Sermons from the Pulpit
LENT IS NOT TIDY
Preached to the Congregational Church in Exeter, U. C. C., on the first Sunday in Lent, March 12, 2000, by the Rev. Jane Geffken Henderson, pastor.
Genesis 8:20-22, 9:8-17; Mark 1:1-5, 9-15
What I have in my hands is The Golden Bible. It was published in 1946 by Simon and Schuster. The so-called "Golden" books were very popular in the 50's, and lots of kids grew up on them. I was one of those kids. I loved my Golden Bible, especially the drawings by Feodor Rojankovsky, one of the premier illustrators of the time. I was looking again this week at the picture of the ark, after the flood was over. You can see the rainbow, and all the animals scrambling out. It's this vibrant, colorful drawing; I'll put it downstairs on the round table so you can see it up close.
But there's one part of the picture that is not so nice. In the foreground, you can see the bodies of people who never made it inside the ark, who were drowned in the flood. I remember as a child being utterly struck by this. I mean, there was such a contrast between the open-hearted joy of the creatures stepping out from the ark, and the limp bodies of these human beings who were not only dead, they were totally naked. I don't know what horrified me more, death or nakedness, but you can still see where I took a green crayon and put clothes on all of them.
For better or for worse, The Golden Bible was like no Fischer-Price toy ark with little people and animals to put in and take out. The book exposed vast numbers of little American children growing up in an optimistic, post-war time with the dark side of the story. In the end were the rainbow and dry ground, but it was clear that first you had to go through 40 days and 40 nights of a hard rain that wiped out the whole, sinful human enterprise and left the landscape littered with corpses. And whether you attribute the rain to God's wrath or to God's tears (and I vote for the latter), the fact remains that this is no easy joy-cruise for Noah and the rest.
And similarly, the Gospel of Mark tells us that, at Jesus' baptism, after the Spirit descends on him and confirms how beloved he is to God, that same Spirit drives him out into the wilderness. Drives him out, mind you. Mark is clear about this. Matthew and Luke have the Spirit "leading" Jesus out, almost as if they were escorting him, but Mark's Spirit is not so considerate - it starts out a dove and morphs into a hawk. One moment Jesus is blessed, the next moment he's violently expelled. Expelled for 40 days, the same length of time as the flood waters lasted. Forty - that loaded biblical number which signifies wandering and exile and wilderness and marginality.
Lent is the 40 days before Easter, and it is not an easy time in this part of the world. As the days grow longer and the ground thaws, the next thing we know it is the mud season, and everything is filthy - the earth itself needs a good bath. Winter doesn't finally leave us without first pushing things over and messing things up and even breaking things. But we're talking also of an inner untidiness. As someone said, "Lent, if we honestly face its fury, will leave the landscape littered also with bits and pieces of ourselves. We are all in the wilderness, we are all locked up aboard an unsteerable ship, biding our time."
In other words, it's still raining. Or, to use another metaphor, we're still in the desert. Our destination, surely, is the Promised Land, it is terra firma, it is home, it is Easter, but while we live and breathe, we are still on the way. Lent is the season that captures that life-long journey into a 40-day period of thinking about that journey in a serious, intentional way. It's a season which closes in on Jesus' inevitable walk to the cross. It's a season for probing the mysteries of conversion and repentance, of the emptying of ourselves and the filling of this emptiness with eternity.
Now, some of us don't have to be reminded that we are still in the wilderness. The wilderness is all too familiar. Ask anyone whose child is imperiled, or whose marriage is on the rocks, or whose world has been similarly upended - anyone who has stumbled over bumpy terrain for some time, or who has felt the driving rain, wondering when it will all let up. These are people who have few illusions - they come to the heart of things fast and hard. They are acquainted with the Lenten call to repentance because of their circumstances - no one has to tell them that biblical faith requires that we leave what is known and safe and reliable, and set out into an unknown country. They assume the wilderness, and their question is: where am I in it?
But most don't assume the wilderness; not at all. We think of it as an aberration. We joined up with this faith to find peace, to be uplifted, to be safe, to cover all our bases. We need relief, not more uncertainty and sorrow. We need answers, not more questions.
Must everything fall apart around us before we can understand this Gospel?
I don't know. But it's a good question. Remember that "repentance" is not a call to be a better person. It has nothing to do with feeling "bad" about yourself. It means: a change of direction. It means: turning to the truth of who and whose we really are. It means: a shattering of every false convention by which we have lived our lives. And most of us have to be dragged kicking and screaming to that truth, one way or another. That's why most of us need some kind of intervention. That's why the church exists - an alternative community where we can help each other pray and stay honest and summon our God-given strengths to live this life as God means us to live it.
Speaking of interventions: consider Noah's wife. I've enlisted a few people from among you to help me finish this sermon now with an instructive little drama from a 15th Century miracle play.
Noah: Wife, come in! Why stands thou there? Thou art ever froward, that dare I swear. Come in, on God's half! High time it were, for fear lest that we drown.
Noah's Wife: Yea, sir, set up your sail, and row forth with evil hail, For, without any fail, I will not out of this town. But I have my gossips, every one, One foot further I will not gone; They shall not drown, by St. John, An I may save their life. They love me full well, by Christ; but thou wilt let them in thy chest, Else row forth, Noah, whither thou list, And get thee a new wife!
Noah: Shem, son, lo! thy mother is wrow: Forsooth, such another I do not know.
Shem: Father, I shall fetch her in, I trow, Without any fail.
Mother, my father after thee sent, and bids thee into yonder ship wend. Look up and see the wind, For we be ready to sail.
Noah's Wife: Son, go again to him, and say I will not come therein today!
Noah: Come in, wife, in twenty devils way, Or else stand there without!
Ham: Shall we fetch her in?
Noah: Yea, sons, in Christ's blessing and mine; I would you hied you betime, For of this flood I am in doubt.
etc., etc.
And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. -Mark 1:12