February 18, 2018
1 Lent, Year B
Never More?
There are a few non-negotiables when it
comes to Lent. It is what the Prayer Book says it is: a time of
self-examination and repentance. A time of prayer, fasting and self-denial –
and a journey that we may not want to begin.
Many mark these days by intentionally
doing something different. Whether it is
going down the familiar “giving up or taking on” route or just paying more
attention to God’s call on our life. Grabbing
or guarding more time for quiet and centering.
Pausing to remember why we care -- why we believe.
The wilderness is another Lenten
non-negotiable. It always starts with
Jesus spending 40 days in the wilderness with wild beasts being tempted by
Satan. Wilderness is both location and
metaphor in Scripture. It is the place
where life gets scary and lonely – when priorities such as food, water and
security become very real – and where temptation lurks. It is a time apart to consider how the
presence of God can feel both far and very near.
Each one of us has our version of
wilderness. When we’ve been cut off from
support systems and loved ones. When we’ve experienced a forced or self-imposed
exile. When tragedy strikes and we
retreat or cocoon – or when grief or depression settles in for a long
season.
Wilderness in Scripture is not meant to be
permanent, rather a space to move through onto to something more.
Things can become clearer in the
wilderness.
Every other week it seems we hear reports
of hikers being rescued in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. They find themselves lost or wander too far
off known pathways. We too get lost in the wilderness. And we can be
found. We can be drawn into promise of
the prophet Isaiah 58: v. 11 The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy
your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like
a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.
Along with Jesus and the wild beasts, I
love this phrase in Mark: Jesus was with wild beasts, “and the angels waited on
him.”
Beyond a few mentions in Christmas pageants,
we don’t think much about angels anymore.
I rarely mention them in sermons. But angels fill the pages of Scripture
as expressions of God’s messengers. They
convey and communicate and show up. They
watch over and protect. How many us have
felt, when we had passed through a moment of crisis or danger, that somewhere
we must have a guardian angel looking over us? These are not just the promises to soothe a
frightened child.
Our call to welcome the strangers comes
with some hefty backing: 2 Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for
by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. Hebrews 13:2
Novelist Marilynne Robinson captures the
feeling that a parent has sending a child off to wherever parents send children
off to, be it school or summer camp. A first date in the family car, college
and beyond. “Any father…must finally
give his child up to the wilderness and trust to the providence of God. It
seems almost a cruelty for one generation to beget another when parents can
secure so little for their children, so little safety, even in the best
circumstances. Great faith is required to give the child up, trusting God to
honor the parents’ love for him by assuring that there will indeed be angels in
that wilderness.”
God assures us that there will be angels
in the wilderness. God sent them for his
son Jesus. God sends them to us. We
prayed this morning in the Litany: Guard and protect all children who are in
danger.
In the use of the Great Litany as we begin
Lent, you see how we work into our prayers events in our larger world. We do so because our God is a God who acts in
history. Who led people out of slavery,
who returned them home after exile, and who sent a Son to be a Messiah to
preach freedom and love and peace. And
Christians have this stubborn belief that leaders can help shape our world for
the good of us all – and thus closer to what God desires. We certainly know that bad and evil leaders
can bring about death and destruction. So we offer our leaders our
prayers. So we pray: Guide the leaders
of the nations into the ways of peace and justice. Give your wisdom and strength
to Donald, the President of the United States; and Chris, the Governor of this
state, that in all things they may do your will, for your glory and the common
good. Give to the Congress of the United States, the members of the President’s
Cabinet, those who serve in our state legislature, and all others in authority
the grace to walk always in the ways of truth. Bless the justices of the
Supreme Court and all those who administer the law, that they may act with
integrity and do justice for all your people.
“Never Again” are two powerful words.
They can be spoken between two people who
have wounded each other by words or actions, and then spoken out of deep
regret.
“Never again” has been associated with the
Holocaust. The phrase reportedly first
appeared on handmade signs put up by inmates at Buchenwald in April, 1945,
shortly after the camp had been liberated by U.S. forces.
“Never again” are aspirational words. Words spoken out of ruin and rubble with an
aspiring hope that what has just happened will never happen again in one’s
lifetime.
“Never again” can be spoken between those whose
trust has been broken and confidence has been shaken. Never again will I… take you for granted, say
what I just said, hurt you in any way.
God spoke “never again” in Genesis 9. Then God said to Noah and to his sons with
him, “As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants
after you. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh
be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to
destroy the earth.” God gives us a model of repentance – a change in behavior
based on seeing the results of one’s actions.
A parishioner told me about the Parkland
Florida shooting at the end the Ash Wednesday service. I might have heard something passing by the
TV about a school shooting in the mid-afternoon, but in all honesty, it did not
register.
A clergy friend of mine wrote on his blog
this week (The Rev. David Romanik at https://fatherdrom.wordpress.com/2018/02/15/repentance/)that:
“I hate that I have a ‘mass shooting routine.’ I hate that these events have
become so commonplace that I know exactly how I’m going to respond. There is a
grim and predictable routine: shock, sadness, outrage, blame, and apathy, all
within the span of a few days, or even a few hours. Mass shootings have become
so common that the only thing we feel like we can do is wait for the next one
to occur.”
Even the offering of prayer has become
like salt in the wounds in our current climate we are living through. Prayer without action is always suspect. Jesus had a way to sniff out hypocrisy.
Matthew 6: “And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love
to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may
be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. “When you are praying, do not heap up empty
phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of
their many words.
We’re beyond a tipping point it
seems. When “never again” is replaced
with “please Lord let it not happen here.” We are people and a nation in need
of deep repentance. The greatest prosperity the world has ever seen and we are
awash with guns that have little to nothing to do with the hunting culture that
is still strong and beloved in our state and by some of our families.
The debate has been so soiled and
positions so hardened that many us feel that we are nearly powerless to affect
change. We are getting farther away from
“never again”.
And we still pray for the lives lost at
another mass shooting.
Alyssa Alhadeff,
age 14
Scott Beigel,
35
Martin Duque Anguiano, 14
Nicholas Dworet, 17
Aaron Feis, 37
Jamie Guttenberg, 14
Chris Hixon, 49
Luke Hoyer, 15
Cara Loughran, 14
Gina Montalto, 14
Joaquin Oliver, 17
Alaina Petty, 14
Meadow Pollack, 18
Helena Ramsay, 17
Alex Schachter, 14
Carmen Schentrup, 16
Peter Wang, 15
We pray that even if we as a society and
our leader could not protect them in their schools, that God’s angels were
indeed present.
May you and I use this Lenten wilderness
time to link prayer with action. May we
find ways to turn and change. Use what
God has given us and make a difference in the lives a few people you touch and
know. Reach out to a stranger – or an
angel – and draw them in.
May this Lenten wilderness help us find
again those pieces of our lives that seemed to have been lost. Dust off something you put down some time ago
and make it new again.
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