The First Sunday in Lent + February 26, 2023 + Pr. Craig Mueller
I remember the first time I experienced GPS. Ten years ago I was in North Carolina to preach at the ordination for one of our seminarians. The young soon-to-be-pastor and his wife were new to the area. After they picked me up at the airport, they entered their home address to map their way back. Every time they went anywhere, they put in an address into the app. Now I understand. But then I was flabbergasted. How would they ever learn their way around their new city if they always depended on an app?
I use Waze. I admit it freely. How else would I get around an unfamiliar city? Or find my way when lost?
There are horror stories, of course. Like Phil Paxson driving home from his daughter’s birthday party on a stormy night in Hickory, North Carolina. His GPS led him to what had once been in a bridge that hadn’t been repaired for nine years. Phil landed in a river and drowned.
Nonetheless, I will keep using Waze to help me find the fastest route somewhere. Sometimes I may choose a scenic route. Or one without tolls. But usually, if I have a choice, I will choose the way that saves me a time. Even if it is just a minute or two! What is that about?
Our procession around the church was a journey, a slow pace, reflecting the inner journey from bondage to freedom, from darkness to light, from death to life, from Lent to Easter.
We, of course, went in a big circle. And our procession, more or less, ended up where we started. Reminds me of words by T.S. Eliot: “We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring. Will be to arrive where we started. And know the place for the first time.
But like all journeys, there are twists and turns. Life doesn’t turn out like we expected. Like a road trip, there always seem to be delays, detours, traffic jams, and of course, road construction. There are always things that slow us down, test us, test our patience.
Think of Jesus, fresh from his baptism, with echoes of “beloved” and “my Son” still in his ears. With vigor, ready to embark on his calling. Instead, the Spirit leads him into the wilderness. A detour if there ever was one. The tempter testing him to see what he is really made of. Rather than taking the long road, Jesus was offered the shortcuts of power, potency, and grandeur.
Most of can’t go but a few hours without a text, a post, an email, some stimulation. Imagine forty days in the desert. With nothing but yourself. Your thoughts and your feelings. And your raw hunger.
We may not sense the Spirit literally leading us to journey into the wilderness. But our Lent GPS calls us to be where we are, to slow down, to learn moderation, to focus on what is most important in life, and to deepen our relationship with God and neighbor. And several days after Ash Wednesday, it is the awareness of our mortality that causes us to stop, stand still, and take stock of our lives.
Supposedly our first parents didn’t need to travel anywhere. They were in paradise. Yet they failed the test. And death entered the picture. They and their descendants sought to be like God, and as Mark Bangert wrote in a commentary on this week’s readings, such is the root cause of every human cave to allurement. Paradise lost. Their GPS destination: banished from the garden.
One author notes that both Eastern and Western Christians read the opening chapters of Genesis and commemorate the expulsion of our first parents from the Garden in the opening days of Lent. As the blogger writes, “The eating of the forbidden fruit and the expulsion from the Garden is the great disruption, the disintegration of harmony between God and humanity, humans and the world, as well as between humans and other humans. We turn on each other, bickering and arguing and blaming each other and external circumstances as we try to escape the consequences of our actions and turn our backs on taking responsibility for our choices.”1
The GPS for this sermon is now going to take a side street, off the main path, but for good reason. If our gospel has the devil as tempter, our Genesis reading has a crafty serpent. A couple things need to be said about this well-known but misunderstood passage. First, though later Christians would describe Genesis 3 as humanity’s fall and the beginning of original sin, the Old Testament itself doesn’t talk about a fall at all. Moreover, (sorry to say!) too many older interpretations of this text portray the woman as the weaker sex, gullible, the source of evil, the temptress who leads man astray.
I love a feminist reading of the text by Barbara Reid, president of Catholic Theological Union in Hyde Park – the new home of LSTC next fall. Sister Reid notes that the woman is the one portrayed as “knowledgeable, articulate, and well-informed about God’s command.” She’s the one who discusses theology with God! The man? Silent and passive. He follows her lead and takes the fruit. The point: both man and woman are present in the garden. Both are tempted by the serpent. Both succumb. Both disobey.2
During Lent we call to mind our sin—both individually and communally. And as we heard on Ash Wednesday, we return to the Lord with all our heart.
I am not sure what awaits you or me or our community on our 2023 Lenten journey. We could put some words into our Spiritual GPS as the destination: Easter. Freedom. Forgiveness. Reconciliation. New life.
But remember: the journey is just as important as the destination.
And the journey involves this community. And the Lenten spiritual practices of fasting, sacrificial giving, and prayer. And the essential practice of worship each Sunday. Time to get off the speed track of our lives, and to slow down. For Christ himself is present in the word of forgiveness and hope.
And in the nourishment at this table for the long road ahead. For wherever our spiritual GPS may take us, what we most is this: bread for the journey.
1 http://www.stephenmorrisauthor.com/lent-paradise-lost-regained/
2Barbara Reid, Chapter 3, “The Entry of Sin and its Aftermath,” in Wisdom’s Feast: An Invitation to a Feminist Interpretation of the Bible.
3 https://www.pravmir.com/forgiveness-sunday-expulsion-adam-paradise/