Homily – First Sunday of Lent – February 13, 2005

 

 

Why do we need this season of Lent?  What should it do for us? Perhaps it’s meant to correct our path – to redirect us – to focus us.

Jesus’ ministry was meant to do that – to point us toward the reign of God. The fact is that we can’t stand still – we’re moving one way or another.

 

There was for instance the story about an Alabama man who planned to profit from a simple burglary.  He entered a house and began clearing out the valuables. He came across a .44 Magnum and accidentally shot himself in the calf with it.  However, despite the fact that a .44 Magnum makes a very painful, dangerous wound, he obviously could not take his problem to the hospital. About this time, the woman who lives at the house returned home.

 

So the burglar felt he had no choice but to tie her up.  That added seriously to his original burglary offense.  How wounded, the man needed a car.  He stole the woman’s.  Grand theft – auto.  However, the pain and loss of blood from his leg wound were causing him to drive rather erratically.  That attracted the attention of a police officer.

 

The burglar pulled off the road in his car and the policeman pulled up behind him.  The fleeing criminal, now desperate, shot through the windshield of the patrol car and wounded the officer.  However, the patrol car was still moving forward and managed to run over the shooter.  Although the car didn’t do much damage because the burglar was in a ditch as the car passed over him, neither that nor the complication of the attempted murder of a police officer was improving his day.

 

Next, the Alabama man fled into the woods on foot.  Somewhere back in the woods, he apparently came close to a moonshine still or a marijuana patch. At least that is the best explanation for why someone put there .22 caliber slugs in his posterior.

 

Now, obviously in no shape to walk, he stole another vehicle.  However, he actually had to crawl to this car. When the police finally captured the man, he had been shot four times and run over once. He faced charges for attempted murder, armed robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, two counts of grand theft-auto, and a host of lesser crimes.

 

When we read that familiar story in Genesis this day we see that the sacred writer affirms the fact once we distance ourselves from God – once we would deny God’s power over us and care for us the next steps carry us further away. We can find ourselves, like the Alabama man in much deeper than we intended to be. We only wanted a piece of fruit and then….. Continue reading the book of Genesis and read of the downward spiral.

 

But we have to be careful as we enter this Lent not to think that what we need to be concerned about is Adam and Eve – to point the finger back and lament what these prototypical parents did to us.  We do all that too easily. If we’re not blaming Adam and Eve we might well be blaming someone else – if they hadn’t done this or that I’d be sailing smoothly today. I have not choice but to act the way I act – it’s been handed to me.

What this Lent time is for us instead is a time to rediscover God and uncover ourselves. Not hiding behind the fig leaves we would hope this Lent to stand before our God as we are and recognize God’s presence and power and love and mercy. That is what our Lent needs to be about. And so we begin it.

 

Walter Brueggemann, the scripture scholar points out to us the main point in our reading about Adam and Eve in the Garden. He shows us that the original state, the starting point was God acting in the lives of God’s creatures. God, who called creation into being and then called humankind to be its steward, calls out to them. But the creature’s former attentiveness to God’s call and to God’s directives has been relinquished.  Now the preoccupation is “I.” The central focus of life is not God but me. What the story of the garden tells us is of the shift of consciousness – the focus is no longer on the loving creator but on the will and the whim, the comfort and the desires of the created.

 

And of course they know they have shifted the attention – and they hide – they can no longer look God in the face.

 

And so for you and I we have to wonder where we are with all of this. How have we chosen to shift our attention from our baptismal covenant – how to we look only upon ourselves and ignore the force of life? In other words, how do we separate ourselves from God?

 

What are those things that we must change or surrender in order to be clothed again in the baptismal garments of white? Maybe it’s our pride and our unwillingness to depend on God; maybe it’s a failure to pray as we should; to think before we speak or to leave unsaid those words that hurt more than physical blows. Fr. Bill Bausch suggests that we not think of ourselves as biblical scarlet sinners but as the daily, dusty pink ones. We don’t have to be gravely denying God’s presence – we’re usually milder in our sins.  Maybe we haven’t visited an ailing friend enough. Maybe there were words of love we couldn’t bring ourselves to say, friendships left to wither, relationships unattended, moral lapses, little lies, face-saving untruths, the off –color or ethnic jokes to let everyone know how regular a gal or guy we are, the suppression of really revealing our spiritual yearnings, our terrible hunger for God, for meaning, for love.

 

But all these and so many other daily actions can reveal our lack of zeal for wanting to be close to our God.  We fall for what looks easier – feels better and seems to make sense.  We don’t have the dramatic temptations that face Jesus in the desert. Our temptations are perhaps even more insidious – they sneak in on us.

 

And so we begin Lent.

 

We enter these forty days trying to figure out how to be closer to God – knowing that we have to make room for God. And that probably means a bit of discomfort – a bit of change – a correction in our path.

 

But the result is that we heading toward Easter and our baptismal promises and a refreshed life. We know that the Genesis story tells us that God is searching for us and trying to get close to us. Let’s use these 40 days to make room for God.