit there, it was not the Spirit nor God that provided the temptations that awaited him. God, at times, does call us apart, accompanies us into the wilderness, for forty days or ten days or two years, the timing is up to God. But even if we are in the wilderness for but ten minutes, evil will find its way to tempt us, to cajole us, to tease us. Evil, as this lesson of Jesus in the wilderness conveys, is so cunning. It always appears to be good. If evil would just come out in the red suit holding a pitchfork, we would recognize it for what it is. But, no, evil disguises itself as righteousness and tempts us with the very things that would also feed our souls.
Jesus was tempted with bread. Bread from stones, magical bread to be sure, but to a hungry man bread to eat, the basic stuff of daily sustenance. Bread in most other settings would not be seen as evil. It was the cost of the source of the bread and what evil wanted it to feed, not the body of the man Jesus but the lust he hoped to kindle in him for power.
And then he tempted Jesus with safety. Oh, my goodness! What human does not crave safety? Our country is safety hungry after the terrible threats and sometimes realities of terror that have plagued us. And we are not different from any other nation that craves safety. And Jesus was a human being for whom such safety would certainly be welcome. But he did not fling himself from the pinnacle because the cost of the safety from falling to certain death was too great.
And evil also wanted to give him power over all nations. The only catch was worshipping evil instead of Love, crying, “Satan” instead of “Abba.” And Jesus did not do it.
Each of us lives in wilderness times when we know we must reflect and pray and examine our lives. And in those desert times, we, too, are tempted. And just as power used appropriately, bread eaten to sustain life, and safety, are basic human needs that God intends us to have – and intended Jesus to have, so evil will disguise that which we need and is good for us with a costly catch that turns the staff of life into the temptations of hell.
Use your Lenten forty days wisely. Be sure of God’s voice, and be aware of how evil seduces you. In order to do that you must know yourself well, and be more aware of your weaknesses than your strengths. Evil knows them both better than you do and will use those things for which you lust, even the good things, to pull you onto a path where God would not have you go.
Be wary. Be wise. Wander in the wilderness knowing that God is not putting you to the test, evil is. Trust that God will be with you if you allow yourself to listen for his voice over the sweet seductive voice of evil.
Wander intentionally into the desert following the spirit. For the Christian story is your story, our story, and from it we can together learn to foil evil and proclaim Love.
Amen.
The Reverend Dr. Gale Davis Morris
Church of the Good Shepherd