Homily at Evensong for the First Sunday in Lent, 10 March 2019

Readings:

Deuteronomy 8:1-10

Be careful to observe this whole commandmentthat I enjoin on you today, that you may live and increase, and may enter in and possess the land which the LORD promised on oath to your ancestors.Remember how for these forty years the LORD, your God, has directed all your journeying in the wilderness,so as to test you by affliction, to know what was in your heart: to keep his commandments, or not.He therefore let you be afflicted with hunger, and then fed you with manna,a food unknown to you and your ancestors, so you might know that it is not by bread alone that people live, but by all that comes forth from the mouth of the LORD.The clothing did not fall from you in tatters, nor did your feet swell these forty years.So you must know in your heart that, even as a man disciplines his son, so the LORD, your God, disciplines you.Therefore, keep the commandments of the LORD, your God, by walking in his ways and fearing him. For the LORD, your God, is bringing you into a good country, a land with streams of water, with springs and fountains welling up in the hills and valleys,a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, of olive trees and of honey,a land where you will always have bread and where you will lack nothing, a land whose stones contain iron and in whose hills you can mine copper.But when you have eaten and are satisfied, you must bless the LORD, your God, for the good land he has given you.

Mark 2:18-22

The disciples of John and of the Pharisees were accustomed to fast.People came to him and objected, “Why do the disciples of John and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?”Jesus answered them, “Can the wedding guests fast^* while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast.But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day.No one sews a piece of unshrunken cloth on an old cloak. If he does, its fullness pulls away, the new from the old, and the tear gets worse.

Likewise, no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the skins are ruined. Rather, new wine is poured into fresh wineskins.”

Homily:

“Fasting”

We have two contrasting readings this evening that circle around the notion of fasting. Fasting was in the Old Testament not a way of distancing oneself from the world but rather of repenting, literally turning around to set one’s face toward God and returning to God. In the second reading for this evening we meet Jesus and his disciples being confronted over the whole idea of fasting. It seems that Jesus wasn’t doing it right, at least in the thoughts of the Pharisees and the disciples of John the Baptist who have questioned Jesus about how he and his disciples fast. There was an ancient pattern of fasting (repenting) on the Day of Atonement. The practice of fasting grew in time, so that by the seventh century fasting was being promoted at last four times a year. By the time of the Pharisees, fasting was done twice weekly. It was hoped by fasting, the return of the Messiah would come. The Kingdom of God would be renewed.

Jesus reminds his accusers that one does not fast while the Bridegroom is present. Indeed, in ancient Israel fasting was actually a time for celebration. Jesus thinks that rather than hoping for the coming of the Kingdom, fasting should celebrate the presence of the Kingdom now, the actually of God-with-us. In the midst of renewal, old ways may not be effective. So, are we thwarting the kingdom by encouraging fasting in Lent? 

Perhaps the Deuteronomist can help us set a platform from which we can apprehend Jesus’ vision of fasting and discipline. The writer, looking back at the history and journey of the people of Israel, seeks to remind them of a tremendous gift that was given them. “For the LORD, your God, is bringing you into a good country, a land with streams of water, with springs and fountains welling up in the hills and valleys,a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, of olive trees and of honey,a land where you will always have bread and where you will lack nothing,” Like Israel we live in a land of plenty, and like Israel, we are bidden to give thanks to God for the creation of such a gift of abundance. In the face of such a gift we may be called to give up some of the plenty that has first been given us. As the Deuteronomist says, “But when you have eaten and are satisfied, you must bless the LORD, your God, for the good land he has given you.”Perhaps fasting is the passage to almsgiving – a way to share the wealth God has blessed us with. We get the gift of discipline and other get the gifts of the earth. Can you see the Kingdom of God in that?

Sermon for the First Sunday in Lent, 10 March 2019

Preaching at Saint Mark's Church

The First Sunday in Lent

10 March 2019

Deuteronomy 26:1-11

Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16

Romans 10:8b-13

St. Luke 4:1-13

“Living With”

INI

I.

I bought it several weeks, even months ago. I had seen it advertised, playing at the Embarcadero Cinema, but never got around to attending or seeing it. So, when it became available for purchase, I added it to my collect. Friday night, after a long day, and home alone, I decided to finally watch it and discovered that it was the perfect entry into Lent. The film is called Andrei Rublev, after the famous 15^thCentury icon writer. The film, made in 1969, was directed by Andrei Tarkovsky and was co-written with Andrei Konchalovsky. The version I watched was a beautiful restoration of the film. The photography is quite lovely, reminiscent of Pasolini – indeed, one of the chapters is called “The Passion According to Rublev” and bears some similarities to Pasolini’s The Gospel According to Saint Matthew. There is a fascination with the faces of common people, and the plight of those living in mediaeval Russia. Not every one of the chapters, there are eight of them, deals with the details of Rublev’s life. Some do. The remainder, however, paint the rich context of his life. 

Why Rublev and Lent? What fascinated me about the film, and what fascinates me about Lent is the journey which introduces us to Rublev, and the journey that beckons to us as we begin this Lenten season. A journey is more than a destination – something to be endured until we reach the place that we have set out to achieve. A journey is not only destination, but the context of all the places we visit as we move onto the journey’s end. The film gives us a clue at it’s very beginning with a man attempting flight in a bag of skins filled with hot air. His courageous escape becomes an image for Rublev, the monk who needs to find his way.

II.

Meanwhile, back at the Lectionary, we meet Israel making its way from slavery and suffering in Egypt to a destination of hope and prosperity. Israel’s fate and journey are encapsulated in the verse from the First Reading that is said at each Seder, a reminder of the journey that is celebrated in that meal. “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous.” The point of the reading is not just that, for it celebrates the arrival at a fertile land, a land of milk and honey, that will make Israel a prosperous nation. The writer or editor who is putting together the ancient story so that the Israelites who have either entered into exile or who have returned from exile might know how to live. This section deals with the first fruits that are due back to God, who gave them initially to the people. What has this to do with Lent? It is the rule of thanksgiving. On Ash Wednesday, the priest is asked to announce this to the people, 

“I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self‑examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self‑denial; and by reading and

meditating on God’s holy Word.”

It is our privilege during this season to be the giver of alms – to provide for those who have little. In the film we are reminded of this responsibility in the scenes at the monasteries – who receive the travelers, who provide provisions, and who provide a place for rest and sleep. Now what shall I do in my Lenten discipline as I look at the need that surrounds me in the city?

III.

There are segments in the film that are contrastive, that seek define each other through their differences. One involves a commission to paint the Last Judgment. The other is a raid by Tartar war party – there’s politics involved, and Andrei is involved in the complexities of both. The contrast is between Andrei’s sense of God’s mercy, so profound that he does not want to paint a last judgment. That gentleness of spirit is then challenged by the Tartar raid, instigated by the brother of the Grand Prince, a Russian, that sees the death of fellow artists and common people living in the city of Vladimir. 

If in our practice of Lent, we truly look at what motivates us as individuals, and what seems to be the impetus in our society, we can like Andrei be confused by what moves and tempts us in our life, and what differs in our so-called Christian society. Paul speaks to this in the reading from Romans where he sees that all of us are called by God to a grace that ought to free us from the temptation of discrimination. “For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call upon him.” Andrei greets this contrasting graciousness of God which he longs to see, and the cruelty of human beings exercised on one another with a vow of silence. He will not speak. He will not paint. 

I wonder what draws Jesus out into the wilderness following his baptism. Luke tells us that Jesus is “full of the Holy Spirit.” And what we see if forty days and forty nights of silence until he is challenged by Satan. The silence of Jesus, the silence of Andrei, perhaps we too ought to be drawn into a lengthy silence which draws our mind into a contemplation of how we as individuals need to live in the realities of our time. When I think about all that is going on in our world I am drawn to speak, to friends, sometimes to people with whom I disagree, to the anonymous on FaceBook. Perhaps Lent calls us to hold our tongue in check and to engage our souls in reflection on the words that God would have us hear.

IV.

I cannot leave these readings and this day behind without speaking on temptation. There is a wonderful scene in the film when Andrei happens upon a large group of pagans celebrating a holiday. This is, I think, his moment with temptation, as he, a monk, encounters a woman, and later men, who wanted him to experience the sexual joy of their holiday. He resists – with silence. But he watches. It is almost as if he wants to know the tempter, his enemy. 

Jesus engages Satan, giving back as he is tempted – using God’s word to thwart what Satan offers him. Just as in our lives, there are many moments of temptation in Rublev’s life. Given a great gift, the biggest temptation is to leave it behind, not to use it, not to see God’s glory in it. Perhaps this is the encounter we might make in our own great Lenten silence and reflection – seeing what we have been given and the proper way to use it and to offer it. 

At the end of the film, which is in black and white, the production turns to color, and trains its cameras on the details of Andrei Rublev’s icons. The most notable are his Holy Trinity with the three angels dining at Abraham’s table, and his Pantocrator in which he sees Jesus the Creator of All as a simple man staring out at the one in devotion at the icon. The camera zooms into the riot of color present in the simplicity of the icon writer’s work. Lent, this film, these readings, all have called me to see the simplicity of God’s glory, and the simple things that he has called me to do – reflection, silence, meditation, and the giving of alms – to become a gracious monk, a nun at prayer in the wilderness of my soul.

SDG