Matthew 4:1-11

February 10, 2008

Mark S. Bollwinkel


By tradition the Lenten season always begins with Jesus in the desert wilderness being tempted by the devil. In Lent we will spend forty days in preparation for Palm Sunday and Easter, minus the Sundays, just as Jesus spent forty days fasting and praying before he began his ministry. We mark the first day with ashes, gathered from the burned remains of the branches we waved the year before on Palm Sunday. On that day we symbolically remembered the crowds that hailed Jesus as king with "hosannas". But on the first day of Lent we do not forget that the same crowds will cry "crucify him" a few days later; and so we mark our foreheads with the sign of the cross that will be the instrument of his death and our betrayal of the God of love.

There in the desert wilderness it sounds as if Jesus has all the answers:
'It is written,
"One does not live by bread alone,
but by every word that comes from the mouth of God." '
"Do not put the Lord your God to the test." '
"Worship the Lord your God,
and serve only him." '

But in his three year journey between the desert and the empty tomb Jesus will have plenty of questions and even some doubts along the way.


So will Mother Teresa. Mother Teresa was the winner of the 1979 Nobel Prize for Peace recognizing her life long work to ease the suffering and death of the poorest of the poor in Calcutta, India. Most of us think of her as a saint. In practice and compassion she was, of course. Yet throughout her life she struggled with believing in the God she chose to serve. Last year a book was published which includes examples of correspondence between Mother Teresa and her confessors and superiors over a 66 year period (Brain Kolodiejchuk, Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light, Doubleday, 2007). The letters describe a very human woman's struggle with loneliness, darkness and doubt:


We can all anticipate spiritual ups and downs in life. "The Spanish mystic St. John of the Cross in the 16th century coined the term 'dark night of the soul' to describe a characteristic stage in the growth of some spiritual masters." (Biema)

John Wesley, founder of Methodism, was despondent after his failure as a missionary in the colony of Georgia. Albert Schweitzer, brilliant musician, theologian and medial doctor missionary to West Africa, experienced a nervous breakdown and clinical depression during World War I. In the garden of Gethsemane on the night before he is killed, Jesus says to his disciples, "I am deeply grieved, even to death..." and to God he prays "....if it is possible, let this cup pass from me...." (Matthew 26:38-39) On the cross he cries out, "My God, my God why hast thou forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46)

If it's OK for our heroes to have ups and down in their spiritual journey shouldn't we be gentle with our own doubts and struggles?

I've always thought that our questions were more important than our answers. And I've always wanted the church to be a safe place where any question could be asked and all those who had doubts were welcomed. I reject the notion that the church has to be a place where one checks their brains in at the door and all are expected to blindly conform to doctrine and dogma!


In her book Christianity for the Rest of Us (HarperSanFrancisco, 2006) Diana Butler Bass describes four basic types of congregations (Bass 36-38):

Gathering of the Saints — this church emphasizes the exclusivity of personal salvation focusing on who is going to get into heaven and who is going to hell. More often than not it is their members who are "in" and everybody else who is "out".

Hospital for Sinners — this church recognizes that all human beings are sickened by sin and need healing. These communities emphasize how we live in this world much more than what happens after it.

A Religious "Rotary" Club — many have understood the church as a religious place for social acceptability and business connections. Everyone is welcome with no spiritual demands other than to conform to some sort of generalized Protestant commitment "to do and be good".

Village/Community of Pilgrims — a church that welcomes all, saints and sinners, to God's house that offered weary immigrants a new home in a new world.



Of course, just about every church is a mixture of all four types and more or less at certain times in their season, which may explain in part why the contemporary Protestant is in effect a spiritual nomad. We are a very practical people when choosing a church; we want to find a place that meets our needs.


Sister Mary Ann, who worked for a home health agency, was out making her rounds visiting homebound patients when she ran out of gas. As luck would have it, an gasoline station was just a block away. She walked to the station to borrow a gas can and buy some gas. The attendant told her that the only gas can he owned had been loaned out, but she could wait until it was returned. Since Sister Mary Ann was on the way to see a patient, she decided not to wait and walked back to her car.

She looked for something in her car that she could fill with gas and spotted the bedpan she was taking to the patient. Always resourceful, Sister Mary Ann carried the bedpan to the station, filled it with gasoline, and carried the full bedpan back to her car.

As she was pouring the gas into her tank, two Methodists watched from across the street. One of them turned to the other and said, 'If it starts, I'm turning Catholic'.


Raise your hands if you were born and baptized a Methodist? How many folk here this morning have been members of more than two kinds of churches? Three? Five? How many have been baptized more than once?

Bass cites a Newsweek article in 2005 that surveys religious self-identification in North America, which concluded that 9% of respondents saw themselves as "religious", 24% "spiritual but not religious" and 55% as "religious and spiritual". (Bass p. 43)

Who are we?

Bass calls us "Exiles" those who wander seeking a faith home because we have been rejected or wounded by another sometime in our lives; "Immigrants" those who journey to an entirely new and different culture; "Converts" those who have experienced a life transforming moment and have found a community who understands; and "Villagers":


Kind of sounds like us doesn't? We who gather in this sacred space to "Touch Heaven and Change Earth". Isn't that why we are here in the first place?

Lent is a season for reflection, a time to take account of who we are and where we are going in life and in our relationship to God. It's a time to take "Christianity 101" all over again and get back to basics.

And that means it's a time to face our doubts and ask our questions. It's OK. You are welcomed here just as you are.

Amen.


back to Sermons Index

Printable Version