On the first Sunday of Lent the lectionary Gospel reading is an account of Jesus' temptation experience. That experience is told in each of the first three Gospels. Matthew and Luke give details—the content of the temptations, three in number. In contrast, Mark, from whose Gospel I just read, gives a succinct account of Jesus' temptation—few details, just a statement that it took place in the wilderness, the haunt of wild animals, and a statement that Jesus was cared for by agents, or messengers, or angels. The word translated as angels can mean messengers or agents as well.
What kept coming to my mind as I read these verses from Mark's Gospel was the statement that the Spirit (God's Spirit) drove Jesus into the wilderness after his baptism. In both the Old Testament and the New Testament the wilderness signifies a lonely desolate place. In the Book of Exodus, the Israelites wandered for forty years in the wilderness before reaching their destination in Canaan. Wilderness places are reality for women and men, and for nations, for civilizations.
People who don't know the Bible very well are often shocked when they discover it is populated with people whose lives were anything but easy. From beginning to end the Bible shows us women and men who struggled with the meaning of life, who suffered depression, physical sickness, loneliness, fear, loss of home and family, and who often wondered where God was in the middle of such wilderness experiences. The Bible insists that God was right there with them, surrounding them with love, in the good times and the bad, the occasions for joy and the places of pain.
The fact that Jesus was driven into the wilderness and needed the care of angels reminds me that I used to think life was like climbing a hill. You struggled, worked hard, and eventually you got to the top where the landscape was more friendly. Once you got there, you could relax and enjoy yourself and other people. I used to think most of the people I knew, my contemporaries especially, had made it up the hill and were savoring the good life at the top of the hill. I felt I was one of the few people still climbing.
Eventually I learned a couple of things. I learned I was mistaken about the other people, the ones I thought had made it to the top of the hill. I discovered they were still climbing like me. The more people I got to know, the more I learned that no one was on a level place at the top of any hill.
Now I don't think of life in terms of hill-climbing. The image that works for me now is that life is like traveling through a forest. Sometimes there's a lot of underbrush and it's hard to see the pathway at times. The trees are close together, and sunlight is scarce. But you keep going, and eventually you come to a clearing. The sun is shining and the air is clean. It feels really good. But then you're across the clearing and into the woods again. And you keep going, knowing you'll come to a clearing again, a nice big clearing where you can stay for awhile.
The forest and the wilderness are not exactly the same, but they symbolize an essential reality. Nobody gets through life without experiencing disappointment, pain, and loss as well as happiness and fulfillment. It's all part of the journey. Some of it makes the newspapers and television news shows. Most of it doesn't. People get sick, for no apparent reason or because they haven't taken care of themselves or because we collectively have fouled the earth and polluted the water we drink and the air we breathe. People get sick because deterioration is part of the aging process, and we live in a culture that tries to deny the reality of aging.
My personal experience is that aging can be a positive experience. It certainly has its challenges, but I don't think life without challenges would be very interesting. The Bible teaches us the value of wisdom, usually assumed to be a characteristic of a people's elders, though not limited to them. And some older people clearly lack the quality of wisdom. Watch The Price Is Right some morning if you need proof of that.
Jesus was driven into the wilderness by God's spirit. You and I will spend time in our own wildernesses as we journey through life, and God will be there with us, comforting us, affirming us, and pointing us toward the fulfillment that lies ahead.
In our society some people are driven into the wilderness because the culture tells them they are flawed, or they don't belong, or they'll never amount to anything. Eric Holder, our new Attorney General, has reminded us with some awkwardness that the conversation in America about race is far from over. We've made lots of progress, thank God, but racism is alive and well in our land. In the Church we need to remember that only a hundred years or so ago, main-line theologians were arguing that the white race was superior and that the Negro race, as they called it, was inferior. The Church has sometimes been the source of desolation wilderness for groups of people, including women and most non-Caucasians.
Too much of the Church continues to perpetuate the injustice and indignity visited on gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, and transgendered people. I don't always watch the Academy Awards, but I'm glad I did last Sunday night. The screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, accepting his award for Milk, gave eloquent testimony to the pain endured by young people who hear their parents, their churches, their politicians, and some of their friends tell them they are "less than." The speech is on YouTube, and the comments are an indictment of too many churches. One comment is, "God says homosexuality is a sin." I'm tempted to send the commenter my sermon on How Not to Read the Bible. But it's too long for YouTube.
Thank God we are clear in this church about the worth of all people in God's eyes and about the equality before the law every person deserves. I continue to be amazed at letters published even in the New York Times claiming that marriage is a religious matter and that people's religious views against gay marriage need to be respected. Sorry. Marriage is a civil matter, and as such requires full equality under the law. I very much hope we will soon have a federal law mandating that all the privileges of marriage be available to any two people entering into a committed relationship regardless of gender. I would be happy in every case to call it marriage.
The Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness where he struggled with temptation. The last component of wilderness I want to mention this morning is the global financial morass confronting us. I acknowledge that I am not a trained economist, but I read what many economists are writing and I listen to some of them when they speak. Opinions are all over the map, and all kinds of people are offering rescue plans.
A few days ago in the waiting room of a doctor's office, I read something in an issue of New York Magazine. It was a couple of weeks old. The writer was saying that while the public's outrage at the behavior of bank presidents was understandable, we need to remember that their huge salaries and the huge salaries of their counterparts in other financial institutions fund much of this city's culinary and cultural life. He went on to argue that even the quarter million dollar bonuses given to people two years out of college or graduate school have validity, because they ensure a depth of talent necessary in our financial institutions.
I wanted to ask where that depth of talent was when the banks and brokerage houses were collapsing under the weight of their own foolishness. As I listened to the economist Robert Johnson on Bill Moyers' program Friday night, I heard the statement And what happened to the markets over these last twenty-five years. They created a lot of wealth for a few people relatively, and then passed the losses onto the public."
That's when I started thinking like a theologian. It's clear to me that the whole sweep of Biblical truth roars out in judgment against such practice. Israel's great prophets cried out against the economic exploitation of the poor by the rich, of the powerless by the powerful. When I heard Robert Johnson describe our culture as "money driven," I thought of the Biblical perspective that says money in and of itself is morally neutral. It can be a force for good or for ill. But the love of money, the narrowly-focused pursuit of wealth with no regard for the bigger picture, is a recipe for disaster.
And so we are in a wilderness of our own making. We have all been seduced by visions of privilege with too little regard for generosity toward others, mutual accountability, or even basic honesty. Thank God for the reminder last Tuesday night that there are bankers who see the wisdom of sharing large profits with all the employees of the bank and not with just a handful of top officers. Last November Leonard Abess, Jr. sold his majority stake in a Miami-based bank and distributed sixty million dollars of the profits to all the present employees of the bank and many of the past employees of the bank. People like Leonard Abess are beacons of light while we travel through the wilderness. Google his name for more details of his story.
We need light for life's journey. Last Wednesday there was an article in the New York Times focusing on the tendency of universities to play down the importance of the liberal arts in times of economic difficulty. Some people are arguing that literature, philosophy and religion contribute little to the marketability of people seeking employment in today's work force. A Yale law professor, Anthony T. Kromman, thinks otherwise. He writes that
"the need for...the humanities is, if anything more urgent today," referring to the widespread indictment of greed, irresponsibility, and fraud that led to the financial meltdown. In his view this is the time to re-examine "what we care about and what we value," a problem the humanities are extremely well-equipped to deal with.
I hope as we journey through the season of Lent this year, we will talk with one another about what we value and how our faith shapes what we care about. I hope we will share with one another stories of how God's presence has made a positive difference in life for us or for people we know. It is in the telling of such stories and in the sharing of our tears and smiles that we come to clearings on our pathway through the forest that is life—life in all its fullness, life centered in love, God's love and the love we have for one another.
Thanks be to God.