[Propertalk] 1 Lent c

[robertpmorrison at charter.net]

Here a draft of what I'm working on for Sunday ....


EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY                                       	 
THE FIRST SUNDAY IN LENT (c)
DEUTERONOMY 26:1-11                         					 
17th FEBRUARY, 2013
ROMANS 10:8b-13		                            	 
PSALM 91:1-2, 9-16
LUKE 4:1-13

That sketch of Jesus on the psalm page this morning prompted me to 
wonder if He was thinking to Himself, “Did I do the right thing?” 1

That’s not intended to be a joke, just an attempt to try to get close to 
what might have been going on in Jesus’ mind at the time of the story 
Deacon Marj just read.

His cousin had welcomed him with open arms. God had wholeheartedly 
affirmed Him and the direction His ministry was about to take. What more 
might He want?

I was listening to a brief interview with a symphony orchestra conductor 
last week. Daniel Harding said that he happened to be in the right place 
at the right time. He’d done what felt satisfying to him and he came to 
the attention of an already established conductor, who took him under 
his wing and gave him some breaks. The rest, as they say, is history. 
Now at the ripe old age of thirty-seven he’s firmly established in his 
vocation. He’s invited to conduct the world’s most prestigious 
orchestras and preside at the best opera houses. Yet, for all that, he’s 
maintained both a great sense of humility and understanding that he must 
continue to study, he mustn’t rest on his laurels, and he must use his 
skills, his contacts, what prestige he feels he may have, in order to 
help young teenagers as he’d been helped. 2

Jesus had put in a little less than thirty years working, studying, 
learning all about working with wood. No doubt He came to know all about 
grain, about how some wood under certain conditions would split, and how 
other woods, treated in a different way, would be incredibly strong. No 
doubt He’d met with people who came to His shop for merchandise, or who 
spoke to Him when He was out on a job. He attended synagogue and seemed 
to engage the religious as well as civil leaders.

Then He felt called into public ministry. That’s when He met up with His 
cousin, John the Baptist.

Any time a person changes vocations, moves from one city to another, 
accepts a certain position, changes relationships: any time someone 
makes major changes in her or his life, there’s a lot of stress 
involved. I’ve been there. I’m sure you have also. All sorts of things 
are new – geography, climate, people, working conditions – you name it, 
change seems to be the only constant, and it can be stressful and 
worrisome. We ask ourselves, “Have I made the right decision? Did I 
imagine that I was suited for this? Will I be all alone?” And there’s 
the classic, “Wouldn’t it better to tolerate the old situation, even if 
I’m not feeling fulfilled, or happy, or useful, and so on, rather than 
risk all the unknowns?”

Surely Jesus felt all of these. In fact, one of the encouraging things 
for us, living with all of our decisions two thousand years later, is 
precisely that. Jesus DID go through heart- and soul-searching. He 
didn’t sail through life without tearing the skin off His knees, or 
having family arguments, or being ticked off with the utility bills – 
well, maybe not that, but He DOES know what it’s like to live on a 
budget.

But there He was, hearing talking birds and being all alone in the 
desert. It’s not the sort of change I’D relish, especially when we 
remember that this wasn’t Jesus’ choice. He didn’t feel in need of a 
break.

Deserts, you’ve heard often I assume, were like the mountain top of last 
Sunday’s Gospel, deserts were one of the places where a person went to 
sort out her or his thoughts and to listen for God speaking. It wasn’t a 
place of banishment. But if GOD could be heard there, so could the 
Adversary who opposed everything for which God lobbied.

In very primitive living, Jesus must have sat for hours, then walked for 
several more hours, looking for vegetation to eat and a little spring 
from which to drink. He must have asked Himself again and again, “What 
on earth am I doing here? Why, oh why did I leave Mum and the sibs, and 
the steady carpenter’s job?”

Again, this is something to which we’re all accustomed ourselves. We 
know what plays out. If we move, if circumstances change, if we lose 
friends, or a job, or our family situation is modified, we become so 
vulnerable. We may settle for less elaborate cooking adventures. If 
we’re lucky, we make friends easily, but perhaps everyone else has 
something different happening on the weekends.

Picture Jesus, then, alone, desperately seeking a word from God to say 
that not only had He done the right thing in going to John the Baptist 
and in being baptized. But He was also coming to terms with the fact 
that everything He did would be challenged. He’d be ridiculed for NOT 
feeding Himself before everyone else. All the changes suggested for 
Jesus’ life were appropriate.

THAT’S when He was at His most vulnerable and, like us, THAT’S when He 
was so susceptible to His imagination or to real contacts, when He faced 
suggestions to look after His own needs and satisfy Himself, no matter 
what the cost.

The good news is that Jesus was able to hang on. No matter how hungry, 
how lonely, how tired, how confused or self-doubting He may have been, 
He was able to analyse the temptations He faced.

That must have been incredibly difficult. Just because He was God’s Son 
didn’t make things any easier. In fact, it only upped the ante. Not too 
many of us go around singing, “If I ruled the world”, at least I haven’t 
heard that in the hallways in this building. Probably just as well – I 
knew the title of that song but, until I Googled it, I wasn’t aware that 
the first line is, “Imagine smoking weed in the streets without cops 
harassing”! 3

But that song title about sums up what Jesus faced, and what we face. 
Some people think that if they could only take over, then they’d be 
incredibly happy. Thinking about anyone else who might have different 
standards and goals doesn’t enter the equation. It’s a “Me first” 
attitude, and even if we could count on Jesus having a totally 
altruistic approach to life, that’s not how He operated. He needed to 
look at how His human nature and God’s will jibed with one another. He 
needed to consider how His every movement, His every word, affected 
others. Not only was Jesus’ ministry one of reconciliation, it was one 
of example. Satisfying His own needs at the expense of others, then, 
isn’t the sort of thing He’d want us to emulate. Heaven knows, there are 
enough people engaged in that philosophy that the world doesn’t need any 
religious nuts like Episcopalians selling some sort of brand of 
self-important puffery!

That’s why the Scripture readings are placed on this first Sunday in 
Lent. They’re designed to stop us up short. We need to be halted, to 
have our vision and focus checked so that we can appreciate all the 
better the enormity of what Jesus set out to accomplish for us.
	
	One pastor wrote somewhat engagingly, “Lent rolls around every year, 
but for most Christians, it is less like a birthday and more like a flu 
vaccination.

	“We know Lent is necessary, that it's good for us in much the same way 
cauliflower might be. We've heard all the preachers’ clichés as to how 
it makes the joy of Easter possible, but the truth of the matter is that 
Lent never comes naturally.

	“It is hard to explain to our non-Christian friends, because, to tell 
the truth, we don’t fully understand it ourselves. We are prone to 
engage in its practice without ever asking why we are doing what we are 
doing. We do it because, well, we've always done it. …

	“But if we don't have a good explanation for our Lenten behavior, if we 
don't seem to fully understand the focus of the season, it’s not 
completely our fault. It is Jesus’ own sojourn in the wilderness that 
inspires this odd season, and Jesus doesn't seem keen on offering any 
explanation for what he's doing.” 4

That’s another of the telling points about temptation. We’re never fully 
aware of it until it’s right on top of us. That’s why we need to read 
and re-read the manual for life; we need to think and rethink who we are 
as human beings and as Jesus’ brothers and sisters. We need to seek, 
once again, definitions of what we’re called to do, and we need to 
acknowledge that nothing about this is easy.

The Lent which we’re invited to engage once again this year is all about 
re - placing the “I” in our lives in the service of God.

	A friend who’s with the General Board of Examining Chaplains who set 
and advise on the evaluation of The Episcopal Church’s ordination exams 
put it very simply. What we need is “A knowledge of the two facts that 
are the basis for all spiritual wisdom and moral strength:
•	One, there is a God.
•	Two, you are not.” 5

This is the good news Jesus discovered in the desert. And this is the 
good news He passed along to us, not to belittle us in the least, but to 
take from us the responsibility of having to run things, giving us 
instead the exciting charge of following Him. Not, in itself, and by 
ourselves, an easy task, but one which IS eminently do-able in the 
strength and the company of the Man of God who faced desert-temptation 
for us, who now asks if He can walk with us.

That invitation starts at this altar. Only God knows where it will lead. 
But we ALL know where it will end – thank God!

NOTES:

1 	Sketch for “Jesus in the Wilderness” by Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoĭ, 
http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/diglib-fulldisplay.pl?SID=20130214849517822&code=ACT&RC=54213&Row=2

2	http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01qfhhs

3	NAS LYRICS – "If I Ruled The World" (feat. Lauryn Hill) 
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/nas/ifiruledtheworld.html

4	“Dress Rehearsal in the Desert” Luke 4:1-13 1st Sunday in Lent - Year 
C February 17, 2013 .The Rev. Brian Erickson is senior pastor of First 
United Methodist Church of Alabaster, AL 
http://day1.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=a22435f9d4a26d16f2776cd60&id=aa44225728&e=07fe8bf832

5	“The Meaning of Lent: An Ash Wednesday Rant” February 13, 2013 by 
Frederick Schmidt www.patheos.com


Robert P Morrison
Interim Vicar
The Episcopal Church of St Alban
PO Box 1556
Albany OR  97321   541-921-1076 (cell)