RVCC Pastor's Sermon

Sermon - March 1, 2009

“Finding, Facing, Moving Forward”

By Rev. Nancy Foran
Psalm 25:1-10

The journey to Easter has quietly begun for us here in the church. You will notice the trappings of its start in the seasonal symbolism right here in our sanctuary.

The dazzling white of Epiphany has given way to the more somber purple of Lent. The candles we lit in various ways over the past few weeks to represent the Light of Christ in the world will now be snuffed out one by one as we acknowledge the darkness that still seeps into our lives.

Just today, the first of the Lenten candles has already been extinguished. And those fifteen of us who gathered here on Ash Wednesday may not have the gray ash still clinging to our hands in the sign of the cross, but the memory of its imprint remains strong.

It has been a hushed transition from Epiphany to Lent because, when all is said and done, our journey is a humble one. There is no great fanfare or send off, no large suitcases or backpacks to maneuver, and we do not have to keep our toothpaste and shampoo in a 3 ounce ziplock bag. After all, the point of the journey is not to carry a lot of baggage to begin with.

After all, we do not need much on God’s Way. And if we take off our shoes, it will be because we hear the still small voice of God and sense that we are indeed on holy ground. It will have nothing to do with national security.

Our Lenten journey, of course, is patterned after the 40 days that Jesus spent in the wilderness. And Jesus’ journey is likewise drawn from the much earlier story in the Book of Exodus of the Hebrews wandering in the desert or wilderness for 40 years before they came to the Promised Land.

Like everything else we have heard so far in Mark’s Gospel, his description of this deeply meaningful event that serves to shape our own Lenten season is terse and devoid of details. We know well that Mark is a man of few words. While Matthew and Luke take half a page to describe what happened to Jesus in that wild and lonely place, Mark does it in a verse or two.

The Gospel writer whisks Jesus from the Jordan River, still wet from the waters of baptism. And that voice that whispered to him alone that he was God’s beloved son now drives him – like a wild and ferocious wind – into the desert to figure out exactly what God has called him to do with whatever remains of his life.

Whereas Matthew and Luke include a whole conversation in their versions of this story wherein Jesus is tempted by power, by quick and easy answers, and by testing God rather than relying on his faithfulness to the Holy One, Mark covers the whole incident in a mere two sentences. “And the Spirit immediately drove Jesus out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.” That’s it – there is no more.

Yet, regardless of their brevity, those verses are our model for the next six weeks. Like Jesus, we are called to journey to a special place, the desert of our hearts, the wilderness of our souls, for these next forty days that do not include Sundays until we come to Easter morning.

Like Jesus, we are called to realize that life is not easy, that important choices are more often than not difficult to make and have consequences that we would hope not to confront. Like Jesus, we are called to struggle with what is truly important to us, and recognize – for good or for ill – that those values in the end determine who we really are – and who we really say Christ is for us.

Mark does not give us a whole lot of direction for our wanderings; that is for sure. And so we will look elsewhere this morning for our sign posts. We will look to the Psalms.

The portion of the Psalm we just read is an ancient cry for God’s guidance and protection. The Psalmist begs for us that in these upcoming forty days God might lead us in the paths of righteousness. “Save me from the shame of defeat,” one translation reads. “Don’t let my enemies gloat over me.”

The enemies, of course, for most of us are those within – the rage, the fear, the depression, the self-destruction, all the little decisions we make that shut our eyes to the brokenness around us, all the ways that we convince ourselves that it is all someone else’s problem, all the times we just will not see the world through God’s eyes.

And if we do this part of the journey right – this ferreting out and facing the enemies, this paying disciplined attention to what is really going on in our hearts – if we do this part right, we can not help but at some point ask for God’s forgiveness because after all we are only human – and so penance is part of our Lenten journey as well.

“Be mindful of your mercy O Lord, and of your steadfast love...Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions....” as the Psalmist pleads.

You see, during Lent, we are called to carve out time for self-examination, a discipline most of us do not have the inclination for in our busy lives, time for asking ourselves before God the hard questions – what part do I play in a arid and death-like relationship, how am I connected to a global economic system that fosters poverty for some even as it enhances prosperity for me, how green am I willing to be as a steward of God’s creation.

Finding the enemies and facing them. Those are two aspects of the journey to which the Psalmist draws our attention. However, there is one more – and that is what makes the journey bearable.

We are also called to trust that as dark the path may get and as scary as the journey may be at times, it is cushioned by God’s steadfast love and faithfulness – and that sure and steadying knowledge is what in the end will lead us to Easter. As the Psalmist wrote, “With faithfulness and love he leads all who keep his covenant and obey his commands.”

Finding the enemies. Facing the enemies. Moving forward through the wilderness those enemies create all the while bolstered by God’s love because we have chosen the Way, God’s Way. That is the essence of Lent.

Not some sort of passive religious getaway, on the contrary, Lent is a time of profound engagement with ourselves and with the world. It is not the season for time out.

No - Lent is the season to think the unthinkable – to go against the grain, to look at the world with new eyes – God’s eyes, to live faithfully rather than rationally, to see the blessings as well as the shortfalls that each day brings.

Lent is the season to speak the unspeakable. It is a time to actually say those things that we believe in – even if we sound crazy. As Cheri DiNovo wrote, “As Christians, we are called to be courageous, to say those things, those things that are our truths. We’re called to say them out loud.”

Lent is the season to do the undoable. It is a time to be courageous, to live our lives with meaning, and to dream big. It is a time to take the Gospel message into our workplaces, into our homes, into the streets. It is a time to make choices that will transform the world. That is what Jesus did, right??

The journey to Easter has quietly begun for us. Ready or not, we are on our way. And so I send you forth with my prayers - that these weeks be a time to find whatever it is that causes you to stray from God’s Way, a time for you to face the good and the not so good parts of who you are, and a time to move forward, to walk ever more confidently and proactively in God’s Way, trusting in God’s love and faithfulness wherever it may lead, even to the cross.

Sermon - March 1, 2009

“Finding, Facing, Moving Forward”

By Rev. Nancy Foran Psalm 25:1-10

By Rev. Nancy Foran
Psalm 25:1-10