Homily    First Sunday of Lent – February 29, 2004

 

Barbara Cawthorne Crafton – an Episcopal priest and author – challenges us about discipline – about what is most important to us.  She writes….

 

We didn’t even know what moderation was.  What it felt like.  We didn’t just work:  we inhaled our jobs, sucked them in, became them.  Stayed late, brought work home – it was never enough, though, no matter how much time we put in.

 

We didn’t just smoke:  we lit up a cigarette, only to realize that we already had one going in the ashtray.

 

We ordered things we didn’t need from the shiny catalogs that came to our houses:  we ordered three times as much as we could use, and then we ordered three times as much as our children could use.

 

We didn’t just eat:  we stuffed ourselves.  We had gained only three pounds since the previous year, we told ourselves.  Three pounds is not a lot.  We had gained about that much in each of the twenty-five years since high school  We did not do the math.

 

We redid living rooms in which the furniture was not worn out.  We threw away clothing that was merely out of style. We drank wine when the label on our prescription said it was dangerous to use alcohol while taking this medication.  “They always put that on the label,”  we told our children when they asked about this.  We saw that they were worried.  We knew it was because they loved us and needed us.  How innocent they were.  We hastened to reassure them:  “It doesn’t really hurt if you’re careful.”

 

We felt that it was important to be good to ourselves, and that this meant that it was dangerous to tell ourselves no.  About anything, ever.  Repression of one’s desires was an unhealthy thing.  I work hard, we told ourselves.  I deserve a little treat.  We treated ourselves every day.

 

And if it was dangerous for us to want and not have, it was even more so for our children.  They must never know what it is to want something and not have it immediately. It will make them bitter, we told ourselves.  So we anticipated their needs and desires. We got them both the doll and the bike.  If their grades were good, we got them their own telephones.

 

There were times, coming into the house from work or waking early when all was quiet, when we felt uneasy about the sense of entitlement that characterized all our days.  When we wondered if fevered overwork and excess of appetite were not two sides of the same coin – or rather, two poles between which we madly slalomed. Probably yes, we decided at these times.  Suddenly we saw it all clearly:  I am driven by my creatures – my schedule, my work, my possessions, my hungers.  I do not drive them; they drive me. Probably yes. Certainly yes.  This is how it is.  We arose and did twenty sit-ups.  The next day the moment had passed; we did none.

 

After moments like that, we were awash in self contempt.  You are weak. Self-indulgent. You are spineless about work and about everything else.  You set no limits. You will become ineffective.  We bridled a that last bit, drew ourselves up to our full heights, insisted defensively on our competence, on the respect we were due because of all our hard work.  We looked for others whose lives were similarly overstuffed; we found them. “This is just the way it is,”  we said to one another on the train, in the restaurant. “This is modern life.  Maybe some people have time to measure things out by teaspoonfuls.”  Our voices dripped contempt for those people who had such time.  We felt oddly defensive, though no one had accused us of anything.  But not me. Not anyone who has a life.  I have a life.  I work hard.  I play hard.

 

When did the collision between our appetites and the needs of our souls happen?  Was there a heart attack?  Did we get laid off from work, one of the thousands certified as extraneous?  Did a beloved child become a bored stranger, a marriage fall silent and cold?  Or, by some exquisite working of God’s grace, did we just find the courage to look the truth in the eye, and for once, not blink?  How did we come to know that we were dying a slow and unacknowledged death?  And that the only way back to life was to set all our packages down and begin again, carrying with us only what we really needed? 

 

We travail.  We are heavy laden.  Refresh us, O homeless, jobless, possession-less Savior.  You came naked, and naked you go.  And so it is for us.  So it is for all of us.

 

We begin this journey of Lent – We aim toward our true identity – we look to where we belong. And when we are true to ourselves – when we are aware of the divine within us – when we connect with the light within – we know what is truly essential – important.

 

Our first reading from the Book of Deuteonomy gives us an ancient liturgical scene. And in this scene Moses and his people act out again what is the essential fact – that God has intervened in their lives and gifted them. This is the essential fact. Their liturgical action – their offering of the first fruits is for them a sign of surrendering to what it at the core of all that they are and will be – it illustrates their dependence on this loving, saving God who walks with them

 

And Paul in his letter to the Romans continues this theme. Paul reminds us that anyone – anyone – who realizes with their lives that Jesus/God is the core of their being has all that they need to have. It is not just saying the words or reading the words – if we live the words and ingest the fact that Jesus is our way than we have it made – Paul says.

 

And finally, in the Gospel we see acted out the temptation story that we see each First Sunday in Lent. Jesus illustrates for us the posture we need to have – the power, the wealth, the added attractions that are offered are subservient to the really important thing – that God is the one that provides – that God is the one who saves and feeds and nurtures. This is where Jesus gets his strength – and so we should too.

And so our discipline of Lent would help us realize the message of our Word this day.

Our forty days – like Jesus’ forty days – should underline for us the essential things – that God loves us – that God guides us – the God is present with us.

If we fast in these forty days, if we celebrate the Eucharist more frequently, if we do more works of charity,  if we give up a favorite food or pastime, it is not the act that is important but rather the  place it brings us.  Hopefully what we do in Lent – an act of penance or maybe taking a quiet walk each day or sitting quietly or devoting some time in service of the needy – no matter what it is re-orients us and helps us to be touched by God.

Lent is above all not a time to overburden ourselves – it is a time to focus on the God who loves us. Lent is not a time to impose burdens but rather a time to surrender to God who lifts burdens. Lent is not a time for guilt or despair or sorrow but a time to realize how free we are because of God’s intervention I our lives.

 

We begin this journey of 40 days and listen to God’s Word to us. And as we continue on the path these days we pray that it will bring us to a Easter filled with joy at the closeness of our God – our guide.