Christ Episcopal Church, St. Joseph – Lent 1
An opportune time. An opportune time for what? Obviously, the devil—whose thoughts we are hearing at the end of today’s Gospel lesson (Luke 4:1-13)—was looking for an opportune time to resume his temptation of Jesus. But—thanks be to God—we know the devil never succeeded in getting Jesus to sin.
WE are quite another story. It seems no time is other than an opportune time for us to be tempted to sin! And we, indeed, fall for all the things Jesus resisted at the end of his stay in the wilderness.
We do live by bread alone. That is, our own earthly cravings, our tendency to see our every desire as a need, our insatiable collecting of worldly things do dominate our time and attention and energy. The struggle for power is real and we get swept up in refusing to see the shortcomings of “our side” and demonizing the “other side”—as if there were only two sides to everything.
The yawning gap between the wealthiest in our society and the middle and working classes continues widening. It is entirely possible today to work not just one but two jobs and still have trouble feeding your children—this at a time of corporate profits through the roof.
Several of us here this morning just returned from Diocesan Convention, where we heard, first, a stirring sermon by Fr. Michael Bordelon from St. Barnabas, Lafayette, and an equally inspiring convention address by Bishop Jake Owensby. I want to borrow from both of them this morning.
First, the Bishop asked us to consider three questions. These are not questions we can necessarily answer off the top of our head, so Lent 1 is a good time to begin reflecting on them.
His first question was, “Who am I, really?” He talked about the toxic individualism I mentioned above that our society has devolved into, and he contrasted that with creatures made in God’s image. That’s us, and all humankind. And as creatures made in God’s image we are the very manifestation of God’s love in the world.
His second questions was, “How am I my true self in the church?” As Christians, we believe we are the body of Christ in the world, and at least a couple of times a year, we read in church the Apostle Paul’s exposition of what that means. But perhaps our hearing has grown dull with familiarity.
Indeed, the first question, “Who am I, really?” can only be answered by the second question. In other words, although each of us is a unique, distinctive being, our very being is also shaped by the communities we are members of and relationships we have entered into. Or, in the African philosophy called “Ubuntu,” “I am because we are.”
That is especially true of Christian community, which professes to be the body of Christ doing the work of Christ in the world. Each person brings something to the table, each has a gift to put into the mix, and “the mix” comes together best for the common good when every part of the body is present, contributing and valued.
Finally, the Bishop posed his third question: Who should the church be in this dramatically changed and changing world? And this question is what Fr. Michael Bordelon’s entire sermon was about.
See, our church has changed more and faster over the past couple of years that anyone thought possible. Yes, change has always been “the norm,” but not the kind of change we have just come through.
Well! Let me hasten to say, we think we’ve come through it. We hope we’ve come through it. The truth is, we don’t know if we’re through it or if this is a short-term reprieve.
We speak longingly of “getting back to normal” or cautiously of a “new normal,” preferably one as much like the old normal as possible. But I think we know deep down that Covid is now part of the landscape and we must learn to live with it because it is not going away. Moreover, all the experts are telling us we better prepare for the next pandemic.
Not only has the pandemic devastated our health and social lives, but the economic consequences are still ravaging our church budgets and personal pocketbooks. Add to that the devastation—physical and economic—caused by extreme weather events—hurricanes, especially. To top it off, we witness today the horror of one sovereign nation invading another sovereign nation, thereby dragging the entire world toward cataclysmic violence—perhaps even self-annihilation by nuclear war.
Brothers and sisters, we are in a situation. We are worn out and burned out by pandemic and loss, by political animosity, by fear for our democracy, not to mention the very future of our planet home.
So, I propose that now is an opportune time. What it is an opportune time for is up to us, because, you see, God also waits for opportune times in which to stretch us and move us out of our comfort zone into a world that needs us now more than ever.
So let us ask, What should church be and do in this situation? Going backward has never really been an option. We can engage in bouts of nostalgia but we cannot roll back the clock.
To make matters more challenging, at this very moment that the church must think outside the box, those of us still inside the box are, shall we say, a little long in the tooth and gray of the head. The church is aging and we want most of all the comfort of familiarity and stability.
And here we are instead, as Fr. Michael preached, called to innovate and to move out of our comfort zone.
All of the Canterbury kids and a few adults associated with Canterbury had lunch together at convention. The conversation turned to music in church, and one of the things I learned is that I, myself, must be a bit more open to contemporary Christian music. I love the old hymns! But I myself am also aware that the theology expressed in many of those old hymns just is not what we believe today and does not up speak to today’s young adults facing and dealing with the challenges of today’s world. What do we do about that?
I don’t have an answer to that question, but I do have another idea. We also heard a report from Camp Hardtner at convention and it was a powerful reminder that summer camp is the first and best way for our diocese to minister to kids from primary school through high school. And we were urged to think of that ministry as—not just to the kids of our church family—but to all the kids of Louisiana. I wonder how Christ Church might offer a potentially life-saving experience at Camp Hardtner to some kids from St. Joseph, La?
Brothers and sisters, we are in a situation, a challenging, daunting situation. We face our own mortality this Lenten season, not only as individual people but as a church.
But a situation is also an opportune time. We can yield to the temptation to look backward and yearn nostalgically for the past, or we can face it head on, step out in faith and follow Jesus to and through the cross. After Lent comes Easter. After death comes resurrection. And we are resurrection people.
In the name of God, Father, Son & Holy Spirit, AMEN.
