HOMILY FOR THE FIRST SUNDAY IN LENT
The Cathedral of St. Philip
March 5, 2006
Canon Todd Smelser
Before the seventh century, Lent began not on Ash Wednesday but on this day, the first Sunday in Lent. Since Sundays are always Feast Days, in order to get the math right and have forty days of preparation before Easter, our church fathers and mothers set aside the observance of Ash Wednesday with all its solemn and dusty images. As we were reminded in Wednesday’s liturgy, this is a season marked by fasting, penitence and alms giving. It is a time to reacquaint yourself with the Good Book, to attend a Quiet Day or to discover a new ministry of outreach. It is a time of preparation for Baptism at Easter; and a time when notorious sinners,( and you know who you are), are restored to fellowship of the Church. It is a time when we are all invited to seek forgiveness and reconciliation in our lives and our relationships.
In our first lesson for today we hear how our forbearers in faith, the ancient Hebrews, saw in the rainbow a sign of God’s covenant with Noah, and through Noah, with all humanity. But in the chapter preceding this one, we are reminded that things with creation had gotten out of hand. “The wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.” But just as Adam and Eve were archetypes of first humanity, so Noah and his sons Shem, Ham and Japheth, become a new beginning for the Hebrews. The ark is made to carry Noah and representative creatures of all creation to safety as the waters of the great flood destroy all in its path during the forty days of the deluge. But after the flood subsides God makes a rainbow as a sign of God’s covenant with Noah and with this new humanity, and with all of creation. God also promises that “I will never again curse the ground because of humankind.” Despite the inevitability of human sin and our tendency to forget what God has done for us, God hangs the bow in the clouds as a reminder of God’s promise and eternal covenant God makes with God’s people.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus too had a new beginning. Mark’s Gospel, which we believe was the first Gospel written, is lean in details but strong in action. The story begins with Jesus’ baptism, not in the deluge but in the knee-deep waters of the
From this story it is certainly easy to draw a parallel to our own modern experience. The constant business of many of us distracts us from paying attention to the inner life, the life of the Spirit. Sometimes it is only when we get away and spend quiet time apart from the daily distractions that we can confront the demons within ourselves. It is often in the struggle when we realize that we too are ministered to by angels, with the promise that God will bless and equip us for God’s service in the world.
Sin is not the usual topic of conversation in our culture, or even in our community. It is rarely even a topic for sermon writers. But the reality of sin, of separation from that which is good and holy, is unavoidable. Deep down in the human experience we know all that all is not as it should be. We know the temptation of reaching for the forbidden fruit, or pushing away the loving arms, or using our power over someone else, just because we have it. Anger, resentment, envy, lust, greed—all the forces of the deadly sins, are still very much alive in us, and in our society, and they continue to have the power to alienate us from the source of life and the way of love.
Repentance begins with the decision to return to right relationship; to accept our baptismal vows and our place in God’s community; to choose a way of life that increases the good of all. “All our sins are attempts to fill voids,” wrote the French philosopher Simone Weil because we cannot stand the hole inside of us, we try stuffing it full of all sorts of things, but it refuse to be filled. All addictions are only substitutes for that which cannot be replaced. The void rejects all substitutes. It insists on remaining bare.
Just as the church becomes a bit bare in Lent, so too are we invited to honor and hold the bare space in our spiritual lives. We also are invited to enter our own wilderness experience—to find the time and the place in which we can more deeply encounter God’s presence and love, and to consider what kind of new life God might be calling us into. For it is only in the wilderness where we can confront our beasts, and but also be ministered to by the angels. As Barbara Brown Taylor has written, “Perhaps our temptation and our sin are our only hope, the alarm that wakes us up to the true possibility of repentance.”
For many of us, the Lenten journey will end at the baptismal font, where we will once again renew our baptismal promises, where water will be sprinkled on us as a reminder of God’s love, and where Jesus’ triumph over the power of sin and death will be celebrated. As we journey through Lent, may we be people who look for the signs and God’s love and action in the world—for the rainbows. May we be people who carry on Christ’s work of reconciliation in the world, accepting and sharing God’s love and forgiveness for us and for all humanity? May this season of Lent be one of transformation and spiritual growth for you—an opportunity for new and refreshed life in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Comments? Contact The Rev. Todd Smelser: tsmelser@stphilipscathedral.org