Second Sunday of Lent

Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18
This is a strange story that comes in a very interesting part of the narrative. Abraham is still Abram, meaning that God hasn't gone through the great renaming ceremony. After the promise we read about this week—that Abram will have descendants as numerous as the stars—Sarai comes up with the plan to have her husband father a child by Hagar. And after that debacle, God has to remind Abram of the promise that he will indeed have offspring.
Inside the story there is some strange stuff happening. There's cut up animals and this weird floating fire pot and torch for one. The lectionary, however, decides to make things more complicated by cutting out an important piece of the story. Verse twelve closes by telling us that Abram falls asleep and what could be a called "a terror of great darkness" falls upon him. If we'd gotten to read verse thirteen perhaps things would make more sense. "Know, you will because your seed will a stranger in a land not theirs. And they will serve and answer them four hundred years." Basically God says, you will have offspring as numerous as the stars who will inherit this land, but for almost half-a-century, they will be slaves in a foreign land. Gee, thanks.
There's a scene in Prince Caspian where Lucy encounters the lion Aslan. Slowly she comes to realize that all the hard work ahead belongs to her and her siblings. Aslan is not just going to come "bounding in and make everything all right." Rather, lion offers hope—hope that things will be redeemed.
Yes, Abram's offspring—the Children of Israel—would inherit the land promised to them. But there were many hard years that came between. Not everyone saw redemption, but all were asked to live with the hope of it.
As we go deeper into the Lenten season, we are asked to reflect on our own lives and find where redemption seems far off. For some, redemption would be a job to end the long period of unemployment. For others, a long illness for themselves or a loved one makes restoration or death seem like a redemption that is far off. For some of us, four hundred years would be fine, just as long as we knew when we would wake and find that our redemption draws nigh.
Occasionally the "terror of great darkness" falls upon us, and we feel that we cannot rise even to face the day. And the only news that comes is that there is four hundred years of this ahead. Yet even in those times there is hope. There is the hope that after even the darkest of nights, though it seems impossible, the tomb will be empty.
God of promises and tomorrows, help us as we struggle to see the hope in the darkness. Be near us when the terror of that darkness falls.

First Sunday of Lent

Luke 4:1-13
Forty days of temptation: surely none of us can imagine that. Can we?
While I've no desire to take away from the impact of the idea of forty literal days, I often like to remind myself that the concept of forty in scripture is a nebulous one. Forty is the number of days that the rains fell during the flood. Forty is the number of years that the Children of Israel wandered in the wilderness. And while it can be taken as a true count of time, it is also a stand-in for a time outside of time. It's a time that may be days, may be months, or may be years. No matter how long it lasts, it feels like a very long time.
Time after a major event can be like this. No matter how many years pass, it always seems like just yesterday that I married my wife. And, at the same time, it seems as though we've been together for the whole of our lives. Forty is what really explains the time of our marriage. It is a time somehow beyond time.
So when I come to this story, I find myself thinking that the time in the wilderness could have been longer than forty days. And whether it was only a month-and-a-half or six months, the entire time, we're told, Jesus was tempted. He was, to borrow a military term, besieged. And the success of a siege depends upon the attacker's resources outlasting those it has attacked.
When we think of temptation, we often think of it in a childlike sense of a suggestion to do something wrong—a cookie before dinner, crossing the street without asking. But temptation involves more than just simple no-nos. In fact, I've often found that the temptation to do things is often a lot easier to resist than the temptation to stop doing things.
All three of the temptations outlined in our Gospel today involve a suggestion, a seduction to stop doing something. For Jesus to turn stones into bread was to stop relying upon the Divine. To throw himself from the temple's peak was to stop being humble. To bow down and accept the riches of the world was to stop being honest to his own heart just for a decent paycheck.
Jesus, somehow, withstood the siege. Worn down, tired, hungry, wondering if this was how it was all supposed to work out, Jesus managed to resist the temptation to stop. So often, I look at these passages in awe and think how weak I must seem when I, time and again, succumb to the siege.
But then I remember that the one who endured those long days, the one who was weak, is also the One who remembers what that experience was like. That's the One who has overcome and returned to show us the way.
You are the One who has overcome the urge to stop, the urge to cease doing good. Help me as I hold out when I am tempted.

Ash Wednesday – A Party?

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
After the Ash Wednesday service one year I needed to make a stop at the grocery store. Despite having just heard Jesus' warning about practicing my piety in front of everyone, I decided to leave the ashen cross on my head as I walked out into the night. I proceeded to the market to pick up a couple of things and stood in line at the checkout counter. When it was my turn, the cashier looked at me and laughed slightly at the black mark on my head. She asked if I'd been to a party. I simply said no and went on with my night, chuckling slightly at the idea that the services this day would ever be considered a party.
I suppose I could have been ironic and replied that, "No, the party ended last night." This, I could have said pointing to my head, is the hangover—a day of kneeling, praying, fasting (though I've never been good at that), and remembering that we are only dust, and it is to dust that we'll return one day. Not exactly a party theme, is it? Reminding everyone that they are mortal and will one day cease to be is likely to bring the music to a stop and cause everyone to say goodnight from even the most lively of parties.
As the years have passed and I've wrestled with just what Lent and this day means to me, I find myself thinking more and more about the subject of mortality. Jesus talks in our Gospel reading today about the contrast between the mortal world—where moth and rust consume—and heaven—the immortal world where the breakdown of things does not occur. The idea that comes across is that of material goods. But it's not just toasters, TVs, and cell phones that wear out over time. People do the same. Sickness comes to many. Age comes to all. Those of us who have sat by bed-sides or tried to make a hospital room cheerful for the holidays know that the greatest gift God can grant to us sometimes is the fulfillment of that promise of mortality—death. While it brings sadness; it also brings joy. Joy because we know that the one we love no longer faces the decay of moth and rust. Joy because we know that we will one day be where our treasure—the ones we love—is also.
So, in a way, the answer to that cashier's question is "Yes, I have been to a party." Today we have been to a party for mortality. Today we celebrate that this—a world of sickness, sorrow, and pain—is not all there is.
Immortal One, you know what it means to be mortal like I am. Help me this day to celebrate the fact that I am only dust. Thank you that you know I am mortal.

Last Sunday After Epiphany – Nothing’s the Same

Exodus 34: 29-35; Psalm 99; 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2; Luke 9:28-43a
There's a line in the first season of the television show Babylon 5. After a particularly horrific event, one character remarks that "Nothing's the same anymore." There are moments in life that are markers, historic road-markers that identify a before and and after. Moments like that happen to us collectively (The assassination of JFK, The Challenger disaster, 9-11, The Columbia disaster) and personally.
Not all of these events, of course, are negative. Nothing has been the same since the Civil Rights movement, for instance. And I know in my own life there are many events that have been life-changing for the good (meeting my wife, getting married, going back to college).

This week is the Last Sunday after Epiphany, the Sunday where we commemorate the Transfiguration of Jesus. It's an incredible event (so incredible that it's marked here and on 6 August) More than a week after the confession that Jesus was the Messiah (according to Luke's account), Peter, James, and John follow up the mountain. And up there they encounter the amazing, indescribable event known as the Transfiguration.

Over in Exodus, we have a different type of transfiguration story. The story of Moses coming down from Sinai with his face aglow comes amidst the longer (and dream-like) story of the time the Israelites spent at the foot of that mountain. To say that this moment was a metamorphosis—a synonym of transfiguration—is a bit of an understatement.

Nothing, after these events, was the same anymore. Perhaps it is even better said that no one was the same anymore after this. No one who was there that day at the foot of the mountain and saw Moses could ever truly doubt that they had encountered the Divine. And come what may (and did) to those disciples who stood upon the mountaintop with Jesus, nothing could have ever fully shaken their belief in who they felt Jesus was.

Of course, life-changing events don't always change everything. There is still racism even after the words of Dr. King were spoken. The Israelites proceeded, rather quickly, to forget Whom they'd encountered—both at the foot of Sinai and in the years wandering in the wilderness. And Peter, James, and John were all dumbfounded by what was waiting for them at the foot of the mountain.

I can't say that I've had a theophany—God's revelatory moment—on the order of magnitude that either Israel or the disciples experienced. Yet, I doubt it would matter. If the wonder of the night sky, the love of my family, or even the memory of the small voice that I've heard once or twice can't remind me constantly that nothing, in fact, is the same anymore, I doubt anything would.

As we approach Lent, let us think about how life-changing the story we tell and hear really is. And then let us pray for the courage to live with Paul's "great boldness."

God of changes, your love has changed my life. Help me to live into that love: living without fear and despair, but with boldness and hope. And remind me, when I come down from the mountain, just what I heard and saw there.