In Witness Shouting and Silent

Scripture: Luke 19:29-40

        In Chelsea, Michigan, we know a thing or two about parades.  Take, for example, our Christmas electric light parade.  It gives you a little bit of everything.  There are rows of school marching band members playing festive tunes; floats featuring carolers, preschoolers dressed like elves, and a nativity scene; and busloads of merry senior citizens wearing Santa hats and belting out “Jingle Bells.”  The first year I attended the parade, the Common Grill restaurant sent someone to participate who was adorned in a lobster costume, covered with a strand of tiny twinkling Italian light bulbs.  I was new to town, but I couldn’t help spontaneously calling out “Christmas Lobster, thank God you’re here!”  Without missing a beat, the woman standing next to me responded “Now do you believe?!”

        Or take our beloved Chelsea Fair Parade.  How could this parade possibly be better?  It starts with the proud veterans who served our country.  Then you get the marching bands; the twirlers and the gymnasts; the equestrian team; the local political leaders and the aspiring candidates; men in helmets in giant fire trucks—and men in fezzes on tiny motorcycles; a vast array of antique cars and tractors; floats proudly bearing the wreckage of the demolition derby and the figure eight; our citizens of the year; the fair queen; Frisbees tossed from the window of an old hearse; bag loads of incoming candy that rain on you like hailstones; and a semi rig full of Jiffy products that helpers cheerfully distribute to the crowd.  Indeed, as you look up and down Main Street you can see our entire community united in a single, common goal: to bring home a few free boxes of corn muffin mix.

        In the passage we read this morning, the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem has some of the festive craziness we associate with all great parades.  The disciples stacked the colt high with their cloaks and seated Jesus atop them.  As he rode along, people rushed before him to spread their cloaks in his path.  People were shouting joyfully and celebrating and enjoying themselves.  Luke makes a point of expressly telling us that this was all very loud—although I think we could have guessed as much.

Luke also tells us that the Pharisees—who never failed to protest when something good was happening—complained to Jesus about the racket.  Jesus responded by saying: “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”  This apparently left the Pharisees dumbstruck, because we hear nothing more from them for the time being.  And we can understand why.  The response that Jesus makes is rich in meaning—or, more accurately, meanings.

To begin, it is interesting to note that Jesus phrased his response conditionally: “if these were silent.”  I take this to be a less confrontational way of saying: “You want to silence them?  Go ahead and give it a try!  Knock yourself out!  It’s not going to happen!”  But Jesus artfully glides right past this point, because the time for confrontation has not yet arrived.  That moment will come when Jesus enters the Temple—His Father’s House—and drives out those who are selling things there.    

So Jesus continues: “the stones would shout out.”  Now, this is a remarkable statement for several reasons.  First, the statement underscores that the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem has a divine inevitability to it; the unfolding events are under the power of God, not of mankind, and their course will not be altered by human beings—whether crowds of rooting disciples or clusters of skeptical Pharisees.  Second, the statement makes clear that the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem will be celebrated with shouts of joy—whether they come from women and children and men or from the very earth itself.  And, finally, the statement reinforces the idea that the Pharisees should stop whining and get accustomed to the noise.  Indeed, as Easter teaches us, the greatest cries of triumph and amazement are yet to come.

This is, of course, one of the ways in which we are sometimes called to bear witness: loudly; extravagantly; in our grand and proudest voices; maybe even a little crazily.  “Enthusiasm” has its root in Greek words that literally mean “God inside”—and that is how the spirit occasionally moves us: vigorously, demonstratively, dancingly, with arms and voices raised.   Abraham Lincoln once declared that when he heard a man preach “he liked to see him act as if he were fighting bees,” and from time to time that is how we must go about this business of living our faith, showing our faith, celebrating our faith.      

But there are other ways as well, and to highlight them we need look no further than to this story as it is told by Luke.  But, first, permit me a brief digression to talk about how the other gospel writers report the story.  All of them tell it; each of them tells it differently; and, in my view, this story serves as a sort of theological Rorschach test that reveals the principal interest of the individual gospel writers.

When Matthew tells the story, he exhibits his characteristic preoccupation with the fact that Jesus was fulfilling a Hebrew prophecy.  This probably helps explain why Matthew says that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on both a donkey and a colt—that is what the prophecy described—though he pays little attention to how these animals were obtained or, for that matter, how one person can ride on two of them at the same time.  Mark, with characteristic efficiency, omits the donkey from the story altogether and explains that a group of bystanders allowed the colt to be taken.  John, for whom Jesus is always the sole focus of attention, has Jesus go find the donkey himself!

But look at what Luke, our master storyteller, does here.  He introduces us to some of the great unsung heroes of the gospels.  He does not tell us their names, their gender, their ages, their social status, or their vocations.  He gives us only a brief and indirect glimpse of them, almost flirtatious in its subtlety: “As the disciples were untying the colt, its owners asked them, ‘Why are you untying the colt?’  And the disciples said, ‘The Lord needs it.’”  And then from those people—the owners who readily surrendered their colt on the strength of nothing more than a suggestion that the Lord was in need of it—we hear absolutely nothing more.  

This, too, is how we are sometimes called to bear witness: softly, quietly, cooperatively, sacrificially, instantly, unhesitatingly.  We hear the voice of the Lord say “this is what I need” and we simply give it up.  In all candor, I think that this is some of the toughest witnessing we do.  We can all throw ourselves into some good-old-fashioned palm-waving when the spirit moves us.  But hearing God’s call and untying our prized colt—whatever that means in our lives—is something else altogether.  Through this short and apparently insignificant reference to the owners of the colt, Luke brilliantly reminds us of one of the questions Jesus invites us to ponder over and over again:

Where is our treasure? 

Where is our treasure?

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we are fond of saying that we are an Easter people—and so we are.  We believe in an empty tomb.  We believe in the resurrection.  We believe in life beyond this life, life beyond suffering, life beyond time, life beyond imagining.

But there is no getting to Easter without walking the hard and sometimes discomforting pathways of Lent.  It is a season of tough questions.  And, today, in the midst of our joyful celebration and our waving of palms, it asks this one: What will you say when the Lord says that He has need of something that you have, something that you can contribute, something that you can do, or, perhaps most importantly, something that you are?

Amen.

Farther Than Expected, Closer Than Imagined

Scripture: Psalm 19

There is a lot going on in Psalm 19.

It is a song of praise. It tells us that the law of the Lord is perfect, the decrees of the Lord are sure, the precepts of the Lord are right, the commandments of the Lord are clear, and the ordinances of the Lord are true. It assures us that, through obedience to the Lord’s word, we will find wisdom, joy, enlightenment, and a reviving of the soul.

It is a song of creation. The sun, the earth, the sky—everything around us, the psalmist says, proclaims the presence, the power, and the glory of God. Sometimes we forget that the psalms are songs, but the poetry of Psalm 19 keeps this fresh in our consciousness: “In the heavens he has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom from his wedding canopy, and like a strong man runs its course with joy.”

It is a song of petition. The psalmist prays for the Lord to guide him, to “clear him from hidden faults,” and to lead him to and through a life that is blameless and innocent of transgression. And he poses this somewhat puzzling request: “Keep back your servant also from the insolent; do not let them have dominion over me.” Biblical scholars suggest that this verse is probably better translated this way: “Keep me from proud thoughts, and do not let them control what I do.” It is important that we get this right, because it relates to a point we’ll explore a little later.

The psalmist thus says three things to God: you’re great; you’re everywhere; and I need your help. It is hard to argue with any of those ideas. Let me correct myself—it is impossible.

So, as I say, there is a lot going on here. Indeed, Psalm 19 encompasses so many different themes that some scholars have suggested that it is actually an assemblage of at least two distinct works. This may have merit: certainly, this psalm lacks the kind of conspicuously unitary thematic structure that we find in many others. Psalm 19 does not talk about just one thing.

At the same time, however, I believe that Psalm 19 has two fairly subtle unifying characteristics that deserve our attention. Those qualities are not just matters of academic interest. Rather, they tell us something important about what Psalm 19 means and about how we might put it to use in our everyday lives—particularly during this season of Lent.

First, Psalm 19 approaches all of its diverse messages from a positive point of view. The psalmist is a realist: he recognizes that things can go wrong—and so can he. But he does not speak in any of the voices that we hear in many other psalms. We do not find the cries of frustration, the exclamations of outrage, the pleas for vengeance, or the fears of abandonment that we encounter elsewhere. Psalm 19 is a song of confident faith, a celebratory offering from one who believes that the Lord loves him, wants the best for him, and will help guide his steps.

And this makes the second unifying characteristic of Psalm 19 all the more interesting. You see, I believe that Psalm 19 is also unified by a theme of deep personal humility. The psalmist acknowledges that he suffers from flaws both conspicuous and “hidden”; he recognizes that he will make mistakes; he knows that his own strength and wisdom are inadequate to make him into the person God wants him to become; he worries about falling captive to his pride.

This juxtaposition of abundant confidence and abject humility is striking. In this day and age, it is also very refreshing. These days, we hear lots of confident proclamations about who God is, what God wants, and whose side God has taken. We hear a lot less humility.

So the way the psalmist concludes his song strikes me as singularly beautiful and poignant: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.” Now, think about this in the broader context of Psalm 19 that we just discussed. The psalmist prays that God might find his words and thoughts acceptable—even when his words and thoughts are as simple and pure and righteous as “you’re great; you’re everywhere; and I need your help.”

This is true humility. This is an almost alarming recognition of how profoundly little we can know about the mind of God. This is the voice of someone who understands the limitations of his understanding. And it is a voice that echoes throughout the most sacred texts of our faith. Now we see in a mirror, dimly. Now we know but only in part.

I promise that someday I will preach a sermon where I do not quote Robert Frost. But today is not that day. Frost has some gentle fun with the limitations of our knowledge in a poem called “Neither Out Far Nor In Deep,” one of my favorites. It goes like this:

The people along the sand
All turn and look one way.
They turn their back on the land.
They look at the sea all day.

As long as it takes to pass
A ship keeps raising its hull;
The wetter ground like glass
Reflects a standing gull.

The land may vary more;
But wherever the truth may be—
The water comes ashore
And the people look at the sea.

They cannot look out far.
They cannot look in deep.
But when was that ever a bar
To any watch they keep?

This seems to me a particularly appropriate poem for the season of Lent. We cannot look out far. We cannot look in deep. But we get ourselves to the best spiritual shoreline we can find—and we watch.

Many years ago, I found myself staring out into Lake Superior on a clear, sunny, shimmering Michigan afternoon. After a while, I noticed a little black dot on the horizon. Gradually, the dot got bigger and seemed to turn red. Then I thought I could see other colors—yellow, blue, green. Finally, I could make out the shape of a big, billowing spinnaker; pulling a handsome sailboat behind it; headed in my direction as if someone knew I had been hoping for it to appear.

We see in a mirror, dimly. We know only in part. We cannot look out far. We cannot look in deep. But, sometimes, we can see out farther and in deeper than we expected. And, always, the thing that we are looking for is there, borne up in the wind, working its way toward us, closer than we imagined.

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

Amen.

A Brief Introduction to the Human Condition

Scripture: Genesis 2 and 3

It is impossible to overstate the influence that the story of Adam and Eve has had on Western culture. It serves as the focus of the greatest epic poem written in the English language—John Milton’s Paradise Lost. It provides the subject matter for countless masterpieces of Renaissance art, including works by Michelangelo, Raphael, Tintoretto, Titian, and Masaccio—about whom I’ll have more to say later. Indeed, their pervasive presence in Renaissance art leads me to wonder whether Adam and Eve fled Eden for Tuscany, a notion that might explain why my Italian in-laws are constantly urging me to eat something.

But the story of Adam and Eve has not been reserved to the lofty bastions of high art. For better or worse, it permeates our popular culture as well. It has been parodied in countless jokes and cartoons. It shows up in the lyrics of songs by everyone from Paul Anka to Gary Puckett to Bob Marley to Bruce Springsteen.

Clearly, and I guess ironically, we find this story irresistible. But this familiarity brings with it the risk that we will not just secularize, but trivialize, this important piece of scripture. That would be a terrible shame, because—as is true of so many passages in the Book of Genesis—this is not just a story about where we came from. This is a story about who we are. Indeed, I want to suggest to you that this passage is nothing less than a brief introduction to the human condition.

Of course, we all recognize the tragic human weakness of Adam and Eve. God gave them a single rule—and they could not follow it. Little wonder that God did not meet with much better success in persuading humankind to follow the ten rules he later delivered to Moses.

After Adam and Eve disobeyed this command they heard the sound of God walking in the garden, felt ashamed, and tried to hide. As I have observed before, trying to hide from God is surely one of the stupidest ideas ever. It is right up there with the idea that the earth is flat, the idea that the world is the fixed center of the universe, and the idea I had in high school that I could persuade a girl to go out with me by observing that she had the same name as my dog.

Then, when God found Adam and Eve and confronted them with their transgression, they did not accept responsibility. They did not ask for forgiveness or express regret or demonstrate repentance. They just tried to lay the blame on others.

Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed the snake. In fact, have you noticed that the snake is the only player in this drama who didn’t argue with God and blame somebody else? I thought about titling this sermon “On the Moral Superiority of Snakes” but I did not want to generate unnecessary controversy.

We can see so much of ourselves in Adam and Eve. They don’t like being told what to do. They try to hide from the consequences of their misconduct. They dodge responsibility. They blame others for their failings.

But the story does not portray them as one-dimensional troublemakers. If it did, the story wouldn't be so engaging. To the contrary, their decision to eat the apple seems driven by a complicated collection of motivations: aspiration; imagination; curiosity. It may help us to appreciate the full humanity of Adam and Eve to remember that, in other contexts, we think of those motives as virtues.

In Milton’s memorable words, Adam and Eve were “sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.” They had a choice. It was the basic choice inherent in the human condition, and, as the old hymn says, that “choice goes by forever, twixt that darkness and that light.”

Over time, we have made Adam and Eve into symbols—even into caricatures. But it is important to recognize that this is not how the Bible gives them to us. The Bible presents them as fully human: at once extravagantly noble and catastrophically weak. And it is only when we can see them as fully human that we can begin to imagine the unspeakable pain and horror they must have experienced when they were cast from Eden and separated from the place that God had made for them.

I suppose that is why I find Masaccio’s famous fresco in the Brancacci Chapel in Florence among the most powerful renderings of this story. Adam bends over, his head in his hands, his muscles tight with sobbing. Eve throws her head back, her mouth agape and gasping, her eyes clenched shut. It is the perfect expression of inexpressible despair. I cannot look at it without remembering W. H. Auden’s observation about the Old Masters of painting: “about suffering they were never wrong.”

And this, too, is part of the story’s brief introduction to the human condition. From the beginning of time, we have gotten ourselves into places where we have felt hopelessly separated from the things we treasure, even from God, perhaps especially from God. Then we have looked around and asked ourselves—as Adam and Eve surely must have asked themselves—how did I get here? How did my mortality and my weakness bring me so far away from where I belong?

Those are the questions posed by this story. Those are the questions posed by this season of Lent. They are hard questions.

This week's New Yorker includes a fascinating article about one G. Stanley Hall, the founder of gerontology and a character of major proportions. The piece describes a questionnaire that Hall sent around to all the "mostly eminent and some very distinguished old people" he could think of. Among other things, he asked them: How do you keep well? What temptations do you feel? Are you troubled with regrets? The article rightly points out that these are still our questions. Indeed, I think they have been our questions since that first morning east of Paradise.

But there is good news. The truth reflected in the story of Adam and Eve may be fundamental but it is not final. It tells us alot about who we are. But it tells us very little about who we might yet become. For that, we need to look to a different story--the story of an obscure itinerant preacher from the town of Nazareth. It is, as they say, the greatest story ever told.

Certainly, it is a story about betrayal and pain and suffering. But it is also a story about mercy and forgiveness and rebirth. It is a story about peace and reassurance and comfort. It is a story about redeeming sacrifice and everlasting love and amazing, amazing grace.

It is a story about hope, even in a world battered with hate and violence and natural disasters and political upheavels, even here, even now, even this far from a place called Eden.

Praise God that it is so.

Amen.

Temptations Four Through Six

A revised version of a sermon shared with the residents of the Chelsea Retirement Community, March, 2010

Scripture: Luke 4:1-13

This familiar passage from the gospels describes the three temptations that Jesus faced during his time in the wilderness. Biblical scholars have suggested ways we might relate those temptations to our own experience.

First, the devil tempts Jesus to turn a stone into bread. This offer must have been very alluring, because the text tells us that Jesus had been fasting and was “famished.” Many commentators have compared this to the temptations that come to us from basic needs like hunger, shelter, and survival.

Second, the devil offers Jesus “authority” over “all the kingdoms of the world.” As with all such “opportunities” there’s a catch: Jesus must bow down and worship Satan. Commentators often compare this to the temptations that come to us from our appetite for power.

And, third, the devil tempts Jesus to throw himself from the pinnacle of the temple in order to prove that He is the Son of God. We might have a tougher time associating this temptation with the sort of temptations that you and I encounter. But I think that Peter Gomes has a wonderful insight here. He writes: “This [temptation] appeals to the sense of identity and the need to prove who we are … No one likes to have his identity challenged or threatened; we are insecure enough without someone demanding proof that we are who we say we are.”

These are pretty traditional views of the scripture and I agree with them, at least as far as they go. But they raise a question: does this scripture still have anything to say to us if those three temptations are not our temptations? After all, they may not be. 

We might not know the temptations that come with crippling hunger or with deep uncertainty about shelter and safety. We may always have lived in a comfortable place with plenty to eat. Or, if there were times when resources were scarce, they may be well behind us.

We also may not worry much about acquiring power. We may have reached an age or a state of mind where we see power for the impostor that it is. There is a story about Edward Bennett Williams, the legendary trial lawyer, political insider, and confidant of the rich, famous, and infamous. One afternoon, Williams’ son found his father lying down, chilled and nauseous from the cancer that was killing him. Williams tossed his son a copy of a magazine he’d been reading, which described him as one of the most powerful men in Washington. “They don’t realize what power really is,” Williams said to his son. “I’m about to see true power.”

And as for proving ourselves, well, that may not be as big a deal for us as it once was either. For many of us, growing older brings the grace of no longer feeling the irresistible impulse to establish our credentials with every poor soul who will sit still long enough to listen. Mark Twain once observed that “Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.” Certainly, this would save us all the pain and frustration that attends those early years when we are fashioning our identity and trying to get the world to take it seriously.

So we might look at this list of three temptations and say to ourselves “eh, not so much” or "been there, done that." We might question whether these particular temptations still bedevil us (so to speak) the way they used to. We might conclude that this passage does not have for us the same poignancy it may have had earlier in life.

But I want to suggest to you that this text does not describe only three temptations. It describes many more, at least some of which remain with us throughout our time on earth, regardless of our place or age or station. I want to talk here about three of them, which I will call “temptations four through six.”

Temptation four is the temptation to do what is easy rather than what is right. If we look closely, we can see this temptation in this passage. Jesus can eat, know comfort, and have authority over all the kingdoms of the earth if he will only do what Satan asks. It certainly sounds simple enough. But Jesus instead chooses the hardest path imaginable, one that leads him through rejection, grief, betrayal, torture, suffering, and death.

Most of us struggle with this temptation our entire lives. To borrow a phrase from James Russell Lowell, it is in the nature of human existence that we will necessarily encounter “moments to decide” between that which is comfortable and expedient and that which is uncomfortable and righteous. And we will encounter those moments almost every day. Again, to borrow a phrase from Lowell, “the choice goes by forever.”

Think, for example, of all the times we hear the voice of cruelty or bigotry or hatred and we do not call it out for what it is; we let it pass; we pretend it didn’t happen. We do the easy thing. But it doesn’t sit well with us. And, I fear, it doesn’t sit particularly well with the one who made us, either.

Temptation five is the temptation to forget who we are and what we know. If we look closely we can find this temptation in the scripture as well. After all, there is a sense in which Satan is asking Jesus not to prove that He is the Son of God but to forget that He is the Son of God.

Jesus does not take the bait. He remembers who He is. He remembers what He knows.

I think this is why Jesus responds to all three temptations by quoting passages from the Hebrew Bible. Jesus shows that He remembers what He was taught to value; He remembers the sacred texts He studied in his youth; He remembers the ideas that He shared with his elders in the temple while Mary and Joseph were looking around for him. Memory preserves Jesus, as it often preserves each and every one of us.

And then there is temptation six. It is a whopper. Temptation six is the temptation to elevate our physical being over our spiritual being.

We find this temptation in this scripture as well. Jesus is invited to feed all of his appetites. He is offered the opportunity to have all the world’s pleasures at his command. In short, he is urged to define himself by his body, by what Delmore Schwartz in a wonderful and whimsical poem calls “the heavy bear who goes with me, clumsy and lumbering here and there, in love with candy, anger, and sleep.”

Our bodies do this to us. They knock incessantly at the door of our consciousness to reiterate that they’re waiting for us to attend to them. They work hard and constantly to define us--and our culture happily conspires with them to this end.

The form this temptation takes may change as we get older, but the fundamental impulse remains the same. The stiffness in the neck, the soreness in the back, the clicking noises in the joints, the little pains that move around the body like a dog circling and circling before it lies down--these, too, are ways in which our bodies cry out for our attention and claim eminence. And as we age the cries get fussier and more frequent.

In this passage, Jesus answers this temptation, too. And it may help us to remember that this text does not give us the strident voice of the strong carpenter’s son at the peak of his vigor. It gives us the voice of one who is worn down, tired, wanting for energy, yearning for comfort.

Yet, in just that voice, Jesus offers us consolation that can bring "the peace that passes all understanding." For, here, Jesus assures us that there is something else; something greater than the “heavy bear” that we tote along with us on our mortal journey; something beyond "bread alone."

Teilhard de Chardin once observed: "We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience."In calling us to know the life that lies beyond bread alone, Jesus invites us into the heart of that truth. And in the heart of that truth lies our transformation and our salvation and our greatest, indeed our only, hope.

Charles Baudelaire suggested that the greatest trick of the devil was to persuade us that he does not exist. I'm not so sure. I think that maybe his greatest trick is to persuade us that we are something less than what we are.

For the overarching message of temptations four through six is this: you are a child of the living God; you are immortal in your spirit and boundless in your soul; you were placed here to do the holy and sacred work of Love Itself.

Fear nothing in the wildernesses of your life.

Except those things that tempt you to believe otherwise.   
 
Amen.

The Thing Before The Thing Itself

Scripture: Luke 4:1-13

Lent—which literally means “springtime”—became popular about four hundred years after the time of Christ. It is a tradition built on scriptural inspiration. We remember Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness. And we use the forty days before Easter to reflect more deeply, to give a few things up, and to take a few things on.

But traditions can become stale through habit and repetition. Year after year we may read the same devotionals, temporarily abandon the same sensual indulgences, briefly burden ourselves with the same minor inconveniences, and call it “Lent.” For many of us, this process ends up looking less like worshiping with emotion and more like going through the motions.

The risk that we will not sufficiently engage with this special and holy time is compounded by the natural human inclination to guarantee success by asking relatively little of ourselves. Years ago, a friend told me that in honor of Lent he planned to abstain from screaming profanities at people who cut him off in traffic. This struck me as—shall we say—aiming rather low.

So the beginning of the Lenten season is a good time to ask an important, indeed fundamental, question: What is it—exactly—that we’re supposed to be doing? With that in mind, let’s take a good hard look at the scripture that informs our practice. And let’s see if we can find some answers.

A traditional and common answer to this question suggests that Lent is a time of preparation in anticipation of the glorious rebirth that we celebrate on Easter morning. Lent is not the final destination; it is a journey—a journey toward redemption and hope. Lent is not the thing itself; it is the thing before the thing itself.

At first glance, however, we may have a little trouble connecting this theme of preparation with the text we actually find in Luke. Indeed, when we turn to the scripture we discover a conspicuous, and perhaps even unsettling, absence. After all, these verses nowhere expressly state that Jesus went into the wilderness in order to get ready to do something else.

Nevertheless, for centuries believers have associated this theme with this text. And I think they have done so for good reason. Granted, the scripture may not raise the theme of preparation explicitly and literally; but it does seem to do so implicitly and structurally.

In Luke, Jesus’ ministry begins in earnest immediately after his time in the wilderness. Just think of all that happens after the wilderness story and in the rest of Chapter 4. Jesus returns to Nazareth; reports about Him begin to spread; He starts teaching in the synagogues; He announces that the scriptures have been fulfilled; He is driven out of Nazareth and travels to Capernaum; He astonishes people with what He says; He casts the demons out of one who is cursed; He heals the sick and suffering; and He is called the Son of God.

Similarly, in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, Jesus’ time in the wilderness immediately precedes the initiation of his Galilean ministry. Still, Matthew and Mark offer us a slight variation on the sequence of events. In those Gospels, the first thing Jesus does after emerging from the wilderness is to begin to gather disciples around him. I’ll have more to say about that later.

For now, though, let’s take as one answer to our question that Lent is about preparing, and specifically about preparing for the saving grace that comes to us through Jesus Christ crucified and risen. This preparation requires us to confront our humanness; to acknowledge our weakness; and to own our sinfulness. As one commentary on Lent observes, this explains the conflicting feelings that Lent may inspire:

"Lent should never be morose—an annual ordeal during which we begrudgingly forgo a handful of pleasures. Instead, we ought to approach Lent as an opportunity, not a requirement. After all, it is meant to be the church’s springtime, a time when, out of the darkness of sin’s winter, a repentant, empowered people emerge. Put another way, Lent is the season in which we ought to be surprised by joy. Our self-sacrifices serve no purpose unless, by laying aside this or that desire, we are able to focus on our heart’s deepest longing: unity with Christ. In him—in his suffering and death, his resurrection and triumph—we find our truest joy. Such joy is costly, however. It arises from the horror of our sin, which crucified Christ. This is why Meister Eckhart points out that those who have the hardest time with Lent are ‘the good people.’" (Bread and Wine (2003))

That Lent is a time of preparation, then, is one answer to our question; but it is not necessarily the only answer.

A different kind of answer focuses on the reality that Lent is where we live. We live in a world that loves the darkness. We live in an age that persists in turning its back on peace, forgiveness, reconciliation, and love. We live with minds and bodies that are constantly assailed by temptations.

We are an Easter people. But we live in a Lenten time and a Lenten place. And we live with Lenten hearts.

That is why the temptations directed at Jesus intrigue us so. His temptations are our temptations. Peter Gomes describes them as the temptations that come from the need for survival and nourishment; the temptations that come from the urge for power; and the temptations that come from our need to “prove who we are.”

These temptations are constant. Before this day is over, at least one of them will probably visit itself upon each and every one of us. And that visitation may come quietly: temptations are rude; they do not knock before entering.

Of course, these temptations typically do not arrive looking much like the satanic depictions we see in paintings and movies. Still, to paraphrase a famous observation by C.S. Lewis, it is important not to be too particular about the hoofs and the horns. In these, our highly educated and abundantly skeptical times, it is fashionable to doubt the existence of Satan. To adopt the language of our times, however, I want to suggest to you that the reality of the devil is the ultimate inconvenient truth.

And the temptations the scriptures describe are not just constant; they are unceasing. The wilderness story therefore closes with a Satan who is not triumphantly defeated but just temporarily discouraged: “When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.” As Peter Gomes observes, “The devil awaits that opportune time with us, that time when he can appeal to our injured pride, our wounded ego, our fear of not being appreciated, [or] our anger at being ignored. These are the opportune times when the devil’s persistence reaps great benefits.”

It may be worth noting in passing that in the scriptures Satan never really finds an “opportune time” to tempt Jesus. He does, however, find an abundance of opportune times to tempt those around Him: to tempt them into jealousy, pettiness, anger, denial, even betrayal. As many of you know, I am an enthusiastic fan of the old film “The Greatest Story Ever Told.” In my view, the film does something quite brilliant here: the same actor who portrays Satan in the temptation scene—Donald Pleasance—also plays the first person in the crowd to call for Jesus’ crucifixion.

In any event, this second answer to our question suggests that Lent is not only about preparing. It is also about living. It is about trying to figure out how to keep our soul safe in a time and place that relentlessly invites us to put that troublesome chunk of divinity aside and to feast gluttonously on the selfish impulse of the day.

In her essay “Living Lent,” Episcopal priest and author Barbara Cawthorne Crafton observes that when we become slaves to those impulses it often it takes a crisis to bring us to our senses and to remind us how to be in this world:

"When did the collision between our appetites and the needs of our souls happen? Was there a heart attack? Did we get laid off from work, one of the thousands certified as extraneous? Did a beloved child become a bored stranger, a marriage fall silent and cold? Or, by some exquisite working of God’s grace, did we just find the courage to look the truth in the eye and, for once, not blink? How did we come to know that we were dying a slow and unacknowledged death? And that the only way back to life was to set all our packages down and begin again, carrying with us only what we really needed?"

In this sense, Lent is not the thing before the thing itself. It is the thing itself. This perspective argues that—at least on this side of the transition we call death—there is no destination. There is only the journey. And there is only the constant challenge of deciding how we will travel it and of choosing what—and who—we will bring along as we go.

Well, that leads me to a third possible answer to the question of what we’re supposed to do during this Lenten season. But before describing that answer, I want to return to our passage from Luke and to emphasize a few things that it tells and shows us. And I want to do this because I believe that our Lenten traditions and conventions, wonderful and inspiring as they are, might distract us from some critical realities about how faith works and what we can do to foster it.

So please notice this: Jesus does not just go to the wilderness; He goes to the wilderness “full of the Holy Spirit.” And, verse 14 says, he comes out of the wilderness “filled with the power of the Spirit.”

While Jesus is in the wilderness, Satan tempts him. And Jesus meets each temptation with a quotation from scripture. Three are quotations from Deuteronomy in which the Lord is speaking through Moses. And one is a quotation from the Psalms.

So, you see, we miss something essential if we imagine Jesus (as we often do) going into the wilderness alone. He didn’t. He went with the best company imaginable.

He went with the Holy Spirit. He went with Moses and the Psalmist. He went with all the figures of the bible he read in his youth—Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph and Solomon and Ruth and Jeremiah and Daniel. And—as Mark tells us—he went with angels at his side.

Jesus also went there with the fresh memory of His baptism at the hands of John. Indeed, in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark Jesus’ foray into the wilderness is framed by the relationships essential to his ministry. Immediately before it we find his encounter with John at the Jordan; immediately after it we find his calling of the first disciples beside the Sea of Galilee.

This helps explain something truly astonishing about Jesus’ interactions with Satan in the wilderness, something I think often goes overlooked. Satan tries to tempt Jesus; Jesus responds; and the argument ends. Granted, Satan goes on to try other tacks; but they fail, too. So what is striking about these exchanges is that they do not devolve into prolonged debates. Satan invites Jesus to do something He knows is wrong. Jesus cites scripture to say no. And that is that.

Now, I don’t know about you, but this is not how it works in my case. My arguments with the devil tend to go on and on. Satan invites me to do something selfish; I say no; Satan points out that I’m a good guy and I deserve it; and I start to entertain the possibility that he has a point. We call him many things: Satan, the devil, Beelzebub, and so on. I sometimes wonder, though, whether we should also call him “But on the other hand.”

Often, though, we are able to cut the argument short by remembering the relationships that matter to us. Drawing on the memory and meaning of those relationships can provide critical help at critical times. It has been said that we can avoid mistakes by recalling a simple acronym, HALT, which stands for the proposition that we're most inclined to blunder when we're hungry, angry, lonely, or tired. The strength we draw from relationships, however, can quell our hunger, calm our anger, refresh us with new energy, and remind us that we are never really alone.

And this leads me to the third possible answer to our question of what we’re supposed to do during Lent. Maybe, at least in part, Lent is an opportunity to learn how to exercise and flex whatever spiritual muscle we developed before Lent began. If Lent is where we live, then perhaps we should approach it as a chance to figure out how to incorporate—fully and completely—our preexisting spiritual understanding into our everyday existence.

So it may be true that part of Lent is figuring out what to leave behind. But it is also true that part of Lent is remembering what to bring along—and who to bring along. And this last point is critical, because our journey through the wilderness goes best if we don’t try to go it alone.

So we bring with us the presence of the Holy Spirit. We bring with us that chorus of biblical voices that offer guidance, instruction, encouragement, support, and the reassurance that—whatever challenges we face—there is nothing new under the sun and nothing greater than God’s capacity to help us get through it. Maybe we bring some angels. But, certainly, we bring with us those precious relationships: the ones that have helped shape who we are; the ones that will help shape what we become; the ones that we help shape in return.

It is impossible to overstate the connection between those relationships and the underlying themes and purposes of Lent. But this passage from a work by theologian Harvey Cox may explain what I’m getting at:

"Christians believe that Jesus was the fully human expression of God’s love, so like any other human being, he felt the torments of uncertainty. He sweated drops of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane as he tried to decide whether to continue with his mission even when he had become aware that it would cost him his life. He was fully human, and human beings need other human beings, not just as disciples but also as friends, which is what Jesus told his own followers at the Last Supper that he wanted them to be. The point is clear: Living a moral life is not a solo flight." (When Jesus Came to Harvard (2004))

Living a moral life is not a solo flight, indeed. And neither is Lent.

So we go, now, into the wilderness. But we do not go alone. We go with the Holy Spirit. We go with Noah and David and Esther and Isaiah. We go with angels. We go with those who love the Lord. We go with those we love. We go with each other.

And, lo, when they came out of the wilderness, when they arrived at the other side, it was seen that they were filled with the power of the Spirit. And the devil at long last fell away. And the Lord welcomed them home. And the angels laughed, and danced.

Amen.

Breakthrough

Scripture: Exodus 34:29-35 and 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2

For more than a decade I have been a devoted student of Tae Kwon Do, a Korean form of karate. I've received first, second, and third degree black belts after rigorous testing periods that the school euphemistically calls “camp.” As part of this process, the lead instructor would occasionally, and unexpectedly, call on us to step outside our comfort zones. This could be pretty daunting because, as you might guess, master karate instructors expect their students to have comfort zones of very wide diameters.

So, one Friday a few years back, when I was attending a mid-day class, my instructor marched up to me and asked if I’d be returning to the school in the late afternoon to teach – something I like to do when I have time. I said that I would. He thought for a second and responded “Alright. Well, when you come back today I’d like you to try to break a cement slab with your hand.” He smiled and walked away. I didn’t smile and started to worry. Granted, I had previously broken wooden boards with kicks and punches. But, in case you haven’t noticed, cement is harder than pine.

I called Lisa, told her about the plan, and asked her to come to the school that afternoon to lend moral support. By time she got there, I was feeling pretty confident. I’d broken that cement slab in my head a thousand times.

Nevertheless, my self-assurance started to wane as I watched my instructor set up for the demonstration. He perched a cement slab atop two huge blocks. Then he put some small wooden spacers on the edges. Then he put another slab on top of that. Then more spacers and another slab, and again, until I was staring at a stack of four chunks of cement, waiting for me to hit them as hard as I could.

Lisa saw the look on my face and – doing her best to keep her skepticism at bay – made one of those statements that are really questions. Specifically, she said: “You’re sure you can do this.” Amazed that she would harbor any doubts about my super-human powers, I crossed my arms, puffed myself up, and boldly responded “I am absolutely sure that when my hand hits that cement something will break.”

These two scripture readings have a great deal to do with comfort zones, stepping outside, and breaking through. Biblical scholars have described both of them as “difficult” passages and they have, indeed, been the subject of some unfortunate misinterpretations and mistranslations. But a careful reading of them reveals that they have something very powerful to say to each of us, particularly during the holy season of Lent.

The story told in Exodus may at first seem straightforward enough. Moses has spoken with the Lord, who has revealed the Ten Commandments to him. As a result of his encounter with God, Moses’s face “shines.” This frightens the Israelites, so Moses uses a veil when he speaks to them; when he returns to talk with the Lord, he removes it.

The Hebrew language, however, makes this apparently simple story a great deal more mysterious. For example, the word “shine” is a translation of the Hebrew term “qaran.” Most scholars believe this translation makes sense even though the Hebrew Bible nowhere else uses the word qaran to mean “shine.” Rather, it typically uses qaran to mean “horn.” Indeed, early translations of the Hebrew Bible adopted this meaning of the word, which explains why Michelangelo’s famous statue of Moses features two huge horns protruding from his hair.

Some have suggested that the best translation combines the two meanings, so we might envision Moses descending from Sinai with two shafts or “horns” of light “shining” from his face. Indeed, the famed nineteenth century biblical illustrator Gustave Dore portrays Moses in just this fashion. This understanding would certainly help explain why Moses’ appearance would have frightened the Israelites!

The word “veil” presents some problems, too. This is a translation of the Hebrew “masweh,” which appears in this scripture. Scholars think this is a valid rendering of the Hebrew term based on its context. Some uncertainty remains, however, because this word appears nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible.

It seems to me, though, that the most interesting mystery at work here doesn’t relate to these particular words but to the event itself. After all, whatever its other ambiguities the passage does clearly tell us that Moses’s encounter with God changed his appearance – somehow – and that Moses decided to conceal that change so as not to frighten the Israelites. But what the scripture does not tell us is why Moses would have so indulged the anxieties of his audience. To put it differently, why didn’t Moses call upon the Israelites to put their silly trepidation aside so they could experience the light of the Lord in its full and undiluted glory?

The answer, of course, is that Moses – like all great leaders – had a profound understanding of human nature. He knew how hard it is to convince people to change, to challenge themselves, to chart a new course. He had seen the almost irresistible forces of timidity and inertia at work; indeed, he had led the Israelites out of captivity only to hear them complain that they’d been better off before. Long before Sir Isaac Newton, Moses grasped the principle that a body at rest will stay at rest until something else gets it moving. And long before we coined the phrase, Moses had a deep knowledge of comfort zones ... and how easily we get stuck in them.

So Moses gave the people what he thought they could handle. He shared the word of the Lord, while withholding some of the light of the Lord. As one distinguished biblical analyst puts it, in this passage the “urgency of communication” takes priority over everything else.

Now, we may well sympathize with Moses’ decision here. After all, Moses wanted the people to hear the word of God, and anything that distracted them needed to be put aside – even if the distraction came in the form of a divine radiance. Well, we may sympathize with this decision – but Paul does not.

Indeed, in this passage from Second Corinthians Paul takes the story from Exodus and turns it against itself. Or, more specifically, he turns it against Moses. And perhaps we can understand Paul’s dismay over Moses’ decision to hide his shining light when we remember that Jesus invited us to let our light shine before others, all for the glory of the Lord.

Paul points out that Moses “put a veil over his face to keep the people of Israel from gazing” on the full glory of God. But, Paul says, we are called to be different. We are called to cast away anything that stands between us and the Lord. We are called to look toward the Lord with unveiled faces. We are called to open ourselves fully to the working of the Spirit and to know the hope and freedom that follow. And then we are called – in our unveiled and unfettered state – to “act with great boldness” – “to act with great boldness.”

Now, on the theme of misinterpretations, I think it important to understand what Paul is not doing here. He is not trumpeting the virtues of the Corinthians over those of the Israelites. We know this because it is impossible to read Paul’s letters without sensing his deep frustrations with his beloved church in Corinth. As the historian Garry Wills says in his book What Paul Meant, “[h]is dealings with [the Corinthians] were sticky, thorny, and cantankerous.”

I particularly like this image from the work of Donald Harman Akenson: "At times, Paul reminds one of a vice-principal of a large urban high school who has to teach a daily class in calculus to the college-bound stream, then, as head of discipline he breaks up a fight in the hall, and next he finds he has to fill in for a shop teacher who has gone home with a migraine. After school he coaches the offensive line of the football team, and finally at night he has to appear before a special session of the city council and give a polished argument for continued funding of the art and music classes. So we honor the canon of [P]aul’s letters my accepting their sometimes-distracted, sometimes-staccato quality as part of the warrant of their authenticity, the words of a man on a mission."

The image of Paul as a vice-principal is so true to the text. And so is the recognition that Paul had many different kinds of issues with the many different kinds of people who made up the Corinthian church. Clearly, though, one of those issues was that individuals who came from Greco-Roman religious traditions simply did not think about faith the same way the early Pauline Christians did. They had their way of doing things – including spiritual things – and that was that. In other words, Paul had trouble moving some of the Corinthians out of their comfort zones.

No surprises there – those Corinthians liked their comfort zones. Just like the Israelites. Just like us.

Now, this brings up an interesting fact. Do you know where the phrase “comfort zone” comes from? It is a phrase used in biology and engineering to describe that temperature range where we neither shiver nor perspire.

When we’re in our “comfort zone” we’re neither hot nor cold. We’re tepid. We’re lukewarm.

And, in this passage from Second Corinthians, Paul makes it unmistakably plain that he does not want lukewarm Christians. Indeed, I think Paul might have questioned whether there can be any such thing. I think Jesus might have questioned it as well.

This is worth contemplating during Lent. After all, many of us like to “give something up” for the season. Perhaps some of us feel called to “give up” chocolate or red meat. I had a friend years ago who for Lent gave up swearing at people who cut him off in traffic—that always seemed like setting the bar awfully low!

But let me offer another possibility here, one that I think embraces and fulfills these scriptures and leads us in a more compelling direction. What if, for the season of Lent, we were to give up our “comfort zones?” What if we were to stop talking about them? What if we were to get a little uncomfortable? What if we were to put aside the veils we pull out whenever God gets a little "too close for comfort?" What if we were to leave lukewarm behind and try living at a full, rolling boil for a while?

What if during the holy season of Lent we were all to stretch a bit further? What if we were all to take on that something more, that something different, that something challenging that God needs done and that we can do if only we will take the little leap of faith that lands us outside of our comfort zones? What if we were to show the true courage that escorts true faith wherever it goes, wherever God leads? What if we were to go through Lent “acting with great boldness?”

Well, in case you’re wondering, I broke the cement slabs. It worked because my instructors told me something that, in a very different sense, Paul tells us as well: you cannot break through anything by hitting to it; you have to hit through it; you have to hit through it even when you’re not sure you can; you just need to imagine the breakthrough, act boldly, and have faith.

Over the years I’ve probably hit or kicked a hundred boards and cement slabs. I’ve only gotten hurt one time. It was the time I hesitated. It was the time I held back.

Hesitating, holding back, hiding behind our convenient veils, idling in our comfort zones – what wonderful things to give up for Lent.

What wonderful things to give up for good.

What wonderful things to give up for God.

Amen.

You Will Be With Me

Scripture: Luke 23:39-43

On its face it seems like a simple story with a simple message: Jesus has mercy on a man who confesses his guilt and proclaims his faith in Christ. But there are few simple stories in the Bible. And there are no simple stories about the death of the Son of God. So let's look closely at this passage, which has many things to say to us, including some very hard things.

Let's begin by remembering where this story takes place: at the site of some of the greatest suffering in the history of the world; at a site not just of death but of mass systematic torture. We have grown accustomed to this story and hardened by the sufferings of this life. So we may unconsciously look away from the terrible reality of the context of these words; we may find ourselves picking up our pace and hurrying past the anguish of the Cross to the triumphal comforts of Easter.

In one of his most famous novels, Albert Camus describes the misery that follows when a plague descends upon an Algerian village. As the death toll mounts, the villagers become less sensitive to the suffering around them. Camus writes: "In some houses groans could be heard. At first, when that happened, people often gathered outside and listened, prompted by curiosity or compassion. But under the prolonged strain it seemed that hearts had toughened; people lived beside these groans or walked past them as though they had become the normal speech of men." (Albert Camus, The Plague (1948))

We need to stop and gather at the foot of the Cross. We need to listen. We need to hear the groans of these three condemned men -- and to hear them for what they are.

This does not just force us to confront something terrible. It forces us to confront something profoundly unsettling. It forces us to plunge into the deep and turbulent waters of this complex theological question: does God suffer?

We take it as a given that Jesus suffered. Much of our understanding of the significance of the crucifixion depends upon it. And the traditions of our faith recognize Jesus as the fulfillment of Isaiah's messianic prophecy of the "suffering servant."

But does the Father -- to whom Jesus later cries out -- suffer? Is God suffering even as Jesus speaks the words in this story? If not, then what are we to make of such a God and the idea that we are made in God's image? If so, then how does that correspond to our understanding of God's power and authority? Can we coherently imagine a God who has ultimate control and who also suffers -- when suffering in our experience so often reflects an absence of control?

The revered theologian Jurgen Moltmann offers this answer: "If God were in every respect incapable of suffering, God wold also be incapable of love. If God is love, however, God opens God's self for the suffering that love for others brings. God does not suffer, as we do, out of deficiency of being, but God does suffer from love for creation, which is the overflowing superabundance of God's divine being. In this sense, God can suffer, will suffer, and is suffering in the world." (Jurgen Motlmann, "The Crucified God Yesterday and Today," in Passion for God: Theology in Two Voices 74-75 (2004)).

So when we come to this story, we must restrain ourselves from rushing to its consoling message of redemption -- even though it unquestionably contains one. We must pause and remember that we have come to a place of unspeakable suffering: suffering of the children of God; suffering of the very Son of God; suffering of and by God; suffering for us.

There is, of course, a tragic irony in the fact that this suffering occurred on behalf of humankind -- for the suffering also occurred at the behest of humankind. It shames us to remember that Jesus was crucified not against the will of the people but in compliance with and fulfillment of the will of the people. And it shames us to remember that, throughout the trial and crucifixion of Jesus, only a few people expressed their belief in his innocence. As if to compound the irony, those few are not among the Bible's heroes. To the contrary, they included Pontius Pilate, Herod, and the criminal in our story -- a man about whom we know little, except that his crime and his guilt were great enough to force from his lips the confession that he deserved to be crucified.

Jesus responds to this confession with words that must have comforted the criminal -- and that must challenge us. "Truly, I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise." This is a stunning pronouncement, dense with good news, and dense with hard news as well.

The hard news comes not from what Jesus says, but from what He does not say. In context, it seems clear that Jesus directs His promise to the criminal who has confessed his weakness. It therefore follows that Jesus did not offer similar reassurance toward the criminal who was deriding Him. To put it more pointedly, His statement offers hope to one man, but it also passes judgment against another. Of course, the text includes no explicit discussion of any such judgment and we can't presume to know what became of the other criminal. But the apparent omission of any palliative words toward him invites us into a close consideration of divine justice, which we must think as perfect as divine love, even if thinking so makes us very uneasy.

But the good news is extraordinarily good -- indeed, so good it threatens to eclipse the harder news implicit in this story. For, in these words, Jesus extended a promise to one of the forlorn -- and to all of us as well. And it is a promise that gives us cause for unalloyed joy and unbridled hope.

In these words, Jesus made a promise to the least deserving in the kingdom. He made a promise to a man who had done some very bad things -- so bad the man had given up on himself and had embraced death by torture as a fitting end to his life. But Jesus tells the man that he -- even he -- could go where Christ would lead him.

In these words, Jesus made a promise that exceeded the man's prayers. Indeed, you'll notice that this criminal asks nothing of Jesus but to remember him. But Jesus embraces the man beyond his greatest expectations, beyond his wildest hopes.

And, in these words, Jesus made a promise that was not remote or distant in its fulfillment. "Truly, I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise." The man had asked for something that could only be achieved over time; he asked not to be forgotten. But Jesus gives him something for which he does not need to wait; he gives him something immediate.

In his beautiful commentary on the seven last words of Christ, Peter Storey writes as follows about this passage: "Today! The early Methodist circuit riders of the American frontier never tired of telling their hearers that the offer of Chrst's forgiveness and salvation was available now -- immediately! There was no need to wait. We come to the Cross to make that discovery again and to cry, 'Remember me, Jesus.' Today!" (Peter Storey, Listening at Golgotha 36 (2004))

So I want to leave you with these questions. If Jesus, in the throes of his own agony, in the midst of his greatest suffering, heard the voice of a dying and disgraced felon, can we believe it possible that he does not hear our voices as well? Can we believe he does not answer us? Can we believe he does not say "I am with you?" Can we believe he does not say "and you -- you will be with me?"

Amen.