Lent 1 Year A
March 1, 2020
A lot of people think that country music singers only care about liquor and heartbreak. But that’s not true. Before moving to the northeast, Bunker and I spent a good bit of time in Nashville, country music’s capitol, so we have followed country music for decades. Many of its artists and songwriters brilliantly hone in on the depth of the human condition in incredibly poetic ways. Arguably, Johnny Cash was the best at this. In the notes for his 1996 album “Unchained,” Cash goes way beyond alcohol and unhappiness, offering an almost exhaustive list of topics for his songs. He said, “I love songs about horses, railroads, land / Judgment Day, family, hard times, whiskey / courtship, marriage, adultery, separation / murder, war, prison, rambling, damnation, home, salvation / death, pride, humor, piety, rebellion, patriotism, larceny, determination, tragedy, rowdiness, heartbreak, and love. And Mother. And God.”
Today’s Great Litany sounded a lot like Johnny Cash’s list. The depth of the human condition. Blindness of heart. Pride. Vainglory. Hypocrisy. Envy. Hatred. Malice. Hardness of heart. Oppression. Conspiracy. Rebellion. All things put into words by Thomas Cranmer back in 1544, certainly part of our human identity before then, and unquestionably in the 500 years since. The Litany starts out slow, with a call to the triune God, but then it picks up steam, like a country singer pouring their heart out to the universe, a free-for-all to free our souls of ALL possible sin.
In this church, perhaps in the Episcopal Church at large, we don’t spend much time talking about temptation or sin. Redemption and forgiveness play much more of a prominent role in our community. But for me, growing up in the south, “sin-talk” was everywhere. Billy Graham used to come to town and hold big stadium revivals night after night, inviting thousands upon thousands to repent and return to Jesus Christ. Christian organizations like Fellowship of Christian Athletes and Young Life would even hold prayer meetings in my high school and talk, week after week, about how our sin separated us from God. Friends of mine, active in various denominational and non-denominational churches, were quick to label assorted lifestyles and actions as sinful. It’s possible actually, that I heard more about “temptation” and “sin” in one week growing up in Texas, than I have in the past few decades here in northern New Jersey.
But this week’s Collect and Gospel lesson brought all of that back to me, placing the theme of temptation squarely in our laps. I picture Jesus from our Gospel this morning, still dripping wet from his baptism in the Jordan River, with those words from the voice in heaven declaring him the “Son of God” still echoing in his ears. Now, I could be wrong, but to me, neither his baptism nor that voice could be casually forgotten. So he carries them with him as he’s led by the Spirit to the searing heat and blowing sand of the wilderness, as Frederick Buechner writes, “to figure out what it meant to be Jesus.” Jesus needed to distinguish between stones and bread, to figure out what were merely illusions, and to remain faithful to God alone.
It’s so easy for us to think of Jesus as some divinely-cloaked miracle worker who was just play-acting at being a human. But Jesus was fully human, just like you and me. He loved to eat and drink, just like we do. He loved his friends, just like we do. He felt the sting of rejection, the fear of pain, and the ache of loneliness, just like we do. And yet he remained completely connected to his identity as the “Son of God” – just like we do???
Of course, this is our call during this season of Lent, to figure out what in our lives are merely illusions, to distinguish between the bread that feeds us and the stones that lead us astray, and to remain faithful to the identity we claim in baptism that we are indeed God’s beloved children. To do that takes spending intentional time on the desert path, shaking off those things which anesthetize us or consume us or distract us from God. This week, in particular, we need to shake off the fear stirred up by the spread of the coronavirus, and rest our hope and faith in Christ. We began this walk on Ash Wednesday, continue it this morning, and will walk this path with Jesus all the way to the cross.
Nora Gallagher, author and preacher, talks about Lent when she says, “I think of God as the ultimate compassionate listener. I can bring all of my chaos and trauma to [God], the ways I whine, complain, and duck the truth. Lent is set aside to do just that: to bring it all to consciousness. It’s not easy to face our own darkness, our own ashes. Because we all come up short. As a friend said, when she wanted to take a day off from work: I’m just going to call in ugly. During Lent, we’re all going to have to call in ugly, that’s why we’re doing this together.”
In the Great Litany, we called in ugly this morning. But we did it together, calling out to God, encircling one another, encouraging each other, turning our focus from the idols in our lives, and instead, tuning into God’s presence.
Johnny Cash’s mother used to tell him, "God has his hand on you. Never ignore the gift." And although Cash’s life journey took him down some destructive, rebellious roads, he returned time and time again to the God who loved and redeemed him. In fact, toward the end of his life, Cash wrote the song, “Unchained” which revealed the humanity and fragility underneath his larger-than-life persona. The lyrics are perfect for today’s Lenten reflection:
I have been ungrateful
I have been unwise
Restless from the cradle
But now I realize
It's so hard to see the rainbow
Through glasses dark as these
Maybe I'll be able
From down on my knees
Oh, I am weak
Oh, I know I am vain
Take this weight from me
Let my spirit be unchained.
Today, as we explore the view from down on our knees and acknowledge those place where we fall short of what God intended for our lives, I invite you to remember that you are God’s beloved, marked and called at your baptism. We don’t have to remember a litany of sins or a long list of shortcomings – just one word – that we are “unchained.” Amen.