Today we begin the first Sunday of Lent, and we find ourselves in Lenten wilderness once again.
I like the literal wilderness - I enjoy hiking and being outdoors - many of us do, and we are all familiar with hikes and trails and the beautiful country all around us. We are fortunate to live in a part of the country where trails are a natural part of our landscape. The Appalachian trail; the Blue Ridge, are parts of us.
Most of us are familiar with metaphorical wilderness’ too. Those times in our lives when we don’t know what is happening or why it is happening. We lose our job, or our spouse, or a child or a parent becomes sick - events that leave us stunned and wondering what just happened and where do we go from here?
Sometimes we are pushed into the wilderness suddenly and other times it happens gradually without our awareness. One day we may find ourselves at a crossroads, wondering about our life and the shifts that have happened over time - our identity may shift, growing older and things happening around us over which we have little or no control, may cause us to feel as if we are on unsteady ground. We may understand that these things are just natural parts of life, but having those wilderness times slip up on us can be jarring as we find ourselves in unfamiliar surroundings.
Wilderness comes for us all.
This Sunday in Lent always begins with the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. Mark’s gospel is not like Matthew & Luke - Mark offers us few details compared to their lengthier accounts, but here in Mark there is a forcefulness, an intensity, that helps us to understand more about the immediacy from Jesus’ baptism to his being taken into the wilderness.
We are told, after Jesus baptism that, “he was driven immediately into the wilderness”. This word driven is the same Greek word that is used when we are told Jesus “drove” the demons out of people - there is a force there and no negotiating.
Most of us are probably familiar with this time referred to as the “temptation in the wilderness” of Jesus, but I don’t know how much time we have ever spent really thinking about it. 40 days in the wilderness. Anyone who has spent any time in the wilderness alone may know some of the struggles to stay alive, and we are told that there were wild beasts there. There was not just the physical struggle that Jesus was experiencing as a man, but there was also the spiritual struggle for who was going to be in control. This time was a time where Jesus was tempted, he could make a choice. He knew what was to come - that the cross was coming. He could choose. Was he willing as a man to take on the sins of the world? Or would he choose to seize the power and glory that was available to him? Our lives are the same in that we choose daily what things will control our lives - of who will be in control. We are told that Jesus wasn’t alone - that angels ministered to him. It may be helpful for us in our wildernesses to think that angels may be ministering to us as well.
When Jesus leaves the wilderness; John has been arrested and Jesus declares the kingdom of God has arrived - the time is here.
Mark’s account is intense and direct. And it lets us know things are not going to be like they once were. The time was here. There was no more preparing the way; Jesus had decided during his 40 days which direction his life would go, and we are told he set “his face toward Jerusalem.” (Luke 9:51)
At different times in our lives we will find ourselves in the wilderness. Most of us don’t go into the wilderness by choice. But when we find ourselves there we may remember that we are not alone. That God will send angels to minister to us - and often those angels may come in the form of people around us. Our community, our parish. God uses God’s people to accomplish His purposes here on earth.
God’s desires for us are clear as we spend our time on earth, “to love justice, to seek mercy, and to walk humbly with our God.” (Micah 6:8) To love our neighbor as ourself. To seek justice.
Martin Luther King Jr. had a quote, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” President Barack Obama during his time in office helped popularize this quote and had it put on a rug in the oval office.
But this quote didn’t begin with President Obama, or Martin Luther King, Jr., rather it is a paraphrase of a portion of sermon delivered in 1853 by the abolitionist minister Theodore Parker. Parker studied at Harvard Divinity school, and became a minister in the Unitarian church. In his sermon, Parker said, “I do not pretend to understand the moral universe. The arc is a long one. My eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by experience of sight. I can divine it by conscious. And from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice.”
The danger of the paraphrase is it could be interpreted to guarantee that justice would occur - the natural bend of the arc - but many rushed to clarify.
In a 2016 interview with CBS, former Attorney General Eric Holder cautioned that “the arc bends toward justice, but it only bends toward justice because people pull it towards justice. It doesn’t happen on its own.”
“It only bends toward justice because people pull it toward justice. It doesn’t happen on its own.”
Justice doesn’t occur in a vacuum. The kingdom of God doesn’t just appear. Jesus came out of the wilderness and told us “the kingdom of God has come near. Repent, and believe in the good news.”
This is a season of repentance. And belief. And considering how you can be an active participant in bending the arc of the moral universe.
Mychal Denzel Smith in a Huffington Post article said,
“Before we can be active participants in bending the arc of the moral universe, we have to know what we’re bending it toward. How we define “justice” will determine the work that we do to achieve it. And unless we do the work to define “justice,” we never will.”
I do not want to overlook the Old Testament passage this morning. In this passage we find the story of Noah. God establishes a covenant that the earth would never be flooded again and this covenant is made not just with Noah and his family, but with the whole world.
“…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 establishes this covenant not just with Noah, but “with every living creature that is with you for all future generations.”
God makes an unconditional guarantee regardless of humanities response. This covenant was not dependent on the peoples obedience but on God.
For the next four Sundays of Lent, God makes covenants with the people. I want you to try to put them in your mind and become familiar with these covenants. We serve and worship a covenantal God. These covenants are dependent on who God is, not on who we are.
Remember when you are in the wilderness that we serve a covenantal God. A God who went to the wilderness and came out of it. Because he chose to. A God who doesn’t leave us in the wilderness alone. A God who uses us as His hands and feet to accomplish His will in the world. A God who keeps His covenants. We are headed to the resurrection. But we aren’t there yet. We move toward justice but we aren’t there yet. Be aware of what your part may be. Amen.
I like the literal wilderness - I enjoy hiking and being outdoors - many of us do, and we are all familiar with hikes and trails and the beautiful country all around us. We are fortunate to live in a part of the country where trails are a natural part of our landscape. The Appalachian trail; the Blue Ridge, are parts of us.
Most of us are familiar with metaphorical wilderness’ too. Those times in our lives when we don’t know what is happening or why it is happening. We lose our job, or our spouse, or a child or a parent becomes sick - events that leave us stunned and wondering what just happened and where do we go from here?
Sometimes we are pushed into the wilderness suddenly and other times it happens gradually without our awareness. One day we may find ourselves at a crossroads, wondering about our life and the shifts that have happened over time - our identity may shift, growing older and things happening around us over which we have little or no control, may cause us to feel as if we are on unsteady ground. We may understand that these things are just natural parts of life, but having those wilderness times slip up on us can be jarring as we find ourselves in unfamiliar surroundings.
Wilderness comes for us all.
This Sunday in Lent always begins with the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. Mark’s gospel is not like Matthew & Luke - Mark offers us few details compared to their lengthier accounts, but here in Mark there is a forcefulness, an intensity, that helps us to understand more about the immediacy from Jesus’ baptism to his being taken into the wilderness.
We are told, after Jesus baptism that, “he was driven immediately into the wilderness”. This word driven is the same Greek word that is used when we are told Jesus “drove” the demons out of people - there is a force there and no negotiating.
Most of us are probably familiar with this time referred to as the “temptation in the wilderness” of Jesus, but I don’t know how much time we have ever spent really thinking about it. 40 days in the wilderness. Anyone who has spent any time in the wilderness alone may know some of the struggles to stay alive, and we are told that there were wild beasts there. There was not just the physical struggle that Jesus was experiencing as a man, but there was also the spiritual struggle for who was going to be in control. This time was a time where Jesus was tempted, he could make a choice. He knew what was to come - that the cross was coming. He could choose. Was he willing as a man to take on the sins of the world? Or would he choose to seize the power and glory that was available to him? Our lives are the same in that we choose daily what things will control our lives - of who will be in control. We are told that Jesus wasn’t alone - that angels ministered to him. It may be helpful for us in our wildernesses to think that angels may be ministering to us as well.
When Jesus leaves the wilderness; John has been arrested and Jesus declares the kingdom of God has arrived - the time is here.
Mark’s account is intense and direct. And it lets us know things are not going to be like they once were. The time was here. There was no more preparing the way; Jesus had decided during his 40 days which direction his life would go, and we are told he set “his face toward Jerusalem.” (Luke 9:51)
At different times in our lives we will find ourselves in the wilderness. Most of us don’t go into the wilderness by choice. But when we find ourselves there we may remember that we are not alone. That God will send angels to minister to us - and often those angels may come in the form of people around us. Our community, our parish. God uses God’s people to accomplish His purposes here on earth.
God’s desires for us are clear as we spend our time on earth, “to love justice, to seek mercy, and to walk humbly with our God.” (Micah 6:8) To love our neighbor as ourself. To seek justice.
Martin Luther King Jr. had a quote, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” President Barack Obama during his time in office helped popularize this quote and had it put on a rug in the oval office.
But this quote didn’t begin with President Obama, or Martin Luther King, Jr., rather it is a paraphrase of a portion of sermon delivered in 1853 by the abolitionist minister Theodore Parker. Parker studied at Harvard Divinity school, and became a minister in the Unitarian church. In his sermon, Parker said, “I do not pretend to understand the moral universe. The arc is a long one. My eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by experience of sight. I can divine it by conscious. And from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice.”
The danger of the paraphrase is it could be interpreted to guarantee that justice would occur - the natural bend of the arc - but many rushed to clarify.
In a 2016 interview with CBS, former Attorney General Eric Holder cautioned that “the arc bends toward justice, but it only bends toward justice because people pull it towards justice. It doesn’t happen on its own.”
“It only bends toward justice because people pull it toward justice. It doesn’t happen on its own.”
Justice doesn’t occur in a vacuum. The kingdom of God doesn’t just appear. Jesus came out of the wilderness and told us “the kingdom of God has come near. Repent, and believe in the good news.”
This is a season of repentance. And belief. And considering how you can be an active participant in bending the arc of the moral universe.
Mychal Denzel Smith in a Huffington Post article said,
“Before we can be active participants in bending the arc of the moral universe, we have to know what we’re bending it toward. How we define “justice” will determine the work that we do to achieve it. And unless we do the work to define “justice,” we never will.”
I do not want to overlook the Old Testament passage this morning. In this passage we find the story of Noah. God establishes a covenant that the earth would never be flooded again and this covenant is made not just with Noah and his family, but with the whole world.
“…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 establishes this covenant not just with Noah, but “with every living creature that is with you for all future generations.”
God makes an unconditional guarantee regardless of humanities response. This covenant was not dependent on the peoples obedience but on God.
For the next four Sundays of Lent, God makes covenants with the people. I want you to try to put them in your mind and become familiar with these covenants. We serve and worship a covenantal God. These covenants are dependent on who God is, not on who we are.
Remember when you are in the wilderness that we serve a covenantal God. A God who went to the wilderness and came out of it. Because he chose to. A God who doesn’t leave us in the wilderness alone. A God who uses us as His hands and feet to accomplish His will in the world. A God who keeps His covenants. We are headed to the resurrection. But we aren’t there yet. We move toward justice but we aren’t there yet. Be aware of what your part may be. Amen.