Lent I, 2018| St. Augustine’s
“And the Spirit immediately drove him out
into the wilderness.”
In the Gospel of Mark, the temptations of
Jesus in the wilderness go past so quickly that you hardly notice them. Mark’s intention is to show how these early
events are connected—Jesus coming from Galilee, his Baptism by John, the voice
confirming Jesus as the beloved son of God, the temptation in the wilderness,
then the arrest of John and Jesus proclamation of the kingdom of God. In just seven verses Mark sweeps through all
these things and shows how they are connected.
But I want to slow down and take a quick look at this
wilderness event—where the Spirit apparently has had to drive Jesus out into it—so we know it is important—and, it's worth noting, even Jesus didn’t want to go there, or else why did he have to be "driven?" Driven into a situation where he would be tempted again and
again to be either more or less than he was.
To be tempted to be someone he was not.
Jesus’ temptations there were very
much the same temptations we live with every day. In the wilderness, things are
messy and unpredictable, frightening, and both Jesus and we are relatively
defenseless there. So it is with our own
wild and unpredictable spiritual and emotional lives. There are countless
temptations to draw us into the sameness of our safe routines and greater or
lesser addictions to numb our fears when we know that things are just about out
of control—sometimes including our very selves.
Sometimes we are inordinately proud, and then full of self loathing or disgust---we
listen to the voice of the Evil One trying to confuse us as he did Jesus, and we confuse so
easily. The wilderness is actually where we all live spiritually and
emotionally most of the time. The wilderness is that place we
are constantly trying to escape, but it is existentially inescapable, just part of the human
condition. Jesus shows us how it is
done.
With each temptation, Jesus relies on his
relationship with God for his well-being and identity. He is beloved of God, and that defines him
and defines how he lives, how he dies, and what he does in this world and the
risks he takes. As his followers, we are
called to do the same.
Later in the Gospel, Mark tells the story
of the why and how of John’s arrest and execution. This Herod was corrupt, cruel
and selfish. Though he was nominally a
Jewish ruler, his office came to him through the manipulations of a foreign
power. John had pointed out his sexual immoralities and, more importantly, how
Herod was unfaithful to his own people—consistently acting against the best
interests of the people of Galilee and Judea. This was the political backdrop
to the John the Baptist’s urging the crowds to repentance. It was not just the
leaders who had to be held accountable to God, but everyone.
Repentance was necessary—not just
feeling bad about themselves---but changing their lives; choosing each day to
live into God’s justice, God’s mercy.
John was the messenger, preparing the Lord’s way, crying in the
wilderness. And Jesus was in the wilderness, being formed and grounded in his
truth by angels. There is no avoiding the wilderness experience.
Soon enough, Herod had enough of John’s
truth-telling, preferring lies that made him look better than he was. Herod often relied on his nominal Jewishness
to sway public opinion in his favor, when in fact, he was widely regarded as a
mere tool of Rome. John’s death came
about because Herod's daughter Salome had been dancing in public---apparently
to the delight of her father, very possibly at his request---who invited her to ask a gift in return for her
dancing--and was probably shocked to learn that she wanted the head of the
Baptist. The readers of this story would have understood Herod to be a
depraved and wicked man, because no loving father would allow, let alone ask his daughter to dance before men who were strangers.
“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom
of God has come near: repent and believe in the good news.” It is the first
Sunday of Lent and we begin that journey with Jesus, the journey which ends
with his arrest by the religious police and the Roman soldiers and his bloody execution. “Lent is not tidy,” writes Peter Mazar in his
introduction to A Lent Sourcebook. The word Lent is related in its origins to
both spring and lengthen; it is when the ground thaws and the daylight hours
increase. “Our windows need washing,”
says Mazar, “our temples need cleansing, the Earth itself needs a good bath.” Those of us who live in the
watersheds of the Great Lakes can testify to Mazar’s observation that “winter
doesn’t leave without blustery battles that push things over and mess things up
and even break things. Lent, if we
honestly face its fury, will leave the landscape littered with bits and pieces
of ourselves.”
In other words, our annual Lenten journey
involves reckoning with life’s external and internal storms. I want to accept my responsibility for my sin,
complicity, and hard-heartedness that I may be counted among the faithful, and I know you do too. I
want the Holy Spirit to help me bridge the existential gap between my external
and internal selves--and I believe you do, too. “Repent, the Kingdom of God is here! Repent and believe the good news.”
What is that Kingdom? A place of healing,
of evil cast out like demons; a place of hope, character, faithfulness and
mercy. A place to live into your own
true identity as God’s Beloved. Entering the Kingdom of God is easy—you just
rejoice in God’s mercy, live as God’s merciful children—stake everything,
EVERYTHING on being beloved of God, knowing that those around you are beloved
too.
But it must be said that not everyone wants to claim their belovedness. Some consider it wimpy and worthless. Some prefer to construct their own identity as powerful, as in charge of their own destiny, and that of others--to be someone to be reckoned with. Much of the time, these people deliberately hurt others to make their point, to prove their "superiority."
Of course, to be God’s merciful children--those of us who choose to own our belovedness--to be consciously joined to God’s mercy, we have to look at what
happened this week in Florida, what happens every week somewhere in our country
and know it as mercy-less. To back up the claim to have anything to do with God’s
mercy takes change, i.e., repentance: a restructuring of ourselves and the way
we think and getting our priorities right. The safety and well-being of young
people, of all people, of all kinds of people--has to be a higher priority than things of this world:
prosperity or success or making political points; or having the shiny or
powerful things many depend on to try to hold their internal “wilderness” at
bay.
It
takes courage to repent, because it takes us directly into a risky sort of
place, strange and a bit uncertain. The Kingdom of God that Jesus brings is not
the predictably self-indulgent world of a Herod Antipas, but the generous world
of Jesus, who brought life and hope to others and didn’t avoid the very real
risk to his own person. All through this coming season of Lent, we will see
that Jesus’ actions, his teaching and his prayers lined up in perfect accord
with his identity as God’s Beloved, and in the knowledge he shared that those
whom he encountered were beloved of God, too.
The writer of the letter to James puts it
very succinctly, “faith without works is dead.”
That is to say prayers and action are one. If a person thinks that they can
toss in some "thoughts and prayers" to make others feel better or to alleviate their own puny sense of guilt while planning or doing things
that contradict those prayers---that is blasphemy.
So
we look at all the gun violence in this country, punctuated by mass shootings with
military assault weapons cutting children into pieces and an epidemic of gun
suicides. It can look hopeless, practically and politically. Sixty years ago, there was
another epidemic that everybody thought was hopeless: automobile fatalities. It
had reached the rate of five and a half fatalities for every 100 million
vehicle miles travelled. Now it is just over 1 per 100 million miles. There are
actually more than 15 thousand fewer traffic fatalities this year than 50 years
ago while the country’s population is more than 50% larger. How did this
happen? What caused the reduction of this epidemic? It wasn’t one simple
solution, and it took years.
People were very attached to their cars. "Muscle cars" especially, and especially designed for speed. Car owners took them very personally, and bought cars they wanted to represent them and make them look good--sexy, powerful, flashy, "hip." Not so unlike the way people regard their guns today.
A national commitment was made to reduce
traffic fatalities. Different things were done: roadways and guard rails were
improved, seatbelts and eventually airbags were required in cars. Cars were
made structurally safer. Laws against drunk driving were toughened and enforced
more stringently. Laws were changed, and some people didn’t like them—felt
their freedoms were being impinged on. And they complained loudly. But the laws were changed anyway and lives have been saved.
Immediately after his baptism the
spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness where he was tempted by Satan. He was
tended by the angels of God. He came to his home country of Galilee calling for
repentance and proclaiming the Kingdom.
In closing I'd like to share a meditation/poem by Jan Richardson, and ask you to join in by saying aloud the word "beloved" when it comes up, if you're willing, and claim it for yourself.
Beginning with Beloved by Jan Richardson
And a voice came from
heaven,
“You are my Son,
the Beloved.”—Mark
1: 11
Begin
here:
Beloved.
Is
there any other word
needs
saying,
any
other blessing
could compare
with this name,
this
knowing?
Beloved.
Comes
like a mercy
to the ear that has never
heard
it.
Comes
like a river
to the body that has never
seen
such grace.
Beloved.
Comes
holy to the heart
aching
to be new.
Comes
healing to the soul
wanting
to begin again.
Beloved.
Keep
saying it,
and
though it may sound
strange
at first,
watch
how it becomes
part
of you,
how
it becomes you,
as
if you never could have known
yourself
anything else,
as
if you could ever have been
other
than this:
Beloved.
Richardson,
Jan. The Cure for Sorrow: A Book of Blessings for Times of Grief (Kindle
Locations 805-821). Wanton Gospeller Press. Kindle Edition.
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