Wild Grace

First Sunday in Lent Yr A
March 1, 2020
St. Michael’s Episcopal Church
The Reverend Canon Michael J. Horvath
Gospel: Matthew 4: 1-11

On this first Sunday in Lent, we follow Jesus into the wilderness, and watch Jesus face the fullness of his humanity.  He is "famished" after forty days of fasting. Physically, he's at the end of his strength, and fasting for any length of time can literally break you.  Socially, he's alone and friendless.  Spiritually, he is struggling to hang onto his identity as the brightness of his baptism recedes into a hazy, pre-wilderness past.  And it’s in this state of vulnerability that the tempter comes, ready to pull Jesus away from his belovedness, and his vocation.

A “wilderness experience” is usually thought of as a tough time in which we endure discomfort and trials. The pleasant things of life are unable to be enjoyed, or they may be absent altogether, and one feels a lack of encouragement. A “wilderness experience” is often a time of intensified temptation and spiritual dryness. It can involve a spiritual, financial, or emotional drought. It feels like a time of testing.

The idea of a wilderness experience isn’t something new.  This is not the first time we read of individuals in the Bible encountering them. There are several biblical examples. The people of Israel, in leaving Egypt, experience a miraculous deliverance through the Red Sea.  Yet what follows is a journey through the desert which stretches over forty years.  Others who can be said to have had a “wilderness experience” include the prophet Elijah; the apostle Paul in Galatians; and, of course, the patriarch Job.

For those who live into the season of Lent, it can be a time when spiritual practices can help us focus on those broken or dark parts of our lives and seek God’s grace in them.  To be frank, I’m always a bit surprised in the many ways we can rationalize ourselves out of self-reflection.  It’s unpleasant to shine a light on where we fall short in our relationships with others or with God.  It’s hard to say “You know, I could have acted better in that situation.”  Who likes trying to having to figure out our role in an argument with a friend, or neighbor?  They’re always wrong, aren’t they?

In reality, none of us is untouched.  We all have wildernesses that we are crossing – famished, alone, and spiritually dry.  We all have something for which we need forgiveness or reconciliation or healing.  When we are angry, sad, resentful or full of regret, we are in the wilderness, a place God does not want us to be.  And when we continue to hold on to that anger, sadness, resentfulness or regret for any length of time, then we are condemning ourselves to a long stay in that wilderness.  And our time in that wilderness expresses itself in our very bodies.  The physical effects of holding on to these feelings include heart attacks, tense muscles, asthma, insomnia, ulcers, and high blood pressure. And many people, perhaps yourself or others you know and love, have held on to feelings of anger or sadness for years!  How many of you are still clinging to such anger or sadness?  I think I can safely say there are a lot of us here who do.  And when we don’t confront that anger and sadness within us and ask God’s help to heal our hearts, then what happens?  We usually perpetuate the anger and sadness in our relationships with others.  We can’t help but do so because those feelings have become such an ingrained part of our being that we present them to others without even knowing it sometimes.

And that’s where the grace of Lent can really be helpful.  When we take the time to figure out where our wildernesses are and what happens to us when we are lost in them, then we can offer them up to God and move towards real forgiveness and reconciliation not just with our neighbors, but with our God.

Edwin Friedman’s Family Systems Theory says that the way we were treated and how we acted in our family of origin when we were young is the way we show up in our organizations of choice – those include workplaces, circles of friends and, yes, even church.  The idea is that how you engage with someone today is shaped by your past relationships with your parents, siblings, and extended family, and that you carry those painful experiences of your early childhood traumas into the relationships you have here if you haven’t made peace with them.  And so if you are speaking with someone in church who reminds you of your overbearing father, you are going to have the same reaction to that person as you did your father.  If you are on a parish committee with someone who reminds you of your competitive sister, the one who is always right and whom you need to prove wrong, then you’re going to feel towards that person the same way you felt towards your sister at the worst point of your relationship with her.  And if you’re not self-aware, you risk entering into the same relational dynamics that result in the same dysfunctional relationships you had with your family.  Ask yourself when you are in a group of people and someone triggers a sense of anger or resentment, who are they in your family?

But it’s not enough to be aware that someone reminds you of unresolved issues with a family member and so you act and feel the way you do.  The true healing, the path that leads us out of the wilderness, is the understanding that life can be different.  It comes, sometimes with the help of a good therapist, from the understanding that you are not the child or adolescent you once were, and no one here is your overbearing father, your strict mother, your competitive sister, or your frigid brother.

One of my spiritual advisers told me that this is especially fraught for clergy, because once we put on our collars, they expand into large movie screens onto which people project their needs.  If we don’t set good boundaries, we run the risk of instantly becoming father, mother, deceased husband, deceased wife, ex-husband, ex-wife, or the sister or brother you’d like to punch in the nose.

But I am none of those people, not for you, not for anyone.  More importantly, you don’t need me to tell you that you are loved unconditionally, that you are worthy of God’s grace, that you are blessed, because you are already, just by virtue of being God’s own.  Instead, we might want to try to come together as we are, which takes a bit of vulnerability and lots of trust – and then be courageous enough to walk through the wilderness together.  When we are all able to do that, then we all walk as the Body of Christ.  And when we are able to do that, we are truly a church instead of a bunch of lost souls.

Where is your wilderness? What do you need to stare at and make peace with and grow into while you are there?

The dangers are real, but that’s also where the grace is. Perhaps that’s how we should be thinking of today’s story. Jesus is baptized and will soon begin his ministry, but before he does that, he goes out into the wilderness. He faces dangers and is able to come out on the other side of it grounded in grace. We don’t read that result in the text, but I think we can glean it readily enough in the sub-text.

Because otherwise what is the point of his wandering in the wilderness for forty days and preparing if he doesn’t face his fears and his demons, and find the grace and courage he needs to launch his ministry? I  believe that’s the preparation that Jesus undertook in his time in the wilderness and that’s the task given to us now.

We have this holy time to pay attention – to sit in our own wilderness and listen and learn and grow – where we are called to pay attention to the temptation towards anger, resentment or despair, as well as to the grace that saves us from them; where we are called to develop our courage and strengthen our spirits. This is a moment of opportunity if we allow ourselves to see it and to use this time wisely.

It’s easy to be tempted to make light of Lent and to think that it’s a quaint, if not archaic, liturgical season -- as just some invented pre-text for Easter.  It’s not about giving up chocolate or wine or cigarettes and replacing them with other things that feed our carnal desires.  It’s about allowing the Holy Spirit to enter us so fully that the only thing we can taste, and the only thing we want to share with others, is God’s love.  This Lent, go deep into the wilderness, as deep as you dare, because I assure you God is waiting for you there. Amen.