3-1-20
Grace to you and peace from God our creator and from our
Lord and savior Jesus the Christ, by the power of the holy spirit, amen.
On my way to Trinity Wednesday night for our joint Ash
Wednesday worship, I got stuck at the light on the corner of Old Dublin Pike
and Main Street. As the stop lights cycled through for everyone else multiple
times, the light for the straight lane – the one I was in - stayed red…I
started to worry as the time grew later and later. I still had to stop here
to grab my alb and stole. I worried that Pastor Nancy would wonder where I was.
I had to ask myself – am still supposed to be a rule-abiding citizen, even when
it seems like the rules are not working properly? Just as I was about to give
up on that stationary lane and try to sneak into the left-hand turn lane to
find another way, perhaps risking cutting off another car, or at least being
rude … the light finally turned green again, and life proceeded as normal. I needn’t
have worried because I showed up at Trinity right on time.
Lent is kind of like that. Ready or not, it’s time to
pause, take stock, and make note of the brake lights and the stop lights. Ready
or not, it’s time to travel through the wilderness, take the slow lane or even
a different route…. Knowing that in 40 days (minus Sundays), we will still
arrive right on time, exactly where we need to be.
Now we may not find ourselves led out into the wilderness
by the Holy Spirit this Lent, as Jesus did. We may not face a serpent or the
devil face to face. We may not have the ability to turn stones to bread or ever
be offered all the kingdoms of the world. But we DO have one thing in common
with Jesus in the wilderness - an identity given to us by God. Jesus had just
come from his baptism, when his freshly recognized and newly blessed identity
as the Son of God was called into question. And we too are called Children of
God in our baptisms, and we too find ourselves under the world’s scrutiny
before the water on our heads has a chance to dry.
On the verge of starting his earthly ministry, Jesus had
to define what it meant to be “the son of God.” Was Jesus going to reflect a
kind of power and glory that the world could easily recognize? Or would Jesus
set his agenda according to God’s definition of power and glory?
The first temptation does seem pretty harmless - After
all, it wouldn’t hurt anyone if Jesus did a little magic on those rocks so he
wouldn’t be hungry AND angry – or HANGRY as the cool kids say. I would have
turned those stones into bread in a heartbeat, and probably added some hummus
too, faster than you can say “Grab a Snickers.” But, Jesus saves his divine
breadmaking skills for another time, to feed 5,000 hungry people rather than
feed himself only, which happens later in the Matthew’s Gospel.
The same happens with the other two temptations. Instead
of throwing himself off a roof to test God plan for him, Jesus instead shows
his resolve do follow God’s will, to trade being lifted high on a building to
being lifted high on a cross. And instead of seizing the opportunity to rule
all the kingdoms of the earth for himself, Jesus instead will open the
kingdom of heaven to all who follow him. In the rest of his ministry, we can
see how Jesus’ time in the wilderness prepared him to fulfill his baptismal
identity.
In the wildernesses we find ourselves in, be they
physical, emotional, or spiritual, we too find our identity tested. We are
constantly tempted into thinking that, as we are right now, we are not good
enough to be children of God.
Most of us are aware of our limitations and our hang-ups,
and the tempter takes every opportunity to remind us where we fall short with a
never-ending commentary in our brains – Surely, we are mistaken if we think
that God has chosen us. Surely, God wants us to work a little harder at being
God’s children. Surely, we need to prove that we are worthy of being chosen.
I imagine something similar going through Eve’s mind
while she listened to the clever arguments of the serpent in the garden. When
the serpent told her that eating the fruit would make her more like God, to
have knowledge of good and evil, she jumped at the chance. She did not trust
that God had created her good, just as she was.
The story of creation in the book of Genesis is so epic
that there is not just ONE version of the story but TWO (You can look it up for
yourself on Page 1 of your pew bible)… and at the end of the second one,
God gave free reign of the garden Eden, but said, “You can eat from any tree in
the garden, except for one. Don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil, or you will die.”
But if you didn’t already know the answer, you would
probably easily guess what happens next - the snake convinces Eve to try the
fruit from the forbidden tree. Eve eats, then Adam eats. Their eyes were
opened, and they knew there was trouble in paradise. In the Sara Bareilles, called
“Eden ,” Eve tells us her side of the story - “Walking in the garden was a serpent-shaped
heart and he told me – ‘What is broken cannot show,
and “less than beautiful” is worse than unholy.’”
The snake of course was wrong… but Even and Adam found
that out the hard way, and in the song, Eve reflects, “…. Now I'm wide awakened
and still paying for the poison they sold me.”
The Adam and Eve in all of us all too often trust the
words of the crafty serpents around us, rather than the incredible promise that
we are loved and claimed as God’s children. It’s hard for us to see ourselves
as God sees us. We look into ourselves and only see what is lacking, and so
comes our tendency to reach for too much power, too much security, too much
comfort in order to fill the gaps. This is the poison that the serpent – and
the world – is selling. But God sees us a different way. When the rest of the
world tells us the opposite, God tells us that we are worthy, we are loved, and
we are enough.
In Jesus, God’s love is shown to the world. In Jesus, we
see that the love of God would go to any length for us, and would travel any
distance, and would even go to death and back for God’s beloved children. We
certainly long to hear these words on a daily basis.
One meaning of Lent is “to lengthen,” like the daylight
hours in the coming spring, that hopefully will arrive someday soon. The
purpose of Lent is to makes US “long” for this new life – We long to
stop causing and receiving pain. We long to be out of
the night and we long for the return of the dawn.
Lent is not for us to improve ourselves with sacrifices
to become more worthy or more holy come Easter Sunday. Lent instead takes us
through the wilderness to reflect our own shortcomings, to remind us to let God
be God. Not so that we can feel guilty at where we have fallen short. But so
that we can get out of our own way and be nothing less than members of God’s
family. It’s been said that when Martin Luther felt tempted to despair by the
devil, he would shout in response, “I am baptized!” Not “I was”, but “I AM.”
Present tenses. True in this very moment.
The trip through Lent every year takes us from a garden
to a wilderness and back again, from human sin and transgression and death to
resurrection, from the ash crosses of Ash Wednesday to the shadow of the cross
on Good Friday, through the Garden of Eden, to the garden of Gethsemane, to the
garden that contained Jesus’ empty tomb. Every year, we tell the story, to
remind ourselves who we are and WHOSE we are. “I am baptized.” Present tense.
Now and forever. Thanks be to God, amen.
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