Sermon preached by The Rev'd Nicholas Lang

St. Paul’s on the Green, Norwalk, Connecticut

The First Sunday of Lent – February 10, 2008

May God give us the grace to hear the words of affirmation and love that God speaks to each of us in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Some years ago at the very beginning of Lent, an Episcopal Church in coastal South Carolina placed three crosses draped in purple on their lawn. After a week or so, the rector received a call from the local Chamber of Commerce complaining about the crosses. “This is a big season for tourists,” they said. “We think those crosses send the wrong message to visitors who come to our beaches. People come down here for a vacation—not to be confronted with unpleasantness.” The church stood its ground. “It’s Lent,” they argued. “People are supposed to be uncomfortable.”

If you are here in this Episcopal Church for the first time in Lent or for the first time period, the beginning of today’s worship may have given you a similar perspective. The language in the opening rite talks about “evil and mischief; pride, vanity and hypocrisy; sloth, worldliness and love of money.” It is all part of a long list of petitions, chanted in procession around the church, in what is called “the Great Litany.”

Methodist Bishop William Willimon once attended an Episcopal Church in Lent and described the Great Litany as a “powerful and moving experience.” At the end of the service, one of the members of the church said, “I regret that you had to visit us today. This is not a fair representation of our church with that dreary procession and these dull hymns. Normally things are much more beautiful and upbeat here.”

No, this is not the norm for Sunday worship here. Given your choice, I would imagine that you would opt for the glorious music of Christmas, Epiphany-tide, Easter—or even Advent—rather than the more somber, reflective regimen of Lent. Lent is without a doubt the most countercultural of all the seasons of the church year.

If we are honest about it, we must admit that the post-Christian era in which we live is a success-worshiping, power-seeking, feel-good culture. Advertising slogans like “You owe it yourself,” “You deserve the best,” “Bu the very best” bombard us everyday. How do we balance that with what Jesus says: “Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me.” Yes, the words of the Great Litany chanted on this First Sunday in Lent are meant to give us pause.

The season of Lent always begins with another uncomfortable image—Jesus sitting in the barren desert being tempted by the devil. Immediately after his baptism by John in the Jordan, he is led there by the Spirit, delivered to Satan for his forty day exam. Actually, the test came at the very end of his forty day fast when he was tired and famished.

An electrical engineering and computer science major, Stephanie Yeh, was set to graduate near the top of her MIT class last year and start a six-figure job as a Wall Street analyst. She aced courses in electrical engineering and computer science and was ready to hit the ground running. But there was one more test that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology required before she could graduate: A swim test. She had to swim 100 yards. Yeh, who never learned how to swim, wondered why MIT would impose such a strange requirement, yet they are one of a handful that do. Her response was, “So, who cares if you can swim?” Was this test really necessary? Perhaps we could ask the same question about the temptations of Jesus in the desert. Was this test really necessary? Why, after the public affirmation by God that “This is my Beloved,” would the Spirit lead him into the wilderness to face this strange examination by the prince of darkness?

Consider again the MIT swimming test requirement. The article “Time to Sink or Graduate,” which appeared last spring in the Boston Globe also describes the ways students responded to the requirement. About half of the first-year undergrads jump in and pass the test during their first two weeks on campus. Others, who can’t swim or are afraid of water, take a Swimming 101 class.

But for many the class is a daunting proposition. These are MIT students. They overthink. “They want to learn what angle to hold their arms,” said an MIT lifeguard. “I just tell them to go ahead and try it; don’t worry about the numbers.”

The Reverend Christian Coon, pastor of Christ Church in Deerfield, Illinois, referencing this article, makes a comparison with the way we respond to the unexpected or unwanted “tests” in our own lives. “Some of us,” he says, “meet our challenges head on. Some avoid conflicts and put them off. Some think too much without doing anything. Maybe you’ve employed all three tactics. Jesus shows us a better way.”

In the wilderness those forty days and nights, Jesus just waits and prepares. He fasts. He prays. Then he confronts the Devil. He doesn’t overanalyze. He uses reason and faith. And that is the teaching we get on this very first Sunday in Lent: sharpen the art of intentional preparation for the tests in life we neither want not expect but, alas, are part of the requirement of being human. Fortify yourself as Jesus did.

The story we hear on this first Sunday of Lent is a story about how the devil tested Jesus to the core of his being, a story in which Jesus proves who he is not by seizing power, but by turning it down. Tests come in all forms. Sometimes they are outright confrontations with powers that prowl around us every day. There is the temptation to exert our power over others—and every relationship in life creates an opportunity to do that. There is the enticement to act “like God” by pretending to control our own fate and that of others. There is the temptation to get ahead at whatever the cost so that we can buy more, spend more, accumulate more material things and die with more toys.

Beyond our individual pithy persuasions, let’s also recognize how the temptation to use power permeates so many areas of life as in politicians who claim absolute moral authority; white supremacists and terrorists who spew hatred and inflict suffering in God’s Name; corporate bosses who exploit the working class while they get richer; religious leaders who argue as if God is only on their side. Then there are those tests that shake us at the very core of our being: serious illness, the loss of employment or our home, major depression, death—especially of the young, the end of a relationship. There is the temptation to abandon our relationship with God and despair of all hope.

We all know what to add to our own “great litany.” Just the reminder of what we could place on the list is enough to make us more than uncomfortable. The tests of our life can leave us exhausted as they did Jesus and we may wonder where are those angels, those heavenly resources that came to minister to him and which we so desperately need. And, like Stephanie Yeh, the MIT student, we may ask with good reason, “Was this test necessary anyway?”

Martin Luther believed that the chief temptation of the devil is to try to convince us that we do not have a gracious God. Our God is not a vengeful, rancorous, ogre who sits around devising ways to put us to the test. But that same gracious God has given us this thing called “free will” and with it the opportunity to make both wonderful and disastrous decisions. All of our choices have consequences. Our lives are shaped not only by what we affirm but also by what we reject. Sometimes we create the laboratories of our own testing. Sometimes we are given a really bad hand through no doing of our own. In all of these times, and no matter what the nature of the test, God is with us as God was in the wilderness with Jesus.

The Welcome piece in this morning’s announcement leaflet acknowledges that some of us may approach religion with less than happy memories of our prior experience. Lent, in particular, can take us back to those times when preaching had more to do with how bad and sinful we were than how much God loves us and has forgiven us. We may come here, feeling very much tested, looking for a respite, a vacation from the ugliness of our world—not to be confronted with unpleasantness.

Even in Lent, we offer a different brand of religion here at St. Paul’s and the root word of religion means to bind, to connect, just like the word ligament. An authentic religious community is one that knows how to take you in and to treat you so that you can bind and connect to God and to one another—especially when you are facing the ordeal of a test.

You may think that is a new approach, but it is actually very, very old. It is why Jesus came to us as our Savior and what he has asked us to do in his name.

Questions for our reflection: What is at the heart and core of our being as God’s community of faithful travelers? Do we believe in a God who is with us in our wilderness and even when we swim in deep waters and walk through fire? Will we share this wonderful blessing with others desperately seeking it? Yes, this test is really necessary.