St. Stephen’s Episcopal
Church
New Harmony, IN
I think I've grown to love Lent
Maybe it would be more accurate to say
that I've grown to appreciate Lent
I
welcome the mantras of Lent
“Come back
to me…with all your heart”
“Create in
me a clean heart O God”
“fast and
pray”
All of it demands
attention and work on my part
I suppose my job is to be
ready
Ready to get a bit more
real
I am hoping that our
readings will set the stage a bit
I hope they will help our
‘readiness’
But I must say,
the
lectionary starts out with such a bang
on this first Sunday
It gives us way too much
to digest in one day
In Genesis we have the genesis of sin
Our human propensity to
fall for cunning
In Psalm 32 we have more sin, guilt, transgression, and forgiveness
In Romans …sin and death and how they relate...and grace
In the Gospel more temptation and the reappearance of Mr. Cunning
If there is ever a Sunday
that demands at least a 30 minute sermon…
(don’t worry I don’t have
one in me)
Let's begin Lent patiently
Lent is 40 days
We’ll start out…patient
I am thinking about Sin,
the Fall,
I remember one December
I wanted to make
gingerbread houses with my kids
I wanted to make it a real
collaborative project
A together project
I gave up all my need for
perfection...
no Martha Stewart allowed
And expediency
Patience was needed in a
big supply
I found a book of plans
Stencils really
The kids traced the stencils
And cut them out
They measured the
ingredients
Cracked the eggs
Mixed, stirred...rolled out the dough
And eventually we baked
and glued with icing
And then the candy
decorating
But YOU KNOW…it was not
smooth sailing
All the while there was
interruption after interruption
The neighbor next door
knocks and wants to play
bathroom breaks
spills to clean
A naptime
What I really remember is
that I needed
Patience, patience, and
more patience
Because it HAD to be their
creation
Their part
was imperative
Isn’t God that way?
Jesus calls him “Abba” …
Daddy
God is like a parent
A parent who wants to make
something out of CREATION
But he wants to make it with
us
He doesn’t want to do it
by himself
And YES
It is so inefficient
It is so very messy
and it’s going to go
sideways sometimes
interrupted over and over
It will take a lot longer
In the case of creation
It will take ALL
the time in the world
So history takes time
And God gives it time*
God is patient
It is when we lose
patience
It is when we decide to
grab
at what God is offering us
as a gift
A gift, God surely knows
We will need time to grow
into
A gift to unfold
gradually…over history…
It is when we lose
patience with that gift
When we want our God-Likeness
When we want it RIGHT NOW
When we want it on our own
terms.
That’s the Fall
The Fall
The sin in garden
I'm thinking that it is our human impatience with God’s gift
Adam and Eve grasp at the
gift
The gift that God…in God’s
infinite wisdom…
is unfolding for us
gradually
Imagine the dialogue
Mr. Cunning surely knows
the answer to his question before he even asks
He is cunnnnnning
His plan is to arouse
something in Eve
Something that wasn’t
there before
All was bliss and
contentment
God is so good…a huge garden…
Green and plentiful and satisfying
No rivalry
No shame
No impatience
Mr. Cunning
I can see him
Hmmmm…hmmmmm…hmmmm…
I don’t know but it looks
to me like God just might be
hiding
something from you???
Can’t you sense it?
Are you sure he’s telling the whole truth???
He points out their
incompleteness
Compared to God
You aren’t enough
You need more
You need that one more
fruit
Mr. Cunning shines all the
light and attention on their lack…
Their want …Their need
None of which was there
before he cunningly aroused it
Cunning indeed
Mr. Cunning is still alive
and well
Always has been
Just watch a few commercials or notice a few billboards
I see him in our obsession
with youth, and wealth, and shallow beauty
We might very easily be
overwhelmed
With seductions and tricks of this cunning sort
So…In the beginning
We might say
There was a WRONG MOVE…an
impatient move
And this wrong move has been pondered by mystics and Saints and theologians throughout the ages
This wrong move
Is the impatient move
An impatient move to fill
up that God-shaped whole in our hearts
with the nearest, most tantalizing thing that
catches our fancy
---a perfect fruit for instance
This wrong move
Is the impatient move
To medicate our restlessness
before making a full diagnosis
And what about Paul’s
words to the Romans?
There is a lot of
reflection going on these days
About Augustine’s doctrine
of original sin
As it relates to this
passage in Romans
Now…don’t get me wrong
All we have to do is look
around for proof that there is original…and/or perennial sin
But in a nutshell
Augustine got his
translation a bit wrong...
or at least missed some significant nuance
As brilliant as he was he
didn’t read Greek
And so he was working from a pretty rough Latin
translation of the Bible at the time
The bottom line is that in
the Greek
Paul’s line of thought might be better read
‘Because of death…we sin’
We could have a whole
conversation about this
But I bring it up today…because
this death to sin relationship
speaks to PATIENCE
How so?
If death is the ultimate
horizon
If there is only death
Well---as my Mom would say…PHOOEY
Phooey on patience
Eat, Drink…be Merry
For tomorrow we may die!
I am going to guess that
all of you have heard that silly…
kinda stupid country song
“The Girls Get Prettier at Closing Time”?
The clock is ticking
Time is running out
There is a deadline
It may sound cheeky and
fun
But…below the surface…it’s
really dark and void…its deathly
God is not to be hurried
God’s clock is not ticking
God’s time is not running
out
History takes time
And God gives it time
God is not to be hurried
God is not in a hurry with
Jesus
And the Christian response
is not to be hurried
Hurried in the sense that makes
for WRONG MOVEs
BUT
There is a bit of a
paradox here
Not hurried…But at the
same time demanding our response...
maybe
even urgently demanding it
In fact, demanding every
ounce of ourselves
Urgent…But not hurried
Not frantic
Not clumsy
Patient.
Patience and faith
They seem to
me, today, to be completely connected
And this brings us to the Gospel
Jesus is being tempted
Mr. Cunning has
re-appeared to catch Jesus at his most
vulnerable
Tired and hungry
Taken together
all these temptations
They are all promises for
NOW
Quick, and tantalizing, and
NOW
Mr. Cunning almost seems
like a publicist
Or an image-maker
I can see him...he’s walking around Jesus
Sizing him up
Hmmmmm…hmmmmm…hmmmm…
Seriously...you are a mess
But…I’m telling you…I see tons
of potential here
You could be dazzling
Just give my make-up
artist a few hours
And let me get some good
scripts into your hands
Uh---uh
I think we could have you
ready for prime time by tonight
Hmmm…hmmmm…
A new suit…a clean shave
Yep…that Jerusalem crowd
will be all over you
But Jesus holds his own
He accepts God’s plan
God’s timing
Jesus reserves that God
shaped hole for God
Jesus’ only prescription for
his restlessness is God alone
In God
I am enough
In God
I don’t need more
In God
I am whole
Temptations are never one
and done
And so Lent rolls around
year after year
Asking us
What have I been allowing
to sneak into that God-shaped hole in my heart?
What have I been tempted
to believe can fill my deepest longing?
The good news is that
Death is in fact NOT the
horizon
The horizon, in Christian language is the
Parousia…
the second coming
That means God's FULL
PRESENCE
When Christ is ALL in ALL
And so the call is to be
patient
The victory is promised
In fact it is already
accomplished…in God’s time
But for us
We live in history
History takes time
And God gives it time
This Lent
Lets give it time
Lets take our part in its
manifestation
Lets try not to get
anxious
Lets try to avoid the
WRONG MOVES
And lets HOPE
lets hope in the promise
that began Matthew’s Gospel
the promise of Immanuel…God
With Us
And lets hope in the
Gospel’s very last line
“And behold I am with you
always until the end of the age”
History takes time
And God gives it time
Thanks be to God
*an oft repeated line used
by Gil Bailie in his audio recordings, one of which I think was titled “The
Mystery of History”
