May God’s words alone be spoken, may God’s words alone be heard. Amen.
I heard a story about a woman who had been teaching her 3-year old daughter the Lord’s Prayer. For several evenings, at bedtime, the little girl would repeat after her mother the lines from the prayer. Finally, she decided to go solo. Her mother listened with pride as she carefully enunciated each word, right up to the end of the prayer:
“Lead us not into temptation,” she prayed, “but deliver us from e-mail. Amen.”
In our Gospel story today, we hear a lot about temptation – but not any desire on the part of Jesus to text message or send email spam.
But before we go further into this story, I want to talk a bit about the season of Lent. I was on facebook the other day, when a friend from seminary posted the following: “Why does Lent have to be so difficult?” To which another friend responded “Lent is entirely overrated”. My response… “Lent isn’t overrated, just misunderstood”. Of course, leave it to theological students to post this type of discussion in the first place, but nevertheless, Lent seems to be something folks stuggle to move through. Lent is a season in our church year that does not usher in the same excitement as Advent, and yet they are both so much alike and so necessary.
Now, most of you know I was raised Baptist. But, what you might not know is that my first Ash Wednesday, my first Lent, was when I decided to find an Episcopal Church. I remember my beloved pastor at Twinbrook Baptist church, where I grew up, talking about Baptists and Lent. Now, the Rev. John Laney was a wonderful and progressive man, whose father was an itinerant preacher in North Carolina. And in this sermon on Lent, he explained why, for a long time, Baptists didn’t celebrate Lent. Quoting his father, he said “Catholics did it, and it was a good enough reason not too!”
So there was, for much of when I was growing up, only Easter. In fact, in the Baptist tradition, the cross is always empty (albeit old, rugged and bloodstained, as our hymns made clear), but definitely no Jesus in pain depicted. Folks don’t wear crucifixes. The destination – Easter – is the only thing – it is as though there is no journey involved.
But without the journey, the joy of the destination is diminished.
All of us have, at one time or another, moved through different journeys in our life – perhaps a struggle, a dark and difficult road, or perhaps a joyous build up of anticipation and excitement. When we move to the other side of that time, there is a sense of fulfillment that cannot be measured, and yet would be lacking without the journey that brought us to that point. We are forever changed.
In Advent we speak of the pregnancy of the moment, the heightened anticipation, and how the preparation for the coming of Jesus into the world is essential to living into the joy of Christmas.
The same is true of Lent.
It began as a time of preparation, prayer and discernment for those hoping to be baptized at Easter. And it is that same journey of preparation that is essential today for living fully into the death and resurrection that is to come.
The journey IS the destination.
It is the destination of being in the moment, of staying fully present, not rushing to get to a place, but to live each step on the way. But so often, even when we try to do this, our fears, our own demons, or the ones in those around us, creep in to try to get the best of us. That is what happened to Jesus in the Gospel story today. Jesus was moving from his private life to his public ministry, but he knew that to do that, he had to follow the Holy Spirit into the wilderness. He had to face his personal demons.
Now, many years ago, a comedian named Flip Wilson had a character he would do named “Geraldine.” Geraldine loved to buy new dresses, and whenever her husband “Killer,” would confront her about it, she’d say “The devil made me do it!”
That was the “devil” of my youth. Some sort of red character, with a long tail and a pitchfork. A boogie monster of sorts who would lure you to do bad things. And it makes for great comedy. But the truth is, the devil to be feared isn’t something external – but something deep within each of us. Within every one of us there is darkness and light – goodness and evil. It is the part that we choose to act on that defines who we are. And Jesus was battling his own demons in the desert, and we get to sit in the Psychiatrists chair observing and learning as he does.
Awakened at baptism to who he was, and the power that he had, Jesus had to face his own desire to use that power to feed himself, his pride, and his ego. And one can even imagine how even Jesus would be tempted – and how we might be as well. Imagine – you’re Jesus, and with just one command, you could give the world food – eliminating hunger. Would you do it? Imagine that with just one command – you could unite all the world under a single peaceable kingdom that you could ensure stays that way. Would you do it? Imagine that you could, with a single act prove God’s existence, with an almighty act of saving grace – the whole world would know God! Would you do it?
You see, Jesus had to walk this desert jouney because he needed to prepare for what lay ahead. He was called to feed God’s people Spiritually, not physically. He was called to bring people to the Kingdom of God, not unite the human political kingdoms of the world. He was called to be a living example of God’s all abiding love in the world, that others may have faith in God’s grace – not take faith away and replace it with cheap certainty of a God that can do some mighty neat parlor tricks.
Jesus had to walk this journey to battle his own demons, so that he could emerge on the other side strong and ready to face all that would await him – including the temptation to avoid the final walk to Jerusalem, and to the cross.
We each are asked to enter into this season of Lent as a time to strip bare our lives, to pray, and to face our own demons – the demons of our day.
The tempation to think we are in control.
The temptation to have power and money.
The tempation to worship the wrong things.
Lent offers us individully a chance to reflect on our lives, to simplify and consider what is really important. And as a worshipping community, we too have that chance. That is why we strip bare the gold and silver all around us and go back to simpler things – wood candlesticks and ceramic vessels. Baskets for collecting our offering to God, rather than gold plates. The symbolism is important, because it reminds us that God isn’t found in silver and gold, but in our hearts, in the waters of baptism, and in the body and blood of Christ in our Eucharist. It is a chance to let go of the way things have always been, and strip down to the bare essentials.
If we walk this journey of Lent with our hearts open, prayerfully asking for God to guide and strengthen us. If we allow ourselves to experience and even embrace the darkness within and around us. If we face our own demons – whatever they may be. If we walk through the desert and into Jerusalem to the cross.
Then we will truly understand resurrection.
Because one cannot experience resurrection without dying.
And we must die to all that holds us from the fullness of relationship with God. We must die to all that separates us from each other. We must die to worshipping the false Gods in our hearts – whatever they may be. We must die to our thinking that we are fully in control. We must die to the quick fix, the easy answer, the desire to have things be as they have always been.
We have these “forty days to cleanse the system and open the eyes to what remains when all comfort is gone. Forty days to remember what it is like to live by the grace of God alone and not by what we can supply for ourselves.”1 Forty days to consider what tempts us.
We are being called to walk into the desert and face our demons – to live in darkness, knowing that God’s grace will sustain us. To fully open our hearts on this Lenten journey, and consider our own lives – ready to die to that which separates us from God and each other, knowing that it is the only way to fully prepare for the death and resurrection to come.
On Ash Wednesday, we were invited into a Holy Lent. I pray you accept the invitation.
Amen.
[Please note: All sermons are as written, not necessarily as delivered on that Sunday]
Rev. Diana Wilcox
Christ Episcopal Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge
March 9, 2014
First Sunday in Lent – Year A
First Reading – Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7
Psalm 32
Second Reading – Romans 5:12-19
Gospel – Matthew 4:1-11
