For the healing of the world - A Sermon for 1 Lent

A Sermon for the 1^st Sunday in Lent (RCL B) 2-26-2012

Offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry

Texts:              Genesis 9:8-17; Psalm 25:1-9; Mark 1:9-15

Themes:         the great litany, the rainbow covenant, the desert fast
Title:               For the healing of the world

Welcome to the season of Lent, my friends! If you were not able to join us on Ash Wednesday, well then I say to you: Welcome!

Lent may not be your favorite season of the Christian year. But I hope that doesn’t lead you to under-value it’s importance. Lent is vital for us, if for no other reason than because it forces us to face – once again – the reality and the consequences of sin.

I’m going to venture a guess and say that I am like most of you, in that I would much rather spend all of my time basking in the celebrations of the Lord’s nativity and his rising from the dead. In those times when we can sing out that now-forbidden “A” word!

But this is not how life works. Before the feast comes the hard work of preparation. Before we can rejoice once more in the glory of the new life that we receive because of Christ’s rising from the dead, we have to prepare by going through this process called the Lenten fast.

And we begin today by considering together the far-reaching consequences of sin.

Surely most of you have heard of the scientific principle commonly known as “the butterfly effect”. This principle states that complex processes can lead to vastly different results when the starting conditions vary even in the slightest measure.

It means that, in a dynamic system with many moving parts, any number of different factors might impact the course of events. Since this principle was developed by a meteorologist from MIT, his thesis was that the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil may change the atmospheric conditions just enough to allow a deadly tornado to develop in Texas.

My friends: this is how I think of the effects of sin, and this is what our lessons teach us today.

You and I typically think of sin as some personal thought or action that we each have done.

Sin is personal, and it affects us personally. But how often do we think about how our sins – our negative choices – affect the course of events in the lives of those around us, and even in the entire world.  

We are prone to think of sin simply as what goes on inside of me. It is that, of course, but it is not limited there. Our choices have a profound effect upon the entire world, even if we are not able to quite perceive and understand that effect.

Mark’s Gospel states that, after his baptism by John, the Spirit immediately drove our Lord out into the wilderness for forty days where a number of things happened. He was confronted by Satan. He was apparently befriended by wild animals. And he was attended by angels.

Satan. Wildlife. And angels. That’s quite a trinity of dynamic forces at work – both visible and invisible forces! And I have to say, as an aside, that I am quite jealous about the wild animals bit. I love the wilderness and wild animals, but they always seem to stay far away from me, even when I am actively trying to seek them out!

Now, most commentators have seen the presence of the wild beasts as a sign of danger. The Lord is thrust out into the wilderness where he is exposed to the dangerous attacks of Satan and the wild beasts.

So they say. But that’s not the only way to read this, and it’s certainly not how I read it.

 The wilderness here in Mark’s gospel is not at all a wasteland of danger and peril. First, John the Baptizer appeared “in the wilderness” proclaiming his message of baptism and repentance. Here the Lord goes out into the wilderness for his time of struggle against Satan. Later, the Lord retreats to “a deserted place” in order to pray. Further along, he feeds the five thousand out in “a deserted place.” The Greek word in every instance is the same: Eremos. The desert. The wilderness.

Far from being the place of danger and demonic forces, the wilderness is in fact the place where Jesus goes to more deeply connect with the one he calls Abba and where some of his most powerful ministry occurs.  

Why then are the wild beasts with him? Why did Mark’s Gospel alone feel compelled to include the animals? It is a sign of the healing of creation. The animals sense that here is one who seeks to do them no harm, but who upholds and completes the covenant of the rainbow.

The covenant story told here in Genesis takes place soon after the great flood recedes and the ark comes to rest. If you go back and read the story in its entirety, you will notice some interesting features, like God holding each animal accountable for its life. That’s a different way of thinking about judgment day, isn’t it?

But the most important fact is that this covenant, as the text states, is between God and the earth and all living creatures of the earth – human and animals alike. “All flesh that is on the earth.”

But why did the entire earth need to be swept clean in the first place? Because of the consequences of human sin. Our sin has global, even cosmic consequences – consequences that affect all of the living creatures of the earth. But so does God’s work to reverse the effects of our sin. So does Christ’s work of healing.    

There’s an old story told about St. Kevin of Glendalough, one of the great celtic saints of Ireland.

St. Kevin took Lent pretty seriously. He would spend all 40 days in a little hut in the woods sleeping on a large gray flagstone, eating no food, drinking only water. Once, while Kevin was lying on that flagstone with his hands stretched out, a blackbird came and hopped into his hand and began to build a nest there. Kevin decided to stay still and to not move at all throughout Lent so that this blackbird could lay her eggs and hatch her brood. It was so taxing that even the angels came and begged Kevin to give up his arduous Lenten discipline, but he was determined to let the blackbird finish her breeding. (Wisdom of the Celtic Saints by Edward Sellner, P. 161).

What do we see here? Just as our sins have consequences that might affect all of creation in ways which we cannot quite understand, so it is true that the saving health of new life which Jesus brings to us also has consequences which affect all of the earth.

Our Lord “was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.”

Like him, we do not live isolated from the rest of the world, whether from human society or the company of all the living things of the earth or from the company of angels.

Even when you sit at home all alone – perhaps in the evening, and even when it feels as if you are isolated and disconnected, it is never true.

There is more than meets the eye. We live all of our lives in a web of interconnectedness. Our daily actions, our daily choices – for good or for bad – have important consequences for our sisters and brothers around the world and for all living creatures. To remember this, and to take it to heart, is why our Lenten journey is so very important.

May God give us grace always to pay attention, to be aware, and to make choices for good and for the healing of the world. Amen.