Do You See What I See - March 30

Do You See What I See

March 30/2014   1 Samuel 16:1-13 and John 9:1-41

All our readings this morning are about seeing – seeing the world not as we see the world but in the way that God sees the world – it is a pretty common thing for us as humans to assume that the world that we see around us and the assumptions that we bring to what we see is the way the world is – we forget that it is an interpretation of what the world is - through the filters that we have on our perceptions.  How we think we know what we see is what causes blindness –like the optical illusions we saw earlier our brain creates a story to make sense of something even if it is not a true story.   It is a question of being able to take the filters from our eyes so that we go in with fresh eyes not expecting to see something in a familiar way – then we can be open to see the world as God sees.

A good example of seeing in different ways is to look at how the world has been ‘seeing’ what has be going on with the loss of  Malaysian Airplane flight MH370 –. All that is known – really known at this time is that just over three weeks ago it took off with over 200 people on board and has not been seen since.  

Since that time there has been all sorts of speculation about what happened to the airplane and it’s crew and passengers.  According to the Globe and Mail on March 26, “The leading theories so far include a crisis that punctured the cabin, incapacitating the pilots by oxygen starvation before they could dive to safe altitude. Other speculation, drawing on the shutdown of communication and detection systems, focuses on takeover of the plane for malign purposes, whether by hijacker or a pilot bent on spectacular self-destruction.”  There has been speculation about the plane landing on some deserted island somewhere – and in the last few days two different search zones bases on information about how fast the plane might have been travelling.  There are a lot of smart people in the world right now trying to figure out what happened to flight MH370 – and to date no one has any physical evidence that they are on the right track.  As much as there are those saying they ‘see’ what happened to the flight – no one has seen yet what really happened and truth be told we will probably never know for sure – and even if the plane is found and the events pieced together with the clues it will still be speculation.  I wonder if we let go of what we expect to see whether or not we can become blind so that we can see what really happened.  We expect airplanes to land where they are intended, we expect countries that have monitoring systems to share information with each other, we expect that a plane load of people and what happened to them is a top priority for all nations and that they would be willing to share information that they have so that the plane can be found – we expect….but is that really what is happening in Malaysia and its neighbouring countries - has all information been shared?  Have all satellite images been handed over?  Is the radar path of the plane really not available?  How can we see what happened when so much of the picture is being covered up?

Samuel today is in the midst of learning to see things in new ways as well as all the information he needs is not available to him all at the same time – before Samuel can see the truth path that God has laid out for his people he first must lay aside his filters, his assumptions. 

A long long time ago, in the newly formed kingdom of Israel the God appointed king, Saul has become corrupt and ineffective.  Although at one time Saul was the right king for the country but his reign has become tarnished and the time has come for a new king to be appointed.  It is assumed by all that the new king will be one of Saul own children, but they too are not worthy of the crown.   Samuel, the high priest of the kingdom knew that all was not right in the kingdom, and he was disappointed in his King and knows that God is also disappointed in King Saul, but he is not sure what to do about it.  One night when Samuel was sleeping God came to him in a dream and tells him that he was the one who was going to anoint a new King.

And what do we and Samuel assume – that this new king will be one of the old kings children? – not so says God – Samuel is sent to Bethlehem, a small remote village to anoint a king from one of Jesse’s children.  Samuel has problem – how to listen to God and how to save his own neck because if the King gets wind that he is to anoint someone who is not a blood heir… but God offers a solution – take a heifer and say you are offering it as a sacrifice in Bethlehem.  So Samuel goes as God has told him to – offers a sacrifice.  While they are sharing in the sacrificial rites, Samuel begins to speculate which of Jesse’s sons God has chosen as Saul’s successor.  He looks them over as they come before the altar and enters into a conversation with God.  Jesses first son – big, strong, and beautiful – he will be the perfect king says Samuel – no says God – look deeper than that – look beyond the appearance – look into the heart.

How about the next one – Abinadab –or what about Shannmah – surely you one of these two is the one to become king?  Not these either or any other of Jesse’s seven sons – so what now God?  Says Samuel.

Ask for more Samuel – look beyond what you cannot see – so Samuel asks and discovers that there is one more son – the smallest / the youngest – out in the fields looking after the flocks.  And when he is brought in – this is the one that God has chosen – the smallest / the youngest / the one who looks the least like a king – David the shepherd.

This time of year one my favorite things to do is to re-watch the movie “Jesus Christ Super Star” – I love the music, and I love the story – it based mostly on the book of Matthew – and leads us through familiar territory – but what I love most about this movie is that every time I see it – I see something new / something different.  One of the pieces that I think is really good – is just how much the disciples do not know what is going on – how they are unable to see what is happening right in front of their eyes.  We have the vantage point of 2000 years of story – that is re-told and re-told and re-told – and we see the story of Jesus and his life through the eyes as people who know how it is going to end – but the disciples did not.  In one of the songs that Jesus sings – he speaks so well about the blindness of the disciples – and I think our blindness too

Jesus sings, neither you Simon, nor the fifty thousand – nor the Romans – nor the Jews – nor Judas – nor the 12 – nor the priests – nor the scribes – nor doomed Jerusalem itself

Understand what power is

Understand what glory is

Understand at all.

They could not see – even though Jesus was there in front of them, talking to them, living with them, teaching them – THEY did not GET It – They were blind – The did not see – we do not see!

This story we heard today from John challenges me to look at what it is that I am blind to – because I know that I too am like the Pharisees – I know that I too look for escapes – find excuses – look to close my eyes from the truth of Jesus message.  So I do not have to see what may be hard for me to deal with, so that I don’t have to change my comfortable patterns – so that I don’t have to change my life – leave my comfort zones – to think or act in some other way that is unfamiliar or uncomfortable for me – or to have to reach out to someone who frightens me, or shocks me, or I do not deem as safe.  If you don’t see any problems there is no reason to change.  

The thing about seeing something new – or discovering a new vision with in is that you only have two real choices you can forget about it, stay where you are and pretend that what you see is only a figment of your imaginations, like the Pharisees are trying to do in this mornings gospel reading or you can be open to the new vision and be changed – and you will never see things the same way again.

In the fifth book of Harry Potter – the whole book is based on the world around Harry unwilling and unable to see that which they do not wish to see – Lord Voldemort has returned – but only Harry has witnessed this and although he bring proof – the death of Cedric Digory, the wizarding world is determined to not believe it, because they don’t want to believe it, because if it is true than their world is no longer safe and secure.  The biggest perpetrator of the conspiracy to lie is Cornelius Fudge – the minister of magic and throughout the fifth book Fudge does everything in his power to silence those who seek to share with the world the truth.  He appoints a high inquisitor at Hogwarts whose  purpose is to make sure the rumors of Voldemort’s returned are quashed – at any price, through any means.  

Like Cornelius Fudge the Pharisees in today’s story cannot – will not accept that this man Jesus is anything more than a showoff and a sham – and not a representative of God – for if the Pharisees believed that is man Jesus is the son of Man, is speaking for God and acting as God wants and sharing the truth about God and the world than they will have to change – and everything that they know to be true would shift as well – because what if God does not really care about the rules – and instead cares about the people even if they are sinners or prostitutes or tax collectors.  What if God does not see the way the Pharisees interpret the laws as the only and right way to interpret the laws – what if they are wrong and are not doing God’s will as they think they are – what if there is another way?  

This is what God is challenging us to do today – to look at something different – to see another way - to see something through the eyes of God – to allow the mud and spit of Christ to open our eyes – so that we can see the world as we never have before.  Like Samuel seeing king in a small boy – and Fudge seeing Voldemort’s return, and the disciples seeing Jesus healing as more than just returning sight to the blind  – the gift of God’s sight helps us see beyond – helps us see deeper – helps us see more.  

Richard Hemler writes:  “how would the world look if we allowed Jesus to heal our blindness?  We might see leadership emerging in strange unexpected places.  We might hear God speaking through the voices of those who have been residing on the margins of our community.  We might find new ways of relating to God and each other – ways we had not imagined before, and ways that might bring new life to our ministry, our church and our community and to the people around us.  We might even dare to lift the veils of our own conventional ways of thinking to think outside of the box and see that God is greater than our ways of thought and being allow.  We might even discover a spirit we thought we had lost, a spirit that may bring us new ways of living in the world, new ways of being church, new ways of  loving, caring, sharing, being the good news of God.”  

So, let us take that extra moment to remove the filters that squew our vision – and see beyond the way we have seen before – open ourselves up to the possibilities of a new way to see and be.  And to trust that this new vision – even if it is hard to see and difficult to bring into focus – this new vision will be okay because God is with us and we are never alone.  The new king in the form of small boy, the new sight in the form of a man born blind, a new vision which God has for us, for our community, for our church, and for the world.  Let us be open to the new vision open to discover the movement of the Holy Spirit “that may bring us new ways of living in the world, new ways of being church, new ways of  loving, caring, sharing, being the good news of God.”  Amen.

Drip, Drip, Drip - Sermon for March 23

Drip, Drip, Drip

Exodus 17:1-7 and John 4: 5-42    March 23, 2014

Tomorrow is my mother’s birthday; she would have been 78 years old.  She died in the fall of 2012 of metastasized breast cancer which had moved into her liver.  My mother was a strong independent woman who loved her life, loved her children and grandchildren, loved her husband, loved to travel, loved to read, loved her friends.  Most of her life was well lived – but stuff happened, and things shifted and when she was entering her 50’s about the same age I am now – she developed Rheumatoid Arthritis, she learned to live with this new reality as painful as it was and transformed her life so that she accommodated her illness, and was able to still travel, still entertain, still work, still spend time quality time with family, and still read and was engaged in the world.  But as she aged and over time as the heavy duty drugs began to take their toll, life had no choice but to change – and what was once easy and simple became difficult and painful.  Eventually my mother developed breast cancer and diabetes.  Life became smaller and harder and much more painful – she underwent chemo, began measuring her blood sugar daily – and moved into a desert as her time between life and death became shorter – and the quality of my mother’s life decreased until it was confined to the couch, and needed someone with her at all time to help her with her personal care.  But into this desert of my mother’s life – of my mother’s death – came this stream of living water in the flow of friends that came and shared time, in the ripple of the grandchildren’s voices sharing special moments, in the cascade of laughter shared with daughters and husband in the celebration of the daily ups and downs of life.  We were in the desert and we were dry and parched and yet – drip – my mother’s love filled the house and drip my mother’s faith  comforted us in knowing that she was not afraid to die and drip as we journeyed as a family to her death our lives where filled with hope because we knew that she would always be in our hearts – drip, drip, drip.

The people of Israel are literally living in a desert – the air is hot and dry and so is the ground – covered with sand, and bracken – very few plants are able to survive in this harsh climate.  Food is scarce and so is water – they have complained to Moses about their circumstances and he has spoken to God, And God is provided manna – a daily scattering of a flakey substance that they are able to gather up and bake into bread.  But the people wandering in this desert remember what it used to be like when they were slaves in Egypt – for

·       there they had food

·       there they had all the water they could drink

·       there they knew what each day held

·       there they understood the order of things

·       there they had the same place to lay their head each night – in short – in Egypt although they were slaves, life was predictable which made it safer than what they were living now!

Now they were wandering in the desert with no real destination, following a man with a stick, who is reminding them of God’s promises but they seem pretty hollow when you are so thirsty you can’t think straight.  This desert wandering, manna eating, no water anywhere is sight is not what they signed up for when they agreed to follow Moses to the promise land.  But here they are – nevertheless – and as the people in the desert reflect on where they have been and have no real understanding of where they are going, they begin to grumble, and the grumbling gets louder and begins to sound like complaining which gets louder and begins to sound like hostility and resentment – and soon into this angry mob of thirsty desert wanders is a new sound – and it becomes the only sound that can be heard –THWAK! Moses takes that stick – and lands it not upside that heads of the complaining people but instead – Moses does as God directs him and hits the rock right in the midst of the people – and before the people understand what is happening long enough to stop complaining – water gushes out of the rock – cool, sweet, thirst quenching water –

·       water enough to assuage even the most deepest this thrist

·       water enough to remember what the journey you are on is about and that it is with God

And that this God – your God has released them from bondage, and saved them from tyranny, and parted the sea that now separated them from their enemies and protects yourthem returning to slavery and also it is this God that provided them with food and meat – this God, your God that quenches their thirst, quenches our thirst.  Drip, drip, drip.

In the movie, Under the Tuscan Sun the main character Francis at the beginning of the movie discovers that the life she has been leading has shifted.  The marriage she thought was stable is over.  Her world comes crashing down around her ears and everything in her life changes – her life becomes smaller and dries up and she moves into a time of desert.  The life she knew ceased to exist and she becomes unable to figure out how to get back on track.  She is given a trip to Tusconny, Italy by her best friend.  While there, on some sort of strange impulse she does not understand, she purchases an old Italian villa and moves her life to Italy.  In the front foyer of the house there is a water tap, she does not even see it the first time, she only discovers it because she bumps into it and scratches her arm.  She turns it on – but aside from some creaking and groaning of old pipes nothing happens – not a drop of water comes from the spigot.  And so her journey begins – her new life in Italy, becomes about the restoration of this villa, and simultaneously becomes about the restoration of Francis’ life as well.  As she develops relationships with her neighbours, her Polish contractors, her best friend – drip, drip, drip – slowly throughout the scenes – the facet begins to leak water.  First it is only a drip – then a bigger drip and a bucket is required to catch the water so the floor does not become too wet.  As Francis’ life changes and as she is releasing the life she used to have and embracing this new life, the flow of water increases and increases so that by the end of the movie, the tap is pouring forth water all over the floor.  A cascade of life and love, friendship and food, joy and blessing – water flowing from the villa – drip, drip, drip – living water.  

Our lives get dry at times; our souls get parched and dried out.  There are so many reasons we enter into desert spaces.  Sometimes it is because we

·       have lost a relationship with someone we have loved due to death, divorce, or estrangement

·       we have lost a beloved parent, or spouse or child

·       we have lost our independence due to aging

·       we have lost our health due to disease or accident

·       we have lost our dreams or our hopes or our vision of the future

·       we have lost our financial stability

·       we have lost ourselves in the midst of confusing times or strange circumstances

There are many ways to lose what we know and find ourselves in the place where we never wanted to be, living a life we never wanted to live, coping in the dry drab and dreary desert.  Sometimes we do not know how to cope, how to do much more than put one foot in front of the other and go on because that is all that the only direction that is possible to move in this desert time.  We have all been there –or we will all get there at some point in our life, because that is the way of things, this is what it is to be human – life is full of ups and downs – joys and sorrow – life and death - deserts and oasis.

Like the woman in today’s gospel story our lives sometimes get to that place of dryness, where the decisions that we have made for our lives are dry and barren, and life sucking instead of life giving.  How many of us have made choices that have led to dead ends or dry places where we were just getting by in the same old same old…

Sometimes we make a career choice or a relationship choice or a lifestyle choice that may have appeared to be the right one when the choice was made but over time we reach a point where we just function and we are not sure what  do – where to go – or how to change… but when we get to that place – that dry desert place of knowing that something needs to shift – that our direction needs to change – drip, drip, drip – Jesus comes and has a conversation with us – about God and life and hope and choice and decisions and newness and drip, drip, drip – the living water begins to flow.

Jesus comes as he came to the woman – when she was least expecting to have an encounter with God – Jesus came, and from the simple request of providing him a drink, this woman’s life took on a new purpose, a new direction, a new hope and a new calling.  Jesus came and challenged the direction she was going – and her ability to look at her life honestly and to accept that she had to change directions.

David Lose offers this reflection on the woman’s decision:  “And here, …, is the part of the story that witnesses to her transformation. For in terms of John’s story and world, this nameless woman has pretty much everything stacked against her: she is a Samaritan in this Jewish story, a woman in a male-dominated world, has lived a challenging and probably tragic life, and is very likely dependent on others. And yet after her encounter with Jesus she leaves her water jar -- perhaps symbolic of all the chores and difficulties of her life -- behind to live a new and different life and to share with others what God has done for her.
What, I wonder, holds us back from living into the future God has prepared for us and sharing the news of what God has done? What, that is, are the jars we would like to leave behind, trading our past tragedies and present challenges for the living water Jesus offers?”[1]

In a moment we are about to engage in a ritual that offers to you a promise of support, care and nourishment in the bread and the cup.  This sacred food that we will be partaking in, offers to us not only nourishment for our bodies – but also our souls, our spirits.  It too is living water – a moment of grace offered to you to consume to remind you that the gifts that was received by the woman at the well – are our gifts as well, and are offered to us to support and sustain us through even the driest desert.  

Drip, drip, drip – the living water is offered to you.   Drip, drip, drip, living water is producing new ideas, inspiration and insights…drip, drip, drip – living water is offering new opportunities, choices you did not see before….drip, drip, drip – living water is offering you a new direction, a road less traveled but fulfilling and satifiing…drip, drip, drip – living water and what was once dull and dreary is being transformed and what was once dry and parched floods into our lives, our souls and the world.  Living water, this symbol of life, this symbol of blessing, this symbol of grace,  this living water that drips into our lives in the midst of despair, reminds us that God is always with us and we are never alone.  This living water that comes THWACK out of stone hit by a stick is ours to quench our thirst, to nourish our souls to revive and re-invigorate us for the journey that we go on with our God.  Remember, the drip, drip, drip of grace is eternal and ever present and life giving and can assuage even the driest of deserts and quench even the deepest of thirsts – Thanks be to God.  Amen

---

[1] David Lose:  Leaving it All Behind:  https://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?m=4377&post=3111

Lenten Practice - Day 10

 

Lenten Practice:  Photo A Day

March 15 - Day 10 - Fresh Flowers

I love fresh flowers in my home, especially at this time of year.  It reminds me that there are bulbs underneath the earth right now waiting for the snow to melt and the earth to warm up so that they can do their spring thing and bloom.  Tulips are especially spring like for me.  One year in early May, I began an internship in Ottawa - just before the Tulip Festival - over my first few days and weeks the city became alive new growth.  The tulips that the city has planted all around were wonderful, and plentiful and gorgeous.  It was such a time of learning and adjusting for me, and the tulips that were blooming in that time became symbols for me about the ministry I was engaged in.  I was matched with a 2/3 time community chaplaincy and until that time I had not been close to people that lived on the margins.  Like the tulips that sprung up out of the cold hard earth of winter these people too thrived in less than ideal circumstances.  

Psalm 55:16-17  But I call upon God, and the Lord will save me.   Evening and morning and at noon
   I utter my complaint and moan, and he will hear my voice.

 

March Break Activities - Day 8

Crafting at the Painted Turtle in Wairton - An Easter Tree

March Break Activity

 

Digging out the summer toys from the snow

Lenten Practice - Day 9

Lenten Practice - Photo A Day

Dirty Snow - Day 9 - March 14

The end of our driveway has a pile of dirt on the top of the snow bank - I comes, I think from two sources - a couple of days ago the township grated the snow pack off the road and piled some of the excess snow at the foot of the driveway - and then the snow is melting slowly - four degrees today and as it melts the dirt shows up.  I think this is a truth for our humanness as well - as the outer layers of ourselves dissolve the grime and guck that we have picked up along the way gets exposed.  And for a while - it sits exposed until it can be washed away by the spring rains.  Seems a little like grace.

Psalm 95:7-9  For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture,
   and the sheep of his hand. O that today you would listen to his voice!
Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah,  as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, when your ancestors tested me, and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.

Lenten Practice - Day 8

Photo A Day - Lenten Practice - Colour in Grey

Day 8 - March 13

It is hard to see but the bush in the front of the shrubs is completely covered in red berries.  The middle of a grey bush, where everything looks dead and desolate, a bush covered in colour and food.  The harvest of the previous year is still on the tree - and it reminds of the seasons in the misdt of the harshest season.  Soon spring will come, soon the seasons will turn it is the way of things - life moves, seasons change and winter becomes spring.   

Psalm 50: 1-2   The mighty one, God the Lord, speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting. Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines forth.

March Break Activity

Play over

Lenten Practice - Day 7

Photo A Day - Lenten Practice - Day 7 - Flying Finches

The bird feeders have had plenty of action today - and I discovered that my computer's camera can make my pictures seem alive like "Harry Potter" pictures - but it give the effect of what is going on in the feeders - one bird, a few birds, many birds - they all fly away and it begins again.  No matter how many times they come to the feeder - and no matter how many days they find food and safety here they are still very skitterish - and the least movement - even inside the house has them all flying away - but not too far - just to the edge of the property into the apple tree.  I am thinking that I behave like this in some way - not ever completely trusting some situations, being ready to fly away at the slightest sound or movement.  Sometimes this is a good survival skill yet at others this behaviour deprives me of opportunities because I have flown away before they begun.

Psalm 119: 64 The earth, O Lord, is full of your steadfast love;
   teach me your statutes.

March Break Activity - Skiing in the Bitter Winds - Wednesday

Short Cold Ski Together

March Break Activity - Tuesday in TO

 

The cousins at the Science Centre and the 123 Sesame Street doorway

March Break Activity

 Baking Bread on Monday

and playing together

Lenten Practice - Day 5

 Photo A Day Lnten Practice:  Day 5

Virginia Creeper - March 10
I planted this Creeper four years ago, hoping that it would climb and cover the post and brick in the front of the house.  I love houses covered in vines, I think they are really beautiful.  This plant however, too a while to preform,  It was way slower than I hoped and it was not until this past summer that this vine began to show the potential that was promised by the people at the nursery where I bought it.  It takes a while for potential to emerge.  It is something I need to remember when I get impatient about the time it takes for something to take root and grow.  Parenting, ministry and life in general is a process, and things take time. 

Psalm 41:13  Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,
   from everlasting to everlasting.Amen and Amen.

Wilderness - Temptation

Temptation

March 8/14

As most of you know I have been on a journey since 2011 around what I am able to eat and more importantly what I am no longer able to eat.  It all began with not feeling well and losing weight and a general malaise – I still do not know what started it but one day I thought I was able to eat what I wanted to eat when I wanted to eat it – and then I was not – and all of a sudden food I had eaten all my life cause me much discomfort – bread, eggs, baked goods, chocolate cake – pasta and cream sauce.  I had a bunch of tests, went to doctors, 2 MRI’s, 2 scopes, 3 Ultrasounds later – and still there is no name for what it is that ails me – but a couple of health practitioners have helped me understand that there is now and will always be certain foods that my body no longer is able to tolerate and if I wish to be comfortable in my body, I need to no longer eat them – or drink them too.  I have had to give up tea – and even though I still want to be able to eat and drink as I once was able to – even though I am tempted to eat a sandwich or a piece of cake – and drink a pot of tea – I can’t.  Even if a serpent coiled down a tree and offered me a piece of chocolate cake – and this used to be my favorite thing, with the promise that I would suffer no side effects – I still would not.. I still – or would I?  That’s a tempting offer…hmmm, what harm does a piece of cake do?

What harm does knowing the difference between good and evil do?  What harm does eating the fruit offered by the snake do?  Temptations….what are your temptations – what beguiles you?  What entices you away from what you know?  What seduces you into behaving in a manner that is not authentic?  What are your temptations?

The temptations before us are those things that take us away from living in relationship with God and with each other
The temptations before us are the voices that drown out the insistence of God that we who contain the very spark of God are beloved and belong to God.
But this season, in alerting us to the temptations to which we might succumb, also offers us a way out.
Because the season of Lent offers us space for reflection.
The six weeks between now and Easter invite us into re-discovering who we are as children of God and rediscovering Gods divine spark placed in us as we were created.

We do things a bit strange in the church – it is one of the things I appreciate about the church is that we live in the world just a little bit different than the rest of the world.  Take for instance the yearly cycle of the church.  We measure time differently – what for the world the New Year begins the first day of January In the Church it is the first Sunday in Advent.  Easter, our most sacred of celebration days is not on a set day in a calendar, it changes every year and is decided by the cycle of the moon.  Our church year is not attached to the secular calendar of national holidays and long weekends, they focus on human nature and God’s timing.  The season of Advent marks the coming of the Christ, the season of Epiphany reminds of the light of God at work in the world, Ordinary time reminds us of the wonderful truth that it is midst of the very ordinary march of days God gets into our lives and into the world.  We now begin the purple season, the season of Lent, the time to remind us that Easter is coming, and so we take time to prepare ourselves to be ready to experience the significant gift of life and death and resurrection that Easter represents.  Lent gives us 40 days to prepare our hearts, prepare our minds and to prepare our spirits, to re-experience the joy of Easter.  All of us have times in our lives that we feel distant and far away from God, and Lent offers us the opportunity to explore this separation, and to grow closer to our Creator. 

Lent begins in the wilderness.  Lent has often been equated with a wilderness journey.  It is not only in our Christian story that we find the wilderness as a place of learning, refinement and deep encounter with God – our Hebrew ancestor’s  lived forty years in the wilderness, learning how to be a people of God no longer slaves to the Egyptians.  Moses spent 40 days on a mountain and found God in 10 commandments.  Elijah spent 40 days in a desert and searching everywhere for God and eventually found God in a still small voice.  Ancient civilizations of all ilk use wilderness time as refinement and growth time.  Think about vision quests that our Native brothers go on as an initiation ceremonies, or walk about that aboriginal people of Australia have journeyed on.  Rebecca Lyman writes:  “Our modern attraction to wilderness is often the heightening and clarification of self through natural beauty in the absence of civilization, but in the Bible wilderness is not a national park, but a place of isolation and death. Infested with demons and seemingly without God, this untamed and unknown place was entered only at great risk. To be in the “wild” is where one can become lost and die. This is the root of our word “bewildered,” which goes back to the physical and emotional state of being lost. 

And this is the place that Jesus goes to today.  We have jumped back in time from the mountain top transfiguration experience of Jesus we read about last week, and are now at the beginning of his public life.  He has just be baptized by his cousin in the Jordan and still wet from that encounter, he goes out or is driven out into the desert, into the wilderness.  The next 40 days and nights are his pilgrimage, his crossing from a life of obscurity to public ministry, from life as just another regular person living in the ancient Mediterranean world, to becoming a popular preacher and healer that attracts so many people to hear him that he becomes a threat to the religious authorities of his day and eventually leads him to the cross.   Wilderness is the place he goes to clarify his vision, his vocation, his purpose, and his relationship with God.  The place where he goes and encounters temptations – the temptation to leave who he is and what he knows about himself and God.  

David Lose writes:  while the “content” of the devil’s temptations include the capacity to turn stones to bread, call upon angels for safety, and the promise of power and dominion, each again is primarily about identity. Notice that the devil begins by trying to undermine the identity Jesus had just been given at his baptism in the previous scene. “If you are the son of God,” that is, functions to call that identity into question. As with his exchange with Adam and Eve, the devil seeks to rob Jesus of his God-given identity and replace it with a false one of his own manufacture.

Notice, too, that Jesus resists this temptation not through an act of brute force or sheer will, but rather by taking refuge in an identity founded and secured through his relationship with God, a relationship that implies absolute dependence on God and identification with all others. Jesus will be content to be hungry as others are hungry, dependent on God’s Word and grace for all good things. He will be at risk and vulnerable as are all others, finding safety in the promises of God. And he will refuse to define himself or seek power apart from his relationship with God, giving his worship and allegiance only to the Lord God who created and sustains him.” (David Lose:  Dear Working Preacher)

So where are our wildernesses, what are our temptations?  Very few of us will ever get the opportunity to take a month and a half and go out into the bush alone.  Our lives do not permit it.  Yet we all have had wilderness time, wilderness moments. The wilderness is more than a place on a map, it is also a place inside ourselves, places of barrenness, places of loneliness, places of fear, of hopelessness, of sadness, and focus.   Maybe it looked like a hospital waiting room to you, or empty apartment or house you moved to after your relationship failed, or the empty rooms in your house after your youngest child headed out to independence.  Maybe it was that empty place inside, that happened after you lost your beloved partner.  Sometimes wilderness is a grey bleak place within ourselves that seems impossible to get out of and you have no idea how you ended up there in the first place.  Barbara Brown Taylor  “Wildernesses come in so many shapes and sizes that the only way you can really tell you are in one is to look around for what you normally count on to save your life and come up empty.  No food.  No earthly power.  No special protection--just a Bible-quoting devil and a whole bunch of sand.

Needless to say, this is not a situation many of us seek.  Most of us, in fact, spend a lot of time and money trying to stay out of it; but I don't know anyone who succeeds at that entirely or forever.  Sooner or later, every one of us will get to take our own wilderness exam, our own trip to the desert to discover who we really are and what our lives are really about.

But – and here is the hope, here is the grace, here is the love:  There is God, in the midst of wilderness, in the midst of sorrow, grief, and the depression and the anger, and the fear and the loneliness – there is God.   

"Go to the place called barren, 

Stand in the place called empty. 

And you will find God there." (author unknown)

The Spirit of God breathes everywhere within you, just as in the beginning, filling light place and dark…green earth and dry. Thus does God renew the face of the earth. God always breaks through at your weakest point, where you least resist. God’s love grows, fullness upon fullness, where you crumble enough to give what is most dear

Where are our wildernesses?  Where are the places that we come to the end of our own resources and we need to let go of the presumed control and open ourselves to the angles that will minister to us -   This is the gift of wilderness.  This is our journey with God.  

I am not promising that this journey into lent / into the wilderness will be easy or comfortable – but I am promising or more to the point – what God is promising is:   challenge and purpose, hope and love, and most of all companionship for the journey, grace in the midst of struggle, guidance in all things and hope for the future.  As we share in a moment the sacred food – taste the nourishment for that will sustain you on your wilderness wanderings.  With promises like that how can you not trust the unknown and walk with confidence out into the wilderness, trusting that you are never alone, that God is with us....Thanks be to God.  Amen.