March 1, 2009 First Sunday in Lent
First Congregational Church in Thetford, Vermont, UCC
Psalm 25:1-10; Mark 1:9-15
Some of us have been dreading this day. Sometime during Epiphany I
looked down the road and saw Lent coming and said, “Oh, no.” Aren’t times
hard enough without having to go through Lent? Couldn’t we just skip it this
year and zoom on ahead to the brilliant, joyous rising of Easter dawn? Please?
Recently two of this congregation’s wise spiritual leaders have expressed
their determination not to let Lent drag them down. Bob Hagen observed in
Prayer of the Heart that he is seeing economic fear and despair and survivor guilt
being expressed in many ways right now, even in people’s body language—a
slumping of the shoulders, the arms crossed against the chest. He says he is
worried about Lent as a time for withdrawing alone into the wilderness and
fasting and contracting. He believes we have enough soul-shriveling happening
as it is. He is asking the question, how can we go through Lent without making
matters worse?
Terry Barker wrote something similar in her beautiful message at the end
of this week’s Big News. She wrote, “As we enter into Lent and the ‘wilderness’
of our times, I find that I am choosing to ‘open’ rather than ‘restrict.’ With the
banks of snow all around and the restriction that the weather imposes on mind
and body, I find that I need to turn my face to the sun, the one in the sky and the
one in my heart, and open myself to whatever it brings. May we all be open to
the direction of this Lenten season, and the promise of Spring!”
I know that Terry and Bob are not the only ones besides me asking how we
are going to get through this long stretch ahead—not only Lent, but late winter
and mud-season and raw, gray days, on top of the dizzying free-fall through fear
and pain caused by the economic collapse.
The good news is that Bob and Terry are right: there are things that can
help. For instance, we can remind ourselves that the word Lent comes from an
Old English word meaning spring—Lenten as in lengthening days. We can
remind ourselves that the sun is getting stronger. We can look up and look ahead
and look to the light. We can take as our model not Jesus going into the
wilderness alone, but the whole people of Israel going into the wilderness
together following the visionary, courageous, leadership of Moses and Aaron and
other wise elders. We can look with hope and faith to the visionary, courageous
leadership in Washington right now. We can look to each other for comfort and
insight. We can open to one another in love. All these are good strategies to use,
if they help.
But what about those of us who just cannot get past our anxiety or
depression? What about those who are facing such hardship themselves or such
suffering in people they love, that they cannot see the sun? What about those
who feel lost in the wilderness, or in a dark night of the soul, who have tried all
the strategies and therapies and nothing has helped and now they are tempted to
despair?
Most years I love Lent, being a contemplative and introvert, but this year
out of compassion for those who are struggling, I was dreading it. I was not
reassured by any strategy of positivity or denial or reframing because I knew that
for many these would just not work. I was bracing myself for the worst. I kept
thinking, “Oh, no.” But then the day came when I began singing to myself the
spiritual we sing every year on this Sunday: “All along my pilgrim journey, O I
want Jesus to go with me…When my heart is almost breaking, O I want Jesus to
comfort me…When my head is bowed in sorrow, O I want Jesus to stay with me.”
I sang that and my hope flickered a little.
And then I read today’s gospel passage and recalled how the Holy Spirit
was behind Christ’s journey through the wilderness, and how angels carried
Jesus through, and how it was only after the wilderness that the time was fulfilled
and Jesus became full of the Spirit’s power. And what had he learned in the
wilderness? He had learned that the realm of God was at hand. Even there. Even
then. And if there and then, maybe it can be at hand in this wilderness here and
now, too.
Finally, I came to the Psalm for today. The Psalms are good to read during
a hard time because so many of them were written by people who either had been
or were still in a wilderness exile of some kind. The Psalms offer companionship
for the journey, as well as useful wisdom to get us through to the promised land
of God’s realm. One of the most beautiful and useful is the portion of Psalm 25
that we read today.
It reminds us to keep looking to God no matter where we are, no matter
what kind of shape we are in, no matter what mistakes we have made in the
distant or recent past, no matter how powerful our outer enemies or inner
demons. Just keep looking to God, trusting in God, turning our will and life over
to God’s care, lifting up our soul to God.
Psalm 25 says. “Make me to know your ways, O God; teach me your paths.
Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you
I wait all the day long.”
Then after taking that stance of trusting and patiently waiting, and after
asking to be shown the way and path and truth, the Psalm shifts to remembering
who God is. “All the paths of God are steadfast love and faithfulness,” for those
who put their will in God’s control, who trust and wait. God is merciful not for
our sake, but for God’s own sake, because that is just who God is. God teaches
even sinners the way, even us who have done so many things unworthy of God.
Even we can learn the way if we are humble.
What finally restored me to looking forward to Lent was to remember this
beautiful gift that we receive from God in the worst of wildernesses, which is that
“even here, we are home.” Joseph Shabalala, the founder of the famous South
African singing group Ladysmith Black Mambazo, wrote those words on an
airplane between two wildernesses. According to Patricia’s “Music Box,” he was
flying from his home where the people were suffering and waiting and working
against the injustice of apartheid, and he was flying to the cold jungle of New
York City where he hoped to raise money for the struggle at home.
“Be still my heart, for even here I am at home.” Even here, in whatever
desolation we may inhabit, God’s mercy reaches us, surrounds us, offers us a
way out. All of God’s paths are steadfast love and faithfulness, and wherever we
stand, those paths lead out, as if we are always standing at the hub of a spoked
wheel. No matter where we go from here, no matter where our next step lands,
there, too, God’s paths will lead out in the many directions faithful love could
take. Even in the deepest pit of hell, even there, we are home, because even there
Christ has been before us, and is there waiting for us when we arrive to go with us
on the path of steadfast love leading to and from God.
Even here, even now, we each have stretching before us paths of God that
will lead us through whatever wilderness we each confront, and we each have the
Holy Spirit within us to teach us the way, and we each have Jesus beside us,
ready to take our hand and go with us every step. And yet, for many of us, most
of the time, the paths remain invisible and the divine presence unfelt. The
wilderness seems trackless. The night seems starless. And so we have to wander,
we have to stumble along, we have to wait, and our only choice seems to be
whether we wait in trust or we wait flailing against the situation. For those who
are stuck, the wilderness may not teach us the way out, but it does teach us a
lesson that John Updike described. He wrote, “Swimming offers a parable. We
struggle and thrash, and drown; we succumb, even in despair, and float, and are
saved.” (from “Lifeguard,” The New Yorker, June 17, 1961)
But sometimes we float in despair waiting for a way out of the wilderness
for so long, in so much pain, that it is tempting to give up on God ever saving us.
If you have suffered in that way or watched someone you love suffer, you know
that no one can blame a person for feeling like giving up. Yet the wisdom of the
ages and of the wisest among us says, do not sink in despair. Keep floating.
Keep waiting. Keep hoping. Keep following the best you can whatever path
seems most like steadfast love. As Bob Hagen asks, ask yourself, how can I go
through this time without my soul shriveling up? As Terry Barker suggests, take
the path that seems most likely to lead you to the light. And trust that Jesus is
going with you even if you do not see him. Trust that the Holy Spirit is within
and behind and ahead of you even if you do not feel it. Trust that you will meet
God on this path of waiting and humble prayer, that it will lead to the promised
land, that it will lead to the joy and power of Easter dawn, if you keep faith and
keep seeking the way.
Lent and Advent have this in common, that they are both journeys through
forms of darkness toward the light of Christ. They both are seasons meant to
prepare us to be more open to the light, and to be agents of transformation in the
world. In a minute or two we are going to sing a new Lenten hymn written to an
old Advent tune, much loved for how Johann Sebastian Bach harmonized it. We
will remain seated to sing it as a meditation, a form of prayer. I invite you now to
turn to the hymn “God, This Wilderness Seems Trackless” below and read the
words in silence. If you come to a phrase that speaks to you, just stop there and
close your eyes and let it sink in. Let us enter a spirit of reflection and prayer…
God, This Wilderness Seems Trackless
tune: Wachet Auf (PH#108) 8.9.8.8.9.8.6.6.4.8.8.
Texts: Psalm 25:1-10; Matt. 4:1-11; Mark 1:12-13; Luke 4:1-13
God, this wilderness seems trackless,
Dark night of soul a starless blackness.
Wounds, wrongs and losses tempt despair.
All my stumbling steps betray doubt.
My flailing mind can find no way out.
At last I fall to humble prayer.
I quiet as I wait.
The swirling sands abate.
Faith, courage, love:
Like stars they rise. Light fills my eyes.
Christ shows the way, his truth makes wise.
Holy Spirit drives and leads me,
It teaches me, its angel feeds me
If I give God my will’s control.
Then when demons come attacking
And tempt with all that I feel lacking,
I turn to God and lift my soul.
Christ takes my outstretched hand.
He, too, has walked this sand.
He leads me through.
Strength to endure, faith’s steps made sure:
God’s steadfast love holds me secure.
Spirit leads to confrontation
With foes of soul and of creation.
Christ leads us out to serve all earth.
Wilderness is our preparing
For paths of loving, healing, caring.
Dark nights of soul are throes of birth.
We reach the other side
Stripped of self-will and pride.
We rise, all God’s.
We follow on where Christ has gone
Down paths that lead to Easter dawn.
Copyright 2009 Thomas Cary Kinder
Sermon 03/01/2009