“Almighty God, whose blessed Son was led by the Spirit to be tempted by Satan: Come quickly to help us who are assaulted by many temptations…”
On Ash Wednesday, I began my sermon by suggesting that Lent doesn’t win too many popularity contests; that we resist its message. However, in the last few days, when speaking with some parishioners, they told me they actually liked the season of Lent, and I had to admit, upon listening, that many people who are regular church-goers tend to appreciate Lent. Why is that; what do people like about Lent? Perhaps, it is because the season is presented as a reflective period of reading and self-examination, giving people permission to think about their lives. Perhaps, since for us Lent dovetails with the changes from winter to spring, there are significant natural reminders about God’s supernatural promise of new beginnings, new creation. Yet, Lent is not in any way removed from our own experience. In fact, Lent is very real and about our real life issues. This is a time in which we are challenged to face our mortality and the ways in which we set priorities. Perhaps, too, Lent folds time. That is, given what used to be the unique traditions and practices of Lenten in former times, we might well have vivid memories of those bygone days.
Today, though, what is on your mind and in your heart as we enter this season? “Almighty God… as you know the weaknesses of each one of us, let each one find you mighty to save…” What is your burden right now? Making ends meet in your household economy? A parent’s health; your own? War: Iraq/Afghanistan? Jerusalem, Zimbabwe? The plight of children the world over such as our Lenten Project, “The Pajama Project,” will remind us? The continuing Anglican Controversy? The election of the next bishop of Long Island? The future of Saint Luke’s Church? Aging: alarming aches and pains, failing minds?
“Almighty God… Come quickly to help us who are assaulted by many temptations…” Can you see how a lot of what might be on our minds and in our hearts this season are ‘temptations’? Temptation isn’t just about moving in the direction of doing something wrong—thoughts, words and things done or left undone that will result in evil. Temptations are also those worries that weigh upon us and cause anxiety that trouble us. On the other hand, we might even be tempted by the idea of doing the good; that we, ourselves, can do such and such in order to bring about a better situation, a better world. Then again, that same noble ‘to do list’ might lead you and me to fret that there is no way we could accomplish x-y-z, that it is best we disabuse ourselves of such utopian fantasies, that it might just be smarter to mind one’s own little patch of turf. Of course, though, then there’s the temptation to just be and do what tends to maintain a sense of normalcy. Sounds practical, even tidy; but is it faith, or perhaps a bit of polite sidestepping?
So, whether with an outright smile or more of a sheepish countenance, good intentions or a convenient, or inconveniently busy, schedule, temptation is anything or anyone who introduces the possibility that our faith—my faith, your faith—might waver, wiggle, dip, slip, or strain unto the breaking point. In short, to be tempted is to find yourself in the position of being tested. Now by being tested, it does not mean that you are being set up or that anybody (especially God) is playing with you. No, a test of faith is an opportunity, a real life opportunity to test out faith: to experience pre-meditation, decision-making, and carry through with the sense that God is present.
Well, actually, it is a bit more than that. It’s not just your having the sense that God is present. After all, one of the manifestations of Satan, of being tempted by Satan, is one’s having the sense that God is present but that it doesn’t mean anything, that God doesn’t really care or connect to you and that what you are about to do or leave undone doesn’t really matter to anyone else or won’t really have an impact. So we are tempted to think of faith as beginning with a small “f” that allows the satiny Satan to smooth things over in our agreeing to just take care of my own little patch of turf—don’t disrupt anything, don’t bother anyone, live in your own safe space, cultivate the normal. Be a good neighbor; don’t put your trash out until the evening before pick-up. However, that’s not the biblical view of neighbor, God or faith. It is, rather, the biblical view of the demonic—how a devilish dynamic cuts us off from each other and from God. Thus, part of the test, the opportunity in temptation, is to experience Biblical faith as beginning with a capital F. Being tested is the opportunity that grows us up into not only sensing the presence of God, but knowing in mind and heart that God is present meaningfully—connecting us with God and with each other. Faith grows up into being our interconnectedness and our passion to live and to give for those mystical connections, our being in and with God and each other. Faith is relationship making and keeping. There is no such entity as my own little piece of turf. There is only all—God all in all. And we cannot cut off any of it and claim it as our own. Nor can we stand idly by and watch anyone or anything be cut off.
“I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you… never again shall all flesh be cut off by waters…” God promises Noah. God promises not to cut off. God promises relationship, to keep faith, not just with this faithful family of Noah or all his faithful descendants and not just with human beings but all living creatures “for all future generations”. The Genesis story positions that rainbow in the sky to remind all who have eyes to see and ears to hear that even if God were to get angry enough again with a humanity which might rather tend its own little imperial corners of the world, God will not cut off people but will remember the everlasting covenant, the capital F faith of being present which means (in the words of the psalm) which means a God of compassion and love, which means a people who can trust in a God of compassion and love, which means a people who can risk compassionate loving.
As Jesus was coming up out of the water, he didn’t see a rainbow—a nice idea of a promise, symbolized out there midst the clouds—but rather the Spirit descending upon him, upon and in and through his already Spirit-drenched being: the promise a personal reality; the covenant, the love between God and Jesus. Off to the wilderness of life he goes—a wilderness we know too. There Satan awaits; there angels wait on him, too; and on us. The time is fulfilled. God has come near. Believe in the good news—God has come near; and in our testings, we come near and come nearer to God. “Repent.” Think and feel and live it through. Such is our commissioning. Jesus is the Ark. But this Ark is not just a rescue ship. Baptism does not just clean us up to make us right with God. No, this time, by virtue of the Resurrection, the Ark has a sail. We are commissioned to set sail with Christ, to leave the safe, neat, tidy shores of our own little piece of turf, and bring the good news not only of rescue but of power—the compassionate loving power that goes out on behalf of all others: “Almighty God… let each one find you mighty to save. Amen.”
©Thomas F. Reese 03.01.09

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