Preaching at Saint Mark's Berkeley
The First Sunday in Lent, 1 March 2020
“Words”
Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7
Psalm 32
Romans 5:12-19
St. Matthew 4:1-11
INI
The Word
We are a people of the word. We might say that with a religious intent, but the reality is that it has become the stuff of everyday life. When I go to the coffee shop to enjoy an iced tea, everyone around me is involved with the word. There is little conversation, which would also be an involvement with words, but there is more of texting on their phones or computers, reading newspapers or books, total involvement with text – with words. Today’s readings are largely about words, and I would like to form my thoughts about these texts and the words of which they speak with a quotation from Rabbi Abraham Heschel,
“The world is transitory, but that by which the world was created—the word of God—is everlasting. Eternity is attained by dedicating one’s life to the word of God, to the study of Torah.”[1]
The Torah – the words of God expressed in history, and in the epics of the men and women of Salvation History – these are the words that we shall encounter in our readings today. We begin our Lenten journey with them, and hopefully we will begin to understand and discern the power of these words used for both good and for ill.
The words of Satan that tempt us.
We begin after God’s creative word that gave night and day, light and darkness, sea and dry land, human beings and other creatures. This was a product of God’s handiwork, for God fashioned Adam from the mud – the stuff of the earth, and with the breath of God’s mouth – the word. Adam is placed in the garden, and is given every good thing except one – the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It is important to note, and helpful to our understanding the “good and evil” is a parenthesis. The tree was really the knowledge of everything, and if there is anything that attracts us as human beings it is to know everything. It is the impetus to both gossip and scientific knowledge, People Magazine, and the Harvard Business Review. It is the frame of our curiosity. That Satan should enter at this point is only natural. It was an opportunity to play on human desires. Satan tempts us with our desire to know, to eat of the tree and to become more powerful from its fruit.
In the story, Adam and Eve do become aware of everything, they become especially aware of their nakedness, their vulnerability. A friend this week shared with me stories about all the memorials that he experienced in Germany – memorials that attempted to own up to the horrors of the Holocaust and the Second World War. He then said he wondered where our memorials were. Memorials to the slaughter of native Americans, the lynching of African Americans, the oppression of women and gay people. He wondered why we could not recognize our own nakedness and vulnerability. And here we understand our reluctance to realize that our words can be used for good and for evil, and that acknowledging the evil part gives us pause.
The words of confession and the words of absolution.
In today’s psalm we have the requisite words that ought to accompany our nakedness.
When I was silent, my limbs were worn out—
when I roared all day long.
For day and night
Your hand was heavy upon me.
My sap turned to summer dust.
My offense I made known to You
and my crime I did not cover.
I said, “I shall confess my sins to the LORD,”
and You forgave my offending crime. [2]
This is the Good News for today, that our words of confession are followed by words of absolution and forgiveness. “My offense I made known to you.” What a remarkable insight. If this is indeed a season of introspection and reflection, then it must include a look on our parts of the sinful parts of our life. The promise in the saying of the words of confession is that there will be words of absolution, if not by a priest, certainly by the breath and word of God. The psalm delights in this truth. “Happy (or blessed) of sin forgiven, absolved of offense.
The words of Jesus and the words of Satan
Good words are not always used to good effect. We see that in the words coming out of our churches and that continue the sins against others, unrighteously justifying with words of Scripture. All of Satan’s temptations to Jesus in today’s Gospel are words of Scripture. Our discernment should not only be of the words themselves, but the manner in which they are used. Matthew’s Satan offers a rationale from the Torah for breaking the fast, for asking for protection in a perilous situation, and finally for honoring evil and receiving wealth. Each of these temptations is met with words from the same source the word of God.
The question that we might ask ourselves this Lent is whether the words of God are so familiar to us that we might use them as we wrestle with all the conundrums of life today. I am reminded of a woman who was a member of my father’s parish in San Mateo. Whenever she was met at the door by someone selling religion and offering her tracts, she would reach behind the door, take one of her own and say, “I’ll take one of yours of you’ll take one of mine.” They always left. It becomes a matter of knowing how to respond the words of the world with our own words of faith.
Being one with Adam
St. Augustine saw Adam’s sin as infecting us all. There is a hymn written by my Romans profession, Martin Franzmann, that expresses that theology.
"In Adam we have all been one,
One huge rebellious man;
We all have fled that evening voice
That sought us as we ran.”[3]
I don’t want to take this opportunity to argue the points of original sin, but rather to use this hymn to get at the good news that is offered to us in the second reading for today. Paul compares Adam to Jesus. Adam – the first man and his sin, and Jesus, the second Adam and his righteousness. And let’s not get caught up in the gender specific nature of these verses. The truth of this comparison is a gift to women and to men. Paul says, “For as by the one’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one’s obedience the many will be made righteous. This is the word that we need to hear. Martin Franzmann concludes his hymn with these words.
“Send us thy Spirit, teach us truth;
Thou Son, oh, set us free
From fancied wisdom, self-sought ways,
And make us one in thee.”[4]
SDG
[1] Heschel, A. (1951), The Sabbath 0 Its Meaning for Modern Man, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, Kindle Edition, Location 582
[2] Alter, R. (2007), The Book of Psalms – A Translation with Commentary, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, Kindle Edition, Location 2929.
[3] Franzmann, M. (1969), “In Adam We Have All Been One, The Lutheran Book of Worship, Augsburg Publishing House, Minneapolis, Hymn 372.
[4] Op. cit.
No comments:
Post a Comment