The Matter of Lent & Beer on St. Patrick's Day

Sermon from Sunday, March 5, 2017. First Sunday in Lent.

Scripture: Matthew 4:1-11 (Temptations in the Desert)

Lent is one of the seasons of the church in which, sometimes, you need a resident theologian at hand. Like the ‘call a friend’ option from the TV show, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

• Can I eat chocolate?
• Can I drink?
• What happens on St. Patrick’s Day – cause, you know, it falls on a Friday this year.
• What is Shrove Tuesday all about? And why do we squish it with Ash Wednesday? Isn’t one a celebration and the other too heavy to feel celebratory?
• Why do we always start with repenting? Repent is my trigger word – how do I avoid it?
• What the heck is Lent anyways?

So, here’s a quick primer, this first Sunday in Lent. The word lent means ‘spring’. Lent is the forty days, not including Sundays, from Ash Wednesday to the Saturday before Easter Sunday. The number forty comes from the forty days Jesus spent out in the desert. Lent is a time of repentance, fasting and preparation for the coming of Easter. It is a time of self-examination and reflection. We usually spend Sundays looking at some significant moments in Jesus’ ministry and explore what those moments mean for us today and in our relationship with God.

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent. We are reminded that it is from God’s beloved dust and it is to God’s beloved dust that we will return. We are not perfect but we strive to be better. On this one Wednesday every year, we go to church remembering who we are, and hopeful of whom we can be. Shrove Tuesday comes from a long tradition of preparing for the ritual fasting during the Lenten season by eating richer, fatty foods the night before Lent begins. Shrove Tuesday is the time you empty your pantry by making what you have into savoury pancakes. In the United Church, we struggle with ritual at the best of time and to do something two days in a row might be asking too much. As well, many urban churches rent out space – Tuesdays, for some reason, are busy nights and so some ingenious person suggested combining the two, have pancakes first and then go get your ashes. It’s a good system considering since most of us do not actually fast during Lent so it’s not necessary to empty our pantries at home. And it’s great that the men’s group cooks for us—the best meal is always the one you didn’t have to make yourself. Am I right or am I right? And because our faith tradition doesn’t emphasize fasting, it’s between you and God if you have a beer on St. Patrick’s Day and, as far as I’m concerned, chocolate is a food group in and of itself, so no, do not deprive yourself of chocolate.

Which brings me to our trigger word, repent. John the Baptist called people to repent before he baptized them in the River Jordan. What is that all about right? This United Church of ours does not linger long on topics that do not seem to uphold a loving and just God. So, to have a confession each service or to be called to repent at this time year can feel uncomfortable. It seems to go against the understanding of our church that adherence to a strict doctrine is not required to be counted with God’s people. In order to enter into this sanctuary, to be welcomed through baptism, to receive the bread and the cup of Communion, does not require a test, a pledge to be said, a document to be signed. Confession often goes hand in hand with repenting so this is why, at this time, we speak words of admitting where we have done wrong, where we have not been at our best, we speak these words aloud and with each other when we extinguish the purple candles as we make our way through Lent and to the darkness of Good Friday. We do this together because this is what being church is all about—not being alone in our struggle and in our pain of being human, of living in God’s world that is broken and not yet whole.

To repent is turn away from what feels broken in your life, the wrongs you’ve may have done, the hurt you may have caused, the grudges that prevent you from offering forgiveness, the loss that sits upon your heart like an open wound. In repenting, we turn away from what feels broken and turn our faces towards God. Towards seeking healing and wholeness. It is not a test. It is not something that can be done once and never need to do again. Not if you are human anyway. Whether it is the hurt that has been done to us or the hurt we have done others, becoming healthy of heart and mind is work that is ongoing for each and every one of us.

I cannot help but wonder if this is why Jesus went out to the desert. We are told very little of the life of Jesus before he arrived at the river to be baptized by his cousin, John. One might suspect that he lived a life that was rather ordinary until that moment, in his early thirties when he decided to make a significant change in his life. There was a time that I found Jesus’ strength to continue saying no to the complete power Satan was offering to be the inspiring part of this story. But lately I have been wondering what it is that drove Jesus into the desert in the first place? What took him to the river to be baptized? Was it simply a matter of timing, that the spreading of John’s teaching hit a tipping point and it was time for Jesus to finally make a commitment to what he had been listening to from the fringes of John’s believers? Or was there a specific moment that occurred in his life that took him to the river?

It has been said that Jesus, as an average male of the time, would have been married and yet there is no mention of marriage in the Gospels. Some say that marriage was such a normal event that the Bible, being a series of stories of extraordinary events in the early of the first century, would not mention something so usual. Or could it be that the marriage ended which propelled Jesus to seek out John and then out to the desert? If not the loss of a dear one in his life, could another tragedy of happened which freed him to start listening to God calling him into ministry? What did Jesus have to repent for in his life? And, for those of you who will tell me later that Jesus was perfect and nothing to repent, remember that Jesus did not always behave the best he could have—he lost his temper, he withheld healing from a child, he was irritable with his disciple—granted, the disciples were awfully dense at times but nonetheless, there were cranky moments throughout his ministry.

Each time I am asked to preside at a funeral, I pray for God’s love to be known and that the deceased and their family be held close by God. I also pray the following for those of us who have gathered to say goodbye: God, give us the strength to name to you, any regrets or wounded places which may keep us from knowing your healing touch. It takes a great deal of courage to deal with regrets and wounded places. To repent is to make yourself vulnerable. Repenting is to look into your heart and know the fullness of truth of your motives, your agenda, your fears, your hopes, your dreams. And recognize that they are not always pure, in the best interests of all those in your life or for the common good. Repenting also includes acknowledging that you might be stuck, stuck in grief, stuck in pain, stuck in doubt, stuck in feeling lost, abandoned, forsaken. Life is not easy and there are moments that each of us have experienced that the balance of what is good and right is stacked against us. Life can be cruel and unfair. Feeling angry or disappointed with God is natural when we find ourselves mired in the pain of moments like these, these times that we find ourselves out in the desert, trying our best to turn away from our let-downs and learning how to turn our faces back towards to God.

When the number forty is used in the Bible, it is to mean a very long time. So, Jesus spending forty days in the desert means that he was there for what must of felt like an eternity. Other than Satan, whom I imagine was not a very good cook, Jesus was alone. No solid three meals a day, no easy access to water, boredom, too much time to think. I don’t know about you but, as a mostly extrovert, the thought of spending that much time alone is enough to set my head spinning. There was this time, when Narmada Centre was still going strong, that I asked the program director what a week-long silent retreat would be like. She described the not speaking to other people for hours on end and all the self-reflection that would be encouraged. As she is talking, I began to think, ‘oh my gawd! that sounds HORRIBLE!’ and my eyes got a little teary cause I honestly could not imagine doing anything more difficult than spending that much time in silence. She got this funny look on her face and reached out to touch my arm. She very carefully said, maybe you’re not ready for a silent retreat. I couldn’t help but agree with her. So, my point here, is that Jesus spent a lot of time alone. He had hours, days, weeks to reflect, to examine, to explore all that it was that took him out to the desert.

We ourselves, also have forty days to do the same. And so, I urge you not to rush through your Lenten journey of reflecting, of repenting over the next six weeks. This is hard work. And in this work, unlike Jesus, we are not alone in the desert. Church, by definition, are the people of God coming together to work, pray and learn together. We do not need to be alone in our regret, our pain, in our hurt. There are people amongst us who face uncertainty with their health, with relationships with people they trusted beyond measure, with people they love beyond any other, they grieve the loss of a loved one, they struggle with issues of mental health, they are lonely, hurting, despairing.

For some of this healing to happen we need to recognize that even Jesus felt forsaken at the cross. He felt lost, abandoned, in his most desperate hour. It is not wrong to wonder where God is in all this mess of our world, of our lives. Part of being in the desert, is searching for God. Is waiting for God to show up. To make love known. Brene Brown, the author of the book that some of us are reading together, it’s called Daring Greatly, defines vulnerability as uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure. To make your way, our way, through the deserts of our lives, we need to be vulnerable. We need to be willing to enter into a zone of not knowing what the outcome will entail, of not knowing what might be gained or lost in the endeavour, of how our hearts might be forever changed. You are invited, for the next six weeks to allow yourself to be vulnerable, to explore, to reflect, to examine, to repent, to turn away from what hurts and turn towards God. And remember, that you do not need to do this in isolation. We can do this, each of us, together, supporting and loving one another. For you are not alone. We live in God's world. Thanks be to God.