Jesus, as Subtle but Profound Messiah

2 Lent B      March 4, 2012

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16 Psalm 22:22-30
Romans 4:13-25  Mark 8:31-38

 Lectionary Link

   In Church history, the apostle Peter became quite a heroic leader for the early Jesus Movement.  But Peter is remembered in the Gospels for more than his heroism.  The Gospels do not always present him in his heroic mode.  One might say that he is presented in his learning mode.  In the Gospel presentation, Peter like all of the disciples is presented in the process of learning from Jesus.  It is sometimes surprising that the disciples are often presented more like Snow White's seven dwarves than as Christian heroes.  So to use metaphors from education, they are presented as stumbling students and not as learned professors.

  Why would the early Christian writers present the disciples living as students of Jesus in such   unenlightened states?  We are tempted to read the Gospels as a blow by blow historical narrative rather than seeing that the writers had teaching points that they wanted to get across to their readers or listeners.  The Gospel writers used narrative scenarios/events in the life of Jesus and his disciples to instruct their readers about their teaching points.

  A more direct method of teaching might be just to write a more intellectual treatise on why Jesus of Nazareth was the messiah in the setting of his time. (Modern theologians and preachers could bore you to death with such scholarly presentations with fifty pages of footnotes copiously citing all sources for all of the theories and counter theories).    But just as Jesus used the indirect method of parables to teach his listeners, the Gospel writers used the story or narrative of Jesus and his disciple to teach their message to their listeners.  The narrative method of teaching has the advantage of catching the reader or listener in the immediacy of what could be called a primary naiveté, an immediate response to story rather than thinking about what the writer wants us to learn from the story.  Using stories to teach is an effective and tricky method way of teaching and lots of really witty people have done it from Mark Twain to Will Rogers to Garrison Keillor.

  A topic du jour for the writer and readers of our appointed Gospel has to do with the nature of the Messiah.  What is the nature of the Messiah?  Peter was a Jew and a famous follower of Rabbi Jesus.  Peter came to understand that Jesus was the Messiah but he had to learn about the nature of the Messiah.  For many Jews in years before and after the appearance of Jesus, there was an expectation for a great figure like David who would arrive on the scene and lead the people of Israel to independence and greatness.  At the very least, the Messiah would bring deliverance to a captive people Israel.  In this regard, one would have to say that such a Messiah did not arrive to the people of Israel until our modern era; the 1948 declaration that re-established the State of Israel and the string of military victories whereby Israel has protected and expanded their borders.  And now Israel has that kind of Messianic power in possessing nuclear weapons.  A triumphant militaristic Messiah Complex with weapons even greater than King David had has now come to Israel.

  Peter, the great leader of the church, is presented as one who understood the Messiah to be more of a triumphant military figure.  But the Christian movement was not successful because the early Christians possessed armies and weapons.  The Christian Movement was successful because it showed itself to be the Kingdom of God on this earth through a strange counter-logic, the logic of suffering.

  In the Socratic-like dialog of the Gospel conversation, Jesus was teaching another kind of meaning for the Messiah than the meaning that Peter wanted.  Peter in his lack of understanding is stating the view of many of his fellow Jews about the nature of the Messiah.  “Jesus began to teach his disciples that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.”  And what did Jesus say about this militaristic view of the Messiah?  Well, he said to Peter, “Get behind me Satan.  You are thinking in a very logical human way, but that is not the way of the Messiah.”

  What is the way of the Messiah as it came to be understood by the writer of the Gospel of Mark?  The way of the Messiah is the way of taking up one’s cross.  The kingdom of God is an interior process within the lives of people who are progressively changing their lives through the power of death and resurrection.  The transformation of the world happens one person at a time as each person realizes this process of repentance that can take place within one’s life.

  The literal cross of Jesus and the meaning of the resurrection of Jesus had become in the early community an interior spiritual methodology.  How can I change my life?  How can I quit doing things that I don’t want to do?  How can I do things that I want to do?  The death and resurrection of Christ became the symbol of the interior change in the lives of people and it was anchored upon this person, Jesus of Nazareth.

  Why was this message of Jesus catching fire and spreading?  Why did many people suffer so much and endure suffering because of this message?  Where did they get the courage to suffer so much?  People with this interior courage stood against the Roman power; they had courage to confess Jesus to be the Son of God and Messiah even while the Roman citizenry professed their Caesars to be divine beings with divine lineages.

  We can understand the Gospel for today as a teaching tool.  You and I live in an age when we’ve seen what we call Christianity become associated with a series of world empires.  We’ve seen Christianity expand because of colonialism.  Today, you and I have to admit that our context is much different than the context from which the Gospel writers wrote.  We understand the more militaristic messianic notion because we live in the nation of a world power that protects our Christian rights.

  I believe where you and I can reconnect with the intended meaning of the Gospel of Mark is to deny our “group identity” and receive this Gospel in the personal mode. 

  The laws of the Empire, even the American Empire can force upon me lots of behaviors in my life, but as all of us know, the laws of our Empire cannot reach the places in me to transform my life.  We can be law abiding citizen and still not know the sense of esteem that would be called abundant life.  And this is where we come to the genius of the Gospel; it is a way of grace given for the transformation of our lives in a way that cannot be accomplished by the external laws of our country.  And that is why it is relevant good news for us today.

  This Gospel is an invitation to the gradual transformation of our lives so that we can know the sublime experience of abundant life which cannot be accounted for in any other way except through knowing the gift of God’s grace.  I believe that the Gospel invites us to this subtle, but profound experience of the Messiah today.  Amen.

Gospel Puppet Show: What kind of Messiah Is Jesus?

2 Lent B      March 4, 2012

Puppet Show Script


Puppet dialogue between Roary the Lion and Miss Penny

Roary the Lion (holding a soccer ball and sobbing): Wah…Wah….Wah….Wah….

Miss Penny: What’s wrong Roary, why are you crying?  Have you been playing soccer?

Roary the Lion:  Wah, Wah, Wah, Wah, Wah, Wah…

Miss Penny:  Roary, I think you need a hug… Calm down now and talk to me.  Can you tell me what’s wrong?  Did you have soccer game?

Roary the Lion: Wah, Wah, Wah, Wah……

Miss Penny: Roary,  I’m here to help you.   Let try to help you.  May be I can help you get your happy roar back.  Will you let me try?

Roary the Lion:  Wah…Wah….okay but I’m not too happy.

Miss Penny:  What happened to make you so sad?  I’ve never heard a lion cry so loudly?

Roary the Lion:  Well, I played soccer today and our team lost the game, 4 to zero.  And I was the leading scorer.

Miss Penny: Well that’s good isn’t it?

Roary the Lion: No..no…no…I scored two goals for the other team.   Wah…Wah And I’m so embarrassed.  Why did that happen to me?  And why did my team lose?

Miss Penny:  Well, let’s see if we can learn something from you and your soccer game?  All of us will be winners if we can learn from you and your soccer game?  Will you help us all?

Roary the Lion:  Okay but I don’t know how my losing a soccer game can help others.

Miss Penny: Was anyone happy after your soccer game ended?

Roary the Lion:  The winning team were happy, of course.

Miss Penny:  When it rains really hard the farmer is happy to get rain for his corn and his wheat.  But if the same rain comes in the middle of the baseball game, the teams are sad because they have to stop playing baseball.  You see the same rain made some people happy and made some people sad.

Roary the Lion:  So that’s like every soccer game; if one team wins the other team loses.

Miss Penny:  Yes and life is like that some times there are things that make us happy and there are things that make us sad.

Roary the Lion: I don’t like to be sad.  What good is sadness?

Miss Penny:  It is not fun to be sad but being sad can turn out to be good?

Roary the Lion: How can being sad turn out to be good?

Miss Penny:  Well, let us remember the Gospel story today.  Peter was upset at Jesus.  Peter only wanted Jesus to be a strong King.  Peter did not want Jesus to ever suffer.  He did not want Jesus to ever feel sad.

Roary the Lion:  That’s right!  Jesus told Peter that some very sad things were going to happen to Jesus.  He told Peter that he was going to suffer and even die.

Miss Penny:  And Jesus said that Peter had to understand life better.  He said that Peter needed to understand that life is made up of wins and losses.  Life is made up of sickness and health.  Life is made up of happiness and sadness.

Roary the Lion:  So to learn how to live is to learn how to live with both.  But I prefer to win.  I would rather be happy.  I don’t ever want to be sick.

Miss Penny:  I know Roary,  but what good can come from sadness, loss and sickness?

Roary the Lion:  I don’t know Miss Penny.  It would take a great magician to turn sickness into health, happiness into sadness and losing into winning.

Miss Penny:  Well, Jesus is better than the greatest magician.  And he showed us how to do one of his greatest tricks.

Roary the Lion:  I like magic.  What is the greatest trick?

Miss Penny:  Roary, the next time you play a soccer game and when you win the game, what are you going to say to the little boy who lost the game to your team?

Roary the Lion:  Well, I’m going try to make him feel better.  I’m going to tell him that I lost a game too and it was very sad.  I going to tell him that he played a good game.   And I’m going to tell him that is more important that we have fun playing the game than if we win.

Miss Penny:  Why would you say those nice things to him Roary?

Roary the Lion:  Well, because I know what it is to lose and be sad.  So I want to help someone else when they are sad.

Miss Penny:  And Roary, that is the magic of Jesus.  Because you were sad, you knew how to help a boy who also was sad.  And that was the message that Jesus was trying to teach Peter.

Roary the Lion:  So God can help us better because God gave his Son Jesus to suffer too.  And so we can know that God is with us when we are sad.

Miss Penny:  Bingo!  Now do you see how your loss and your sadness can turn out to be winning.  You always win when you are able to help others.

Roary the Lion:  Miss Penny do you think that the boys and girls can learn this too.  I’m shy, could you ask them?

Miss Penny:  Boys and Girls, do you see how Jesus taught us the meaning of suffering and sadness?  We can turn our sadness into happiness and winning because what really makes us happy in life is to be able to help someone else.  Have you learned the lesson from the Gospel today.  Can you say, Amen?  Amen.  Can you say bye, bye to Roary?

Dying to Live Again and in New Ways

2 Lent B      March 4, 2012

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16 Psalm 22:22-30
Romans 4:13-25  Mark 8:31-38

Lectionary Link

  Imagine that you are a rabbi who has become a follower of Jesus Christ.  And not only a follower of Jesus but a missionary apostle of Jesus Christ.  Jesus was a Jew who lived within the religious setting of Judaism.  But Rabbi Paul came to proclaim the early Christian version of Judaism and he took the message of Jesus way beyond Judaism; he took the message of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles.  And in so doing, an eventual split occurred as Christianity became a distinct faith community that was no longer regarded by the Jews to be under the umbrella of Judaism.   Saul who had his name change to Paul, was on his way to Rome and he penned a letter to the church in Rome, from perhaps the city of Corinth.  He had met people from Rome who informed him about the competition in the various church gatherings in Rome.  Some followers of Jesus were Jews who thought that all followers of Christ had to adopt all of the customs of Judaism.  Some followers of Christ in Rome were Gentiles and they did not think that it was necessary to conform to all of the Jewish ritual customs, such as the dietary rules and the practice of circumcision.

  St. Paul wrote a long letter to deal with the competition between Jewish and Gentile Christians.  He used extensive argumentation to appeal to both communities to keep them together.  St. Paul used history and reason to appeal to the Jews to show how the Torah actually provided for people of faith, who were not Jews.  St. Paul asked, “Was Abraham a Jew?”  Well, no he wasn’t because he pre-existed the birth of the Israelite people.  Did Abraham have a covenant with God, even before the Israelites had a covenant with God?  Well, yes, Abraham was before Moses and the giving of the Law.  So was the faith of Abraham, without the benefit of the Law, as valid as the faith of Moses and his successors who had the benefit of the Law?  Yes, of course.  Paul’s argument is really rhetorical because he is assuming the answers are accepted by his fellow Jews.

   So how can the outcast Gentiles be accepted into the faith without the benefit of following all of the practices of Judaism?  Well, the greatest Patriarch of all, Abraham had a name-changing covenant and so did his wife.  Abram to Abraham, Sarai to Sarah and the changing of the names signified that they would be Father and Mother of countless people, who like them, would be people of faith.  They believed God and it was accounted as being pleasing and accepted to God. The Israelite heirs of Abraham who followed the Law and accepted Christ were pleasing to God, but also the Gentiles who accepted Christ, can be pleasing to God without following all of the laws of Judaism, since they in some ways are like Abraham.

  This letter of Paul became passed around and read and preserved and it was voted into the book of Books by the later church and so Paul’s letter when read in the church, has an epitaph, “The word of the Lord.”

  And we who are neither Jews nor even Gentiles in the ways in which the people in Rome were, wondered how infallible such specific words in a particular context can be?  Perhaps what is really infallible in the Bible is the godly intent of the writers, not the specific details of words that relate to the particular setting.

  Our efforts to live the life of Christ now are not infallible in the details of our words and action but they are infallible if our motive is love and good will.

  What seems to be the infallible essence of the Bible is that God in many ways and times and place is calling people into loving relationship with God and with each other.  The ways, deeds and words will always be less than perfect; what is perfect is the heart and deeds of people who want to be accepted by God, not in their own way but in the way that God presents to them.

  The Christian or Christians or Christo-Jews who wrote the Gospel of Mark were writing a narrative form of a spiritual reality that had become practiced in their community.  How was Jesus of Nazareth the Messiah?  And was it important to have the correct answer?  Peter represented the one who is a Jew who confesses Jesus to be the Messiah but does not understand what kind of Messiah he was.  Many Jews believed that the Messiah had to be a triumphant conquering king like David who would intervene with great power for his people.  The writer of the Gospel of Mark was certain that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah, but not because he would be a conquering king; rather he was a suffering servant on behalf of the world.

  And the suffering servant, Jesus, who suffered even unto death upon a cross, would provide the spiritual metaphor for everyone who wanted to change their lives for the better and find acceptance with God.

  So, taking up one’s cross and following Jesus became the metaphor, the teaching and catch phrase for the method of spiritual change that was occurring in the lives of the early Christians.

  These were people who wrestled with perennial questions that face each and every soul?  How can I become better than I am?  And if I know I am to become better, where do I get the power to make it happen?  And how do I become better without it simply being a matter of being proud about my own accomplishments?  How do I get better without ruining the accomplishment through a supreme act of pride?

  The method is dying to ourselves so that we might live again in a new and better way.  One Greek word for life is psuche and this refers to the interior life of the soul; our soul life has to let go of habits of mind, emotion and will, to take on new ways of thinking, feeling and acting.  And in taking on these new ways of thinking we attain to a more abundant life, called in the New Testament, zoe  life.  And this life is experienced as God’s gift to us; it is experienced as the presence of God’s Spirit within us as a higher power to help us become our fuller selves through surpassing our selves in future states.

  The people of the community of the Gospel of Mark, believed that there was power in the dying of Jesus on the Cross that could become the power in their lives in dying to what was keeping them enslaved.  They also believed that the power that God granted for Jesus to live again is the same power that allowed each person to renew their lives with new living, new joy, new possibilities.  The Gospel writer of Mark encoded this spiritual reality in the Christ narrative.

  And this narrative was relevant to their community; it was relevant to the Roman community, and it is relevant to us.

  What this means is that there are no outcasts?  Not Gentile, not Jew, not male, not female.  Why?  Because in acknowledging the power of the death of Christ as a grace and power within our own souls, we in any condition can humble our selves to receive a higher power to overcome what controls us, and receive resurrection higher power to take on a new experience of abundant life.

  And we need not get complacent or stuck in any form of abundant life; since the process is on-going.  We live in this process of dying to our tendency to make idols in our habits of mind and feelings.  We also live in the process of resurrection freedom to take on new habits of mind, feeling and choice.  And this process is open to anyone and since it is open to all, there can be no outcasts. 

  Would that we at St. John’s would be devoted more to this process of grace in our souls, than to any particular ritual style that we might prefer.  Our ritual only celebrates the grace in our souls.

  So during Lent, we take up our cross in the circumstances of our lives, because we are hopeful that the power of the death of Jesus will also be a power in us to leave what we need to leave, and take up the new and abundant life that is promised us by the presence of God’s Spirit.

  By taking up our cross and following Christ, we are not outcasts to God; and since it is offered to everyone, we can never make anyone an outcast from God’s grace in Christ.  Amen.

The Good as Temptation from the Better or the Best

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

  The Gospel of Mark, the earliest written Gospel, does not give us the Christmas story with the narratives of the birth of Jesus.  It begins with the baptism of Jesus, an event when His Father declared in a loud voice that Jesus is His Son.   The voice of God the Father spoke to Jesus about his very identity.  God the Father said, “You my beloved Son!”  And God the Father said to Jesus, “I am well pleased with you.”

  And what does the third member of the Trinity do?  “The Spirit immediately drove Jesus into the wilderness.”  He was there for forty days, he was tempted by Satan, he was with the wild beasts, and the angels waited on him.  The Gospels of Luke and Matthew give us more details of the temptation, but not the Gospel of Mark.

  In the Eucharistic preface for the Lenten season, we profess a belief about Jesus that is expressed in the letter to the Hebrews: “He was tempted in every way as we are, yet did not sin.”  Jesus was tempted as a sign of God being with us in our temptations in life.

  Our belief that Jesus did not sin does not mean that we believe that he could not sin.  We might question as to why he submitted to the baptism of John the Baptist which was a baptism of repentance from sin.  If Jesus had no sin to repent of, why did he need to be baptized?  It was not so much a need to be baptized as his choice of solidarity within that particular community of John the Baptist.  We have learned to read the Gospels from the view point of a risen, cosmic, global Christ, and we need to set that view aside as we return to the details of the narrative of the particular events in the life of the historical figure, Jesus of Nazareth.

  While we have standards or rules that govern sin, such as the Ten Commandments, often the laws and rules have more to do with the practice of each community adjudicating in the ways in which they believe justice and community order can best be implemented.  But the law of perfection as presented by Christ has less to do with avoiding public penalty and more to do with the individual path of excellence that each of us is placed upon in finding out what God’s will is for our lives.

  The sin for Jesus was to be tempted into taking alternate routes in his life.  Jesus could have chosen lots of good and great things in his life, but if they were not the will of God the Father, they would have been sin.

  The temptation of Jesus in wilderness, perhaps, was to get Jesus to do other good things in his life that were not the will of God the Father.  It is harder temptation to be faced with good things in our lives that are not the best thing for our lives.  I suspect that the decisions that haunt us the most are the decisions where we chose good things in place of better things.  In our vocations we can make good decisions based upon good reasons of financial security but our souls can end up being burned out in jobs that do not gives us the excitement of creativity.

  The will of God the Father for Jesus was his ministry and how his genius was to be expressed in his life work.  The temptation of Jesus in the wilderness was to be a time of preparation for his life ministry.  During his time of preparation he was to face within himself a simulation of lots of alternative routes for his life.  Where one possesses genius, one can be tempted towards megalomania or inflations of the ego.  One can easily be tempted to do things from the wrong motives.

   We assume that Jesus did not have human companionship when he was driven by the Spirit into the wilderness.  But we are told that he was not alone.  He was with the beasts.  Jesus was tempted to fear the dynamic of predator-prey relationship that is found in the natural orders.  He was faced with the reality that this world is not always a natural friendly place to be.

  Jesus was also tempted by Satan.  Satan is a personified figure who appears in the interior life to accuse.  Satan is the one who tried to convince Jesus to go down other paths of success.  “Jesus, you are so brilliant; with Machiavellian brilliance you can persuade and outwit others and become a political leader.  Use your genius as an expression of political power.”  In other places Satan is called the devil, or diabolos (hence the Spanish Diablo).  A diabollo is the opposite of a symbol.  Diabollo means to throw into or generate confusion. The reality of Satan is the experience of maladjusted relationship between our interior life and exterior life.  It is literally “ a voice within myself turned against myself” in what is best for me and for my world.

   Symbollon means to throw together.  We get the word “Symbol” from this Greek word. A symbol is a type of sign; it puts together an action with an icon.  When the confusion of chaos can be funneled into a symbol or sign, then one has meaning, a direction and a message.  The ministers of the symbol for Jesus in the wilderness were the angels.  The literal meaning of angel is a messenger.   The angels waited upon Jesus in the wilderness.  In the midst of the confusion of many paths offered to Jesus the sign was offered to him about the direction for his life.  He was able to sort out from the confusion of many interior confusing interior voices, the will of God his Father.

  Today, we need to take a lesson from the temptation of Jesus.  How can you and I become the hero of our own interior lives?  How can we live with ourselves in such a way that we find God’s messages leading us to relate our interior lives with our exterior lives in peaceful and creative ways?  How can we learn to choose what is better for our lives over what appears to be merely good for our lives?

  We may feel good in our lives for not killing, not stealing and not lying, in the juridical sense of those activities.  But where is the excess of my lifestyle diminishing the lives of others?  Where is my excess a robbing of the bare minimum for others?   Where is my failure to learn more allowing me to simply live in “partial truths?”  Living in partial truths because of our refusal to learn is a different sort of lie that we easily absolve our selves of.

  What we can learn from the temptation of Jesus is the continual internal dynamics from which can arise new paths of excellence for us in our lives and surely those new paths of excellence include the betterment for the people in this world.

  We have begun the forty days of Lent.  Let us see where the Spirit of God drives us in these days.  Let us confront all of our good options in our lives that may be hindrances to what is better for our life and our world.  And let us find God’s angels, God’s messengers, to help us choose what is better for us as we are in the process of always remaking our lives through the transformation known as repentance.  Let us look to the once tempted but now risen Christ who stands as symbol of each of us surpassing our self in excellence in a future state.  Amen.

Roary's Yacht or Noah's Ark?

1 Lent B      February 26, 2012

Gen. 9:8-17           Ps    25:1-9   

1 Peter 3:18-22         Mark 1:9-13

Puppet character: Roary the Lion

Prop: Picture of Noah's Ark and rainbow in the sky

R: Roar..Roar…Roar…Roar….I’m Roary the Lion. My mom told me not to roar; she said that it spread my bad breath when I roared.  When I sing I only know one word…Roar….Do you want to Roar with me?

R: I got a picture here that I keep in my cave bedroom.  It is picture of a big boat.  In fact it is a ship.  It like a big ocean liner.  Do you know what call this boat?  I call it Roary’s Yacht.  Yes, that’s Roary’s Yacht.

Fr. P: That’s not true Roary.  That big ship is called Noah Ark.  Please tell the true story about Noah’s Ark.

Roary:  Father Phil, Now stay down in your hole and don’t come back out.

 

Fr. P:  Okay Roary but just tell the truth.

R: Okay, this boat is not Roary’s yacht, it is Noah’s ark.   Noah was a man who lived a long time ago.  He heard God tell him that there was going to be a great flood.  But God told him to build a big boat so that he could live through the flood.  God told Noah to build the boat big enough so animals could stay alive too.  Do you think that means that God loves animals?  

Anyway, when it started to rain, Noah loaded his family and lots of animals on his ark.  And it started to rain and rain and rain.  It rained for 40 days and nights and the water floated this big ark.  But Noah’s family and all of the animals lived safely on the ark.  We were safe on the ark but it was not comfortable like an cruise on an ocean liner.  Can you imagine the smell living on a boat with hundreds of animals?  Have you ever heard a hippopotamus snore?  Now that really does rock the boat.

When it stopped raining, we waited for the water to go; and soon there was no water to float the boat and it was time for everyone to get off the ark and build new homes and find new places to live.

But do you know what happened after we got off the big boat.  We looked into the sky and we saw this carpet of colors.  Do you know what that carpet of color is called?  Look behind me in the sky.  This carpet of color is called a rainbow.  And I love rainbows.  Rainbows make me very happy because they have all of the main colors.  Can you say, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and violet.  Those are the seven colors of the rainbow.

But Noah said that rainbow was a special promise from God.  He said the rainbow was God’s promise never to destroy the earth.  Why, because the earth is God’s creation and God loves the earth.

God loved the world so much that he sent his Son Jesus to help us to live better. 

Jesus did some very difficult things in his life.  He faced some very hard tests.  And he did so that we can face the hard tests of our lives.  Since Jesus passed all of the hard tests of his life, he can help us to pass the hard tests of our lives too.  Can you remember to pray and ask Jesus for help when things are hard or difficult in your life?  Okay, Fr. Phil, it time for you to come out of your hole…..bye, bye even…Remember the story about Noah and always be thankful for rainbows and remember God’s promise of love.

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.

Lent, a Call to the Courage of Care

Ash Wednesday        February 22, 2012  

Is.58:1-12        Ps.103       

1 Cor. 5:20b-6:10    Matt. 6:1-6, 16-21

Lectonary Link

  Ash Wednesday is a day of public confession for the church.

  We confess that we as persons and as people in this world have not been perfect.

  Well, that’s not much of a scoop.  But even though we know that we are not perfect sometimes we live towards each other in judgmental ways and in ways of assuming we are “better” than others.  We also forget how much we are compromised with our social settings.  If there is corruption on Wall Street, it is not my fault even though my stock portfolio may have benefited.  In our group compromise we can easily absolve ourselves of any personal responsibility.  And how often do we absolve ourselves by thinking, “Well everyone is doing it?”  Everyone has set life styles that are harmful for the environment.  Everyone is doing things that will cause major problems for our children and grandchildren.  And we absolve ourselves by pleading the helplessness of our situation.

  Yes we do need a day when we confess both as persons and as community.   We need a day of acknowledging that in freedom lots of bad choices have been made.  We have inherited the results of bad choices.  We have inherited the results of ignorant choices.  And even when we are given the possibility of new choices offering us freedom from being determined by the past, it is still easy for us to stay in the rut of never wanting to change our lives in significant ways.

  One of the ways in which we tolerate our imperfection is to make an important confession about our human nature.

   Today, when the ashes are applied to our foreheads with the words, “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return” we are reminded that there is something in our lives that is so unstable that it is always passing away.  The ashes on our forehead are like a fast forwarding of what our bodies will be like one day.  And we can’t put lipstick on ashes to beautify the ashen state.

  Maybe today we would like to shout out a reminder to God, “Remember God, that we are dust, and to dust we shall return, and what can you expect from people who are made with dust?”  We may want to use this day as a day of protest to God for being made in the way that we are made.  How can a dustly people ultimately be wholesome, healthy, preserved and saved?

  Can you blame us God for our imperfect lives because of the way in which we are made?  The power of our vulnerable mortality is so profound that we are tempted to live towards our future state of being but ashes.  And we really don’t want to get there too quickly.  And it seems sometimes as though we are swimming against the tide, even flailing in the waves in non-productive desperation.

  And as we mourn our dustly beginning and are ready to let ourselves off the hook for our many imperfections both personal and societal, perhaps we can hear the God of Pentecost say to us today:  “Remember that you are spirit and that you will be spirit forever!”

  In the creation story, we are told that the original human being was made of clay and that clay had the wind or breath of the creating Spirit blown into the clay figure and the result was the living soul.

  This reclaiming of our spiritual nature is what the journey of Lent is about.  Yes, indeed our mortal natures anchored by what we see when our bodies are decomposed does not seem to offer us much future hope for our health and salvation.  But we are also spirit animated by Holy Spirit to let us know that we can be inspired by ultimate health and ultimate salvation in the midst of the things of life that are passing away.

  It is our belief in spirit that reminds us that we have genuine freedom.  And that freedom must be inspired by wisdom.

   God grant me the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change.  We are not going to change our mortal endings.  The fast forward state of the ashes remind us about what our bodies will ultimately be.

  God grant me the courage to change the things I can.  Courage comes from our spiritual side.  And from our spirit, we do not mock our mortal natures; we cherish them as long as we can because we know that the only way that we can be spiritual is also to be in our bodies.  Our mortal nature are good because they are created by God.  And since we know the vulnerability of our mortal nature the courage of our response is the courage of care.

  Lent is a season of intensifying the courage of care for our mortal natures.  Lent is season of both personal and social care.  As longs as we are alive we endeavor to cherish our lives and the lives of other by practicing the best possible care.

  I would invite us to observe the season of Lent with the courage of care, care for our selves, care for the people in our world and care for our environment.  In the season of Lent we join together as a community to be intentional about how we can better care for ourselves and the people of our world.

  In accepting our ashes today, we accept the things we cannot change.  But in accepting God’s Holy Spirit on our lives, we embrace with courage to change the things that can be changed.  The courage of care for our lives and the life of people who need our care is the intentional invitation of our Ash Wednesday liturgy.  Let us have the courage to change our world with intentional acts of care during this season of Lent.  Amen.