Being Uncomfortable in Lent
Year B, Lent 1
Today is quite a day at St.
John’s. We have an interesting combination of both Ash Wednesday and the
first Sunday of Lent. If that was not enough, we have the pancake brunch
after the 10:30 service with Night’s Welcome training after that. That is
a whole lot of stuff crammed into one morning. Mark, the author of
our Gospel for today was also known for cramming a lot of stuff into a small
space. His Gospel is kind of the like the abridged form of the other
Gospels. It was the first written and I imagine Mark being in a hurry,
wanting to get it all done before he forgot the really important stuff.
Matthew and Luke expanded on what Mark wrote and added material from other
sources. Mark’s minimalist approach is well displayed in the Gospel
reading for today. There are three big events described in rather sparse
detail.
It starts with Jesus being baptized and the heavens being torn
apart. After that, the Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness. Most
people have a family gathering or even a small reception after a baptism.
Jesus was pushed into the wilderness by the very same Spirit that descended on
him in his baptism. After 40 days in the wilderness, Jesus returned
proclaiming the Good News and thus beginning his public ministry. Mark covered all
of that in 6 verses, leaving only 2 verses for Jesus’ 40 days in the
wilderness.
On the first Sunday of Lent the
Gospel reading is always the story of the temptation. In three years, we
cycle through Matthew, Luke and Mark. Both Matthew and Luke give the
preacher a lot more to work with. Those descriptions of Jesus in the
wilderness are 11-13 verses as opposed to 2. Those Gospel stories are
more familiar because they go into detail about the actual temptations that
Satan put in front of Jesus. Mark mentions Satan and the
temptation, but that is all he does. He mentions them. The other Gospels
go into a lot of detail about how Satan tempted Jesus, how Jesus resisted that
temptation and in doing so proved that he was stronger than Satan.
There are
some other interesting differences in the way the three Gospels tell this
story. In Matthew and Luke, Jesus is in the desert for 40 days fasting before
Satan enters the story. Mark never says
when Satan entered the story. As a result of that omission, many have concluded
that Satan was with Jesus throughout the 40 days. Matthew as well as Mark mentions angels
waiting on Jesus. But Matthew says that
they did not come until Jesus has been through the 40 days and conquered
Satan. In Mark, not only was Satan with
him the whole time, but so were the angels.
In some
ways, each Gospel reading provides us a slightly different entry into
Lent. One of the reasons we use these
Gospel readings about Jesus’s time in the wilderness to introduce Lent is
because of the reference to 40 days. For
that reason, many people have concluded that these 40 days must be a time of
suffering and sacrificing. Yet there is
no fast in Mark, not explicitly at least.
What there is, is the wilderness. While some people really like the
great outdoors, that is not what the wilderness is referring to. In other translations of the Bible, the word
for wilderness is translated to desert or wasteland. So it is definitely not the kind of place you
vacation or rest. It is also harkens
back to the 40 years that the Hebrew people wandered in the wilderness. It wasn’t a happy time for them, but it was a
necessary time.
The
wilderness represents a time when we are moved out of our comfort zone, when we
are asked to do something that makes us uncomfortable but prepares us in some
way. For Jesus, the wilderness time came
right after his baptism, right after this profound moment of clarity about his
identity. God had just split heaven
apart to tell him that he loved him. Immediately after that, the same spirit that
descended on him as a dove pushed him into the wilderness where he confronted
Satan. There is something disconcerting about that kind of abruptness. There was no transition…no time to adjust.
Yet isn’t
that more true to our experience. We are
taught in school that we should use transitions in our writing; but that is not
really how life works. Life is not
always full of smooth transitions. One
moment, all is well in the world. Our
job or school is going well. Our relationships are fulfilling. As a result we
feel closer to God. When things are
going well, when things are comfortable, it is always easier to feel close to
God. Then something happens and everything changes so rapidly, it’s like
emotional whiplash. We go from our comfy
climate controlled home to someplace strange and lonely. We are in the wilderness and that voice which
we heard so clearly a moment ago is gone.
Suffering is upon us. Pain is
upon us and the thing we are missing is God.
At least that is what it feels like. Really what we are missing is all that
comforted us before. If we take a step
back and look carefully, we might find that while we are still in a difficult
place where pain and suffering seems overwhelming…God is still there. The whole time Jesus was tempted by Satan,
the angels waited on him. They did not
wait until after Jesus defeated Satan.
They were with him as he struggled.
Jesus was in the desert, but God never deserted him. That is what gave him the strength to make it
through those 40 days.
As you
experience Lent this year, I ask you to consider what it is that makes you
comfortable and what it is that challenges your comfort. Sometimes those things that challenge our
comfort are the same things that bring us closer to God, or at least remind us
of how very much we need God.
Today, we
will go to the pancake brunch with ashes on our forehead. That’s not the way that it is supposed to
be. Pancakes comes first, then ashes,
then the first Sunday of Lent. Ash
Wednesday is supposed to be a day of fasting…after you carbo load on a bunch of
pancakes.
That is not the way it happened
this year so we need to look at it from a different perspective. The ashes we
receive on Ash Wednesday are also supposed to be reminders of our mortality and
our vulnerability. So this year, instead
of focusing on the fasting and sacrificing, what if we focus on the
vulnerability and the discomfort? Instead of giving up something that is bad
for you just for the sake of sacrificing, what if we do something that will
make us a little uncomfortable? You
could volunteer at Night’s Welcome not just for the sake of helping someone
less fortunate, but to remind yourself of who the children of God really
are. They are God’s beloved just as much
as we are . Or- You could talk to someone about God, even though you don’t
normally do that. Or-You could pray aloud with your family…and I am not talking
about the quick grace you say before meals.
If you want to give something up,
that is fine too. But don’t do it
because that is what you have always done and you have been trying to lose a
few pounds anyways. That is not what
Lent is about. I guarantee you that it
won’t be that hard to find something uncomfortable that also helps you grow. If
you can’t think of anything, come talk to me and I can guarantee we can come up
with something really quickly. As we
move through the discomfort, remember that the angels wait on you and perhaps in
challenging yourself and being a little uncomfortable, you will be an angel for
someone who needs one.
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