Lent 1

The Rev. Julia W. Messer
1 Lent 2012
Mark 1:9-15
“Shakers, Divine GPS, and Lent”

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Message of Lent: The place you are called to be may not be the place you expect to be but it may be the place God calls you to be.

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                In days past, the Shakers had a song they would sing, called “Simple Gifts.” The group would gather around in a circle singing the words: “‘'Tis the gift to be simple, 'Tis the gift to be free, 'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be, And when we find ourselves in the place just right, It will be in the valley of love and delight. // When true simplicity is gained, to bow and to bend, we will not be ashamed, To turn, turn, will be our delight, 'Til by turning, turning, we come round right.”
        The Shakers would dance around the room in the circle and at the end of the verses when they finished singing, “When we find ourselves in the place just right,” and “We come round right”, they would jump into the air and wherever they landed, that was where they believed they were meant to be.

        Life today doesn’t seem so simple.  I don’t know about you, but for me there have been times in my life when I’ve wondered if I’ve been on the right path or I felt myself in a spiritual wilderness.  There have been times when I couldn’t figure out what path to take and there are times when I knew the path that I was on was where God had called me. I seem to do okay when I know the right path because it is very clear to me.  The gray areas get to me, making me second guess myself and wonder.  For me it’s the completely unclear paths that I struggle with; these are the ones that pull me to my knees in prayer. And it can be scary when I find myself in a wilderness and cannot discern where God is calling me to go…that the place I am right now may not be where I am meant to be.

Today’s Gospel reminds me of this Shaker song, in  that the place we may find ourselves in our journey may not be where we want to go, but it is where we could be meant to be. Jesus did not plan to set out into the wilderness but that was where he needed to go.

In the Bible, the wilderness was both a frightening and a powerful place. To look at wilderness as a physical location, it was a location that was uninhabited and uncultivated. Applied spiritually it takes on an even more powerful meaning. Wilderness was a time when people of the Bible underwent temptations and they used this time to get a clearer sense of where and how God was calling them. It was the time and place that they used, like Christ, to face their adversaries.

Lent is the church’s time set aside for us to consciously go into our wildernesses.   Lent lasts for 40 days, the same amount of time that Jesus found himself in the wilderness.  Lent is a time that we are called to unite ourselves with the mystery of Jesus in the desert, who faced temptation through the hand of the devil and yet, did not sin. As we prepare to celebrate the Easter mystery, Christians are called to use this Lenten season as a time to consciously look at our lives and find ways to draw closer to God.

  Even Jesus was called to do this. Immediately after he was baptized, he went into the wilderness, to really look at himself and recognize what God’s plan for him was to be. To me, it was as if Jesus had to figure out what his ministry would be and come to terms with that and what it meant to be the Son of God, the Beloved. As Christians, during Lent, we are invited and encouraged to look at ourselves and ask one way or another, “What does it mean to be who we are,” and “Who we are meant to be?”

        Lent can be a time to take on or give up. We can take on an action that will draw us closer to God through more devotion to prayer, to consciously perform acts of charity, or to even take up some action, some behavior, that will improve our relationship with God.  Or we can give up something.  Giving up something can either be as a symbolic gesture of sacrifice (that reminds us of all that Christ forfeited for us) or to give up, not just for Lent, but permanently, something that tempts us away from our relationship with God.

        Lent is a season of challenge, to honestly and truly look at ourselves and the areas in our lives where we are more prone to giving into temptation that leads us into sin. As an unknown author once wrote, “Temptation is not a sin.  It only becomes a sin when it is yielded to.  Even our Lord was tempted.”

        Honestly, I almost wish sometimes that a very clear Divine GPS would be available to us. It would say, “Turn here,” or “Choose this path”.  We could use it when we are in our difficult times, such as when we are faced with an unexpected relationship problem or job loss.  We could use it when we try to discern what our future will hold and map out the best route to take to be a Christian and “Detour” around ALL wilderness experiences. 

But as the Shaker song says, the place we find ourselves is where we are meant to be and we can use these wilderness experiences to grow closer to God. We may not like or want to be in the place we are now, but it may be just exactly where God has called us to be.

Remember Lent is not suppose to be easy; it can be disheartening and upsetting, especially if we honestly look at ourselves and see both what we are becoming and what we are failing to become.

We began this season with the imposition of Ashes, and I pray that something as joyous as Easter may be at the end of it for all of us. And that we will find ourselves in the place just right.

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.