Sermon at The Church of the Holy Apostles, New York City
February 25, 2007
The First Sunday in Lent, Year C
The Reverend William A. Greenlaw, Ph.D., Rector
Deuteronomy 26: 1 - 11
Psalm 91
Romans 10: 5 - 13
Luke 4: 1 - 13

 

     “After his baptism, Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.”

     Jesus was tempted for forty days, and it is no accident that we have a season of Lent that lasts forty days, not counting Sundays, the day of the resurrection.  But forty is also the number of years the ancient Israelites wandered in the wilderness, after being freed from Pharaoh.  It was forty days and forty nights that the rains came from heaven—and Noah survived that devastating flood because he hearkened to God’s word and built the ark.  Forty is a number therefore of considerable significance.  It would seem to signal periods of wandering and searching and refining—a time, maybe even a season, in the desert, if you well.  And so, welcome to Lent!

     In our Old Testament lesson Moses is leading the people of Israel in their wandering in the wilderness.  He is attempting to prepare them for what is to come.  And  we hear the story, “a wandering Aramean was my ancestor.”  These verses are considered by scholars to be from the very earliest strand of the Hebrew Bible, from the earliest layer of the tradition, handed down through centuries of orally telling the sacred story of God’s deliverance of the chosen people.  It is not too much to say that it is the Credo of the liturgy of Ancient Israel, when the sacred story is rehearsed by the gathered assembly in such a way that that story out there becomes our story, in here, in this community, in our hearts.  It is as if we were there, participating in the events that are described.  It functions just as our eucharist does for us, in getting us inside the sacred story.

     And in the offertory procession, the climax of the ancient liturgy, the firstfruits are presented and the ancient Credo is the response that is offered:  “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down to Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous.  When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labor on us, we cried to the Lord our God, the God of our ancestors; the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression.  The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.”

     This is a wonderfully rich and powerful but poignant story—because the catch is, of course, that the people need to remember.  But, as Moses knew all too well, this was a stiff-necked people, a people who would inevitably assume that it was because of their own virtue and righteousness that all these gifts were coming their way.  In short, they were like all people everywhere, in all times and in all places.  Our memories are still and always, so very short.

     If we turn now from wandering in the wilderness for forty years to Jesus being in the wilderness for forty days after his baptism, we see an interesting dynamic at work.  Jesus has grown up in Nazareth, the son of Mary and Joseph.  Luke gives us a glimpse of him at twelve years of age, but apart from that we know nothing of his life until the events leading to his public ministry, namely his baptism and the temptation story, beginning at something like 30 years of age.  He certainly had to be doing something during all those years, at the very least pondering and praying about what his ultimate vocation would be.  He had his own lengthy “discernment process.” 

     But finally, the occasion of John’s ministry, itself centered in the wilderness, becomes the setting of Jesus’ baptism in the River Jordan.  Jesus is just about ready.

     It’s curious that the Epiphany season we have just completed sidesteps the fact that the “just about ready” means Jesus must first undergo his temptation in the wilderness before he begins his public ministry.  Instead, in Epiphany, we have a series of events from his baptism in which his glory, his Messiahship is evident, culminating last Sunday in the Transfiguration on the Holy Mountain, with Jesus then setting his face toward Jerusalem.  In a certain sense, all of Lent is preparing for, dealing with the implications of that turning toward Jerusalem.  It’s just that first, we must return to the temptation story we earlier bypassed.

     The temptations are something of a test of Jesus’ vocation.  As he is coming to terms with just what is calling is and what it will entail for him, he is clearly sorting all this out.  Most scholars, I think it fair to say, do not believe that Jesus was completely clear from the very beginning about who he was and what his life would entail.  Only the much later gospel according to John has Jesus with full knowledge from the very beginning.  And so, to the extent there may be doubt and ambiguity in Jesus’ mind, the temptations take on added significance.  It is not a matter of “just saying no.”  The desert is a time of real testing, of weighing, of prayer, of doubting and struggling.  Jesus has, as one commentator has put it, the possibility of “getting it wrong.”

     It is a time for all the “what ifs” to get played out in Jesus’ mind.  There may even be the possibility of a “why me?” being uttered.  It is, if you will, a perfect time for the devil to try to mess things up.  It has been said, the devil comes without invitation, but leaves only when commanded.

     The specific temptations would all seem to be shortcuts, or rather short-circuits that are superficially connected with what Jesus is about if not specifically about who he is.  Jesus is hungry, and he is presumably concerned about all the poor and the hungry.  What easier way to alleviate hunger in himself and others than in turning stones into bread.  After all, consider what Jesus was going to do much later with five loaves and two fish.  But here the intent is different.  Clearly, this story is not about solving the problem of hunger—it is to make the salient point that one does not live by bread alone.

     Jesus is shown the kingdoms of the world.  Think of the problems he can solve all at once, without going through all that lies before him.  That may be tempting too, but ultimately it is offering to Jesus a political solution to a spiritual problem—that would ultimately solve nothing.

     Finally, Jesus is offered the opportunity of showing the people at the very center of things, the temple in Jerusalem, just how special and powerful he is.  But what we have here is a gospel based on magic, rather than on trust and love and relationship and transformation.

     The devil finally departs with Jesus’ third rejection and denunciation of him.  In Matthew and Mark, at this point angels come to minister to Jesus as he leaves the desert.  Jesus will soon be ready to begin his public ministry.

     Our own “public ministry” grows out of all that we are and are called to be as the people of God, struggling to understand our own call, our own vocation—in the midst of temptations and doubts and struggles in the wilderness and elsewhere.  And what a week this has been for temptations, doubts, and struggles within both the Anglican Communion and the Episcopal Church.   And the wilderness has seemed very real.

     On Ash Wednesday, I was struck perhaps as never before by the profundity of our lesson from Isaiah, where the prophet makes clear that the kind of fast the Lord seeks is not a fast to impress others, least of all  to impress God.  Rather, God asks for a fast that will loose the bonds of injustice, undo the thongs of the yoke, that lets the oppressed go free.

     As so many of you already know because of the extensive news coverage including a front page story in the New York Times as well as listservs and blogs being in overdrive, the Primates of the Anglican Communion, meeting in Tanzania, issued a Communique on Monday evening that, in effect, gave the Episcopal Church an ultimatum to put its house in order.  The Primates issued this on the basis of a resolution of the 1998 Lambeth Conference that affirmed a very traditional and narrow interpretation of human sexuality—and it seems they have asserted that this is the indisputable “teaching” of the Anglican Communion.  Instead of the freedom and diversity that have always been the hallmarks of our communion, it seems we are moving toward a very specific “covenant” based on a narrow and selective reading of scripture and tradition—and there will be certain “standards” that all member churches will be expected to uphold.

     These developments may have been dismaying in the extreme, but things were to become even worse.  Many of us had put an enormous amount of faith and hope and trust in our new Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori, that she would represent the vision of an open and inclusive church forcefully and skillfully, as she took her vaunted “seat at the table” with her brother Primates.

     And we trusted that our Presiding Bishop would also make clear that, however much the Episcopal Church reveres and honors its bishops, our bishops do not and cannot speak unilaterally for the church—as if the laity and priests and deacons simply do not matter.  For we have, thank God, a constitutional order in which only the General Convention of our Church can act on behalf of the whole church.

     Well, what we have is our Presiding Bishop asking us to observe “a season of fasting,” as she put it, meaning not only not electing bishops without regard to sexual orientation, but also not sanctioning the blessing of same sex unions.  It seems she is still maintaining the hope that we might change the minds of much of the global south and many others—while it seems ever more clear that the literalists are dug in more fiercely than ever.  They have made it crystal clear they have no interest in a so-called “listening process” of dialogue.  Rather, scripture is crystal clear to them and it is the Episcopal Church which is to be brought to heel if there is to be a chance of it and us remaining in communion with them.

     It feels for all the world as if all of us, but most especially our beloved gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, are being asked by our Presiding Bishop not for a fast that looses the bonds of injustice, but rather a fast that sustains and bows down before prejudice and bigotry—with absolutely no end in sight.  What an astonishing and profoundly dismaying turn of events this has been.

     But I need to tell you that in the midst of this gloom and darkness and despair, there are clear and even startling signs of hope and even reassurance from a variety of quarters across our church.  One of these is from our own Bishop of New York, the Right Reverend Mark Sisk.  In a New York Times interview this past Wednesday, Bishop Sisk has spoken a word many of us have longed to hear: “Being part of the Anglican Communion is very important to me… But if the price of that is I have to turn my back on the gay and lesbian people who are part of this church and part of me, I won’t do that.”

     And in his own word to the diocese, listen to what our bishop has written:

“Over the years I have been prepared to make certain accommodations to meet the concerns of those whose view of the Gospel promise differs somewhat from my own.  I am fully aware that those accommodations have not been uncontroversial.  Now, I want to make it abundantly clear that I am not in the least prepared to make any concession that strikes at the heart of my conviction that gay and lesbian people are God’s beloved children.  They are we.  Our witness to the Gospel would be unthinkably deformed if by some tragic misjudgment we       willingly submitted ourselves to vivisection.   We are one body in Christ.  Each    and all of us rely upon the love of God, as revealed in Jesus, to attain to the life that is ours in Him.  We have all been called by God to offer ourselves for the           transfiguration of our lives in order that we ‘may be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory.’  This vision of a God      who embraces all in the arms of Divine self-offering love is the vision that is at    the heart of the Gospel as I know it.” 

     On Tuesday, March 6, as most of you well know, Bishop Sisk will be here to celebrate the eucharist and share in an open forum with us.  So much has changed in the last week concerning our expectations of that evening.  Again, let me say I hope that as many of you as possible will be present on this occasion.

     And so, what are we going to do with Lent this year?  As always, the gospel speaks to all our lives, both inner and outer—both the public and the private.  Both are important.  Both need our attention—even when large issues from outside our community seem to both demand and even command our attention.  But part of our journey in growth and maturation in faith is learning to hold all these things in balance—so that in all of life, we might find our God mighty to save.

     May God bless us all as we seek not only to be the people of God true to the faith we have been given, but also as we seek to keep a holy Lent.

     Amen.