Lent Is Not for the Faint-hearted
The First Sunday in Lent
RCL Lent 1A
1 March 2020
Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral
New Westminster BC
Genesis 2.15-17, 3.1-7; Psalm 32; Romans 5.12-19; Matthew 4.1-11
Thirty-five years ago The Book of Alternative Services was released and, in many dioceses such as ours, authorized for use along side The Book of Common Prayer. The BAS, as it is often called, emerged at a time of considerable liturgical anxiety among some segments of the Anglican Church of Canada. To the south, the Episcopal Church had authorized a new prayer book in 1979 which provided both traditional and contemporary liturgies for morning and evening prayer, the eucharist and several pastoral offices. Across the Atlantic, the Church of England had authorized an alternative service book in 1980 which was similar to the American prayer book in providing both traditional and contemporary rites.
Our ‘new’ prayer book was a little more than twenty years old, so it was thought that contemporary alternative services was the route to take. But in many places parishes were using either American or English services, especially the contemporary ones. So, despite the concerns of the national committee responsible for the BAS that it was not ‘finished’, the BAS appeared on the shelves of bookstores and in the pews of parishes.
The problem was that we were now using a three-year cycle of readings and there was only one set of prayers for each Sunday and holy day in the BAS. At the beginning of the eucharist people heard an opening prayer, what we call a ‘collect’, talking about Abraham or Mary only then to hear readings about Moses or Joseph. The collect is supposed to ‘collect’ themes or images from the readings and to prepare us for what we are about to hear.
In 2010, after twenty-five years of complaints, I was appointed chair of a task force to prepare a collection of collects that are based on the three-year cycle of readings we use throughout the Anglican Church of Canada and here at Holy Trinity Cathedral. I can honestly say it was some of the hardest work I’ve ever undertaken, but I had the privilege of working with a group of colleagues who have become close friends. I still miss our spirited editorial gatherings, whether in person or by conference call, as we debated words and occasionally punctuation with vigour.
One of the prayers we considered but did not include in our collection of prayers authorized by General Synod in 2019 is the following:
God of wilderness and water,
your Son was baptized and tempted as we are.
Guide us through this season,
so that we may not avoid struggle,
but open ourselves to blessing,
through the cleansing depths of repentance
and the heaven-rending words of the Spirit. Amen. [1]
This morning I want to look more closely at the last half of the prayer: ‘ . . . so that we may not avoid struggle, but open ourselves to blessing, through the cleansing depths of repentance and the heaven-rending words of the Spirit ‘ .
So that we may not avoid struggle but open ourselves to blessing
All of us gathered today in this Cathedral are aware of a significant struggle taking place in the northern part of our province with echoes throughout the country. It is a struggle that pits elected band councillors against hereditary chiefs, environmental activists against people who work in the gas and oil industry, the federal government against provincial governments and the pressing questions about reconciliation and justice for indigenous people in this country. This struggle has been costly: workers have been laid off, goods have been delayed or have not arrived at their destinations, and communities and families have been divided.
As so often happens in struggles such as these, simplistic ‘solutions’ to complex issues are proposed, often by people who have, as the saying goes where I grew up, ‘no horse in this race’. The phrase, ‘the rule of law’, is used as if it has only one interpretation and as if ‘the rule of law’ has been used by governments in Canada and elsewhere in the world to coerce those who oppose governmental policies. The phrase, ‘no more pipelines’, is used as if many of those using it have not travelled by air or automobile to arrive at protest sites and as if they are not using technology currently dependent upon the plastics and rare earth metals contained in their cellular devices.
Moral questions rarely if ever are resolved by slogans. They are resolved by a commitment to informing our consciences through dialogue with those with whom we agree and with whom we disagree. Moral questions often require patience and patience can be costly in time and resources. But genuine progress is only achieved by participating in the struggle with compassion and patience, with respect and a desire to discern how best to achieve the common good of all. Only then might we find ourselves open to blessing.
Through the cleansing depths of repentance and the heaven-rending words of the Spirit
One of my complaints about English translations of the Holy Scriptures is the failure to translate metanoia, a Greek word at the heart of all of today’s readings, properly. Most often translators use some form of ‘repent’ or ‘repentance’, a word that has its origins in the Latin word meaning ‘punishment’ and is used in one of the words we use in English for a prison, ‘penitentiary’, a place where one is punished for their criminal or civil misdeeds.
To be sure, I believe that ‘when we fall into sin,’ as the baptismal liturgy puts it, we do suffer. Sometimes that suffering is emotional and at other times that suffering results in relationships that fall apart or cease to be life-giving. Sometimes the consequences of our sinful behaviour is so damaging to ourselves and to others that it is almost impossible to imagine how we can start over again.
What we need at such times is not ‘punishment’ but a new perspective. That’s what metanoia, the word used in the Greek New Testament, means. When John the Baptist calls the people to metanoia, he is calling them to look at the world as God sees it and then act appropriately, making the changes that will bring us into proper alignment. When Jesus invites his disciples into a life of metanoia, he is inviting us to rediscover the image of God within each one of us, an image of love and compassion, and to develop habits of living that embody that love and compassion in our daily lives and work.
Through the Scriptures, through participation in the worship of the community of faith, through prayer personal and communal, through study and action, the heavens are opened and the Spirit empowers us to become who we truly are, living icons of Christ in a world looking for meaning, often in all the wrong places.
Lent is not for the faint-hearted.
Every year I begin Lent in the hope that, in the struggle to become more Christ-like, I will be open to the blessing that it would mean to me and to those around me. Every year I begin Lent in the hope that, in exploring the depths of metanoia, the heavens will be rent open and the Spirit will makes itself present to me in powerful and transformative ways. But I always enter Lent in the awareness that Lent is not for the faint-hearted. There is always a cost to the blessing of becoming more Christ-like --- letting go of the comfortable and familiar. There is always a cost to seeing the world as God sees it --- having my eyes open to the reality of good and evil and my part, our part, in working with God to restore creation. Yet, such journeys are always worth the cost.
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