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The First Sunday In Lent
Almighty God, whose blessed Son was led by the Spirit to be tempted of Satan; Make speed to help thy servants who are assaulted by manifold temptations; and, as thou knowest their several infirmities, let each one find thee mighty to save; through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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The First Sunday In Lent
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Scripture citation(s): Mark 1:9-15
A Sermon by
The Rev. Canon Carl Turner
on
Mark 1:9-15
✛
Our life...should cry the Gospel.
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As I was waking up one morning I heard disturbing news on the radio…In the early hours of Friday chaos reigned…6000 people had turned into a frenzied mob…22 people suffered from heat exhaustion and five people were so badly crushed they were taken to hospital. One man was stabbed. I waited to hear where in Iraq or Afghanistan this had happened…it had been at the opening of an IKEA store in North London.
As we begin Lent we are challenged by God to consider what is important to us and what we consider to be valuable and to get our priorities right.
We live, of course, in an age quite different from that of the Bible. There, facts and values are inseparable – “the sky is blue because God is good” and moral and ethical choices could not be made without reference to God’s commandments. In the Old Testament, human relationships echoed the relationship that God had with his chosen people; marriage, for example, was an image of the covenant relationship that God had with Israel. In the Old Testament reading today we heard of the covenant that God made with Noah – this covenant between God and humanity had a sign in the heavens – the rainbow. Now we know that a rainbow is created by sunlight refracted through droplets of rain but to the Jewish community it was charged with meaning as a reminder of God’s promise that he would protect them and love them.
By contrast, we live in an age where facts and values are separated and many people make no connection between faith and the world in which they live. For the Christian, then, Lent is a time for re-connecting our spiritual lives with those around us and, indeed, the world.
In today’s Gospel story Jesus begins his public ministry and he begins it in the midst of his own people with their own understanding of facts and values. Significantly, he begins in the water of the Jordan – itself a potent symbol of freedom from slavery and new life in the Promised Land. “The heaven’s were opened…” and for a moment earth and heaven are united – God reveals himself in Jesus Christ; but we are not allowed to dwell there for the Gospel writer uses urgent language – Immediately, we are told, ‘the spirit driveth him into the wilderness’. Why didn’t he begin his ministry straight away? Wasn’t his baptism sufficient in itself to inaugurate his mission to preach the Good News of the Kingdom of God?
Going into the wilderness to discover oneself is not new and it is also significant that it happens to Jesus immediately after his baptism in the River Jordan. After the Tribes had left Egypt on their Exodus journey they passed through the red sea – the waters were a sign of freedom – but they then spent 40 years in the wilderness and it was during those 40 years that their identity as God’s chosen people was formed. Crossing the Jordan, they arrived in the Promised Land leaner but more mature. In a similar way, Jesus, coming out of the waters of the Jordan now also has his wilderness experience.
Charles de Foucauld was a French priest living in Algeria in the late 19th/early 20th century. He is the inspiration for the Little brothers and sisters of Jesus who live in small communities, often in cities where they find wilderness experiences – solitude and contemplation amid the noise of the urban environment. Charles de Foucauld once said, “Whether our life be that of Nazareth, the Public Life or the Desert… it should cry the Gospel.”
How do our lives cry Gospel? Last week I reflected with you on Michael Ramsey’s understanding that the glory and the passion are one and that, ironically, through confession we can discover the glory of God in our own lives. This week we are have another irony – that in a noisy world we can find stillness; wilderness experiences that will allow the Gospel to be at the heart of our existence.
Once I was being considered for a job in a retreat center in East London. It was a very old foundation and the late Queen Mother was the patron. However, several railway lines, the London underground and several large roads leading into the city surrounded it. Opposite the center was a cement factory with large trucks coming and going all day. I was talking to a nun about this and complaining that I couldn’t possibly run a retreat center with all that noise. “So where do you go on retreat then, Carl?” she said, “Mount St Bernard’s Abbey in the countryside” I replied. She looked me up and down and said “Well, at least you can afford to go there. But if you can’t find stillness in the city then you will never find it.”
My friends, I think becoming people of stillness is very important and is a gift of Saint Thomas Church to this city. As I walk up and down Fifth Avenue I always have to avoid people staring at their smart-phones. I am now used to people seemingly talking to themselves as they make phone calls on the go and I recognise that it will be hard to get someone’s attention if I am ever in need because the chances are they will have their earphones blasting out music as they walk along the street. But maybe this is the key to living lives of stillness and maybe why people, such as the Little brothers and sisters of Jesus, choose the city for their wilderness experiences and not the beautiful countryside. Mark’s gospel is clear – the wilderness, the desert, is a dangerous and a noisy place – with its wild beasts and exposure to the elements – a kind of Fifth Avenue experience!
Jesus makes himself vulnerable in this environment in order to root himself in his own Good News. We, too, have the chance to discover stillness and solitude even here in New York – actually, especially here in New York. For remember, stillness is not the absence of noise but the centring of the soul on God.
So here we are, back to facts and values; this Lent we can take again the opportunity to become people of stillness – to find our own wilderness experiences in the city. In so doing we connect the reality of our lives with a yearning for God that will make us more Christ-like and able to see connections that many people will not even notice as they pass by this Church.
And don’t worry if you find it hard – it is! We have to persevere. Someone once asked Michael Ramsey on television how long he prayed every day. He scratched his head; “About a minute,” he said to stunned silence. …”But it usually takes me an hour to get there.”
