Forty
| John Wilkinson |
Third Presbyterian Church |
| February 10, 2008 |
Matthew 4:1-11 |
Last week, in discussing our upcoming capital campaign, as Jim
Chisholm has done so eloquently this morning, Fred Smith reminded
us of the skier’s mantra – “think snow.”
I don’t think he necessarily had the phrase “think
ice and sleet and slush” in mind. But who knows. I am
not a skier, and though I have lived in climates like these
all my life, I have still not come to embrace what the weather
forecasters so lovingly call the “white stuff.”
In the bleak mid-winter, we begin Lent today, as early as we
can, because of the way that the dates are calculated based
on phases of the moon. The irony is that the term “Lent”
itself has something to do with Spring, with the lengthening
of days.
Scholars acknowledge that the origins of Lent are complex and
somewhat obscure. The tradition holds that Lent became an increasingly
longer extension of the several-day period of baptism preparation.
In the earliest church, baptism happened once yearly –
at Easter. It originally held a preparation period of several
days, including a time of fasting. It became gradually longer,
until it reached this six-week, forty day cycle, excluding Sundays,
that connected baptism preparation to the forty day wilderness
journey that Jesus experienced at the outset of his ministry.
The historical recovery process becomes less clear after that;
and it is complicated by the great split between the western
and eastern churches in the 300’s. (See The New Westminster
Dictionary of Liturgy and Worship, pp. 278-279)
However it has evolved, what Lent signifies now seems useful
and helpful to the church and to individual persons of faith;
and whatever does not seem helpful is our problem, and not Lent’s.
We know the familiar scenario: a gloomy, somber season filled
with introspection that borders on self-loathing, with denial
that borders on deprivation, with giving things up like chocolate
or cable TV, practices that may have some benefit but that miss
the deeper theological point.
Despite the complex history, Lent has a biblical starting point,
a story told in various forms in Matthew, Mark and Luke. It
is Matthew’s turn this year. Immediately following his
baptism, Jesus is led by the Spirit into the wilderness. He
is tempted there by the devil. He fasted for forty days and
forty nights.
Famously, the devil offers three temptations, temptations for
Jesus to use his power to remove the very wilderness struggling
that he is enduring. Three times the devil says “yes.
Three times Jesus says “no.” At strike three, the
devil disappears; the angels appear to “care for him.
The earthly ministry unfolds.
Charles Cousar writes that this text suggests a life time of
questions: the dramatic conflict between Jesus and Satan, the
role of the Spirit, the nature of who Jesus is. The central
question, what do we learn from this story, is answered in several
ways, says Cousar. (Texts for Preaching – Year A,
pages 189-191)
We learn a great deal about Jesus. We learn that even though
he has been vested with extraordinary powers, he will not use
them to avoid his calling, a calling that will be confirmed
at the conclusion of this forty day journey.
And in that lesson we learn something about ourselves and our
need to rely on grace rather than our own abilities or presumed
powers. In his vocation, we learn our vocation, which is not
to be seduced by the pursuit of emptiness, but rather to be
embraced by the pursuit of service and compassion.
And we learn about trust. We will read a portion of the Presbyterian
Brief Statement of Faith in a few moments. Note the move made
there. For centuries, we’ve launched our doctrinal affirmations
with the word “believe.” That is fine, of course,
but the implication is that faith is an intellectual exercise,
the rational consideration of theological propositions. It is
that, partly. Doctrine matters. Theology matters.
But sense the difference when we say “we trust Jesus
Christ…” We trust. That is the more complete faith
experience, is it not – heart and mind and spirit, body
and soul, the whole spiritual enchilada involving our whole
being.
Jesus trusts God in the wilderness, in the face of temptation,
in the face of deep hunger, in the face of real doubt. He trusts.
Cousar writes that “amid the numerous options open to
people to which they can orient their lives and from which they
can find meaning, Jesus alone has proven worthy of trust.”
What would it look like to trust absolutely, to trust as an
infant trusts a parent? What would it look like? It would look
like this.
Eugene Boring (New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume VIII,
pp. 165-166) writes that this wilderness episode invites us
into a relationship with Jesus “who fully shares the weakness
of our human situation.”
Matthew does not want us to understand Jesus as being victimized,
but at the same time, we are to connect with the deep mystery
of Jesus’ humanity. For much of Christian history, we
have affirmed Jesus’ two natures – fully divine,
fully human – but we have emphasized the former over the
latter. A seminary professor of mine once commented that for
centuries, we understood Jesus’ earthly ministry as a
punctuation mark. That is, in the Apostles’ Creed: Born
of the Virgin Mary, (comma) suffered under Pontius Pilate.
But tend to the words we will share in a bit. This Jesus we
trust suffered the depths of human pain. He ate and drank, laughed
and cried, hungered, doubted. Our invitation into the mystery
of the Trinity would be diminished greatly if we did not have
access into it through its human form.
The tradition was looking for a messiah who was either a mighty
military ruler or a cunning politician, or both. In this messiah,
we get neither, but rather a friend – best of all friends
– and companion who will journey to the cross for us,
and who will endure the human experience with us and who will
live a fully authentic human life.
Given that, given this full and human experience of God, how
are we to approach the next forty days? How are we to avoid
the Lenten clichés? How will Lent matter to us?
This past Thursday, some of us read together a fine sermon
by John Claypool, that on the way to helping us understand the
sources of faith, reminded us that Lent is about self-examination.
We want to know more about what happened that first forty day
wilderness journey, but what we must presume is that it included
deep periods of introspection and reflection. Might ours as
well? We don’t very much like the word "discipline,"
living as we do in a world full of freedom and choices, but
if we treat the word "discipline" as an avenue toward
"discipleship," it might be more palatable.
The traditional Lenten disciplines are three: prayer and fasting
and almsgiving.
What would forty days of prayer look like for you, for us?
We are not monastic people, and prayer can be active and take
on many forms. Prayers of confession and thanksgiving, of intercession
and supplication for others and for the world. Prayer that takes
us deeper into our own self-understanding, and that beckons
us to hear the voice of God calling, whispering, “Follow
me.”
And fasting. Fasting not as a health remedy that we learn about
in an infomercial at 3:00 in the morning. A friend of mine,
a minister at another church in Rochester, fasts one day a week.
Knowing that it was a deeply biblical practice, I asked him
nonetheless why he did it. It allows me to focus on God, he
replied. A pretty good answer.
Our fasting can take on many forms. We have discussed the dynamics
of taking something up rather than giving something up. It doesn’t
really matter. What matters is the practice, the discipline,
of making a change in your life, in your patterns of behavior,
that will draw you closer to your own spirit, and therefore
to God’s, that will provide focus and clarity about the
choices in front of you, that will provide the reminder, the
sometime nagging reminder of what God is calling you to do.
And almsgiving. We don’t use that phrase much anymore.
It feels like something out of a Charles Dickens novel. But
charitable giving does not. Stewardship. And this is something
even deeper. Giving that is generous to the point of making
a personal difference, meeting real human need, that gives from
your abundance rather than from the leftovers. And by so doing,
being reminded of the gospel adage, as true as ever, that it
is more blessed to give than to receive. Your time. Your money.
Your energy. Your gifts. Your very self.
There you have it: forty days. What you have been given is
a life, and what you have been invited to do is to live life
fully and humanly and extravagantly and abundantly, to answer
faithfully the poet Mary Oliver’s question – “what
will you do with your one wild and precious life” –
for the sake of the world and for God’s sake, who gave
you that life, after all.
So that, in thinking Lent, we think joy, and hope, and discipleship.
The Catholic mystic Thomas Merton wrote that “The desert
is the home of despair. And despair, now, is everywhere. Let
us not think that our interior solitude consists in the acceptance
of defeat. We cannot escape anything by consenting tacitly to
be defeated. Despair is an abyss without bottom. Do not think
to close it by consenting to it and trying to forget you have
consented. This, then,” Merton writes, “is our desert:
to live facing despair, but not to consent. To trample it down
under hope in the Cross. To wage war against despair unceasingly.
That war is our wilderness. If we wage it courageously, we will
find Christ at our side. If we cannot face it, we will never
find him.” (Thoughts in Solitude)
These, therefore, are our Lenten disciplines. Pray. Give. Fast.
Hope. Journey. Trust.
Forty days. Every day. A lifetime. Amen.
