Lent I, Year B
Genesis, 9:8-17
1 Peter, 3:18-22
Mark, 1:9-13
+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In last week's gospel, Jesus went up a mountain and was transfigured – Saints Peter, James, and John saw the glory of God. They experienced God in a whole new way. And also appearing on the mount were Moses and Elijah. We remember that Moses had gone up Mt. Sinai and spent forty days there. Moses saw the glory of God. He received the Ten Commandments. Elijah the prophet, fleeing from the wrath of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel, spent forty days on Mt. Horeb, where he experienced God in the still, small voice – in the silence, and where angels ministered to him.
In today's gospel, the Holy Spirit drives Jesus into the wilderness where he spends forty days, where Satan tests him and he receives the assistance of angels, before he begins his ministry. It's a common pattern: a period of testing and hardship, but a time when we experience God, his presence with us, his love for us, a time when we may see God.
Just about every Christian I know groans at the mention of Lent. But we shouldn't. We should rejoice. It is a tremendous time of year, an enormous blessing, an opportunity for renewal, a time to re-connect with God, to find God in our own wilderness.
For your Lenten pleasure – and I'm not being ironic or facetious, the last couple pages of today's bulletin have a list of ten things we might do to keep a holy Lent. Please notice that of these ten things only one of them is about giving up anything. The other nine are about taking on things. Lent should include some fasting and self-denial. That's what we groan about because in our world exercising even a little voluntary restraint is truly counter-cultural.
I am giving up some things. I will watch no television except on weekends, and for that, I should not groan, but rejoice. One of the surest ways to feel better about ourselves is to minimize the amount of television in our lives. I am not rejoicing, however, that I'm giving up meat. That'll be a bigger struggle to do without being grumpy. Jesus says, "When you fast, do no look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face." (Mt 6:16-17) Or, as a friend of mine says, "Put on your makeup and do your hair." Or, as another friend says, "Don't be a gloomy Gus." Or, again as Jesus says, "Be of good cheer."
Lent should include some self-denial, but that's not its primary character. I'm taking on some things, like being nice to animals. To which a friend asked, "Which ones? You almost never see any." That's why I'm taking it on: it's easy. I might be able to do it.
Lent should move us to penitence, to have contrite hearts, to be sorry for our sins. But there are a couple of dangers here. First, as Fr Conner reminded us a couple weeks ago, our big sins are not about sex and drinking. You know we live in a trivial culture when that's what people think sin is. The sins we should focus on are the big ones, the important ones: our fear, our meanness, our greed, our self-absorption. Our big sins have to do with our relationships with other people, our failures with them. Eating a cheeseburger in Lent is no where near as bad as saying a snide, cutting remark about someone. Jesus says, "Not what goes into the mouth defiles a man, but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man." (Mt 15:11) So the first danger of penitence is being sorry for the wrong things, the silly, minor things.
The second danger about being sorry for our sins is that we become gloomy and morose and humor-less. We are sorry for our sins, but God forgives our sins. That's the good news. We are broken and needy, but God is there to heal us. So Lent is a time for gratitude. When we confess our sins and seek God's forgiveness, we not only grow in gratitude, but we also are far more likely to see the humor in ourselves. We might see our absurdity and have a laugh at ourselves. Humor is one of God's greatest gifts to us, and humor is a vital part of a healthy spiritual life.
Just ask John Giannetti and Jim Rosapepe about that. Giannetti is a Maryland state senator from Prince George's County, and Rosapepe is challenging him in the primary.1 For the last year Rosapepe has been taking jabs at Giannetti, and it's anticipated that it'll be one of the more bitter and negative campaigns.
Last Monday evening about 10:00 p.m., Giannetti dropped into Maria's Sicilian Ristorante and Café in Annapolis for some takeout. As he sat waiting on a barstool, there was a commotion in the dining room, and a man stumbled into the bar, hunched over and wheezing. His windpipe was totally blocked, and in his distress "he ran headlong into Giannetti, who leapt into action." Giannetti hopped up and performed the Heimlich maneuver and out popped a piece of fish the size of a golf-ball.
It was only then that the Giannetti and Rosapepe recognized each other. Unfortunately, the newspaper didn't have a picture of the expression on each man's face! Recovered, Rosapepe returned to his table and reported what happened to his dining companions, who didn't believe him and, when convinced, sat in stunned silence. One of the dining companions later said, "My first reaction was that God is good, and he has a sense of humor."
The President of the Senate, Mike Miller, said, "Maybe this means that we'll see a more uplifting campaign as a result. I mean, I would think you'd be very hard-pressed to say anything bad about a man who saved your life."
The story gave me an idea for a Lenten spiritual exercise. We should think of someone who offends us, or our nemesis, or we can think of someone we've offended and treated poorly. And now we imagine this person saving our life. How would we change? We should! What would we do differently? Let's pray about that. Let's try to treat people like they saved our lives. The truth is that we're all like Mr. Rosapepe – wheezing, in distress, broken, and we need someone to save us. Imagine being saved by someone you don't like.
To some extent, everyone – those we like and those we don't like, those we admire and those we disapprove of – everyone we encounter we ought to treat as our savior. Human beings reflect the image of God. Jesus dwells in us: "He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood dwells in me, and I in him." (Jn 6:56) "Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison? Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me." (Mt 25:44,40)
A couple of weeks ago, an un-baptized person told me a remarkable dream she had. She tried on a pair of sunglasses, but they were far too big for her. Still she wanted to see how she looked in them, and on the wall in front of her there were two mirrors. She walked over to the mirror on the right. It was shimmering in many directions, and it didn't show any reflection. She couldn't see herself - just nothingness. So she stepped over to the mirror on the left. She saw a reflection. She saw Jesus. She saw a part of her true self. The dream startled her, and she woke up. It'd certainly wake me up.
It's an amazing, sophisticated dream, rich with symbolic meaning. Jung and Dali couldn't have done better. The sunglasses are too big – made for someone with a big head, someone self-centered, ego-centric, someone who doesn't want to see the light. Sunglasses are for blocking out light. Jesus is the light of the world. The right hand side is associated with giving. The left hand side is associated with receiving. She saw Jesus in the left mirror. When we open up, when we're ready to receive Christ, then we see him. We should see Christ in ourselves and in other people. And that is profoundly shocking; it awakens us to a whole new life.
The image of Christ in ourselves and in other people is what should rule our lives – not the false images that tempt us to live for ourselves, for our individual desires, for nothingness. Satan tempted Jesus forty days in the wilderness, tempted him to be less than himself, tempted him not to be true to himself. Now we are going to spend forty days earnestly trying to look into that mirror and see Jesus and receive him; we are going to spend forty days earnestly trying to be true to his image in us, that is by trying to make God's love and mercy known to everyone we encounter. That is a holy Lent.
+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
1. Matthew Mosk, ‘When Life Upstages Politics,' The Washington Post, 1 March 2006, p. B01
© 2006 Lane John Davenport
