Sermon for Lent 1 B - February 26, 2012
Sermon for Lent 1 B
February 26, 2012
Michael Coffey
Mark 1:9-15
You’ve gotta begin a journey
somewhere.
For
Jesus, the journey began in the wilderness.
In
Mark’s Gospel, Jesus doesn’t do anything noteworthy
until
after his baptism and wilderness time.
And
afterwards, it is as if something wildly new has emerged.
Our church calendar tells us each
year
that
the beginning of the journey toward
the
cross and resurrection that renews us
is in the wilderness.
Every year, we begin here,
with
Jesus, out in the wilderness.
In fact, the whole season of Lent is
a 40 day metaphor
for
his 40 days in the wilderness,
not
to mention the 40 years of Israel in the wilderness.
These two basic stories tell us
that
before a time of new things comes,
there
is a time of preparation.
And
for some reason, that preparation
doesn’t
happen in the temple or in church
or
at work, or at home,
or
on 6th street or on Facebook,
but in the
wilderness,
with
very little to distract you,
and
only the animals and nature to teach you.
Imagine that we actually practice
Lent
the
way it was invented to be practiced:
Preparation for baptism of adults
at
the Easter Vigil.
Everything we do from now until that
vigil liturgy
is
meant to prod and push and teach and compel
those
about to be baptized.
It challenges them to consider it
carefully,
approach
it with awe and some trembling.
It provokes them to begin to loosen
the grip they hold on their own lives
so
God in Christ by the Spirit might grab hold of them
in
new and transformational ways.
So how does this baptismal period of
teaching and formation begin?
Jesus
being baptized and pushed out into the wilderness.
He
is shoved out there, really, by the Spirit
so
that he might be prepared for what was to come.
You might think, well, why does Jesus
need this wilderness time?
Wasn’t
he already doing it right?
Didn’t
he grow up as a good boy and live as a gentle man?
You can just picture it.
Jesus
had been a good little boy,
and
as a young man didn’t cause any trouble.
He
worked hard in his father’s wood working shop.
He
visited his mother on weekends.
He
went to synagogue and read Scripture and said his prayers.
He
didn’t stir up trouble in town.
But then, he was feeling restless.
He
was feeling an inner stirring.
He felt a pull and a push
toward something new.
He was tired of always being nice,
when
he saw so many problems around him
and
so many people in need of healing and liberation.
And once he heard that wild John the
Baptist
he
couldn’t go back.
He
knew God was calling him.
After Jesus is baptized and God tells
him
he
is beloved and pleasing,
he
isn’t sent back into town to be a good boy again.
He is thrust out into the wilderness
by the Spirit.
We
might pronounce that word: wild-er-ness.
Jesus
didn’t go out there to figure out how to be a good boy.
He
went out there to figure out how to be wild enough
to
live out the call of God in the world.
His
testing and tempting and toughening
aren’t
about him getting ready to go back
into
his nice, small town life.
His
wilderness time is about getting him ready to go forward
into
the wilder-ness of living out his calling from God,
living
out the radical love of God
which
is a costly love that upsets and disrupts
all
the contained love that keeps things nice and easy.
Baptized and wilderness ready, Jesus
was now dangerous.
He
had God in, with, and under him
He
had identity that no one could strip away
He
had calling and purpose
that couldn’t be bought or mortgaged
or repossessed or foreclosed upon.
What would that tell you
if
you were preparing to be baptized at the Easter Vigil this year
and
the first seed, the first story the church planted in your mind
was
Jesus going into the wilder-ness?
It would tell you that you needn’t
worry
about
being a good boy or a good girl
for
the rest of your life.
It would tell you that you have
probably played it too safe
in
your attempts to live up to something
you
think everyone wants you to be.
It would tell you that the baptized
life
is
not a safe, nice stroll through the park
but
a wild walk with God who calls you beloved.
It would tell you that our primary
struggle
is
not in what we do most of the time,
but
in what we don’t do, in why we tame our lives so much.
It is the struggle see whom we don’t
love as God loves,
and
to wrestle with the hard question of why.
Now imagine with me
how
we are experiencing the other reason
Lent
was invented:
Those
of us who are already baptized
might
be renewed,
might
walk the same path as initiates again,
might
discover new meaning and energy and vitality
in
being the people of Jesus,
in
being a community of costly love,
in
being the church of death and resurrection,
in
being called to a transformed life rooted only
in
God and God’s mercy for us and all people.
It means we have to wonder again
why
we keep worrying about being good boys and girls
when
we are called to be wildly free lovers of God and neighbor.
It means we have to look at the cost
of living this way again
and
together, not alone, but together
joyfully
accept the path of baptized living.
As I meditated on these themes this
week
I
tried to capture them in a different way in this poem
which
I posted on my blog:
(Read while processing up the central aisle beginning at the font)
When my time comes for ashes and dust
and final things said and momentary
lament
let there be tears freely flowing in
the congregation
and a bit of wailing for a while to get
things going
and then let there be in the
frankincensed aisles
of the church when the cross makes its
way
past the black suits and the pressed
handkerchiefs
and children fidgeting oblivious to
grief rituals
– let there be a procession of drums
stirring the souls (drumming begins)
of those who still have heartbeat
rhythms,
djembes and doumbecs, tree drums and
rattle gourds
calling to the wildness of all the
still living and all too tame
downbeats and syncopations
and finger riffs in complicated
cadences
and hands red from so much music making
reminding everyone who came for me
in between the silences and the cadence
of the twisting walk through the
labyrinth of life
I made some music, loving in time and
in counterpoint,
but too tamed when it needed to echo
the feral call of the divine,
the ecstasy song of my paschal mystery
stride through the universe.
But you breathers even in grief still
have hands, fingers, and hearts
and before your final walk down the
aisle in a little ashy urn
you’ve got a dancing pulse urging you
to
more wildness and less cautious
stillness
more drumming and less watching from a
distance
more moving in your skin as God moves
through you
in this percussive dance around the
firelight of infinite love
If we’re going to walk this Lenten path
together,
let’s
do it with the spirit of inner joy intended.
It isn’t a time to beat ourselves up
for not being good enough,
or
for being worthy of abandonment and rejection by God.
It is a time to peel off the
accumulated layers
of
trying too hard to be good according to everyone else’s rules.
It is a time to slough off fear and
anxiety
about
God and one another and life and death and ashes and dust.
It is a time to prepare for Jesus’
faithful journey
of
life and death and resurrection to renew us again by God’s grace.
It is at time to be transformed again
into our wilder selves,
people
who love without counting the cost,
people
who dance without worrying about being seen,
people
who walk to the beat of a different drummer.
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