The Rev. Lisa Graumlich, preacher
Today’s gospel is short, sweet and has a distinct “good news” punch line– repent and believe in good news that the Reign of God is at hand.
Repent and believe in the Reign of God.
Those words sit uneasily in our modern world. Repent is a word that has been weaponized to judge and shame others. As a gay person, I have been told to repent. Numerous times.
Repent is a word that has been used to evoke shame. We need to reclaim this word.
Repentance is the act of turning away from sin and turning towards God. It’s telling the truth. It’s acknowledging individual and collective wrong doing – what has been done and what has been left undone. It’s about sincere commitment to change our behavior – and to change the systems that our behavior has put in place and that we tacitly engage in our day-to-day life.
And then there’s the promise that the Reign of God is at hand – or was at hand 2000 years ago. This feels like cold comfort when we continue to be bombarded with news of war and witness the suffering of our neighbors.
As we enter Lent, we focus on repentance for 40 days, not as an end in itself but as a turning towards the Reign of God. Like many of you, I am on a personal journey – to start Lent with a fresh attitude about the spiritual practices that we are invited into during this season – especially how do they relate to the announcement that the Reign of God is at hand.
As our guide, we have Mark’s gospel - short but full of rich clues. Let’s start at the beginning, focusing on the moment when Jesus goes to get baptized by John the Baptist.
In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.
And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him.
And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."
These three verses set the scene as both massively liminal and deeply political all at the same time.
Let’s take the pollical first. Jesus turns up to get baptized by John – although arguably he doesn’t need to be forgiven of his sins. Why does he travel to the Jordan? Jesus is doing this to pivot the conversation.
John the Baptist has stepped outside traditional religious practice – questioning legitimacy of temple practices using his own authority.
To get technical for a moment, Jews were to follow the Levitical Law of Holiness to get sins forgiven in the context of the temple. Suddenly John is offering forgiveness, away from the temple, on the banks of the Jordan River – outside of the priesthood, outside of institutions, outside of formal observances.
This is the first hint the Jesus’ ministry is about turning away from traditional authority.
Then things get liminal fast – Jesus emerges from the water. And just as he was coming up out of the water, He sees the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him.
What does it mean to have heaven torn apart? Two worlds become one – sacred and secular: joining of heaven and earth. The boundaries that we are so accustomed to dissolve. And we hear God’s voice.
The scene remains liminal as the Spirit – that lovely dove - immediately drove him out into the wilderness. That is a dove with an agenda!
We have but one verse to illuminate this time for Jesus:
He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.
This is the model for the Lenten journey. It is these 40 days that inspire us to venture into the wilderness in our own lives.
We face this darkness of the soul – to go deep into our faith – to be aware of our temptations.
I need to admit that in the past I have tended to stay at the surface during Lent. I’m the person that Sabeth+ referred to last Sunday as doing things like giving up sugar for Lent – kind of spiritual but mostly health oriented. And kind of difficult but not really. In the end, the temptation to eat sugar is not high up on the list of deepest moral dilemmas.
What if in our wilderness sojourn, we followed Jesus more closely? Drawing on the other scriptural accounts of Satan’s temptation, I’m struck by how they center on the power and control in our collective lives
§ What does it mean to want to be super effective – the equivalent of turning stones into bread?
§ What does it mean to want to be “super right”– stand on top of the temple – be universally recognized as wise and prophetic?
§ What does it mean to be a “superpower? – Satan shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor – you could be in charge – riches beyond measure.
In the end – Jesus turns away from these temptations and refuses to embrace power as the model of his ministry.
But pause for a moment… we may not be currently yearning for superpowers – the turning of stones to bread. But consider again those three temptations map from our inner struggles onto a more collective repentance.
Dr Wilda Gafney, the renown womanist theologican, offers this reflection:
Lent is a wilderness, carved out in space and time with prayer. There is more than one kind of wilderness. There’s the wilderness of the soul, and often lonely, aching place. There’s the wilderness of the world, a place where words of love are everywhere yet people hunger for love, because the imitations of love that perfuse our society leave us empty, aching, hungry.
If Lent is about entering the wilderness or our souls, then we need to be ready to be fully present in that wilderness – probing the despair of our interior worlds and at the same time holding in our heart the crushing despair of abusive systems of power in the world.
Finally, Jesus emerges from the wilderness with the good news - Repent for the Reign of God is close at hand
I hear Jesus’ command to repent as more of an invitation. Jesus is not about bullying or shaming – there’s no big stick but rather there’s a huge carrot. He links repent to the good news that the Reign of God is close at hand.
Close at hand – not another world -- but a reality that breaks into our world – it’s the now and not yet.
Close at hand takes us back to the liminal nature of these moments. The Reign of God is not a place or time – it’s God's redemptive plan for creation, where God's will is fully realized, and all things are brought into harmony with God's purposes.
There is an immediacy here. This is the launch of his ministry. There is the hint of the themes that we will witness time and again – a social order that mandates connection between all people animated by love, mercy, justice, humility, and forgiveness.
This is the good news that the REIGN OF GOD is at hand.
Lent is about consciously entering a liminal space where we lean into the Reign of God. This is a time of quiet contemplation.
But it’s so much more. I was struck by this on Ash Wednesday when, after a solemn service, we sat and ate soup and sandwiches in the parish hall with big ashen crosses on our foreheads. Sabeth+ followed up with an email this week that includes rich resources about how our Lenten journey can incorporate compassionate sharing as well as fasting.
And so, we began our journey into the wilderness as the Trinity community.
For 40 days we will continue to make our home in the wilderness; the wilderness is uncharted. The good news is that we are not alone. This is the time to choose solidarity among each other and among all who are suffering.
Praise the God who is well acquainted with the wilderness but will never abandon us to it. Amen.
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