First Sunday of Lent 2023

 

Matthew 3.17

‘And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”’

Matthew 4.1-11

‘Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. The tempter came and said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.’ But he answered, ‘It is written, “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”’

‘Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, “He will command his angels concerning you”, and “On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.”’ Jesus said to him, ‘Again it is written, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”’

‘Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour; and he said to him, ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Away with you, Satan! for it is written, “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.”’ Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.’

 

I wonder what you believe about God?

People tell me what they believe about God all the time. Often, they aren’t aware they are doing it. Often, they are expressing unconscious assumptions: ‘God is angry with pretty much everybody,’ or, ‘God is too busy with important matters to take an interest in me,’ or, ‘If I plead hard enough, God might answer my prayer, even though he probably doesn’t want to, because he knows better and probably finds my prayers foolish…’

These things aren’t true; but we can take lies about God on board and internalize them without realizing it. And so, the Season of Lent is given to us each year as an invitation to notice those lies, and to find them to be false.

 

Here are three commonly held lies about God:

[1] you are not acceptable to God as you are (i.e., God is not pleased with you)

[2] you need to earn God’s approval by your success (i.e., you are not God’s beloved)

[3] God blesses others, but not you (i.e., you are excluded from God’s family)

 

The Season of Lent is an invitation to notice those lies, and to find them, experientially,* to be false. How might we do that? Here are some Lenten disciplines, or practices, to help us:

[1] a stone is not a loaf, and that is just as it should be: slow down; take time to notice, and take pleasure in, the things around you, especially the little things…then take time to expand that circle of wonder at the created world to include you…

[2] heaven delights in you, whether earth notices or not: do something without seeking credit: give away some money: spend time alone with God, away from doing things for God: go for a walk (or a run) together, or to the cinema; take up a paint brush, or knitting needles; try something new, or pick up something that has been crowded out for too long: whatever you choose, envision God there sharing the experience with you.

[3] choose to delight in the ways God has blessed others; if you feel jealousy, or resentment, notice that, confess it, ask Jesus to carry it away. Praise God, the Giver of every good gift; allow a song to well up within you, like a stream in the wilderness: if it helps, play a worship song list to ‘prime the pump’ and get going. As we exercise thankfulness, we become more aware of the ways in which God has blessed us, too.

 

*That is, to discover what we read in Scripture can be true in our experience, too.

 

Ash Wednesday 2023

 

Lectionary texts: Joel 2.1-2, 12-17, and 2 Corinthians 5.20b-6.10, and Matthew 6.1-6, 16-21.

‘Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing. Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain-offering and a drink-offering for the Lord, your God?’ Joel 2:12-14

Joel’s community are devastated. The harvest they depend on has been destroyed by locusts. There are rumours of war, an invasion force massing at the border. Dark days ahead. They are scared, like children; perhaps pretending to be brave, like children. And Joel calls them to (re)turn to God.

Joel reminds them of the time when God revealed to Moses what God is like: gracious and compassionate; slow to anger; abounding in steadfast love.

hannun we-rahum, gracious and compassionate: hannun, from chanan, to show favour; and rahum, compassionate, from the same root as rechem, womb. This God is like a mother, who, moved by a visceral love for the child she carried, acts to help them in their need.

erek appayim, slow to anger, literally, having a long nose, or nostrils. The image is that of breathing in through the nose, when angry; of drawing in breath slowly, taking time. This maternal God gets angry at times, when we mess up, and rightly so; but she doesn’t have a short fuse. She isn’t the kind of mother whose children walk on eggshells, never knowing whether they are going to get nice mam or nasty mam. This God has a tell-tale sign, that drawing in of breath that alerts us to the reality we have a moment, a window of opportunity, to say sorry, when we have pushed her too far in taking her for granted.

hessed, unfailing love, covenant loyalty. This God is committed to us, will always be there for us, whatever we have done, whatever consequences we must live with.

One of the accusations thrown against God is why a loving and powerful being does not intervene to prevent suffering? But we cannot live as if God does not exist, and blame God for the consequences. God is not a maid to tidy up behind us, or a nanny to keep us from harm. But God does intervene, by responding to our cry, our longing, our recognising that we really do want God more than life without God.

The Season of Lent is an invitation to come home, to God, who sees the state we have got ourselves in, envelopes us in strong and loving arms, draws us close and holds us tight, spits on her handkerchief and rubs our grimy forehead with the sign of the cross.

Full disclosure: it isn’t spit, but anointing oil, a sign and symbol of the compassionate grace of God, mixed with the ash of our mortality. And with it, God brings bread and wine, meets all our needs, in Jesus, who draws our suffering into his own, that it may be transformed. For all that hurts or harms us will, in the end, be utterly consumed in the fire of love, until all that remains is a perfectly safe vulnerability, where we are seen, known, and loved, and see, know and love in return.

So come home.

 

Second Sunday before Lent 2023

 

Lectionary: Genesis 1.1-2.3, and Romans 8.18-25, and Matthew 6.25-34

I love the opening chapter of the Bible. It is, I believe, foundational for everything that follows. And while I believe that the universe came into being because God willed it so, I don’t think that is what this text is primarily concerned with. I want to suggest that it is primarily concerned with what it means to be human and how to live in the world. Moreover, though this is an account passed down in storytelling from generation to generation for centuries, I share the view of many biblical scholars that it was written down much later, after Jerusalem was destroyed and her population had been carried off into exile in Babylon, deeply traumatised and trying to find their bearings, to make sense of their world, which had become a dark and formless void. And I think that we can relate to that, as asylum seekers who have fled their country and community of birth, or international postgraduates far from home, or those who have been bereaved by the death of a dear one, and all of us as a Minster community through the protracted vacancy, or void.

This ancient text is a gift. It is a gift that draws us in, to a world that is, or has become, formless and disorienting, and which is loved by God, who watches over this world, this life, in love. God pays close attention and invites us to do the same. Taking far more time than we have in the sermon slot of a Sunday service. For timeless days, God focuses attention on one thing at a time, until God can declare it good. The first thing God attends to, and invites us to pay attention to, is light and darkness.

Light and darkness. Our days and nights. At an approximate latitude of 54.9° N and longitude of 1.4° W, we are currently getting two minutes more light morning by morning and two minutes more light evening by evening. Today, sunrise was at 07:35 and sunset will be at 17:05. Tomorrow, the sun will rise at 07:33 and set at 17:07. On Tuesday, 07:31 and 17:09. Incremental changes. Easy to miss, not least if the sky is overcast. Not least because we don’t want to know, want to make every morning and evening the same by means of artificial light from a bulb turned on or off with the press of a switch. Yet God calls us to pay attention. We all know that here on the east coast we get some amazing sunrises and sunsets, but we can take them for granted, or try to capture them in a photo to share on Facebook. The sun is literally rising before our eyes, and our eyes are looking at a smartphone screen. But there is something inherently good for us—heart and soul and mind and strength—in standing in the cold of the passing night and watching the sun come up, watching the sky being transformed through a palette of colours. Likewise, there is something inherently good for us—heart and soul and mind and strength—in standing still and watching the stars trace across the night sky, the dance of the planets. Shifting night by night, as well as through the night. Detail, detail, until the goodness of it all settles within us enough for us to say, with God, this is good.

There is not time for me to continue through the story. It is for me and for you to enter, anew, each day until the Day of the Lord, when Jesus comes to us to take us to be with him in his Father’s house. But trust me that there is healing and wholeness to be found in such practices as make us fully human, in union with God. May this be your testimony. May it be mine.