Sermon for 1 Lent B; February 21, 2021
Good Shepherd, Acton
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts, be always acceptable in your sight, O God, our Strength and our Redeemer. Amen.
It’s been hard to get through the last month without thinking about the weather. The cold and snow here has been manageable, but I’m hearing more complaints about it, especially as we endure the isolation of the pandemic on top of winter. The real weather news, of course, has been out in Texas and the Pacific Northwest, as millions in those regions have experienced uncommon winter storms resulting in horrific challenges. Our hearts are with those who have lost their lives and all those suffering as a result of loss of power, water, and access to help. For those of you who might be able to assist, I commend the efforts of Episcopal Relief and Development. Their disaster relief fund is providing much needed assistance to communities affected by these winter storms across many states.
When I lived in Portland, Oregon for three years, the only significant snow I ever saw was in the mountains. But rain, as you might imagine, was plentiful, especially in the winter. Their rain, however, is very different from our rain. Oregon winter rain is like mist— damp and fine. Thunderstorms and heavy downpours are rare. I never quite got used to the odd phenomenon of “rain with sun breaks” out there- which often meant you needed to drive with both your windshield wipers and your sunglasses on at the same time. Bright, glaring sun would shine down between clouds that drizzled damp, cold rain. A meteorological oxymoron — but one that produced brilliant rainbows.
Rainbows are always a welcome and stunning sight, don’t you think? In Oregon, they helped keep me sane in the midst of the otherwise dreary winters. -A promise that the rains would eventually end, and a sign that, yes, the sun still shines up there somewhere. I pray that those who suffered through the Portland snow and ice storms recently, will soon be treated to rainbows instead. And may they shine over Texas, too.
Rainbows, as we are reminded in our first Scripture today, are a sign of God’s promise and covenant with us. In this passage from Genesis, the great flood has ended. -Perhaps all that is left of the rain is the light mist of an Oregon drizzle. And Noah and the animals and his family are invited by God into an eternal covenant. “Never again,” God promises, “shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” A rainbow is given as a sign and reminder of the covenant God has established with Creation. And from this point on in Scripture, water becomes a sign of life, rather than death.
So it’s fitting, that as Jesus begins his public ministry, he does so after rising from the waters of the Jordan River. Jesus’ baptism, like our own, inaugurates and empowers his ministry. In baptism, that which has always been true becomes known: Jesus is named, and claimed, and loved by God. And it is through the waters of baptism that Jesus is strengthened for the challenges which lie ahead. Immediately after his baptism, the Spirit drives him into the wilderness, where for forty days he is tempted by Satan. How quickly the glaring light of God’s Spirit, descending like a dove on Jesus, is overshadowed by the wilderness of temptation!
I have never been to the Holy Land, but I am told that the contrast between the lush fertile valley where the Jordan River flows and the barren desert just over the mountains is startling. Martin Smith, in a wonderful little book of Lenten reflections called A Season for the Spirit describes the landscape as viewed from the ruins of the ancient city of Jericho. “Imagine yourself sitting with me in these ruins,” he writes. “We are looking south down the deepest cleft in the earth and in the distance the Dead Sea is shimmering in the intense heat like a lake of mercury. To the east the river Jordan snakes towards it, and the mountains of Moab from which Moses had seen the Promised Land tower beyond. To the west rise the massive brown hills of the wilderness, rent by deep gorges… This is the place where we are all invited to stand at the beginning of another Lent to take in the meaning of this movement from the river to the desert, and to be caught up in it ourselves.”
Another book of Lenten reflections, A Spring in the Desert, which we will be discussing in our Lenten forum beginning today, explores a similar theme, “rediscovering the water of life in Lent.” As we come upon almost a full year of pandemic life, the images of desert and water, resonate with me as I thirst for new life after so much time in the metaphorical desert of quarantine.
The closest I have ever come to being in desert wilderness was in the Grand Canyon where my husband and I once spent 17 days hiking and rafting and camping along the Colorado River. One day our guides took our group on what affectionately became known as “The Death March.” -An 11 mile hike up a side canyon, across a desert plateau, and down another canyon, where we would meet up with our rafts (and the less adventurous members of our group) five miles down river from where we had begun. Because the rafts would need to travel these five miles to meet us, there was no turning back. Once we committed to the hike, we had to go all the way through.
It was an extraordinary day: exhausting, exhilarating, hot and amazing. After hiking all morning up the tedious switch-backs of the first, steep, side canyon, we came to a lush oasis, where a spring of water gushed from the side of a canyon wall. Trees suddenly appeared. There was shade and cool breeze, and even a somewhat tame wild turkey that begged for scraps from our lunch. It was amazing to experience the life that suddenly sprung forth in the midst of a desert wherever there was water. After our lunch break, we hiked away from the spring and across a flat, barren, hot desert plateau. It took hours to cross. And there was nothing around us except low desert brush, the occasional cactus, and the potential for rattle snakes.
The difference, of course, between the lush oasis and the total desolation of the desert was the presence of water. It was not something created or controlled by human beings. And as we hiked across the swath of desert, it was easy to feel insignificant. Nothing in that landscape relied upon us. And the landscape offered us nothing back in return.
Lent invites us to enter the desert landscape of our spiritual lives. To journey to that place where the only life-giving essence comes from God. Where we are forced to realize that we neither control nor create anything that we need. We are utterly dependent upon God.
Often, such experiences of spiritual wilderness sneak up on us when we least expect it- and when we are least prepared to handle it. We don’t always get to the choose, as Bronson and I did, to enter the wilderness as tourists, accompanied by our beloved, and some skilled guides who know the trail and how much water we would need for our journey. Instead, the landscape of spiritual wilderness often overtakes us uninvited, and catches us off guard- making us profoundly aware of how much we must rely upon God for our survival and well-being.
Yet even though we can’t always know when the spiritual wilderness will overtake us, the Church, in her wisdom, has set aside these forty days each year as practice for when the going get really tough. If we take its disciplines and challenges seriously, Lent helps us get spiritually in shape for the trials that may be yet to come. For Jesus, his forty days in the wilderness prepared him to better face the challenges of ministry, and eventually, the cross. And for us, these 40 days of Lent provide the opportunity to develop spiritual disciplines that can sustain us for the long haul.
As we enter Lent this year, consider how God might be calling you to use these forty days as you travel the landscape that lies between us now and Easter. What intentional practice of prayer, Scripture reading, study and service might you take on? What habits, temptations, and parts of you might best be let go?
In the words of our Ash Wednesday service, “I invite you therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.”
We pursue these disciplines not because we have to, but because they can be life-giving. Like the water in the desert, and the sun-splashed rainbows on a rainy day, they can sustain our spirit and make us ever mindful of the need we all have for a deepened relationship with God.
May yours be a holy and life-giving Lent. Amen.