Happy Tessaracoste! A sermon for 1 Lent

A Sermon for the 1st Sunday in Lent (RCL A) 3-13-2011, offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry

Texts: Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7; Psalm 32; Matthew 4:1-11

Happy Lent, my friends! Once again, we have circled back to this season in which we prepare ourselves for Holy Week and our celebration of Christ’s resurrection.

The original name for this season of the church calendar is Tessaracoste, which comes from the ancient greek word meaning forty. This season of 40 days has always been intended to correspond to the forty days and nights spent by Jesus out in the wilderness.

As most of you know, the name which we use, Lent, is an Old English word which means “spring.” And so Lent is not meant to be a time for dark foreboding or morbid thinking. It is meant rather to be a time when we deal head-on with reality as it is, and not as we so often want it to be.

Today, we are given two parallel stories which serve as foundations for a biblical view of life. These stories give us a framework for understanding our own lives, and indeed, the experience of all of humanity.

On the one hand, we have Adam, the first human, the proto-type of all humanity, living in a beautiful garden-like paradise where everything needed for life is provided by a gracious and creative God.

Notice, please, the original vocation of the human: placed by God in Eden to till it and to keep it. The second part of this vocation is quite odd: to keep it. The work implies protection: to keep it, to guard it, to protect it, to shelter it, to defend it.

But, protect Eden from what? There was no one else present with Adam! And the cousin animals had no malicious intent. What was the source of any possible danger?

It was, of course, himself. Adam needs to guard and defend Eden from himself, to keep it against the mis-use of his own God-given freedom and power.

In contrast, we have a story about Jesus, who is described by the apostle Paul as the second Adam, the new human being who puts back together that which the first Adam has broken.

Here we have the two sides of humanity, the two sides of every single human being: Adam, who lacked self-control and who was unwilling to accept responsibility for his own behavior.

And Jesus, the second Adam, the one who is able to control and direct himself only toward life-giving and life-serving ends, and who takes responsibility for himself, his actions and his future.

The first Adam remains strong in all of us. We human beings seem to have an infinite ability or self-deception. We are quick to hide from reality, to avert our eyes from our own shortcomings, or to lay the blame for our troubles somewhere else.

We love to play the victim, don’t we? It’s not my fault! I couldn’t help it! Or, if only she had done XXXX, then I would not have done this! If he didn’t cut me off on the road, then I wouldn’t have done that! Excuses, excuses, excuses.

At the end of the day, the only one that we can ever blame for our words and our actions and our attitudes is ourselves.

This, for me, is what Lent is all about. Facing stark reality once again. Taking stock of my life so that I can take full responsibility for myself, for my family, for my community.

You might recall how Adam and Eve responded to God’s questioning about eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam said it was Eve’s fault; Eve said it was the serpent’s fault. God knows that it is humanity’s fault.

But the second Adam, the one who was faithful when tempted by the serpent, this one has restored our original vocation: we are to till and to keep this good earth as God’s representatives on this planet.

When we gather around this Table of the Lord, and when we “do this in remembrance” of Jesus, we are giving ourselves to this work. As in any relationship, there is a give-and-take. In the blessed sacrament, Christ feeds us. We receive much in the way of grace and comfort. But we also come forward and kneel at this altar rail in order to give – to give ourselves away into this amazing task of bringing God’s light and truth and love into the places of darkness, lies and hatred.

We say that we are here because we remember what Jesus Christ has done. To remember comes from the ancient Greek word, anamnesis. It means to put back together something that has come apart.

Think about our English word “re-member”. Members of a group, or of a body, are inherent parts or aspects of the whole.

When we “re-member” Jesus here as the Body of Christ, we do this by ingesting his Word in the scriptures, and by ingesting his Life in the bread and wine.

We “re-member” Christ by putting the body of Christ back together again, by re-creating here in this time and place the true and real Body of Christ.

We are all missionaries when we are baptized into Christ. After baptism with water, each child is anointed on the head with oil. Do you remember what the title of Christ meant in the original Greek? It’s the translation of the Hebrew word, Messiah. They both mean “anointed one”. This refers to the ancient practice of anointing a ruler with oil when they took the throne of authority.

So Jesus is the Messiah because he was anointed with the Holy Spirit after being baptized by John with the water of the Jordan River. We are anointed with oil and the Holy Spirit after being baptized with water. And this is where the name of “Christian” originated. To be a “Christian” is to be a little anointed one, a little Jesus, a little Messiah. Or, if you like, a reproduction of the Messiah in this particular incarnation – in this time and place, with my name, in my family, with all of my skills and gifts and abilities, and among my unique relationships in the human community.

By his faithfulness in the wilderness, by his ability to face reality head-on and to deal with the failure of humanity, by the taking of responsibility for our sin, our Lord Jesus Christ has restored our original purpose in the world.

When you take your place within the body of Christ, you are empowered to be who God has always intended and created you to be: little Christs who bring hope and peace and healing grace into a hurting world.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Here is a brief video of my wife and girls dancing in Philly on Sunday!

St Patrick's Day Parade 2011