First Lent, 2005

Some good old boys out in the country decided to have a masquerade party.  They had heard of them, had seen a movie or two about how to do them, and they sure sounded like fun.  They decided to have the party at a fellow’s house that lived way out off the main road.  They were going to meet at his house on Halloween and have that party.

The house was way out in the country and one of the fellows decided to walk so as not to wrinkle his costume.  He was dressed up like the Devil.  As he walked toward the friend’s house a rainstorm came up and he needed some place to get in out of the rain.  He darted quickly into a little building by the side of the road.

It just so happened it was a little country church, and they were right in the middle of a big revival meeting.  Goodness, you can imagine what a commotion it caused when he jumped into the doorway, with his red Devil outfit on, his horns on top of his head and his pitchfork in his hand.

People went out the doors and windows; any way to get out.  One old boy up near the front jumped up to run, but got his coattail caught in the wooden seat and couldn’t get away.  He wheeled around and threw up both arms and said, “I’ve been a member of this church for going on twenty-five years, but I’ve been on your side all along!”

I would like to be able to tell you that I have been on God’s side every day of my life, but I would not want to compound what is obviously not the case by telling you a lie.  In the immortal words of Jess Trotter, former Dean of Virginia Theological Seminary, “I not only believe in original sin, but I take to it like a duck to water.”

I believe the doctrine of original sin must be the starting point if we are to understand anything about the Christian enterprise.  If we do not start there we are tempted to fall into the trap of believing that human beings can be reconciled to God with the proper application of some external corrective.  Salvation then becomes a cosmetic enterprise; kind of like botox injections to get rid of wrinkles.  It doesn’t have that necessary eternal dimension to it.  If one is led to believe human beings have something to do with establishing their own salvation it should come as no surprise that all kinds of cults, new age movements that never mention the name of Jesus, eastern religion couched in Christian language, and all manner of self-help programs will make millions selling stuff.

The problem with such approaches is made clear in the Gospel for the First Sunday in Lent.  After his baptism Jesus is led by the Spirit into the wilderness for a time of testing and preparation.  It is out there in the desert that the WAY is determined.  The best way to reach people and win their allegiance for God is hammered out on the anvil of competing wills.  The temptations faced in the scorching daytime heat and bone-chilling nighttime cold are the prototypes of the ones that every Christian and every church must contend.  They really are easily understood.  They are ever so much more difficult to resist.  Jesus was tempted to buy into the idea that material possessions can buy allegiance, that political systems can be equated with the will of God and God’s Kingdom, and that the most sensational show is the most effective evangelism tool.  We are tempted to buy into the same ideas.

I would want to suggest that temptations come to us at the level of giftedness.  Look at the temptations Jesus faced at the moment of greatest personal weakness.  It is no particular temptation for us to turn stones into bread, to rule the world politically, or to leap from the pinnacle of the temple without a parachute or bungee cord.  Those are uniquely the temptations of Jesus.  Those belong to Jesus precisely because he had to power to perform them.  Giving in to just one of those unique temptations would have meant he would louse everything.  To have given in would have meant to take a shortcut and Jesus knew better than any person who has ever lived or will ever live that in spiritual matters there can be no shortcuts.

But those same temptations match very well with those we face at the level of our gifts.  First, the temptations at the level of the bribe come to us.  We have bread and plenty of it and the temptation is to share it if in return we have the allegiance of those we feed.  Bribed allegiance is not allegiance at all, as we continually find out as a nation and as a church.  Corruption and greed are as much a part of original sin as wanting to be our own God and food sent to relieve the hunger of starving people very often is sold and the money lines the pockets of the powerful instead of filling the stomach of the hungry.

Second, the temptations at the level of compromise come to us.  Don’t set your standards too high.  Compromise a little with evil and people will follow.  Unfortunately, people will not follow indefinitely as we sometimes find out when we set out to support some dictator or despot.  That usually ends as a dismal failure.  As a church we are very often tempted to try and win people by compromising with the standards of the world.  The mixed up definitions of the world, where good is called evil and evil is called good, very often gives us a warped sense of morality and we fail to stand over against a culture that worships things and uses up people.

Third, the temptation at the level of entertainment comes to us.  Put on a good show and people will follow.  Unfortunately, churches fall into that temptation without intending to do so.  We tend to make our way of doing the liturgy more important than the reality to which it points.  Sensationalism always fails for lack of depth.  I believe the very best thing we can do as Episcopalian is to be true to what we have received; conduct a liturgy that asks that worship involve everyone, that people are expected to give themselves away in order to be spiritually fed, and that following a set order of service saves us from the worst in people like me.  It should be central to our evangelistic commitment that people who come here do not have to believe what I believe in order to stay here and consider themselves to be fully vested members.

We are asked to choose the path that does not bribe, compromise, or appeal to the sensational.  If we choose that path we will find a cross and beyond the cross a resurrection that is the only way to eternal life.

It is suffering love that alone can win the hearts, minds, and souls of sinful human beings.  We are not worthy; we have been made worthy.  We are not God’s children by birthright; we have been made the children of God by adoption.  We cannot operate in this world, in any ultimate sense, on the basis of justice alone; we must operate on the basis of mercy.  The Lord of this life and the life that is to come did not overcome the temptations of the Great Adversary in order that I may never be tempted; he overcame those temptations in order for me to know where I can turn for power in my living day by day.  He did not endure death and the grave and rise victorious on the third day in order for me to live in any old way I decide; he did those things in order that I might say, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”

It is my hope that this Lenten season can be a time when we remember we not only believe in original sin, but we take to it like a duck to water in our unredeemed and natural state.

But, I hope this Lent can also be a time when you and I can say, “O wretched man/woman that I am!  What can save me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Then, even if the Devil does show up, we’ll know whose side we are on.  Amen.