Lent, Voluntary and Involuntary Ordeals

1 Lent B      February 26, 2012

Gen. 9:8-17           Ps    25:1-9   

1 Peter 3:18-22         Mark 1:9-13

 Lectionary Link

  Why does Lent last for 40 days, not including the Sundays?  (I don’t like to tell people that Sundays are not included in the 40 day count, because then they think that they can loosen up on their Lenten disciplines on Sundays).  So why does Lent last for forty days?  It all has to do with biblical numerology.  And in biblical numerology, the number 40 stands for the time of testing, trial or the ordeal.  In the great flood, it rained for 40 days and 40 nights.  The people of Israel wandered in the wilderness for 40 years before entering the Promised Land.  And Jesus fasted for 40 days and was tempted by Satan in the wilderness.  And so Lent lasts for 40 day because it is an annual simulated time of testing that the church has adopted as a discipline to remind us that the ordeal is a reality of life.

  The ordeal is a reality of life; is that like the lyrics of the old Blues song, “If I didn’t have bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all?”  Do we understand ordeal in a Darwinian sense of the “survival of the fittest?”  Is the natural life only for the fittest who can survive the greatest hardships of life?  Does the notion of the ordeal go hand in hand with the quote from Nietzsche: “That which does not kill me, makes me stronger?”  Frankly, most of us would probably want an easier life and would rather not be made stronger by the tests and trials in life.

  Some apologists for God say that God is the Supreme Teacher and God is using the ordeal to teach us important lessons in life.  But what lesson is taught to the poor kid starving in this world?  If the ordeal in life is to teach a lesson, there are many who suffer ordeals and are not given enough time to learn the lesson.  I don’t think that I buy that explanation for why God allows the ordeal to happen.

  When we use the word ordeal or test, we have already made an interpretation about the meaning of some trying events that have occurred.  We could simply say that the natural order includes events that involve loss, hardship, pain and sadness for people.

  But it is not enough to say that bad things happen to good people and bad people.  It is not enough to say that good things happen to bad people and good people.  Things bad and good get distributed amongst the people of this world in ways that we don’t fully understand.  We can understand probability; the insurance actuarial people study the statistics of what is likely to happen to people at certain ages in certain circumstances.

  Is the ordeal but an actuarial statistic?  An actuarial statistic means something else when something bad is happening to me; when it is happening to others far from me, it is a statistic.

  The ordeal is all about coming to some meaning as to why certain things happen to us.  Some things happen to us because we see the connection between a habit and an action that brings a directly observed consequence.  Others things happen because of a more seeming random freedom of events for which we see no direct willful action of our own, and those are more baffling events for us.

  I think that people speak of an ordeal because we suffer and it is very human to believe that there is some meaning to our suffering.  I think for ages people have been trying to find meaning for their suffering.  To be human is to look for meaning in our suffering, even when cause is lost in an endless regress of the genetics of the family tree and the proclivity to certain disease and illness.

  The ancient flood was an incredible event.  Most of the civilizations were built on large rivers where agriculture flourished in the rich silt deposits of the river.  But a flood due to rainfall and snowfall upstream could literally wipe out the known world of the people who inhabited these centers of civilizations.  The story of Noah is a story about seeking a meaning for why the flood occurred.  God’s anger at the extent of human sin was given as a reason for the flood.  I think that trying to find a connection between natural disasters and God’s intent was as wrong in the Bible as it was for some modern day evangelists to speculate about why Katrina happened in the “sinful” city of New Orleans.  The interpretation that I’ve come to take from the “rainbow” in the sky is this: The rainbow is a sign that what we are used to calling an act of God, is really not God’s act.  It is only a result of God allowing a true freedom to be active in creation.  And the rainbow was like a sign to Noah, that in fact, God did not and will not destroy the known world by a natural disaster.

  If natural disasters and diseases are not “acts of God,” then what are these ordeals of loss?  The spiritual meaning of loss, pain and suffering is not to be found in thinking that we know the cause; the spiritual meaning of loss, pain and suffering is found in dealing with what we do once we have loss, pain and suffering.  What do we do and how do we live after loss, pain and suffering?  How do we exert compassion and empathy for others who go through loss, pain and suffering, once we have been through it our selves?  The meaning of loss, pain and suffering becomes the meaning of the ordeal once we have accepted the loss and the pain, striven to survive it, returned to the normalcy of the freedom from pain, and studied ways of avoiding or ameliorating pain and suffering.  The redemptive meaning of the ordeal of pain and suffering only becomes fully known when we become those who share comfort with others who find themselves in loss or pain.

  The 40 day fast of Jesus and his temptation is another kind of ordeal.  Ordeals can be involuntary or voluntary.  The involuntary ordeals are those that come to us.  A voluntary ordeal is when we choose to afflict our selves so that we might be better prepared for our own involuntary ordeals; but more importantly, so that we might make a sacrifice to help alleviate the pain and suffering of other people.

  The fast and temptation of Jesus was his voluntary solidarity with humanity.  He was tempted in every way as we are; he proved to be God with us, for us, and one living on our behalf, not so we could escape pain and suffering, but so that we might come to meaning within our ordeals in life.  And what is the meaning? God created us and God loves us and God invites our freedom just as the freedom of events is fully expressed toward our lives.

  I do invite each of us to voluntary ordeals in life.  To enter a discipline is to take on a voluntary ordeal.  And why would we inflict ourselves with a voluntary ordeal?  Because we need to be prepared to face the involuntary ordeals that will come to us.  Also we need to realize the sacrifice that others have made on our behalf; other people have chosen loss so that we might have a better life.  We too should learn to sacrifice, to choose loss and deprivation, so that others can have a greater abundance and freedom from want.

  So Lent is 40 days.  It is a voluntary ordeal and we follow Jesus in that we choose loss and deprivation so that we can divert some resources for the gain and improved life style of those in need.

  Let us follow Christ in these 40 days and find some ways to deprive our selves so that others might attain some basic benefits of life.  Amen.