First Sunday of Lent
March 9, 2003


What do you know about the desert?

We don’t much think of deserts, here surrounded by 3 rivers - Mississippi, Missouri and Meramec. Images of dryness don’t mesh with our memories of floods. Only in movies do we sense the harshness of the desert - and that is always safely - from a distance. We don’t sense the danger. There is no feel for the trial, the hardship. The desert does not try us… Our spirit is not tested.

There is a danger in that, I think. We can approach lent in the same way - safely, from a distance, avoiding the invitation to enter into the desert of ourselves. We’ll watch lent. We’ll look at it - out there -apart from us. On the screen. Safely.

The message of this Sunday is that we can’t “do Lent” safely. It is not something we can observe. It is something we must immerse ourselves and our lives into. In Mark’s Gospel - Jesus was driven ‘out toward the desert’. Emerging from the waters of baptism, crowned as the Spirit-equipped Son of God - he is driven into the desert - staying 40 days and nights… And he emerges from that time- charged with a mission - “the reign of God is at hand. REFORM YOUR LIVES and believe the good news…” Doing lent safely doesn’t cut it with Jesus.

There is a poem that reads:
“Into what land of solitude, forty days and forty nights,
will you go, driven by the spirit?
May it test you and strip you!
See - the times are fulfilled, and God invites you
to forget your ancient servitudes…”

…To forget your ancient servitudes – the things which keep you in bondage and unfreedom is not a recipe for a safe lent. To allow yourself to be that led, that vulnerable is not secure. But we are not meant to go through Lent so we can return to ‘life as usual’ once Easter Sunday comes along. How do we do Lent ‘unsafely’?

Unsafely = out of the comfort zone. Into a place that is stretched for us. A place where our world is a little different because of us. The Covenant with Noah is about restoration of the order of creation. Jesus in the desert amidst the wild beast is a symbol of the restoration that Isaiah had foretold when the lamb lies down with lion, and child in the adders lair. So ask the question: “What situation or person will be better off at the end of this lent, because I have done something concretely to make that person be better off? Write it down and do it.

Unsafely. What is your biggest addiction? What is the behavior/person/choice you cling to the most - that keeps you from feeling the unsettled-ness of the kingdom. As a celibate, I am to experience my ‘choice for remaining single’ and the result of not having a family of my own as something which keeps me just a little off center, a little off based, a lot relying on my God for strength. But it is easy to fill that un-comfort with stuff. Sending e-mail, telephone calls, working longer hours, watching TV. None of that is bad. But when it allows me to see the world from a place of safety, and not experience the invitation to change, then it has become a danger to my spiritual life. What do I need to let go of so that I can be Unsafe…

Unsafely. Reform your lives, Jesus tells us. I know a college student who gave up smoking. Not for the health or the financial reasons you might suspect. He came to the conclusion that smoking does not honor God. So he quit. Cold turkey. And then had a discussion with me about how to give of the extra money he’d have at his disposal. Very UNSAFELY, it seems to me. What habit of yours, though acceptable, perhaps needs to be reformed? The jokes you tell? The comments you say? The gossip you spread? And you get the picture.

Jesus tells us: “The kingdom of God is at hand. Reform your lives and hear the good news.” May you have a most unsafe lent…