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SERMONS

The First Sunday in Lent
March 5, 2006

Lent 1B

One day a family of five were enjoying a day at the beach. The children were swimming in the ocean and making castles in the sand when in the distance a little old woman appeared. Her gray hair was blowing in the wind and her clothes were dirty and ragged. She was talking to herself, as she bent down to pick things up from the sand and put them in her bag.

The parents called their children in from the water. They told them to "stay away" from the old woman. As she passed by bending down and picking things up, she turned and smiled at the family. The smile was not returned.

Many weeks later, through one of those coincidences that we have all had, the father learned that the old woman had made her end of life pilgrimage to pick up bits of glass from the sand so that children would not cut their feet as they played on the beach. {Anthony De Mello story}

"Appearance verses Reality." What a job God has on his hands with the likes of reasonable and rational creatures like us. Appearance verses reality riddled the life of Noah. Felling and dressing trees, spending his time and his fortune on a great boat so that he and the creatures of the world might survive a great flood.

Noah's vision, a great boat sitting in the midst of a desert that would become water, the appearance of foolishness verses the reality of hearing and obeying God's call; and we all know the rest of the story. I do not doubt that Noah and his family became persona no grata in the surrounding countryside. I do not doubt that parents warned their children against the queer old man obsessed with his boat, talking about God ending the world.

One of the ways that we try to get our hands around the story of Noah is to domesticate it, and turn it into a children's story. Overlooking those disturbing phrases in Genesis spelling out the circumstances. " . . . every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually . . . the Lord was sorry that he had made mankind . . . it grieved his heart . . . so the Lord said I will blot out from the earth the human beings that I have created."

When we read the entire story, we realize that it is not really a children's story at all. It is a story about how God is able to destroy and how God is able to save. "God said to Noah and his sons with him, As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendents after you . . ."

The significance of the ark is not that two kinds of every animal are saved.

The significance of the ark is that within it rests the faithful and obedient heart of Noah; a person with ears to hear and eyes to see and a heart to trust; this is the irreplaceable treasure. Noah's ark is a crucible of faith, the flood a kind of baptism by fire, which comes in the form of water.

The invitation of Lent is for us to make a similar journey within ourselves as we follow Jesus from his own baptism into the wilderness of our lives. We may have to risk a kind of holy foolishness. We may have to move past appearances into reality. As we hear in I Peter, the flood that Noah faced, and his faithful response, prefigure the baptism we share as followers of Christ.

Notice that after Jesus shares in the water of baptism, that he does not go on retreat, or take a sabbatical for further reflection. Jesus is immediately driven into the wilderness where he faces himself and the powers in this world that threaten to undo God's work. Jesus begins conquering this world by conquering the world inside himself; it is there that he faces the powers and principalities that threaten to destroy God's creatures.

During the season of Lent we walk in the holy foolishness of Noah, we look to the courage of Jesus in the wilderness, so that we might engage again those temptations and voices that would turn us and the world from God. It is sometimes the business of being thought a fool. It is sometimes facing what frightens us most about ourselves. It is the business of treading that thin line between appearances and reality; who are we, and whose are we? Are these children's stories, or perhaps are they stories of the ultimate allegiances in our lives?

One of the temptations that we face as Christians is that we will want to experience the joy and certainty of the empty tomb of Easter before we have walked in the way of the Cross of Calvary.

It is the Spirit who invites us not to fool ourselves; that we do not fool ourselves into believing that there will be no test of our mettle, no trying of our intentions, no invitation to become empty and rely solely upon God.
It is the weighing of the appearance of fidelity, verses the experience of its reality.

We follow our Lord into that place of complete trust, into the wilderness of temptation, knowing that God is faithful. We take our first steps with Noah and Jesus knowing that two faithful hearts have cut a path through the shadows and illusions, through the snares and temptations, of this world; keeping holy a place for God in a world that would snuff him out. Whatever rejection or temptation we meet, God means for us to make the journey and to trust him.

As we weigh our appearance and our reality during this holy season, we do not stare into that abyss alone. God is leaning over the edge with us, holding us, giving us eyes to see, and ears to hear, the truth about ourselves. And we are lead into this search not so that we might be lost, but so that we might be forever found and held close.

We walk in the words of the Psalmist: "Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; In you I have trusted all the day long."