1 Lent
March 1, 2009
We began the service this morning with the Great Litany – an ancient ritual of prayer that often is included in church services on the first Sunday of Lent. The movement of this morning’s Litany is just a small part of the journey that is Lent, which is just a small part of the journey that is the Christian life. Ever so gradually, this season nudges us – sometimes gently, sometimes not-so-gently – to become Easter people.
I’ve just finished reading The Shack – many of you may have read it too – it’s been on best-seller lists for a while now. My step-sister, Maureen, lent it to me, saying that she’d be curious to hear what I thought. She wouldn’t tell me much about it, but said that the main character meets the three Persons of God. And how can a clergy person not read a bestseller book with God the Trinity appearing as main characters?
I’m sorry to say that there was a lot I did not like about The Shack. I thought it was poorly written, and the characters were badly developed and not particularly appealing. Even the God characters – I was tired of all three long before the book was over. The theology seemed trite and not very interesting to me. But the basic plot line – a main character who makes a journey, meets God in a tangible way, and ends up changed – that part struck a chord with me.
That is a plot line that has run continuously for the people of God.
We heard about one pretty intense journey this morning, when after his baptism, the Spirit drove Jesus out into the wilderness, where he was tempted by Satan and waited on by angels. But Jesus wasn’t the first, and certainly won’t be the last, to have a time of movement and change and encountering God. The theme is almost constant in scripture, from the very start when Adam and Eve were driven out of the Garden of Eden to begin life outside of Paradise.
And it continues with us. We have all been on these kinds of journeys, although often we don’t recognize them for what they are at the time. And we’re all on some stage of our life-long journey. Lent seems like the perfect time to see where we’ve been and where we are. To look back and realize how much we’ve moved and changed. To think about the things we want to take with us and the things it’s time to let go of.
There are all kinds of journeys. Sometimes they might come with a big move to a new home, or with an important decision. Like widowed Ruth’s journey as she decided to follow her mother-in-law to her homeland.
Often our journeys accompany the intense changes in our lives – getting married, learning to live with someone, or maybe learning to live without someone, having a child. My favorite personal example is my mom’s story about how she initially said no to my dad when he asked her to marry him, but then when he moved away she realized her mistake and followed him half-way across the country.
Unfortunately, often our most profound journeys are the tragic ones. Some of my most significant spiritual moments came in the hour long car rides I took every day or two to Columbia when my mom was in her last months. Sometimes I’d drive in silence, remembering conversations or stories or unresolved hurts. Sometimes I’d drive with tears streaming down my face, missing her so much already. And sometimes I’d drive while angrily ranting at God. After mom died and those car rides became unnecessary, I was a different person. More vulnerable, more empathetic, more forgiving, and somehow, inexplicably, closer to the God that had let me down.
But sometimes our journeys are merely adventures, as we find ourselves in new places or with new people. One of my more exotic journeys came about largely by happenstance; I think that’s often the way our journeys start. I’d gotten a plane ticket to go to my sister’s wedding overseas and then she changed to a U.S. venue. I was left with a ticket voucher and sort of randomly chose Israel as my destination.
I bought a travel book and started packing my backpack, which is a spiritual discipline in itself. Paring down to what is necessary for life, because whatever it is, it’s going to be weighing you down for the foreseeable future. I packed the few clothes that I would handwash and wear over … and over. I had a couple inches left over for my journal, a camera, and a couple books. And since I was, afterall, taking a trip to the Holy Land, I felt like I had to throw a Bible in there.
The process of thinking of what to give up for Lent echoes that packing experience. Evaluating the things in life that aren’t actually necessary but have become attachments. Things that we may not have even realized were so strongly weighing us down or tempting us.
I got to do some of the things that one might do on a pilgrimage to Israel. I took a boat ride on the lake in Galilee where Jesus walked on water and sat on the shore where he called some of his disciples. I traced some of Jesus’ last steps on the Via Dolorosa – the Way of Sorrows – in Jerusalem. I hiked through the Garden of Gesthemene to the top of the Mount of Olives, where Jesus prayed the night before his betrayal. I ended up being so glad I’d brought the Bible that I’d tossed in my back pack mostly out of a sense of guilt. The stories came alive for me in a new way.
Hopefully the disciplines we choose to take on in Lent get transformed in that same way. We may start with things that feel like duties and burdens, but by the end they become lighter and easier – maybe even part of who we are.
Of course, sometimes our journeys don’t entail any actual physical distance. Sometimes we stay right where we are and just start looking at ourselves differently.
A few days ago we had a fabulous Ash Wednesday kids’ service. In keeping with this Lenten theme of journey, we brought the kids over to the labyrinth. We talked about how the labyrinth is a bit like a maze, except there’s no way to get lost, no wrong turns, the path always leads to the center. We talked about how that path is like our own journeys, with God at the center. And then – eagerly, excitedly, laughing and playing – the kids followed the path to its center to receive ashes on their foreheads.
But one little girl was very serious as she walked. She went slowly and carefully, and when she finally reached the center she stood solemnly waiting for her ashes. I etched her forehead with the sign of a cross and told her, “You are a child of God.” She beamed this beautiful bright smile. And then she turned to her father who had walked the path behind her, gave him a huge hug and said, “I’m a child of God! You are too, Daddy, come on!”
And that, of course, is our destination. Not to become a child of God, but to realize, slowly but surely, that we have been loved by God all along. And then to learn how to share that love with the people around us.
Amen.
Elizabeth Rees