RonBlog

Sunday 26th February, 2012 First Sunday in Lent

Sentence
The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the good news.
Mark 1: 15
Collect
O Lord, Who for our sake fasted forty days and forty nights; give us grace to use such abstinence, that, our flesh being subdued to the spirit, we may ever obey Your godly will in righteousness and true holiness, to Your honour and glory, Who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end.
Amen
Old Testament Lesson Genesis 9: 8 – 17

God said to Noah and to his sons with him, "As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth."
God said, "This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth." God said to Noah, "This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth."

Psalm 25: 1 – 10
In You O Lord, have I put my hope: in You have I trusted, let me not be ashamed, nor let my enemies triumph over me.
Let none who wait for You be put to shame: but let those who break faith be confounded and gain nothing.
Show me Your ways, O Lord: and teach me Your paths
Lead me in the way of Your truth and teach me: for You are the God of my salvation.
In You have I hoped all the day long: because of Your goodness O Lord.
Call to mind Your compassion and Your loving-kindness: for they are from of old.
Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions: but according to Your mercy, think on me
Good and upright is the Lord: therefore will He direct sinners in the way
The meek He will guide in the path of justice: and teach the humble His ways.
All the paths of the Lord are faithful and true: for those who keep His covenant and His commandments.

Epistle 1 Peter 3: 18 – 22

Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you--not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.

Gospel Mark 1: 9 – 15

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased." And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him. Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news."


© New Revised Standard Version of the Bible
Copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the
Churches of Christ in the USA, and used by permission. All rights reserved


NOTES ON THE READINGS
Old Testament
While there remain many people who tend to look down the nose at the tales and sagas of the Old Testament, it remains an interesting source of understanding quite something of the development of the early Hebrew Faith. Never forget that the ‘faith once delivered’ was not set in concrete and the ancient worthies appeared to be quite clear about that. The Biblical record shows the obvious marks of development in the understanding of God and of life – development that persisted over a couple of millennia.
The Flood narratives are particularly interesting for several reasons. First of all, here is no coherent account of the tale, but a conglomeration of several previously editted stories from different sources. What is particularly obvious is that the inclusion of this saga series underlined a marked move away from the perception of God as punitive to one of restoration however difficult the process. The reiteration of the story is surely the clear and positive statement that the early Hebrew Faith saw past a destructive divinity to one who determined – so to speak! - not to follow such a path.
A great deal could be said about this passage, indeed of the entire Flood saga. What needs to be understood most of all about the first 11 Chapters of Genesis, is that no Jew to my knowledge has ever understood these tales as other than parable, myth, or if you prefer, imaginative use of widespread stories to convey a particular conviction about what it means to be human and alive on this planet.

Psalm
I find it interesting that the authors of the Lectionary, when choosing passages for this First Sunday in Lent, offer a choice of following faith or turning one’s back on it. Basically the Flood Narrative has to do with choice as much as what I have written above; and here the ancient psalmist ponders the outcomes of a choice for or against the Lord.
Fairly obviously, Psalm 26 must come early in the history of psalmody, but even so the aspects of God’s faithfulness, justice and truth come with firm statement. To my knowledge, no then contemporary ‘divinity’ ever had such an emphasis. But here it is, and it is a remarkably redemptive vision.

Epistle
I do not know how this rather enigmatic passage strikes you – for it has provided a great amount of confusion for most commentators that I have read. Apart from the emphasis on the atonement, there is that rather fascinating comment about the ‘spirits in prison’ that seems designed to meet the concern of people at that time about the chances of resurrection for any who had died before the time of the Crucifixion. As you might imagine, it must have been quite an issue for contemporary people, and here is the answer. The Gospel works as well backwards as it does forward, do you see!
One suspects that modern Christians would express it rather differently, As most people would see it nowadays, the Cross, indeed the entire Christ event, was never something limited in time and space, but rather is the expression of God’s eternal approach and care for people of all ages, times, cultures and situations.

Gospel
Mark’s Gospel always bears the marks of shorthand and some speed in creation. Here in a brief passage the entire business of Jesus’ baptism and temptations are focussed. In Years A and C it is possible to explore the nature of Jesus’ temptations and the reasons behind it. Here the simple bald statement seems to hold a slightly different aspect.
Do you follow me when I suggest that here, in brevity, is embedded the matter of call and commissioning of Jesus, and its immediate connection to the harsh realities of life. Whilst one may have thought that the calling to be Son of God would be accompanied by all manner of protection and benefit, Mark made it quite clear that no such benefits occurred. It was a matter of Jesus being ‘dropped in the deep end,’ with Mark’s added emphasis about wild animals. That illustration has more to do with human wild animals than it does with the usual feral ones.
As you and I are most aware, it never was an easy path or sinecure for our Lord. Not only did He have the awful responsibility of pointing to the only real answer to the human dilemma, the only real means of reconciliation and hope, but also had to live through the most awful of experiences to express it all in the events of His life – and death – and resurrection.
Never imagine for one moment that Jesus was some sort of puppet-on-a-string Who had to endure everything because it was God’s will. Even the period of temptation (echoed as it was from time to time in the ordinary processes of His life and ministry) makes it clear that Jesus could have opted out at any time. He had no more superhuman recourses to call on than you and me. The profundity of His commitment is all the more memorable because it was so totally human. We misunderstand the entire Judaic-Christian Faith if we ever assume otherwise.

NOTES FOR A SERMON

I was saddened enormously recently when I heard a member of our congregation comment that ‘how could our children understand the Faith, when we parents do not?’ One wonders from what direction such a comment came, and then one goes on to see that if that is the faith being offered, then it is small wonder that so many today reject the convictions of Christians. While today’s readings, to my mind at least, offer a choice to follow or refuse to follow, the direction offered is certainly not to some sort of cloud-cuckoo land.

It must have been something like 40 years ago that I suggested to congregations when I preached about the Temptations of Jesus that the complete reality of choice had to lie in front of our Lord. In other words, that there was always the possibility that He would, like most of His human colleagues, surrender to the pressure and give in. The very nature of the temptations, described by Matthew and Luke, indicate that He was facing a choice of leadership styles, how to gain a following. And where would we be if Jesus has succumbed to the pressure?
Our Lord rejected each of the other paths – miracle, bread and circuses, and falling down and worshipping Satan. Obviously this latter path towards leadership is one still used often – turning the truth into a lie and vice versa. Here was no ‘spiritual’ test of direction, but one that should be the test of anyone human. Caring, not control is the issue; self-giving, not egotism is the aim. Had Jesus failed in this, the Gospel would have been emasculated, as rather too often it is by preachers who know not of what they speak. Once one begins to see that the faith once delivered has far more to offer in terms of life here and now rather than the life to come, then a far wider context and relevance of the Faith emerges.

Before anyone looks down the nose at those ancient Creation Stories, myths if you dare, of Israel, please do stop and see what is being offered here. Never fall into the trap of thinking that Israel began by seeing JHWH as sole God and Creator. These stories did not reach their final editing until at least the 8th Century BC, at least 1,200 years after Abraham. In other words, Abraham and his heirs and successors were still under the perception that the God Who called Abraham was only one of who knew how many – and the fascinating thing is that the first encounter with this God was not from nature but from encounter in ordinary life. (It seems fairly clear to me that old Abe had long been dissatisfied with the cultus where he lived, and looked for something more relevant.)

I ask you to take a long step from that background to the tale of the Flood, to notice a couple of issues worth absorbing. The first is that, when one takes a step back, this story is a refutation of the concept that the gods, including JHWH, are punitive. This section of the story, with the promise of the rainbow, underlines – it you like to put it this way – that God Himself sees the pointlessness of a punitive response to humanity. ‘Tis a pity that S.A. Correctional Services does not follow this path towards restoration. Also, the entire story, rather oddly editted as it is, underlines the whole matter of choice. From the beginning of the tale, all people in the story had the chance to find the way of escape. They were not forced to ignore the warnings.

Choice: one of the very great gifts of being human. I can choose to be stupid, or to be sensible. I can choose to follow wherever truth indicates, or to turn a blind eye. Earlier last year I responded to a series of barrages from atheists who expressed their anger that Christians isolated them from the Gospel. My response was to remind them that they were completely free to choose their atheism, even if it ran against the evidence from which they manage to hide themselves. Anyone is free to do anything, and the result of that is fairly obvious whenever you open your newspaper, watch TV news or see news items on the Internet. Freedom of choice is surely one of the liberties that should be available to everyone on the planet. Lack of it is one of the factors that produce so much unrest, hatred and war.
As the readings unfold, it becomes quite clear that all of today’s readings underline the freedom of choice, for believer and unbeliever alike. The Psalmist is aware, quite obviously, of the sensible direction to choose, and the Epistle underlines that same freedom in Jesus – and thank heaven He chose the way He did. (If you can handle this, one wonders how many people may have been called as was Jesus and failed to choose truly. If that concept bothers you, don’t worry: I have often wondered how many ‘Abrahams’ were called before the actual one ‘stood up and was counted.)

And then Jesus’ Baptism and Testing. The former was as much a statement of God’s support of Jesus as it was of Jesus’ commitment to His sacred calling. But the next item on the agenda was to present both a choice of directions to leadership and a choice to remain true to the calling and Divine agenda. (See notes on Lent I in Year A and C to follow through that series of readings.)

Choice brings responsibility. And that is where rather too many people part company with the Faith. Just as Jesus knew that His calling brought enormous responsibility – and dared to uphold that right through all the vicissitudes of His life, ¬ - so a similar challenge falls at our own feet. And part of that challenge, seems to me, is to look past so much of the populist ‘theology’ of today to see where the real truth and real challenge lies.