In today’s lectionary I am struck by four separate narratives speaking of deeply personal relationships with God; and God’s equally personal and loving invitation to follow Him into the wilderness to find Jesus. Just for fun I am going to parody Paul’s humble brag. If anyone else has reason to be confident about their place in this institution, it is me. I am a cradle Episcopalian, baptized in infancy and attended church throughout my childhood on most Christmases and Easters. I can honestly attest that I generally wore a dress on Easter. I was confirmed as a teenager, and in 1973 I became the first girl acolyte in Oregon. I attended Sunday school several times as a child; more frequently when I was old enough to drive myself. I taught Sunday school, served on the alter guild, I brought treats sometimes, served on vestry, ECW, and several churchy clubs and functions. have served as a delegate to the convention, voted in two bishop elections and attended Curisillo. I confess I have never met my 10% tithe obligation. I was married in the church, and had my divorce blessed by a priest five years later. If God handed out church points, I would be a contender to win the most.
But God does not hand out God points. I don’t think any of us are earning heavenly credit for being here today, nor by declaring ourselves Christians. Paul is asserting that none of those achievements and ‘blamelessness under the law stuff’ matters, except that his journey brought him to Christ. So too with us. From jail Paul is leading the Philippians toward the understanding that it is not the churchy stuff they do that matters unless it is leading them into a more intimate relationship with Christ; a greater understanding of the truth and the mystery of faith; and the grace of Christ’s life, death and resurrection. Paul wants these new followers to fully understand the purpose God sets before them.
Paul makes clear, as clearly as Paul can clarify anything, that while he is himself called to lead newly established communities of Christians, he is on the same journey as them. He is on equal footing with all the followers of The Way. In a conversation with Rabbi Joseph Edelheit, Jason Micheli spoke of Paul’s journey as “wandering in the wilderness compared to the safe, privileged and concrete life he left behind as a respected Pharisee from the tribe of Benjamin.” Micheli adds that after the resurrection (after Easter) all believers are journeying through the wilderness together, wandering between the old and the new, without the privileges left behind and without concrete understanding. In the wilderness one relies on faith.
After Easter we can no longer hold on to worldly things we thought were true and foundational. We are seeking a new Way where our wealth and old privileges are worthless. Micheli spoke to these 40 days of Lent as our opportunity to be with the Israelites leaving behind the injustices of government oppression; but also, the safety and comforts of a structured society, to wander unknowingly into the sparse desert that is supposed to lead them to the promise land. Micheli pointed out that not everyone could have made the forty-year trip. Bodies were buried along the way.
The question he poses for our consideration is: What might this mean to us as we see our beloved government institutions disappearing behind us, and we find ourselves involuntarily forced into the strange unknown. Will we be too frightened to move on? Or will we choose to use this opportunity to follow Christ into the wilderness seeking a new Way, The Way. To me it means some of us might not ever know culture, democracy and community the way we have gotten used to knowing it.
Right now, the old is crumbling and it is all about God showing us something new. Isaiah 43 speaks to God’s promise to create a path in the wilderness. God will part the seas and make the path straight. Isaiah says, don’t look back at the old things, look to new things; a new way of being in relationship with God. While we are in the desert, we have each other, and yet we are also more alone with God than ever before. Rejoice in both those things.
Psalm 126 speaks to the fabulousness of our new purpose and clarity of meaning, as well as weeping. Those of us with resources are called to share what we have because many people need our help right now. Like Paul some of us are called to lead and some of us have other jobs. And through it all, all are being led to rejoice with songs of joy and laughter. Isaiah says God will provide the essentials in order that God’s chosen will have what they need. I read into this that we are going to be OK.
This Lent I am sensing a gratitude that is new for me. I have lived as a middle-class white person due entirely to the luck of being born into an upper middle-class family. In my spoiled foolishness I have made thoughtless mistakes with minimal consequences: I have played with money like it was a toy while others didn’t have enough and I have rested in my privilege more than once when I saw injustice out of the corner of my eye.
Diana Butler Bass wrote in The Cottage post that we may have liked our constitution and the concept of liberal democracy, but in many ways, it existed despite its corrupt foundation, making our current reality possible. Have women really felt safe? Have the laws and institutions really served all the people justly and fairly? Do we have an honorable history of peace, equality and justice for all? No, we have not, but it was our country, and we liked it, and we are sad that the old thing is going away, and worried because the new thing is a mystery.
And yet, if we meditate with open hearts and true empathy, we can relate more deeply than ever to the Black Spirituals sung by Africans during their bondage in slavery, and the humiliation and injustice of Jim Crow right up to now in the present day as their history is being erased. Perhaps we are finally beginning to realize that we have been on the same journey with them, and on the same footing all along. But the falseness of our privilege blinded us.
Like the Israelites and all the marginal Americans past and present we are probably not going to like the desert. We may despise this current situation and complain about the desert we are in, but we are here together, in the nave of this lovely building designed to symbolize a sailing ship. We are safe on this boat that we filled with beautiful and expensive elements, fine linen and carved furniture. These beautiful and sacred things, like Mary’s expensive perfume, are our way of honoring God, and we believe this pleases God. And it is good. We drink from a silver cup, and we are answering the call, trying to be Christ in the world, all because we know there is a new and better kingdom to come on the other side of the desert.
This week we can be struck by the penetrating intimacy of God calling us to the wilderness. Only by grace can we come to understand that He is calling us through all our senses. He calls us so that we can take our gifts to the wilderness where we will serve as needed. And someday we will rejoice with all the saints shouting and singing and dancing with joy.
A final note. The African Spiritual was a call in the wilderness. The songs placed the worshipper outside the boundaries of the plantation to remind them that the desert is where one is free. Let yourself hear this lyric as a prayer:
If you want to find Jesus
Go in the wilderness
Go in the wilderness
Go in de wilderness
Come on mourners,
God is in de wilderness
And there I will wait upon the Lord.
Some Americans have been more aware of this than maybe we have been, but we are here now willing to be fully embraced in Christ in all ways, mind, body and Soul. Amen.