Lent I - Skip Windsor

Mark 1:9-15

“Into the Wilderness”

Someone once wrote, “The desert does not allow any compromise.”

Spending a weekend in Death Valley, California, a number of years ago, I came to know that unvarnished truth. I was part of the leadership team of A Christian Ministry in the National Parks. We were staying at an idyllic place called the Furnace Creek Inn that serves as an oasis in the middle of the desert. Surrounded by palm trees, a swimming pool, and all the privileges of a luxury hotel, it is easy to forget that miles of desolate wilderness surrounded you.

I decided one morning to take a hike outside the Inn’s confines and walk out into the desert having seen a small escarpment that appeared not too far away. Its odd outcropping seemed to beckon me. Prepared with hiking boots on and a canteen of water, I felt ready go into the desert. What I did not realize was that my destination was further away than I thought. By the time I reached the escarpment the sun was high, my feet were sore, and my canteen was nearly empty. I was only halfway home. As I rested in a sliver of shade the wall of the escarpment gave me, I thought about how unforgiving the desert can be. What if I sprained or twisted an ankle? What if I got lost and could not find my way back to the Inn? What if I had to survive here?

For a moment the beautiful but unforgiving landscape matched the encroaching desolation I felt inside me. Fortunately, I saw one of the other ministers walking about halfway back to the Inn and I made a bolt for him hoping he carried enough water for the two of us. Mercifully, he did and we walked back to the Inn together with him giving me some sage advice about desert living. That was the day, I came to realize in a very personal way the desert does not compromise.

What does the desert look like to you?

I made a pastoral visit to an old friend of mine several weeks ago who has severe MS. Each movement is a struggle. Each word he speaks must be squeezed out of him. I know a son who grieves for the loss of his mother who recently died. He cannot stop crying. There is a couple I know from my graduate school days that are separating. There is anger, guilt, and remorse. There are still others dealing with aging, loss of sight, physical impairment, arthritis, and soreness. And there are others who are souls coping with mental illness, depression and isolation.

What does your desert look like?

Elizabeth Hamilton, the biographer of Charles de Foucauld the famous Desert Monk, writes,

“The desert is a place where the soul encounters God, but is also a place of extreme desolation – a place of testing, where the soul is flung upon its own resources and therefore upon God. The desert, in this sense, can be anywhere.” ⁽¹⁾

In today’s Gospel reading from Mark, there is a quick succession of events: Jesus is baptized. He is named the beloved Son of God. No sooner is Jesus anointed then he is immediately cast into the wilderness of the desert and tested. After ascending the dizzying heights of baptism, Jesus is plucked and placed in the midst of a diverse group of desert denizens including wild beasts, spirits, angels and, of course, the Tempter, Satan.

Joyce Rupp in her book God’s Enduring Presence writes,

“Jesus did not decide on his own to go into the desert. He was led there by the Spirit. Jesus would probably not have chosen to go there any more than any of us would choose to enter into an extended time of struggle. Yet in those challenging forty days Jesus experienced his inner strength and found a clear direction for his future ministry…”

Rupp continues,

“I can’t imagine any of us liking our own deserts, the parts of our life we want to get rid of as fast as we can: disagreeable relationships, ongoing illness, unsatisfying work, troubling questions about religious beliefs… anything that snatches us from a contented life. We tend to think our desert places are bad places, but could it be the Spirit leads us there to help us know ourselves better? Could it be that our deserts are the very place where we meet our spiritual power, where our faith is strengthened, and the assurance is given that we can, as Jesus did, deliberately choose good in the face of temptation and conflict?” ⁽²⁾

It is said that God takes us places we never thought we would go. It is also true that God takes us places that we thought we would never go. We can learn from Jesus’ experience in the desert. He did not go there alone. He was supported by his relationship his Father through the spirit. Not that it was easy. This does mean that he was immune from the trials and terrors of life: but the Spirit sustained him. He was never alone. It was to this relationship that Jesus clung.

Physical pain, mental pain, prejudice and conflict isolate. It is like being in the wilderness. One feels cut off from family and friends, from one’s community and even from one’s own spirit. In Jesus’ public ministry, he sought to reverse this. Jesus heals a leper cut off from his community, welcomes a tax collector into his inner circle, and gives sight to a blind man by a pool in Bethsaida.

Jesus draws people out of exile and alienation into community; and having been tested himself in the desert, he gives us the comfort that we are never ever alone. Through the Holy Spirit, you and I are assured in faith, that we always have the companionship of the risen Christ in us and with us.

In Lent, among the companions I turn to for support and strength is the 20^th century French priest, monk and mystic, Charles de Foucauld whom some have called the unknown disciple of Christ.

He led an active life as a monk and priest but was given permission to dwell as hermit in the Sahara Desert and lived among the Touregs a desert tribal people. His desert experience of solitude, testing and encounter captures the essence of the wilderness experience.

He once said of himself, “I am a monk not a missionary. I am made for silence and not for speech.” The desert became for him his home, his office, and his church. There Pere Charles encountered God and expressed his faith in simple ways of hospitality and charity. Reflecting upon Jesus’ temptation and trials in the desert, he writes,

“Was this 40 day fast a miracle or an example of faith with which we must devote ourselves to penitence counting on God to support us? It seems that Our lord did it to convince us of the strengths we can find within ourselves when, by putting faith in God, we devote ourselves with faith to the fulfillment of everything he asks of us, as impossible as it might seem. The great, divine feat here is faith, trust in God, courage – and not the fasting.” ⁽³⁾

Where did the desert lead Jesus? The evangelist Mark tells us that Jesus left the desert to preach the Good News of the Gospel message. His public ministry begins to call, proclaim, minister and to heal. He is the beloved. He is the one who survived the wilderness. He knows the manner in which God called him and now the victory he would claim would be one that is shared by all people for all time.

What does your desert look like this Lent? What companions are there with you? Who will you companion through their desert? Lent can serve as a wilderness time for us all to seek and discern, to find solitude and silence, to engage where your strengths lie, and to be transfigured by the Presence of the One who says, “You are my child, the beloved of God.”

Let us pray:

Spirit of God, I will go into the wilderness of my life and trust you are there.  Amen.
_______
1. The Desert: An Anthology for Lent, p. 26
2. God’s Enduring Presence, p. 22
3. Scriptural Meditations of Faith, p. 47

Epiphany VI - Tim Kenslea

Today’s gospel story from the first chapter of Mark has an unsettling ending. Near the beginning of his public ministry, Jesus has just performed one his first healing miracles, curing a man identified as a leper. But this is followed by Jesus “sternly warning” the man to tell no one about the miracle— a warning that the man is of course unable to follow— and then by Jesus being visited by publicity that he does not welcome.

When I saw that the gospel reading was about Jesus curing someone of leprosy, my first thought was that it would be the more familiar tale to many of us, about Jesus healing ten men, only one of whom then comes back to thank him (Luke 17:11-19).

Now that is a preacher-friendly gospel—especially for a volunteer, part-time preacher and moonlighting high school history teacher. It has a nice, useful moral lesson. It’s a special favorite for parents driving home from church who want to review what we learned in church today: Jesus healed ten people. Only one of them came back to say thank you— and two thousand years later we’re still talking about it. Always remember to say thank you!

But here in the first chapter of Mark (and in versions of this same story in Matthew and Luke), one man with leprosy is encountered, and one is cured. What Jesus says after he heals the man is, “See that you say nothing to anyone.”

That’s not preacher-friendly.

So of course I decided to turn my attention to the reading from the Hebrew bible, from the Second Book of Kings.

(By the way, the lectionary schedules this same passage from Second Kings as the first reading when Luke’s story of the healing of ten IS the day’s gospel. It’ll be coming around again in October 2013. You’ll want to be here.)

This story, of the healing of the Aramaean general Na’-aman by the prophet Elisha, is full of drama, personality, controversy, and extreme behavior.

Naaman is a successful general from Aram, where Syria is today. We learn that he has won victories over the Israelites, taken Israelites captive, and brought them home to be his servants.

We also learn that his servants are devoted to him— they seem to worry a lot about his health. And we learn that Naaman listens to his servants, and values their opinions. The Israelite servant girl says, “If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria,” and before we know it Naaman is asking his King for permission to go find this prophet.

The King of Aram seems to assume that the prophet the servant spoke of is somehow answerable to the King of Israel. He sends Naaman on his search for the prophet by writing a letter to the king, and loading him up with gifts for the king.

More about those gifts in a minute. But first—that’s not the way things are in Israel.

The prophet, Elisha, is a persistent critic of the King. This particular king is Jehoram, the second son of Ahab and Jezebel (2 Kings 3:1-3). He has continued the devotion to the golden calf of his predecessor Jeroboam, and (to some extent) the dreadful worship of the Phoenician god Baal that his parents had promoted.

A few chapters after this, Elisha’s messenger will be the one who anoints Jehu, the faithful army commander who will kill Jehoram and Jezebel in a coup (2 Kings 9:1-13).

By the way, learning this about King Jehoram certainly helped me understand the seemingly surprising statement in the text, that by Naaman, the Lord had given victory to the Aramaeans, Israel’s enemies.

Anyway, Naaman arrives at the palace of Jehoram, bearing as gifts ten talents of silver, 6,000 shekels of gold—and ten sets of garments.

One of the reference sources I consulted told me that this amount of silver would be worth about $2,000, and the gold about $3,300— but that source was published in the mid-1960s, so multiply it times about 15 to get today’s values. Another source told me that it’s approximately 750 pounds of silver and 150 pounds of gold.

Either way, that’s a big load to travel with, and a lavish gift— worth somewhere between $80,000 and a million dollars or more today.

It makes the ten sets of garments seem like a trivial throw-in— a bit like the box of Belgian chocolates you get, if you up your donation and spring for a second dozen Valentine roses from WBUR this week.

Naaman also brings this incomprehensible letter from the King of Aram, and the King of Israel freaks out. Is it a trick? Is he trying to start a war? It never enters the Israelite King’s mind that the letter refers to the prophet Elisha— just as it never entered the Aramaean King’s mind that Jehoram might not have control over the prophets who live in his kingdom.

Elisha, we learn, has access to some very good intelligence. Somehow he hears of Naaman’s visit to King Jehoram, and he sends an imperious message to the King : “Let him come to me.”

So Naaman goes to Elisha’s house, and now it’s his turn to get angry. Naaman bristles when Elisha won’t come out to greet him, and again when he hears a message bearing Elisha’s simple instructions to bathe seven times in the River Jordan. Is that all?

Naaman doesn’t do things the easy way, ever. Just after the passage we heard today, we will learn that once he’s cured, Naaman will try to load up two mules with earth from the land of Israel. When he returns home, you see, he wants to be able to pray and offer sacrifices while standing on the soil of Israel, because, he says, “there is no God in all the earth except in Israel.”

This time, though, Naaman listens to his servants again. And here’s what they say: “Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it?”

This seems to me to be the essential lesson that ties together today’s readings about men cured of leprosy.

It’s a warning against the sin of pride— in this case, the pride that says that for the practice of our faith to be true, it must be difficult.

Naaman’s servants remind him that faith doesn’t have to be difficult, especially if that difficulty only serves to reinforce his own sense of specialness. He just needs to listen and pay attention to what the Lord is really asking of him. As we all do. And sometimes we need to accept that that might be something very simple.

We don’t have to practice the faith heroically— just faithfully.

Now some people are called to do great and wondrous deeds, which Naaman certainly had done in his career as a general. Members of our own parish are called to an astonishing number of heroic missions, in the city and around the world, up to and including the work of medical missioners to Haiti.

And sometimes we are called the way Naaman is called in this story— to simple acts of devotion and service, of faith and love.

This brings us back to Mark’s Gospel, where Jesus and the man he cures of leprosy have a conversation very similar, in its import, to the one between Naaman and his servants.

You see, the conversation I should have focused on in the Gospel is the one that takes place before the healing, not after.

Jesus and the man he will cure both utter two phrases, and they are mirror images of each other.

The sick man says, “If you choose, you can make me clean.”

The words call to mind the essential phrase in the Lord’s Prayer— “Thy will be done.” This man seems to understand this part intuitively, acknowledging it by saying to Jesus, “If you choose. . . .”

Jesus replies, “I do choose. Be made clean.”

Jesus’ response to the sick man’s simple profession of faith is just as simple, but it goes to the heart of his redemptive mission.

“I do choose.”

The promise behind this exchange is: If we are faithful, so will Jesus be. The one thing we all must do is to humbly profess our faith in him— faith that he will choose to make us clean, to set us free— and then to trust that all the rest of our calling will grow from that

And oh yes— don’t forget to say thank you!