40 years, 40 days:  Toward a reborn faith
“Why?”
1 Lent old lectionary
Genesis 22:1-14 / 2 Corinthians 6:1-10 / Matthew 4:1-11
21 February 2010


If you are about 40 or younger … chances are, today is the first time that you have heard those three Scripture readings, together, as a unit, on the First Sunday in Lent.
For our 40th anniversary season here at Nativity, Worship and Music chose to go back to the lectionary (or specified Scripture readings for each Sunday) which were read during Nativity’s first Lent of worship, back in 1970.  
These readings we heard today and will hear through this season of Lent are part of the historic lectionary of the church.  They are the Word which was read in weekly worship from the sixth century until the mid 1970s – until, about 40 years ago, when most church bodies which use the lectionary system of rotating Scripture readings (Lutheran, Roman Catholic, Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian) went to the ecumenical three-year cycle of readings … the advantage being, we get to hear more of the Bible read in worship, than in the same one-year cycle of readings, read year after year.    
I’ve been a pastor since 1994, and I’ve never preached on these grouped readings.  Bishop Boerger has been a pastor since the mid-1970s, and I’m sure he has never preached on these combinations of readings (though he will have his opportunity when he’s here in a few weeks, to help us commemorate our anniversary on the 14th of March.)
They are a curious combination … the familiar, if disturbing, story of Abraham and Isaac, and Abraham’s testing.  Paul’s carefully balanced list of adversities and virtues, which he has been through in his ministry.  And Jesus’ temptation by the devil in the Wilderness.
Somehow, somewhere, someone … a group of someones long ago … decided that these three stories go together well, that they give a strong, coherent message for the first Sunday in Lent, one which everyone should be able to catch and hold onto and leave worship, with that message, making it part of their lives for the week to come, and beyond.
And that’s precisely what I’m afraid of this morning.
Because, at first pass, the combined message of these texts can sound … crass.  Cold.  Uncaring and unfeeling.  Unattainable, and incredibly difficult to bear.

“God himself will provide, my son.”
“As servants of God we have commended ourselves in every way.”
“Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.”

In the face of incredible testing … Abraham, asked to kill his own son; through incredible trials … Paul always finding something good to counter the bad, to remain faithful … Jesus, resisting every temptation of the devil …
I mean … how does that sound to us?
Us, who have been hammered with some incredible burdens and testings?
Us, who struggle to find any good in the onslaught of bad?
Us, who may find Jesus’ example in this story super-human, as in, impossible for us to imitate?
These are difficult, difficult words for us.  And it doesn’t help that, over the centuries, the decades, even in our own lives … well meaning friends and family, coworkers and preachers have used these texts … in their interpretation of them … as an easy springboard to pass along equally well intended but trite messages, like “let go and let God” … “God never closes a door but he opens a window” … “trust Jesus, it’ll all work out” … “just accept God’s will and have faith and all will be well.”
I call that kind of condescending God-talk, “head-pat theology” … “there, there; it’ll all be OK.”   
These are words which can do far more harm than good.  Especially during this season of Lent; a time when the church, church leaders, have always been about encouraging us to “go deeper” in our faith walk with the Lord.  
How much deeper, how much further, will we be willing to struggle with our faith, when the response we receive is, “There, there; it’ll all be OK …”
Why should I bother?  If all I get is a pat on the head, or a pat answer, and then, sent politely away … if my struggle is not addressed or engaged by another … friend, family member, and the church … well, then, no one really wants to listen to, or care, about me.  Not people.  And, probably, not God – at least, if his representatives are any indication.
That’s what I mean about the fear these texts bring.  
None of the people in them, not Abraham, not Paul, not Jesus … none of them, in the midst of these texts of their suffering, asks “why?”

Why, Lord?  Why do you want me to kill my own son, this one Sarah and I have waited so long for?  The brightest and best thing in our lives, Lord, and you want me to kill him?  Why?  For what reason?

Why, Lord?  Why must I, Paul, suffer all these hardships, everywhere I go, proclaiming your Word, your name?  Why must I continually suffer for the sake of your name?

Why, Father?  Why must I be out here in this God-forsaken place, hungering, thirsting, tormented?

It is the human response, after all, to ask “why?”  
“Why,” when we find ourselves in situations like Abraham, pushed to our absolute limits, and more is still demanded of us.
“Why,” when like Paul, life is a constant struggle and battle, feeling like it’s against us at every turn.  
“Why,” when, like Jesus, we feel alone and abandoned in our struggles.
And so it’s been the abuse of these stories, these texts, and this season, by the Church, through the ages, that also frightens and depresses me.  To simply be told to have “more faith” when my bucket is empty and all I have is my “why” … well, I have good friends who have approached the church, timidly, seeking, hoping, only to be beaten down with the hammer of “you must have more faith.”  And they have walked away, still empty.
I don’t blame them a bit.
And so we should not wonder why the world doesn’t “get” Lent.  Such as we’ve seen this past week, when a TV announcer, on seeing Vice President Biden at a news conference on Ash Wednesday – remember, Mr. Biden is Roman Catholic, so he had been to mass earlier in the day and had ashes imposed on his head – when the announcer saw him with the ashes on his head … the announcer asked, out loud, if Mr. Biden had hurt himself, bumped his head or something.  The announcer knew nothing of Ash Wednesday, nothing of the tradition of repentance, the true purpose of this season.   And he represents the great majority of people, in our country, in our world.
It is human to ask “why?”  And it is irresponsible and unfaithful of the Church to respond to the world’s “why” with “Just Believe More.”
But do not blame the texts, the stories, for that.
Yes, it’s true, none of the people in these stories, these testimonies, speak the question “why.”
Not in these short readings.
And that, my friends, is the key.
For these stories were never meant to stand alone, by themselves … just as no day, no season of the church year was meant to stand alone by itself … just as no follower, questioner, seeker, was meant to stand alone, by him- or herself.
These stories, these texts, this season, this life of faith in which we share, it is all about relationship … an ongoing relationship with our God, and each other.  
Consider Abraham – he heard God’s call, and left his own country.  And God was faithful, walking with Abraham through bad and good, weal and woe, over the many years.  The relationship … the long term relationship of faith and trust Abraham had with his God … was stronger than any one situation, or one story, or one action.
The same was true of Paul – the one who turned from persecutor of the faith to its greatest advocate; through all these circumstances of his life, the long, long story of God in Christ who was with him was palpably true for Paul.  He could feel Christ as near to him as his breath, because of that long-term relationship of faith and trust.
The same kind of relationship which is so wonderfully exemplified by our Gospel readings last week and this.
Last week … Jesus so, so high on the mountaintop, with the two great leaders of his faith, Moses and Elijah, speaking with them  … and then, this week, he’s down about as low as low can be, struggling in the wilderness against those three great temptations, the gifts of God which can become false gods … idols … themselves, for us …

Overindulgence of self;
Religious fervor;
Worldly pride and power.

Only in Jesus’ long term relationship with his Father does this snippet of a story make sense … that our God is not a “short timer” or “sound bite” God, but rather, is in it with us for the long haul.  For all of time.   For us.
So faith … church … Lent … in all these, we cannot be about settling for pat answers, one shot deals and quick fixes.  No matter how much the world and the culture push push push for them.
Faith … is a long, long walk.  A life’s trip.  An everlasting journey.
Into which, we are called, and through which, we call others.
We sidle up alongside each other, listen to each others’ rejoicings and sorrows … we hear each others’ “whys” … and our answer, our only answer, is the same answer God gave to the world …
Put flesh and bones on love.
And join in the journey of life together.  
Walk through the fire and the storm, the calm and the fair, together.  Even to and through death itself.
With each other, here, and with others in the thousand other places in our lives where we live and serve, love and laugh and cry with people.
In that, in those places, through those relationships, we are truly church.  The body of Christ, in relationship with one another, and with others.  
Not to criticize or condemn.  Not to start out the conversation with complex doctrinal or theological answers, or an alphabet soup of Churchianity and religiosity  – programs, committees, meetings, assemblies, synods, denominations … things we might hold near and dear, but to others, especially those struggling with their “whys,” these may well seem like an insurmountable obstacle course.
No.  We are called to simply walk alongside, and with others, in a relationship of humble love and loving trust, lived out faith, honest commitment, and hope.
And so what of this Lent, when we are called to “go deeper” in our faith walk?  How, given all that, shall we “keep a good and true Lent?”
Poet Robert Herrick some four hundred years ago answered that question for us, quite well, I think, as he wrote “To Keep A True Lent.”

TO KEEP A TRUE LENT. by Robert Herrick

IS this a fast, to keep
The larder lean ?
And clean
From fat of veals and sheep ?

Is it to quit the dish
Of flesh, yet still
To fill
The platter high with fish?

Is it to fast an hour,
Or ragg’d to go,
Or show
A downcast look and sour?

No ; ‘tis a fast to dole
Thy sheaf of wheat,
And meat,
Unto the hungry soul.

It is to fast from strife,
From old debate
And hate;
To circumcise thy life.

To show a heart grief-rent;
To starve thy sin,
Not bin;
And that’s to keep thy Lent.

May your Lenten walk bring you into closer relationship with our Lord and each other, in our shared “whys” with which we all struggle … and, in and through those relationships, may your faith deepen and broaden, through the “whys,” into the Who in whom we are all made right, and whole, and blessed, and loved.  
Amen.