Ash Wednesday
began the journey of Lent. Lent is this
difficult, gritty path that reminds us: faith is no easy task. Every first Sunday of Lent, we have a gospel
passage that echoes the primary story of the Jewish people, their birth
story—the Exodus from Egypt which results in them walking out from slavery and
into the Wilderness. The Hebrew people,
liberated from Egypt, do not walk directly into the Promised Land. They walk a good long time in the wilderness,
discerning what it means to be Children of the Living God. The path is so fraught with a fear of
newness, wild beasts, anxiety about their daily needs, that the Hebrews pine
for the potsherds in Egypt. How long, they ask, must we walk this path? The answer is that the Hebrew people must walk
until the demon of their oppression and death is exorcised from their
souls. Nobody walks from Egypt into the
promised land.
There is a difficult, hard path put before us we must now walk. Jesus doesn't just go from his baptism out into his public ministry. Whatever oppression and death are in him, Rome as his cultural narrative, must now be exorcised by walking in the wilderness to something that is more liberated and free.
In
keeping with Scriptural story, the historical church would not baptize people
straightaway. The tradition was to have
the candidate for baptism go through the rigor of spiritual sacrifice and spiritual
practice in Lent to be baptized on Easter Day.
Christian faith has rigor, grit, a toughness to it that says we never
arrive at faith through belief, or ease, or just because we were born into it. Lent is a reminder that this Christian journey
calls for our growth, a developed maturity we will need when our courage is
called for in the midst of pain and persecution.
The promised land does not just
appear on the horizon. The wilderness is
a testing ground to build our spiritual endurance and muscle, to peel away all
that is false, to develop our discernment around what is genuine.
And
faith requires inspection of our will and courage. To what will we be loyal when things get
difficult? To what will we fast from
when it would be much easier to go along?
To what will we give our heart to when the culture wants us to hate, to
forget the names of those who are not like us, and do violence and dominate
over others when it will mean an easier life?
It
is the Holy Spirit who meets us on the edge of the wilderness, looks in our
eyes, and says, “Still ready to do this Christian thing? To live this life of unarmed truth and
unconditional love? To give your heart
to something bigger than you? Your family? Bigger than your nation? Bigger than your complicity with systems and
structures which put you at ease?
Ready?”
The
40 days of Lent are an invitation to the wilderness. Within them are a longing for liberation as
well as a commitment to bear the suffering of the world. Lent is a season to choose a desire or
practice to give up, as a kind of sacrifice. We develop our own inner power to say we are
more than that or this.
But
we are also invited to take up a new practice.
What are practices we can commit to in solidarity with those
suffering? How will we bear witness to
the dust? (make the sign of the cross on my head) Lent is about existing in the pain of the
world, not rushing past it toward some kind of spiritual toxic positivity.
There’s
a heaviness in the air. Feel it? In ashes and dust? In Lent, we are reminded we are free to say
so. Free to grieve.[1]
And
as we step into the wilderness, the beauty of church, is we see that Jesus and
so many others have walked this hard road before. We look to our left and the Holy Spirit has
one hand, shaking Her head knowing this will lead to growth and goodness. We look to our right and there are other
people, the meaning of church, holding our other hand. They look as afraid and wary of this journey
as we are. But we are doing this
together. We are not alone. (looking slowly to my left hand and then
to my right in confidence)
Join
with me in this breath prayer we will do together. As we inhale, we say, “I won’t rush from
grief.” As we exhale, we say, “I make
space for the ashes.”[2] Again.
Say it again and again till it is not only something you say, it becomes
your inhale and exhale through Lent. It
not only inspires you. It is then what
you put out into the world. Inhale: “I won’t rush from my grief.” Exhale:
“I make space for the ashes.”
When
Jesus emerged from his baptism, it is said that the Spirit threw him out into
the wilderness referencing the same Greek word used for Jesus’s exorcisms. That Greek word gives a sense that Jesus is
not directing this show. God’s Spirit is
driving Jesus out into the wilderness. Like
it did for the Hebrew people walking out of Egypt, the wilderness will purify
his intent. The wilderness will
determine what Jesus is made of, what his values are, who he will be for the
long haul. Forty of anything in Jewish
story means, “a good long time.” So for
a good long time, Jesus will be fasting and praying in the wilderness.
Jesus
emerges from his baptism hearing a voice from heaven declaring God’s
solidarity. Jesus emerges from the
wilderness after a good long time knowing he has an inner strength and power to
offer solidarity back to God
The
Biblical word for what Jesus is going through in the wilderness is, peirazo,
which “to analyze a thing to determine whether something can be done.”[3] The wilderness—Lent—sizes up our will and
courage, and once completed, give us a confidence that we can endure, that we
are emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually ready. We know we don’t need miracles (turning
stones to bread). We don’t need power
over others (kingdoms and empires); and we know what our true source of power
is. Finally, we don’t need public
displays of God’s power, sideshows which are less about identity and more about
foolish and gratuitous displays. Jesus
emerges after those questions knowing who he is.
Luke
uses the word “devil” as the one testing Jesus.
But the original word was “Satan”—the one who is necessarily against us
to purify intent. The original Satan,
the interlocutor for Jesus in the wilderness, was a Persian secret service
agent who tested one’s loyalty to the king.
Much like we might imagine in oppressive governments, these agents would
sidle up to us as neighbors or friends, to ask in whispered, casual
conversations, “So . . . what do you think of the price of oil and gas? I’m not really sure this king is all that he
is cracked up to be? Right?”
The
Satan appears as a sneaky, snake-in-the-grass, a creator-of-hesitation, and
under-miner-of-relationships, using the two-letter word - "If."[4] If is posited with the niggling possibility
that, “Hmmm, well, maybe you are not?
Maybe you are not who God said you were after that glorious
baptism? Maybe you are all alone? Maybe you are not who you claim to be? Maybe you are not . . . authentic?”
Lent
in the wilderness is meant to strip away all that is false to know what is
authentic. And once again, we do not
walk this hard road alone. Baptism was
meant to remind us publicly what God whispers in our ear again and again and
again, “You are a Beloved Child of Mine!”
This is the journey we are invited toward—to walk long enough that all
other voices but God’s voice fade, are stripped away.
Howard
Thurman, in his baccalaureate address at Spelman College in 1980 said we are in
need of finding our own name. He
asked: “Who are you? How does the sound of genuine come through to
you?”[5]
We
are called to this wilderness, to a rigor of faith we rarely see in the world
these days, to learn in prayer and fasting who we are, whose we are, and how we
might amplify the genuine unarmed truth and unconditional love which is the
voice of God in the world. Ready to
walk? (extending my hand)
Breathe
in: “I won’t rush from my grief.” Exhale:
“I make space for the ashes.”
Again. Once more.
The
Holy Spirit has your other hand. And she
is ready. The road is hard. But we endure together. War is raging. Pandemic continues. Hate is rampant. Know during the time of Jesus, 1.1 million
Jews were crucified. Every age has its
difficulties and atrocities.
A
hardy, rigorous community is needed to meet the challenge of this age. “I won’t rush from my grief.” Exhale:
“I make space for the ashes.” Let
us begin walking. Amen.
[1] Cole Arthur Riley, ‘What
is Lent,” Black Liturgies, https://www.instagram.com/p/Cac1leHOnoM/.
[2] Ibid.
[3] T. Denise Anderson, “Will
Lent reveal our authentic self?” Sojourners, March, Vol. 51, No. 3, p.
44.
[4] Bruce J. Malina and
Richard L. Rohrbaugh, Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels (Minneapolis: Fortress Press), pp. 240-241.
[5] Anderson, “Will Lent.”
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