Preacher: The Very Rev. Dr. Valori Mulvey Sherer, Rector
En el nombre del Dios: Padre, Hijo, y Espiritu Santo. Amen.
For the first time in a very long time, I had trouble discerning what God was calling me to do or stop doing for Lent. Most years, my Lenten practices would get started before Lent – I guess God knew I needed the extra time. But this year, no direction came to me in my discernment prior to Ash Wednesday.
This left me feeling a little bit off-balance. The little girl in me who was raised Roman Catholic began to fret that I needed to have my course set; and that each day that passed by was another failure on my part.
So I spent some time in prayer over it. I figured I might as well, since I wasn’t sure what else I should be doing. I kept asking God, what will you have me do?
I knew I would do it. I love Lent and the ways Lent grows me. All I needed to know was what I should do.
Two phrases kept repeating in my prayer. The first was a line from the Nicene Creed: “God from God, light from light, true God from true God.” As you know, this is how Jesus, who is the second person in the Triune God, is described. “God from God, light from light, true God from true God.” (BCP, 358)
It’s a phrase I’ve heard all of my life, but not one I had spent much prayer time on – I never felt I needed to – I had always accepted it, believed it, consented to it. But this line from the creed was not a concept to understand. This time it was a voice speaking within me, a summons to the light who is Christ within me.
The second phrase that kept repeating in my prayer was a quote from Thomas Merton. I didn’t even know I knew this quote and it’s entirely possible that I didn’t. But in my prayer, Merton’s words were given to me, so I Googled them and found them. Merton said, “We have what we seek, it is there all the time, and if we give it time, it will make itself known to us.” http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/t/thomas_merton.html#QZO9xDCZhLdFsZzV.99
It took me a week, but I finally realized what God was seeking from me this Lent – nothing. For the first time in a very long time, I’m not called to add anything in or give anything up, but to walk on in my everyday rhythms and let the light of Christ that is already within me illumine all I see, hear, touch, taste, and know – and transform my whole experience of them.
As the psalmist says, “The Lord is my light…” This light, who is God, reveals truth in every moment – truth that connects us to God, to one another, and to all the saints in heaven; truth that connects the present and the past and the future; truth that reveals redemption as a joyful reality right now, not just a hope of better days to come.
Within each of us is the light of Christ. So often, however, the truth this light would reveal if we attended to it, isn’t revealed because we don’t attend to it. We don’t behold it. If we don’t behold it, we can’t be guided by it, and instead of walking on the path of light and life offered continually by God to us, we walk on in darkness, heading blindly toward death.
This is what we’re hearing about in today’s gospel story. The Pharisees come to Jesus and warn him to leave because Herod wants to kill him.
Jesus’ response is a bit snarky, but also compassionate. We don’t know on whose behalf the Pharisees were acting. Were they really worried about Jesus? Was Herod really threatening to kill him? Or were they just saying that to get Jesus and his followers to go away?
While we may not know their intent – it’s pretty certain Jesus did. So instead of naming the deceiver, Jesus simply says: tell that fox (that clever liar) that I will continue to do my work because it is the will of God; and nothing and no one can stop it.
On the third day (a phrase whose reference I think we all understand), Jesus says, “I finish my work.” This is the same word Jesus says from the cross when he says, ‘It is finished…’ which also means, ‘It is fulfilled.’
I wonder if there was a pause in the conversation here. I wonder if Jesus watched to see if the Pharisees would get it when he quoted the Scripture from Chronicles, Jeremiah, Amos that say that Israel kills the prophets sent by God to restore them to the path of light.
But they didn’t get it. And we hear Jesus go from snarky to sad in that beautiful cry of grief from the one who is God from God, light from light, true God from true God: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” You would not behold the light.
Behold this then, Jesus says: “…your house is left to you” or, in other words, ‘Have it your way. Walk on in the darkness. It only leads to death.’ Jesus is making reference here to the destruction of Israel at the hands of the Babylonians – something the learned Pharisees would have known.
Jesus concludes with this promise: ‘you won’t see me again until you are willing to behold the light.’ Only then will you proclaim the truth: “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” Jesus’ Scriptural reference here is also a prediction of his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the beginning of the passion story that will reveal the total fulfillment of the will of God, which is… redemption of the whole world in Jesus the Christ.
Today we heard the psalmist proclaim, “The Lord is my light and salvation” but then ask, “What if I had not believed that I should see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living!” What if we were not willing to believe that God would grant us the grace to behold this Light in our everyday lives, our everyday rhythms?
Then we surely would walk in darkness.
Thankfully, it is the glory of God always to have mercy. God knows that we forget we already have deep within us all we need. God knows that we don’t stop and behold the Light, we don’t let it illumine and transform all we see, hear, touch, taste, and know. Thankfully, God is also gracious to all who have gone astray.
As we continue on our Lenten journey, may we go even deeper “with penitent hearts and steadfast faith.” And in that deep darkness, may we be willing to open our eyes of faith and behold Light of Christ that dwells in us and we in him. Amen.
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