Here we are, once again,
at the start of Lent. I wonder what your expectations of Lent are. Perhaps you
see it as an austere season, even a severe season? Perhaps you see it as an
endurance test? Perhaps you see it as a strange observance belonging to another
time? Perhaps you have no idea what Lent is all about?
Might I suggest that
Lent is a season of intimacy with the
God who created you, and whose declared intentions for you are life in its fullness?
In the beginning, God
created the heavens and the earth. And God drew out the land from the waters of
the sea. And God drew out the dustling from the dust of the ground, impressing
it with God’s own stamp and seal, and breathing God’s own life into it. And God
drew out all kinds of trees from the ground. And God placed the dustling he had
drawn out from the ground in a garden, to take care of the ground and of the
trees that grew from the ground: to help the ground to fulfil God’s intention
for it, and to help that which sprang forth from the ground to fulfil God’s
intention for it too.
And God took the
dustling and drew out male and female; woman to correspond to man, two halves
of one whole; the woman to be a warrior-deliverer for the man just as God would
declare himself to be a warrior-deliver to humanity.
And God said, walk
with me. But the serpent said, “God is hiding himself from you, is keeping all
that you could be from you: don’t settle for that!” And the dustling was
deceived, and tried to take what had already been given – a share in God’s
identity. This catastrophic event cast a long shadow between God and the
dustling; between male and female within the dustling; between the dustling and
the ground from which they were taken, and the plants that also sprang up from
the ground.
And yet, God sets
clear limits on the consequences. The serpent is cursed, to eat dust. The
ground is cursed. But the dustling is not cursed. Death will come as a release,
not as the final word on the matter. In death, the dustling and the dust would
be reunited. And from the woman would come life; a son who would avenge her,
crushing the serpent’s head.
These ancient
foundational stories of our humanity provide a backdrop as we turn our eyes to
Jesus in the temple. He has been here since celebrating the Feast of
Tabernacles, the annual act of remembering that God had drawn his people out of
slavery in Egypt and met with them in the wilderness, where he had provided
living water from the rock, and had shaped a broken rabble into a nation to be
a light to the nations. Jesus is causing quite a stir, and while the people are
drawn to him, the chief priests and the Pharisees are increasingly hardening
their hearts towards him.
It is early in the
morning, and Jesus is sitting in the temple courts, teaching, when he is rudely
interrupted. The self-righteous drag a woman before him, a woman caught in the very
act of committing adultery. It is a trap. In the Law, Moses commanded them to stone ‘such women,’
they say: will Jesus dismiss the Law?
Of course, they care
little for the Law. The Law commands that both parties guilty of adultery, the
man and the woman, be put to death. This woman is not suspected of promiscuity; she is, allegedly, caught in the very act of committing adultery.
If these men were concerned about the Law, they would be bringing the man
before Jesus too. The woman – reduced to an object – is merely a pawn:
entrapped. For how would a gang of men happen to be at hand if not waiting? And
if entrapped, possibly raped – in which case, the Law might require only the
death of the man. But there is no man brought for judgement. Or rather, the man
being accused is Jesus. God who said, ‘Do not commit adultery’ also said, ‘Do not
bring false testimony against your neighbour’ – and in seeking to entrap Jesus,
they are playing one commandment off against another.
Jesus ignores them.
Instead, he writes on the ground with his finger – a common teaching tool.
Perhaps he is going back to his teaching, bringing to mind his interrupted
train of thought. The more the religious thugs demand a response, the more he
carries on ignoring them, refusing to be drawn into their game – their game of
pretending to be more righteous than the woman; their game of pretending to be
more righteous than Jesus.
Until at last, the
trap springs shut: but Jesus has sidestepped it, and rescued the woman with
him; the fowlers caught in their own snare. “Let anyone among you who is
without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”
Jesus
was without sin. And yet he chose to so
fully identify with sinners that he sides with those who do not dare throw
the first stone. He chose to identify with the very men seeking to trap him, as
well as with the woman who happened to find herself caught up in their hatred.
He chose not to stone the woman, but to crush the serpent’s head. He chose to
point his finger not in accusation, but to point towards freedom.
This is a story about
creation, un-creation, and new
creation. We are all dustlings, drawn from the ground, sharing a common
humanity, made for unity, made to fight for one another not against one
another. Stoning someone to death is the ultimate act of un-creation: taking
stones from the ground to return a dustling to dust. Jesus is not looking for
un-creation, but new creation. He is stirring something in the dust, writing a
new story. Yes, the woman was entrapped, but it is likely that something about
how she lived her life made her vulnerable to such a trap: perhaps she would
not dare to speak out the truth of this situation, because her accusers held
some other secret over her. Jesus does not condemn her, but neither does he say
it does not matter. It matters greatly; enough to put his own life on the line.
“Go your way, and from now on do not sin again” he tells her...and not only
her, but those still close enough to overhear. Don’t collude with the treating
of people as objects.
The season of Lent is
an invitation to reacquaint ourselves with dust...
To rediscover our
connectedness within God’s creation, where we have become disconnected...
To see our fellow
dustlings with solidarity and compassion, where we have viewed them with
suspicion and contempt, where we have viewed ourselves as above others...
To allow Jesus to
draw patterns in the dust, our lives not set in stone but something altogether
more dynamic, able to adapt.
It is a season to
humble ourselves, but also to learn to love ourselves in yet another year of
our decaying dustiness, our frailty and wretchedness; and to love our dusty
neighbour as ourselves; as we are made new, not by our own efforts but by the
One who loves us.
This Lent, may you
find yourself in the dust at Jesus’ feet;
and may you wait
there:
wait while he ignores
the accusations brought against you, brought against him;
wait until the voices
fall silent and the accusers turn away;
wait, until
transformed by his grace, you are set free to go your way, and from now on do
not sin again…
Author’s confession:
due to other contraints, this sermon is a re-working of my Ash Wednesday sermon
from last year.
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