February 10, 2008
The First Sunday in Lent (Year A)
Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7; Psalm 32; Romans 5:12-19; Matthew 4:1-11
Welcome to the first Sunday of Lent!
Many of us, I imagine, came to church on Wednesday to get ashes, to mark Ash Wednesday as the beginning of the season of Lent. I gathered with a few others, a mixture of those of us who come to Children's Hospital each day, along with a few patients and parents, at the hospital chapel for a simple service at midday. I always think of those few days between Ash Wednesday and today as time to get serious about Lent. What does Lent mean to me, what is it for, what is the right way to observe this time of preparation? I've thought about that a lot. There are a lot of choices out there: books. Meditations, music. We at Good Shepherd have been offered a book of meditations prepared by Episcopal Relief and Development (ER-D) inviting us to live Lent this year through the eyes of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). I love this! And so I start by offering you some questions to think about.
Who will you choose to be this Lent?
Are you giving something up? (I imagine you know that Sundays don't count…you can eat that chocolate today guilt-free.)
As we turn to the scriptures for today the message is pretty clear. Sometimes I look at the Lectionary readings and scratch my head. Sometimes the point seems a bit obscure, hard to grasp until we look deeper into the cultural setting in which they were written, but not today. On today's portion of this Lenten journey we're supposed to think about TEMPTATION. The collect makes it clear. It tells us that Jesus was led into the wilderness by the Spirit of God, to face temptation, as we all face it every day. From the beginning of time and into the present, temptation seems to be a tool of God.
We hear in the reading from Genesis of the story of Original Sin and those first humans, tempted by the snake, (an obvious metaphor for the devil) to eat the forbidden fruit, then tempting one another, then trying to rationalize away the guilt. From the beginning of time it seems, humans are drawn to the forbidden; we have to choose between good and evil.
The author of the Letter to the Romans describes Jesus as the answer to Original Sin, a return to righteousness through the forgiveness of sins brokered by the cross.
The Psalm is a song of delight as we rejoice in the bounty that comes from choosing the way of the Lord.
And so in today's gospel, in the time immediately following his baptism and God's affirmation that he is beloved, Jesus is led into the wilderness, to fast, to pray, to examine his life, and perhaps, to discern his future. Immediately he is tempted.
Do You believe in the devil?
There's been so much written about this. Is there actually a devil? For me, the devil represents the counterbalance to the glory of God, a force for evil that is present throughout the human story, who recounts in memorable tales the result of our decision not to choose God, the ever present, opportunistic force that quietly tries to lead us off the path of righteousness, tempting us with easy answers and quick fixes. And we're all, even Jesus, faced with temptations, big and small. Many of them are pretty well covered in the Ten Commandments: we shall not kill, commit adultery, steal, worship other gods. Maybe we feel pretty protected from the big ones. How many of us actually commit murder or robbery? But more of us I think may be guilty of wounding innocence or stealing hope with words we say and things we do. How many of us get our priorities wrong, and end up, if not worshipping, at least focusing on the wrong things, the pursuit of fame or fortune or power or control.
It's a lot easier to identify with those temptations. But in the business of our lives, we are constantly tempted to forget that second greatest commandment, to love our neighbor as our selves. And there are millions of smaller infractions: to not care well for our bodies and our minds, to lose track of the “other” among us. We get tired, we turn away from injustice and we forget to feed our souls. We give in to the allure of gossip and pettiness, and forget that everyone, every single one, no matter how broken, is a child of God and loved passionately by God.
Even when all seems well, evil works in the quiet corners of our hearts and minds, lurking there, planting seeds of doubt and fear, clothing us in self-righteousness. I'm convinced that a lot of bad behavior and wrong decisions in our world today are grounded in the power of doubt and fear. And, as Ian Douglas, professor of mission at EDS (Episcopal Divinity School) likes to remind us, the devil is not stupid. Along with temptation, he brings the gifts of rationalization and arrogance, and sometimes, cleverly wraps them in scripture.
How are we to know then, the true ways of justice and righteousness and peace? Through scripture of course, but through the ages we've seen scripture twisted and taken out of context, used as an excuse for alienation and oppression. I think we have to be careful, to look not only at the letter of the words, but also for the spirit behind them. We need to listen closely to our God-given radar for the misuse of scripture and for ideas that can seem like sincere rationality, but are actually self-serving. In the concept of our Episcopal tradition, we have to use also the other legs of that three legged stool: tradition and reason. I have a good friend and mentor at Children's, a chaplain named Carlotta, who is very wise and has clarity I only dream of having. How are we to know, then the true ways of justice and righteousness and peace? “It's easy,” she says. “Is it about love?” She understands that anything that separates us from each other, separates us from God.
Why do we have to face enticement and deception, day after day? Why does God lead us out of our comfort zones and into those wilderness places, where we are subjected to temptation, again and again? I think it's because our God, the God of love is also a God of choice, who understands that to be true, we must come to Him freely, that love tricked or coerced is not love at all but control, that when we lose our freedom of choice, love changes, from soul-sustaining joy and becomes just another chore.
With every temptation, there comes a test; we are defined and formed by the choices we make and the way we respond to the temptations we encounter. Over and over, God leads us into the wilderness, and invites us to stop for a while, to pray, to listen, to open our minds and our hearts, to peel back our defenses, to expose our vulnerabilities and to offer them all to God.
If we are to grow towards spiritual maturity, we need to allow ourselves to be led, to have a holy Lent, a time of honest self-examination, humility and vulnerability. We need to shed our doubt and fear, our self-defeating identity of victim, to let go of all that holds us back, and to embrace with our whole hearts the life-giving power of the Spirit. Sounds good, but it can be a very hard place to go. How many of you feel comfortable with foot-washing? You don't have to answer that! I don't either, but I think that may be the point. Lent is an opportunity to prepare for what lies ahead, to get ourselves ready for the resurrection.
Who will you choose to be this Lent?
Amen.
The Rev. Maggie Geller
Church of the Good Shepherd