Sermon (St. Philip’s –
Holy Eucharist, Rite II
Genesis
2:4-3:7 The Lord God formed
man from the dust of the ground.
Psalm 51:1-13 Create in me a clean heart, O God.
Romans
5:12-19 The free gift of grace
of the one man, Jesus Christ.
Matthew 4:1-11 He fasted for forty days and forty
nights.
For minds to think, and
hearts to love, and hands to serve, we thank you, God. Amen.
Lent is here! And our attention and intentions are invited
in a new direction for this season. Lent
is our season of quiet reflection and inner exploration. We spend six weeks looking at our lives and
the life of Jesus, and by doing this, renewing our commitment to Christ. Lent is a kind of “retreat time” when we step
out of our regular mode and attune to the movement of the Spirit in our midst
in an intentional way.
40 days will unfold ahead of
us, inviting us to consider how we will attune our hearts and minds to God’s
presence and action among us. This is a
time to ask those all too familiar questions, “What is God saying to me?” and
“What is God calling me to do?” We are
not the first ones to ask ourselves these tough questions. These questions also connect each of us with
the communal discernment work we are exploring at St. Philip’s this spring.
Our forty days of Lent are a
kind of commemoration of Jesus’ forty days and forty nights in the wilderness
for prayerful reflection on his life and purpose with God. Jesus modeled powerfully for us what it means
to retreat and spend time with God. He
made a kind of “intensive” retreat through his 40-day trek in the desert.
Have you ever made a
retreat? Retreats are familiar to most
of us… in fact, a remarkable group of people seeking to incline their ears to
God’s voice and attune their lives to the Spirit’s call gathered here yesterday
for a retreat to begin the season of Lent with the Rev. Rosanna Kazanjian. It was a remarkable day of reflecting on our
inner experience of God, and opening to where God is calling us to move.
Intensive retreats take this
concept even further – they are intensive after all. Silence and prayerful reflection are the
order the day. Intensive retreats vary
in length. It might be a day, three
days, a week or even 40 days. These
graced times are quiet and intentional, opening space for reflection and an
unpacking of the subconscious to speak of our experience of God. When we allow ourselves to still and quiet,
remarkable things happen.
Stuff comes up! And lest we imagine this will be a time filled
with bliss, I’m here to tell you that
not everything that comes up is beautiful and idyllic.
This is probably to be
expected when you stop and think about it.
In our intensive retreat mode, we set aside the distractions and
seductions of our culture and our all-too-busy daily lives. We turn off the TV, we log off the
internet. And we sit still. IT IS QUIET!
We listen for God to speak to us on the deepest level of our
experience. It’s not all pretty! We discover we must go places we did not realize
we needed to visit.
We must face our demons.
The hurts we have
caused. We reflect on our relations,
both close and broken. We consider how
we have treated other people. We recall
the power trips we have taken, especially when we’ve been under stress. It can
be rough to allow space for this stuff to come up. But we are not alone.
Hearing the gospel reflection
on Jesus’ desert retreat, it is clear that stuff came up for him, too. He most certainly faced his demons.
Jesus reflected on the very
issues that can face us. He considered
what sustains us, food; water… the basics in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Through his prayer, it becomes clear that
Jesus was operating out of a higher level of need, for he affirms the
scripture, “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from
the mouth of God.” The word of God
sustained him in his time of trial.
How he decided to express his
power was evident as he imagined himself struggling on the pinnacle of the
temple. What an image that creates! Ultimately, Jesus returned to the center of
his life with God, recalling that above all else we are called to “Worship your
God and serve only God.”
Jesus was not afraid to go
the depths of his soul and face his demons.
What is remarkable is that fact that in each of his encounter with
darkness, he found a way through, a means of transformation. He passed through the struggle to a stronger
place. His relationship with God
sustained him as he faced each of his potentially overwhelming challenges.
We, too, can find the means
to face the challenges, the twists and turns of life, by turning once again to God. Lent is our call to an intensive encounter
with God. Inspired by Jesus’ 40 days in
the desert, we now begin a journey back to God.
We also have 40 days ahead of
us, and as it turns out, we are surrounded by an incredibly inspiring desert
here in
How will you make your Lent a
time of retreat, attunement, and renewal?
A fitting place to begin would
be a prayer of preparation. We could
pray the compelling words from today’s psalm: “Create in me a clean heart, O
God.” Creating a clean heart is a way of
making space, of clearing to hearth, and welcoming God to the deepest corners
of our being. This is just right for the
beginning of Lenten time of reflection. It
does not end there.
Following his retreat, Jesus
moved into action. He gathered his
disciples and immediately began a ministry of healing for the people around
him. His inner experience of God
motivated his actions in profound ways.
And so it can be for us as we
move through our journey of Lent, as we pray, gather community, and mobilize to
take our faith into the world. May you
be both enriched in your Lenten reflection to consider what God is saying to
you and be challenged to respond to what God is calling you to do. Amen.