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As you have gathered by now, we have
entered the Holy season of Lent, a special time set aside by the Church for repentance,
penitence and forgiveness.
So I want to ask your forgiveness up
front about this sermon. Forgive me: I want to ask you a loaded question:
When you think of the word “Christian,”
what words come to mind?
You could call me a professional
Christian, so I have something of a vested interested in how we are thought of.
But, alas, I must admit that first
words that come to my mind when I hear the word “Christian” are not always
positive.
Some of the words that come to me about the word
“Christian” are “narrow,” “judgmental,” “self-righteous” and “dogmatic.”
Perhaps some of you might have similar
reactions to the word Christian?
I thought so.
I often meet people, including in this
church, who say they don’t want to be known as Christians, and often it is
these negative connotations that are the reason.
You might say they love Christ, but Christianity,
not so much.
I bring this up on the First Sunday of
Lent as a way of acknowledging that in this season of penitence, we have a
great deal to be penitent about as a church.
This Lent, let’s start our repentance with
the Church asking for forgiveness.
This repentance needs to start in from our
pulpits. And let that begin here with me.
For this to be meaningful, our
penitence should include substantive actions that change the negative images
that Christianity evokes.
One of my priest friends, Lynell Walker,
preached a sermon last Sunday that grabbed my attention on this point. I want
to read you this paragraph from her sermon:
“What would it be like
if when you heard the word ‘Christians’ you came up with: Oh, I know them. They
are a people utterly committed to forgiveness. They are about making this earth
reflect God’s generosity. They see to it that grace rains on the just and the
unjust. They are even in fervent prayer for those who mean us harm.”
Yet we know it doesn’t quite look that way.The
long history of Christianity is filled with inquisitions, Crusades, and the
persecution of Jews, Muslims, and fellow Christians.
Christians have used the Bible to justify
slavery and all manner of prejudice and abuse.
Sadly, persecutions and prejudices are
not behind us, but are still with us. I
am especially mindful that in Uganda the government recently approved a law
that makes it a criminal offense to be gay or lesbian, punishable by long
prison terms, and a crime to hide someone who is gay or lesbian, punishable by long
prison terms.
Before we dismiss this as the
backwardness of a developing nation, we need to know that it is American
Christians who have been the driving force behind this law in Uganda.
I am also mindful that it is
Christians, who in the name of religious freedom, have pushed for a law in
Arizona that would make it OK to discriminate against gay people.
People of all political stripes, left and right,
urged its veto, and I am thankful that the governor of Arizona did so.
What should especially concern us about
these trends is that in the name of Christ, there are Christians who want to
break the connections we have with each other as human beings by being able to
discriminate against people they don’t like.
That should not be what Christianity is about.
And, forgive me, there is one more recent
example, though subtle. Russians invading the Crimea is not only about
geopolitics, it also has a religious undertow.
David Brooks wrote a fascinating column last
week in the New York Times pointing out that Vladimir Putin ordered his
regional governors to read books that assert the messianic role of the Russian
Orthodox Church in restoring a Greater Russia.
Annexing Ukraine is viewed as part of that
mission. Politics and religion are definitely mixed up in the new Russia.
I want to be very careful on this topic. I am
not an expert, though let me mention that Lori and I spent a brief time in the
Soviet Union as journalists.
We definitely learned that Russia is a
complicated and contradictory culture.
As I say, I want to be careful on this topic,
and the pulpit is not a good place for a lecture on geopolitics.
And I especially share the concern of
many about mixing politics with religion, but let’s also note that politics has
been mixed up with religion for a very long time.
So I let me suggest that in this penitential season,
Christianity itself needs to repent of the political sins we have committed in
the name of Christ.
I believe at the root of much of what is wrong
with Christianity, and really all religions, is the quest for institutional
power.
The gospel lesson we hear today is a
huge antidote – and warning to the institutions of religion.
In the story, Jesus, filled with the Holy
Spirit, is led away from the refreshing waters of the River Jordan and into the
desolation of the desert where he has this frightening vision of the Devil.
I know that as modern people we have a hard time
with the concept of Satan or the Devil.
What the gospel writers are getting at is that
evil is not just an abstract idea, but is a tangible force in the world.
And so Jesus is confronted by the force of evil,
and he is tested by the greatest temptation of all: Power.
Jesus is dared to use power to turn stone into
bread; to use power to stay unharmed if he falls from the pinnacle of the
Temple in Jerusalem;
And then comes the biggest test of all: he is
tempted to take power to rule every kingdom.
He can fix everything if he will take power, but
to take power, he must stay in the clouds above us, and ultimately rob us of
our freedom to be human.
The end will justify the means, or so the devil
argues.
But Jesus rejects all of it.
Instead, he chooses to be here, with us, in the
griminess of the world.
He chooses to be with us especially in those
moments when we feel the most powerless.
He chooses to be with the refugees, not the
oligarchs. He their confronts power and
shows it to be empty.
Jesus defines both his humanity and his divinity
by being with us in the Valley of Lent.
This rejection of power also invites us to make
a finer distinction about how we view our involvement in the world, and our involvement
politics.
Are we involved in the world to bring justice to
the oppressed, relief to the captives, and peace to the nations?
Or do we seek power for our own comfort and for
the comfort of our institutions?
As the gospel story will unfold this Lent, Jesus
does one more thing: He invites us to walk out of the valley, as difficult as
that walk might be.
He invites us to be agents of forgiveness and
reconciliation; agents of love and kindness; agents of generosity and grace.
We are invited to be peacemakers.
The question for us is how we will walk the walk?
How will we be known as Christians?
“Oh, I know them. They
are a people utterly committed to forgiveness. They are about making this earth
reflect God’s generosity. They see to it that grace rains on the just and the
unjust. They are even in fervent prayer for those who mean us harm.”
May it be so. Amen.
