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Tell the Devil to
Get Lost
A Sermon by John Pitney for The First
Sunday of Lent,
February 25, 2007
During seminary years
Lent always came by surprise. On Shrove Tuesday the professor of preaching,
one of the most feared teachers on campus, showed up in a clown costume
carrying a little crank organ in his belly. All morning he would play his
organ up and down the sidewalks and halls. He interrupted the regular Tuesday
chapel service walking up and down, pulling people from their pews to dance
with them. As a kid I never knew anything of Fat Tuesday. I think we miss
it’s playfulness.
Shrove Tuesday goes back at least a thousand years as a time
to feast and overindulge as preparation for the 40 days of famine and fasting
in the desert. Pancake Tuesday emerged because making pancakes was a use for
all the spare eggs, milk and fat in the house that couldn’t be used during
Lent. In the 1400’s apparently a churchwoman in the English village of Olney
was so caught up in making pancakes that she almost forgot Shrove Tuesday
worship. She’s said to have run all the way to the church carrying a pancake
in her frying pan, flipping it all the way. Thus, every Fat Tuesday since
1455 the women there have a big race to the church flipping pancakes.
I often wish we had Mardi Gras in our experience. In many
places Mardi Gras begins 12 days after Christmas. Mardi Gras is a huge
ongoing feast that builds toward Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday. I’ve
always understood the best of this tradition as a way for the community to
poke fun at our most serious temptations. Imagine the impact of people in
communities coming to dance and eat pancakes all dressed up in costumes
symbolizing our most flagrant sins and indulgences, addictions and
allegiances. Dressed up in the values about which, if we didn’t laugh, we
could only cry. Imagine us eating and parading together dressed in costumes
of barrels of oil and hummers, dressed up like credit cards and mansions and
Ph.ds., wearing whatever masks will best hide us from anyone seeing who we
really are: women dressed in Revlon commercials saying “I’m worth it” or
“Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.” Marlboro men. Men wearing tool belts
to fix every problem. Polar bears wearing tropical prints. Pastors carrying
weapons, singing “Onward Christian Soldiers,” a child of poverty wrapped in a
costume made of our national budget, someone dressed as Jesus wearing WWJD, a
single mom wearing the WalMart happy cost cutting face, a guy looking like
Donald Trump singing “Lord it’s hard to be humble when you’re perfect in every
way.” Some people would probably come dressed as themselves. And yes, I know
this sounds an awful lot like the Eugene Celebration. I want you to know
about the Shrove Tuesday tradition because just eating a few pancakes leaves
it a little flat.
A story
is told that John Smith was the only Protestant to move into a large Catholic
neighborhood. On the first Friday of Lent, John was outside grilling a big
juicy steak. Meanwhile, the neighbors were eating cold Tuna fish for supper.
This went on each Friday of Lent.
On the
last Friday of Lent, the neighborhood men decided something had to be done
about John; he was tempting them to eat meat each Friday of Lent, and they
couldn't take it anymore. Fasting, we find, always intensifies the awareness
of our attachment to the things that are most important to us.
They
decided to try and convert John to Catholicism. They went to his place and
were happy that he decided to join all his neighbors and become a Catholic.
They took him to Church. The priest sprinkled some water over him, and said,
"You were born a Baptist, you were raised a Baptist, now you are a Catholic."
Their biggest Lenten temptation was resolved.
But
then next year's Lenten season rolled around. The first Friday of Lent came,
and just at supper time, when the neighborhood was setting down to their cold
tuna fish dinner, they smelled steak cooking on a grill. The neighborhood men
couldn’t believe their noses! It was coming from John’s. Had he forgotten
his conversion?
They
all rushed over and when they got there John was at the grill, sprinkling
water over his steaks, saying, "You were born a cow, you were raised a cow,
now you are a fish."
When
does taking ourselves too seriously lead to not taking ourselves serious
enough? We need the dead-serious frivolity of Shrove Tuesday because, before
the taste of pancakes and thick syrup is gone from our mouth, there comes too
soon the ash on our foreheads and the taste of vinegar and we realize we
follow one who laughed at death. Then we see Lent isn’t for the faint of
heart.
My job
this morning is to persuade you to take Lent seriously. As if your life
depends on it. Because it does. Don’t skim over the top. Don’t let yourself
get all the way to Holy Week without doing your work in the desert. An empty
tomb doesn’t mean much to us if we never knew we were dead. I didn’t grow up
with that tradition either...the Ash Wednesday one. Like many of you I’ve
been in the embarassing situation of trying politely to alert the woman behind
the checkout counter at the supermarket to wipe her forehead before I realize
the black smudge is the sign of the cross.
Every
Sunday in Lent we are inviting you to try serious actions of faith. As your
church leaders we believe these can lead to real transformation. Four tables
are set in the front and back with the tools you need to partake in these
acitons. We are offering two this Sunday and we will add a new one each week
along the way. The first action is receiving the ashes. Many of you miss the
chance to receive the ashes on your forehead on Ash Wednesday so we are
offering them each week because it is so important. You can go to any table,
put ashes on your forehead or the back of your hand with the sign of the cross
or offer one of your neighbors the chance to do it for you. It’s a place to
start.
And why
might you want to do that? Because it puts you out there. It brings your
light from under the bushel. It says I’m serious about examining my life.
Will someone mistake the sign of the cross for poor hygiene? Probably. And
what will you say if a friend or co-worker asks what it is? You can say you
follow Jesus. You can say the ash means we all come from dust and we return to
dust. Life to death to life. And it keeps me from thinking too much of
myself in a really arrogant time. Of course you can also tell them it’s a
liturgical form of Botox Cosmetics.
If
theology doesn’t work you can tell a story. We all have ash stories. A few
years ago on the 3rd of July my sister Nancy’s house burned. The garage was
destroyed and the rest of the insides turned deep Ash Wednesday black. It was
Lenten time. I admire my sister. She’s made some Lenten choices in her
life. After a nasty divorce left her with a house that was way too big for
her values, she downsized and bought this smaller house. Soon after she
moved in, it turned to ash. The day after the fire we stood arm in arm
looking at the ruin. She said, “This is why we aren’t s’posed to get attached
to things.”
Put the
ashes on. Put them on every week if you want. It doesn’t mean your house
will burn down. It does mean you are committed to considering your
allegiances. A week after Nancy’s fire we were helping her and her boys sort
through smoke-damaged boxes of pictures and keepsakes that hadn’t yet been
hung on the walls of her new house. As I sorted, I came across a ticket she
had saved from a high school play her son was in. I showed it to Nancy. The
play was “You Can’t Take It With You.”
Lent
isn’t pie in the sky. It’s real life. I like the words of playright John
Osborne, put in the mouth of his character, Jimmy in the play Look Back in
Anger . He talks about love the way I would talk about entering this
season: “You can’t fall into it like a soft job...It takes muscle and guts.
And if you can’t bear the thought of messing up your nice, clean soul, you’d
better give up the whole idea of life, and become a saint. Because you’ll
never make it as a human being. It’s either this world or the next.”
Lent isn’t something you fall into. It’s
something you choose. We all have experiences that happen to us: the
9-11s and assassinations of presidents, governments declaring wars or bad
policies, people with addictions sucking up our lives, parents smothering us,
little brothers pestering, TV ads telling us how to be, drug dealers offering
poison, our houses turning to ash...these all have the power to stop us to
consider what’s most important. And these all make up some of the wilderness
of our lives. But Lent isn’t about falling into life, it’s about choosing
life. It takes “muscle and guts.” It’s about making a decision to open
ourselves to life as it is and all the messy crap and unresolved yearnings,
then discover the love and hope that thrives only there, in the not-nice
filthy mess.
Matthew, Mark and Luke all place the story of the Temptation of Jesus between
his baptism in the Jordan and the beginning of his ministry in the Temple.
Clearly all the gospelwriters wanted to make it clear who this Christ is and
who this Christ will not be. I call it the “Story of the 40 Day Fast.” Full
of the Spirit, led by the Spirit or in the Spirit Jesus chooses the fast and a
time in a wild place. I’m in the 4th and final day of my own fast and,
believe me, Jesus wouldn’t choose to stay in the stark wildness of that place
and not eat if he didn’t choose it.
In this
new season we are asking you to take a risk and choose a fast. I chose to
fast from food this week because I thought I might learn something important
for my life. And I didn’t want to challenge you without engaging myself.
For centuries, Christians have observed the season of Lent by fasting from
food and other indulgences. In a few minutes you will have the opportunity to
go to one of the 4 tables where you can receive ashes. You can also find a
guidebook to help you choose a fast that will best function in your life. It
might be a fast from eating, but there are other options. They all help us
become more aware of our true needs and best possibilities. When we deny
ourselves the comforts we are used to—whether a full plate of food, or some
other part of our daily routine — we are more mindful of our great need for
God, of who we are really created and called to be and what our world could be
if the self-centered allegiances of all humanity would change.
When we
deny our greatest temptations, we become more acutely aware of them. When
they are not fed, they tend to surface in more noticeable ways. Most
importantly, these practices make us mindful of our need for salvation and the
perserverance of Jesus maintaining his identity for love and justice, even to
death on the cross. Fasting, we are more mindful of our own inner deaths so
we are more open to the resurrections around and within us.
Let me
tell you about a few of the fasts we are offering for your choice. We are
offering a gathering called Fast Fridays: You are invited to come to the
church parlor any Friday of Lent from 5:30 to 6 pm. I will lead study, prayer
and sharing of our various fasting efforts. This may begin a 1 day food fast
for those who are willing. Or a choice of other fasts that don’t involve
food.
You can
Fast for Friendship: Meet a friend at lunchtime. Instead of eating, share
water and how you are important to each other. Donate what you would’ve spent
to FOOD for Lane County.
You can
Fast to end Hunger: skip a meal or decide as a familiy to eat a meal of food
that people in poverty might eat. While fasting: 1. Participate in Food Rescue
at FOOD for Lane County or 2. Volunteer at a community garden. There
is information about how to do that.
You can
Fast for Interdependence: Lose the car and cell phone for a day. Walk or
ride your bike and enjoy re-connecting with the neighbors you never knew while
polluting less. Take a fast from lights and the energy they use. Turn them
off for an evening along with cell phones, TV and other distractions. Eat
something important. Play games. Talk. Listen. Enjoy.
You can
Fast for Wholeness: That is, take a fast from perfection. Make a deal with
family, friends or workplace companions that whenever you make a mistake you
will raise both arms and they will clap for you. There are so many ways to
fast and face you greatest obstacles to being fully human.
Whatever you choose, Let Your Fast Be A Fast: don’t make it another way of
comparing yourself to yourself or others. Don’t rush into doing. Let yourself
be. Pay attention to what you feel when you deny something important to you.
And don’t only fast from life, fast for a different, better life,
for yourself, for all of us.
These
are just a few of the choices offered at the tables. Fasting is meant to be
like a splash of cold water in your face first thing in the morning. Time to
be awake. Time to pay attention.
Jesus,
our mentor in the faith, chose the fast. The Spirit called him into wild
ness. We are being called to wild places and wild time. Father Richard Rohr,
in a book called “Everything Belongs” says we have to move out of “business as
usual” into a between place, a realm where “God can best get at us because
we’re out of the way. Where the old world can fall apart so a new one can be
revealed. Some native tribes call this “crazy time.”
It
appears to be a certainty that when you choose to fast, to go into crazy time,
the devil will appear. Now speak of the devil, I don’t think the devil is a
personage exactly but the conversation is real: “Oh yeah, you can eat the
apple and then you’ll know all the mysteries of God.” Who hasn’t heard a
seductive inner voice saying, “Don’t listen to them. You can have it
all you know.” “This weapon, this intelligence system this big car will give
you real security.” “This drug, this intimate relationship will fill your
emptiness. Even if it kills you.”
The devil (I think) is
alot like the one our desert peoples call “Coyote.” One author says, “When
the Navajo speak of Coyote, they do so hesitantly, looking over their
shoulders. They understand his fickle nature, how he seduces fools into
believing their own myths, that they matter to the life of the desert. Coyote
knows we do not matter.
(“Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert” by Terry Tempest Williams)
Is the
devil that cunning trickster who lives where we live, tirelessly scheming to
seduce us into believing our story is way more important than it is? Is it
part of us? Part of that messiness of us. The part that makes us want to
flee humanity and become a saint? Is this devil maybe the backside of God?
It’s a
risk, fasting. We are called to go to a place where it becomes infinitely
clear that we do not matter. And going through that place, setting aside the
things we think so define us, is the only way to discover we do matter.
Without fasting there is only cheap grace and Easter will come and go again
and we’ll wonder, “What’s the big deal?” Jesus took the fast and when he was
at his emptymost the temptation was food. On the first day of my own fast this
week, I was just sort of gloating that I could do it. On the second day the
chicken leg on the top shelf of the fridge looked really good. On the third
day, I swear it was bigger than the day before. I have no idea what dilerium
40 days would bring. I won’t go there. I don’t have the strength or the
courage.
Jesus,
when he heard the seductive lie that he could make bread from a stone, drew on
the whole memory of the Exodus, quoting Deuteronomy so the listeners would
remember how Yahweh brought manna in the desert and every day they received
exactly what they needed, never too little and never more than enough. He
gets it. Well of course he does, he’s the Messiah, but that’s the point. He
could’ve been seduced by the Messiahship of it all but no. If the great King
of Kings knows he’s not God, knows he ultimately does not matter, then how
much more could we know. I’m not defined by that chicken bone nor by any
other things I consume in order to feel satisfied and worthy.
Jesus’
fast in the wilderness put him in a vulnerable place so he could speak to all
these fundamental lies of his culture and the expectations that tempted him to
be who he was not. “Look at all the nations, all the power you could have
over others. All you have to do is sell yourself a little and they’re
yours.” “Throw yourself off the temple! God will save you and then everyone
will know you’re something special.” God calls us to that same vulnerable
space because it’s the only chance we have. It says Jesus was tempted for 40
days. I’m guessing there were a lot more then 3 temptations. This was just a
sample of the big ones. At each turn he was asked to choose between
the person he believed himself to be and the person the world would have
preferred. I suspect many of you are ready to re-examine that choice for
yourself. I know we are way overdue that examination as a culture.
The
symbol of fasting that (Gordon Hall and Evie Davis) brought this morning is an
empty vessel. It is meant to symbolize our humanity and the holy hollowness
that makes its home in each and every one of us and in our culture, a place
reserved only for the Divine. It is also brought to help us see how we want
to fill that hollowness with possessions, but the more we put in, the more we
seem to need and the more we seem to need the more we create technologies and
governments and economies and religions and a way of life and the more the
world craves that way of life the more we have to defend and war and boast
that we’re the best and all the while we are less and less happy and our
daughters learn they can never be beautiful enough and our sons discover they
can never measure up and above average will never do and the polar ice caps
melt and all joy is diminished and there is this awful, pervasive poverty and
hunger of body and soul. This bowel invites a fast. Have a holy experiment.
Take a few things out. If we are constantly pouring other stuff into our
heads or stomachs, there will be little room for God. As we move into this
season, I leave you with some powerful words from Episcopal priest Barbara
Brown Taylor.
That hollowness we
sometimes feel is not a sign of something gone wrong. It is the holy of
holies inside us, the uncluttered throne room of the Lord our God. Nothing on
earth can fill it, but that does not stop us from trying. Whenever we start
feeling too empty inside, we stick our pacifiers into our mouths and suck for
all we are worth. they do not nourish us, but at least they plug the hole. To
enter the wilderness is to leave them behind, and nothing is too smalll to
give up. Even a chocolate bar will do. For 40 days simply pay attention to
how often your mind travels in that direction. Ask yourself why it happens
when it happens. What is going on when you crave a chocolate bar? Are you
hungry? Well what is wrong with being hungry? Are you lonely? What is so bad
about being alone? Try sitting with the feeling instead of fixing it and see
what you find out. Then tell the devil to get lost.
(Barbara Brown Taylor,
Home By Another Way, Cowley, 1999, p.67ff.)
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