March 13 Sermon (1st Lent)

“The society in which we live suggests in countless ways that the way to go is up. Making it to the top, entering the limelight, breaking the record - that's what draws attention, gets us on the front page of the newspaper, and offers us the rewards of money and fame. The way of Jesus is radically different. It is the way not of upward mobility but of downward mobility.” (Henri Nouwen, Downward Mobility)

These words from the late Henri Nouwen, author, teacher & priest challenge us to see our faith life, our following Jesus, in a very different way from what the world around us sees as successful. Not upwardly mobile, but in fact the opposite. Nouwen sees the life that Christ lived on earth as the exact opposite from what our society suggests is the good life.

"Indeed, the one who was from the beginning with God and who was god revealed himself as a small, helpless child; as a refugee in Egypt; as an obedient adolescent and inconspicuous adult: as a penitent disciple of the Baptizer; as a preacher from Galilee, followed by some simple fishermen; as a man who ate with sinners and talked with strangers; as an outcast, a criminal, a threat to his people. He moved from power to powerlessness, from greatness to smallness, from success to failure, from strength to weakness, from glory to ignominy. The whole life of Jesus of Nazareth was a life in which all upward mobility was resisted…The divine way is indeed the downward way.”

In many ways, our society tempts us with the good life. Do all you can to get to the top, earn all you can, get all the fame you can, be a success! You will have it all! We love those stories of people who have come from nothing and have achieved so much. But Nouwen is not interested in these, because we can be seduced by them in thinking that is the good life, when followers of Jesus are called down a different path.

On this first Sunday in Lent, we always hear about the 40 days where Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, as we begin our own Lenten journey. For Nouwen, those temptations that Jesus faced, are also temptations we face with that upward mobility:

1. The temptation to be relevant.
2. The temptation to be spectacular.
3. The temptation to be powerful.

1st Temptation, Satan’s offer for Jesus to turn stones to bread was a trap, you have the power Jesus to perform it, to be the relevant leader we all want you to be, but Christ resisted that temptation.

“The temptation to be relevant is difficult to shake since it is usually not considered a temptation, but a call. We make ourselves believe that we are called to be productive, successful, and efficient people… But this is giving in to the temptation to be relevant and respectable in the eyes of the world.” (Nouwen)

The second temptation to throw one’s self from the pinnacle of the temple was presented as the desire to do something spectacular. Show the world, who you are Jesus, let those angels catch you! Wow! Nouwen tells us that much of our faithful service would dwell in the realm of the mundane not the spectacular, faithfulness lived in our everyday lives.

And then the temptations are concluded with the temptation to be powerful, look Jesus I will give you the world to control, just follow me and Jesus doesn’t bite. Nouwen warns us this is the most powerful temptation of all.

“There is nothing more challenging to subdue than our obsession with power.”

For Nouwen, Yale represented the temptations he talked about, so he walked away from that. He would travel in South America and his later career took him to a L’Arche community for the adult developmentally disabled. Nouwen’s lived as he spoke, trying to avoid those temptations.

In Arthur Miller’s iconic American play, Death of a Salesman, we watch someone who longs for and gives into those temptations. Willy Loman works a territory in the posh New England countryside. Willy longs for the success, power, and wealth he sees among his well heeled be clients — clients who barely give him the time of day. Despite his poor sales, Willy lives the illusion of success. He brags to his two boys, Biff and Happy:

“Boys, they know me up and down New England. The finest people. And when I bring you boys up there, the doors will open for all of us. ‘Cause one thing’s for sure, boys, I have friends in high places. I can park my car in any street in New England and the cops will protect it as if it were their own . . . I never have to wait in line to see a buyer. ‘Willy Loman is here!’ That’s all they have to know, and I go right through.”

But, in reality, Loman’s pitch doesn’t cut it. Willy loses his job, his dignity and (he believes) the love of his family. He takes his own life in the hope that his family can cash in on the insurance policy. At his funeral, only his immediate family & best friend are there to mourn him. His grown son Biff, says scornfully,

“He had the wrong dreams. All, all wrong. He never knew who he was.”

The Spirit leads us into the wilderness this Lent to consider the questions that Willy Loman could never grasp: Who are we? What are we looking for in this life? What do we value and treasure on this journey to eternity?

And on this journey we are tempted: be relevant, be spectacular, be powerful, be upwardly mobile.

Instead, this Lent take the time to go your solemn deeps, to find that essence of life inside you, that authentic self. Make time to look quietly and prayerfully beyond the Willie Loman facades we all hide behind, the upward mobility our society says to follow and realize the promise our lives hold and the joys yet to be realized. As Nouwen puts it:

"It is going to the bottom, staying behind the sets, and choosing the last place! Why is the way of Jesus worth choosing? Because it is the way to the Kingdom, the way Jesus took, and the way that brings everlasting life."

Our journey has begun, it is a journey to the cross, but let us be faithful to it, for in it, we will find Jesus and life. Amen.

Sermon : 1st Sunday in Lent

My wife Ellen and son Rowan were discussing Lent and how some people give up something for Lent. As they talked, Rowan said that he would give up chocolate for Lent. Ellen reminded Rowan that he doesn’t like chocolate and that you should fast from something you actually enjoy, so you would know you were really giving something up. Rowan, paused and said, “Oh, I’ll give up Root Beer for Lent. I’ll drink Orange Soda or Sprite instead.” Well I am glad to say that he has kept to his fast and while eating at Bill’s on Friday, he said no to Root Beer, and yes to Sprite.

As we journey these 40 days of Lent, we are encourage to keep it holy by praying, fasting and giving alms. Fasting may be the most challenging for us. Like Rowan, we might like to give up something that’s easy. But in fasting, we are encouraged, to make it a true sacrifice to have meaning for our lives. I remember a parishioner who a few years ago quit smoking, he had smoked a pack a day for a long time. He kept that fast all of Lent, he struggled, but it began a journey of health and wholeness which is one of the points of fasting and sacrifice, that it leads us to a better self.

But fasting too often in our society is seen as just dieting (it’s about the waist line) and it is not seen as a sacrifice. We do it for personal reasons and it has no meaning for others or God. And yet there is much more to fasting in a Christian context and I think of Robert Herrick’s poem of the 17th Century on keeping Lent:

Is this a fast, to keep
The larder lean ?
And clean
From fat of veals and sheep?

Is it to quit the dish
Of flesh, yet still
To fill
The platter high with fish?

Is it to fast an hour,
Or ragg’d to go,
Or show
A downcast look and sour?

No; ‘tis a fast to dole
Thy sheaf of wheat,
And meat,
Unto the hungry soul.

It is to fast from strife,
From old debate
And hate;
To circumcise thy life.

To show a heart grief-rent;
To starve thy sin,
Not bin;
And that’s to keep thy Lent.

Fasting is about our hungry souls and what we need inside us as well as the hungry souls in the world and what they need. Fasting is useful if it leads us back to ourselves becoming more whole, more connected with our hearts to God and to our neighbors. Herrick’s poem reminds me of the last 2 verses of Psalm 51 we read on Ash Wednesday:

Had you desired it, I would have offered sacrifice,
but you take no delight in burnt-offerings.

The sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

What God is really interested in, is our hearts, hearts that are grief-rent, broken and contrite because it is then, we can truly see our need for God and God’s love of us. When we are satisfied, when we make no sacrifices, when all is well and good and our platters are full then we have no need for God, we have no need for others… But if we understand ourselves more deeply, knowing that indeed we are God’s beloved and also broken by sin then we know we need God and we need one another. Fasting can help us do this.

As Jeremy Taylor said in the 17th Century, “All fasting is to be used with prudence and charity; for there is no end to which fasting serves but may be obtained by other instruments; and, therefore, it must at no hand be made an instrument of scruple; or become an enemy to our health; or be imposed upon persons that are sick or aged, or to whom it is, in any sense, uncharitable, such as are wearied travelers; or to whom, in the whole kind of it, it is useless such as are women with child, poor people, and little children.”

Fasting has its rightful place on our Lenten journey, to help us. But this Lent, we also remember faithful members of the church who through their lives of sacrifice and suffering, looked to their hearts and saw the plight of people in need and of hungry souls wanting to hear God’s word. We remember Elizabeth Evelyn Wright and The Rev. Absalom Jones . Each in their own way, saw the need of hungry souls around them and responded.

For Elizabeth Wright, after graduating from Tuskegee Industrial School in 1894, she was determined to open schools for the training of African American men and women in South Carolina. She helped found Voorhees College in 1997; a college affiliated with the Episcopal Church, and established her school on industrial and agricultural education. She became a pioneer in Black education and social reform. Like many others before and after her, she possessed a sense of mission and commitment to social justice that she was able to prevail over enormous obstacles and leave a remarkable legacy.

Absalom Jones was born into slavery in Delaware in 1746, bought his freedom in 1784 with the help of friends. While attending St. George’s Church in 1786, the white congregation voted to put all the blacks in the balcony, Absalom Jones and the black congregation left to form their own parish. After discussions with William White, the Episcopal Bishop of Pennsylvania, Absalom Jones would lead the congregation into the Episcopal Church and Absalom Jones would become the first black priest in the Episcopal Church in 1802. Absalom Jones was known for his earnest preaching but was beloved by that community because of his constant visiting and mild manner to all parishioners.

May we journey forth remembering those faithful who have gone before us, and through fasting and sacrifice, learn to find our true need and to be able to hear and respond to the needs of our neighbors.

‘tis a fast to dole thy sheaf of wheat, and meat,
Unto the hungry soul.

It is to fast from strife, from old debate and hate;
To circumcise thy life.

To show a heart grief-rent; To starve thy sin,
Not bin; and that’s to keep thy Lent. Amen.