THE Destination - Lent 1

From the vast ocean that is you, O God,

My heart can only sip a drop

Without bloating to the point of explosion      Lenten Prayer- Edward Hays (all that’s printed in purple)

This snippet of poetry is from Edward Hays’s, Lenten Hobo Honeymoon. In this book he reflects on the journey of Lent using sign post markers. The markers used are symbols that helped American slaves find safe passage via the Underground Railroad, north into Canada. The symbols marked stations where one could find safe lodging, hospitable people, medicine, food, dangerous dogs, and areas to avoid.

This year the scriptures read through the Sundays of Lent are sign posts marking covenants God made with God’s people. We will witness times when people broke the covenant, and when others returned to the covenant. Over the next forty days, we will see the failures of human beings; despite this -- because of this -- be prepared to be drowned in God’s abundance as God honours the covenant.

From that blazing sun that is you,/ my flesh can only endure a ray/ without being charred into cinders.

The Gospel of Mark presents us with the bare-bones of the story.  Setting focus points, stations, to direct our journey. From the waters of baptism, Mark immediately moves the story to the desert.  Drown in water to journey in a place of blazing sun. The stations in the desert abruptly slap us in the face: desert … wasteland… forty days … test … wild beasts … arrest. The journey told in short sentence fragments, makes it very clear that the journey is not fun and games.  The presentation makes me think of a gym set up for circuit training. Circuit training is a set number of stations, often with weight machines, stationary bikes, rowing machines.  At each station a person works the prescribed exercise for a set amount of time – then moves to the next equipment; one works their way around the entire room, through all the stations. It is hard work.

Jesus’s forty days after his baptism are harsh.  To some extent Mark’s presentation combined with the stations of the cross on the walls, point to everyday human life where we are abruptly assaulted with deserts of condemnation and denial; wastelands of sorrow and betrayal; days of judgement; tests of bearing, helping, and caring for ourselves, for others; and wild beasts immediately bare their teeth as we struggle with crowning – as in hurting others, or letting our egos run wild, with crucifixion, and burial - death.

These are the Stations we are surrounded with this morning: Stations that we are being asked to reflect on during Lent.  The idea is that reflecting and walking through the journey of Jesus to the cross, we will return to relationship – with God, each other, creation; we will experience covenant mercy -via a sip of water, a ray of sunshine.

Blessed are you, for you give yourself to me, / in tiny droplets of the sea/ rather than the vastness of the ocean---

In a single yellow sun ray / and not in the nuclear furnace of the sun.

The Stations are helpful, a discipline for us to follow, pray through.

 Stations though are places to stop at along the journey, helpful pit stops/signposts.  Once upon a time, towns across this country had station houses. The Station house was the places that trains or buses stopped.  One could hop on, hop off, pick up gear or people; send items, travel to other places.  Trains and buses have destinations.  Parcels are addressed with final destinations.  People have tickets to a particular destination. Any one Station may be just a stop along the way, but, there is one final destination.

So I wonder as God’s covenant is recalled in our midst, as Jesus is in the desert, as we enter the Season of Lent - What is the final destination?

After being drown in the waters of baptism, we have been on a journey.  There have been lots of stations along the way. Life stations: confirmations, graduations, relocations, marriage, relationships, breakups, children, jobs, sickness, accomplishments, deaths. There have been stations of love, hate, distress, concord, guilt, loyalty, brokenness, healing.  Where are these Stations leading? What is your final destination?

Is it simply to live one day at a time? Complete your goals for the moment? Is the end retirement? Seeing a grandchild get married or have babies? Is the end destination heaven?

What is the point of stopping at the Stations offered for reflection during Lent without a forethought of the destination?

The covenant station where we stopped today reminds us of the covenant God made with Noah, a covenant that embraces all humankind and creation; a covenant that asks nothing in return.  It is pure drowning Gospel.  Imagery we recall in the thanksgiving prayer at baptism.  This station is a sip of water, a ray of sunshine, directing us to THE destination of our travels.

I wonder what Noah and his family thought about their journey and their destination. Would they live on the ark forever? Find dry ground? Resume a life similar to what was before?

When the ark found land and creation left the boat, they were met with promise and ongoing blessings– there was new life, and a new beginning – and the rainbow was both new life and a new beginning as a sign made of bits of water and a ray of sunshine; just small enough that we could behold and marvel, just enough that God would recall the covenant and relent.  Recalling covenant proclaims that God’s reign can change God’s heart and at the same time overwhelm and transform our lives.

It is the covenant with Noah that points to THE destination.  The final destination is the ultimate expression of God keeping God’s promise.  Each year we journey through Lent to God’s ultimate unconditional love that embraces all humankind and creation.  THE destination is the cross.

The cross is our destination too. We take forty days and Holy Week to journey through life situations, taking time to reflect on God in these places.  We take the temperature of our faith, evaluate our relationships, test our ability to give ourselves away as bread for the hungry. The closer we get to the cross, to reliving Jesus’s death, to bearing witness to God’s ultimate love, we are challenged more deeply to live our baptismal promises- the covenant God made with us.  When we reach Good Friday, having taken stock of our lives, visiting stations that have helped us to focus and  re-orient our attitudes; having experienced mini-conversions – those aha moments that we have used to reconnect with  God and neighbour….when there are no secrets left in the inner parts of our being, when all is left on the journey, and we come naked -empty- before God; we realize that the destination is not a fixed placed forever and ever.  This destination is not so much a place, as it is being drown in the mercy of God.  At the cross we are embraced by Being -the I am Who I am-  and this changes everything.

The destination is the cross, is God’s lavish outpouring, in the now.  It is the fulfillment of God’s reign that overwhelms and so transforms our lives that we cannot keep it to ourselves.  The experience of the cross has us live from that Being -the centre of the covenant; a relationship-God who dares to love us so boldly.

This is the point of taking this forty-day journey: to prepare ourselves for the cross, so that experiencing God – the sip of water, the ray of sunshine- we bear the cross; going into the deserts of despair with water to drink, suffering with Satan and shedding tears, walking with presence beside wild beasts, radiating a ray of sunshine amidst the rot of the wilderness. Our destination is not the end of this life as we know it. Our destination is not death.  The destination is now! It is to dare to love boldly. The destination is proclaiming Christ crucified- God’s ultimate radical keeping of the covenant.  And in this there is new life and new beginning.

Blessed are you, for my eye and mind can encircle / only so much glorious wonder.

Gracious are you to lovingly come to me / in doses of holiness I can embrace.

More wholly other and awesome are you / than anything I can know, feel, sense or see.

You are my Source and Beloved Destination.      Amen.

TRANSFIGURATION

Peter did not know what to say, for they were terrified. Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”

Imagine the disciples, in their confusion and residual fear, actually constructing the three dwellings. Although this is not what happens in the text, this is very much what has happened since.  Those calling themselves disciples of Jesus, Christians through the ages, have set about constructing dwellings.

Under British Law a dwelling is defined as a self-contained ‘substantial’ unit of accommodation, a building or part of a building, caravan, houseboat, or other mobile abode; tents are not considered substantial. Consider the dwellings- churches, basilicas, cathedrals that Christians have built; the theological tomes, intellectual ideas, confessions of faith, hymnary, moral and ethical imperatives, and traditions and matters of piety, around which Christians have constructed their systems, beliefs, and communities. Christians have littered the mountain top many times over with dwellings of all shapes and sizes.

The Gospel of Mark briefly draws our attention to the possibility of three dwellings: one for Moses, one for Elijah, one for Jesus.

Dwelling one has Moses’ name over the door.  This is a dwelling whose unique expertise and gift is the Law. This dwelling, houses faithful people who are focused on loving God and loving neighbour. It is here that the Law is good: it acts as a community disciplinarian, it is a mirror that shows humans their sinfulness, and it is a helpful rule of life.  The Law focuses the community on right living, a living that is bound in covenant with God; it is relationship with God that enables the people to live in relationship with each other. In fact, it is the Law that draws people back to relationship with God, as it becomes apparent that one can not of their own accord keep the Law.  The covenant, the Laws within the covenant, are good, until they aren’t.

Abodes – institutions, governments, religions, cultures- unravel when the focus becomes dwelling on the Law, rather than dwelling in the Law. Dwelling on the Law becomes exclusive, pushing people out who do not meet expectations; dwelling on the Law is all about self-achievement, being better than others, and competition. It turns to works righteousness, the ability for one to work out their own salvation. The importance is on Law, rather, than, living the intent of Law—to love God and to love one’s neighbour to the best of one’s ability. In other words, living the Law in joy and in a sense of freedom. 

Dwelling two has Elijah’s name on the mail box. This is a dwelling whose unique expertise and gift is prophetic. This dwelling, houses faithful people who are focused on hearing the Word of God and envisioning the future – God’s kingdom coming now. Within the dwelling attention is paid to returning to the Lord – as the prophets through the ages have called people to do.  In their midst there is healing and hope. This second dwelling unravels, when the community dwells on the prophetic, rather than dwelling in the prophetic.  Dwelling on the prophetic is focusing on words from one person, constantly looking for the next best thing, a new gimmick, looking for the prophetic speaker or teacher to come to the rescue. The unravelling of this house might be speaking simply to be a voice; or a voice that excludes other voices, deeming their message to be the only message; or perhaps they turn inward and are a voice that is only for the faithful within their walls. This house can be one that makes statements, like prophesying the end of time, or a community that incites fear, to in some way benefit their own community.  Dwelling in the prophetic is different. It is patiently waiting for the word of the Lord, while living in the words of God given from prophets before, continuing to share words of return to the Lord balanced with words of hope for the kingdom of God, while being about bringing it to the present, through doing right, seeking justice, protecting the widow and orphan.

Dwelling three has Jesus’s name on the sign out front. This is a dwelling whose unique expertise and gift is the grace of God, as experienced through the life and death of Jesus.  This dwelling, houses faithful people who are focused on following Jesus and Jesus’s example, and sharing the Good News with the world. Within the dwelling the faithful say their prayers, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, celebrate sacrament, read scripture, and are hospitable. The faithful practice being Christ’s light to each other and to wider community. This dwelling unravels when the focus is placed on being disciples (resting in an understanding of needing to learn more), without a push to move into being apostles--- sharing the Good News.  There are dwellings bearing Jesus’s name who dwell on some glory day of the past, moaning the world at their door steps and are aggravated by the pressure to change to address this world.  Dwelling on the past suggests that there is a fear that the message of the Gospel can not speak to the changed context in which we find ourselves today. Out of fear doors have been locked, communities have turned inward; focus has been directed to dwelling on items, dwelling on budgets, and putting God in a box.  There are Jesus dwellings who see Jesus as a hero, a sage, an example, and do not take to heart Jesus as God’s beloved; this is the house that has made Jesus tame.   

The church today, our dwelling, is guilty of constructing a variety of buildings on the top of the mountain – dwellings that focus on Law, the prophetic, the past, the budget, and so on... but, the dwelling that looms large and casts the biggest shadow are the buildings where we have tried to tame Jesus. The transfiguration story is meant to uncloud our eyes to reveal the untamed, the untameable, power of God.

Of all the Gospels, Mark’s comes across as the harshest towards the disciples.  Pointedly Mark sets the case for their lack of faith and understanding:  He tells three boat stories all illustrating the disciples’ lack of faith; he shares three Passion predictions that go over their heads; he explains that on the last night with Jesus they fall asleep 3x in the garden while praying; and in the end Mark records the disciples’ three final actions as betrayal, denial, and abandonment.

Set beside these stories, Jesus is shown to be a powerful healer and exorcist who is in conflict with practically everyone, except the confused disciples. The Gospel is found in the contrast of the opponents of Jesus who are trying to trap him, and the disciples who are – despite how they are characterized-  trying to understand; they have chosen to follow Jesus.

They have been called, chosen, sent out…having the secret of the kingdom of God revealed to them.

Despite themselves, their actions, thoughts, fights, confusion, and posturing, Jesus continues to explain everything in private, over and over again. Jesus invites the disciples to experiences like the transfiguration, and asks them to watch with him and pray in the garden of Gethsemane. The disciples are open and eager; Jesus works with them, among them.

On the mountain, Peter comments, It is good to be here.  The transfiguration moment is good, important.  It is not a time to dwell on fears, but, to dwell in the Lord.  Jesus has and will have moments with the disciples where they exorcize demons, go to quiet places, perform healings, go to the mountain top, return to do more exorcisms. In this mountain moment, we are invited to take a moment -with Peter, James, and John- because post-transfiguration life is not for the faint of heart.  Following this moment Jesus, accompanied by the disciples, has set a path for Jerusalem.  This is the last journey, for it is a journey to the cross.

There is nothing safe about transfiguration. This is a Sunday meant to intrude on the safety and discipline of our buildings and constructed ideas.  It is meant to burst the walls we have built out of fear to protect ourselves. Our dwellings are being pulled down because the Gospel is pushing us into Lent, starting on Wednesday night. We are to arrive here on Wednesday night without the comforts of home and the walls we have put up; we come to nakedly confront the cross, to focus on confession, suffering and death, ours and Gods.

From the children’s story of the Three Little Pigs, the wolf visits the straw house, the house made of sticks, and the brick house, and he cries: Let me in, let me in, or I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house in.

The transfiguration comes upon us as a huffing, puffing wolf to blow our house in.  The transfiguration happens to rattle our foundations, to break down our doors, and to open the windows. God blows the roof off that which we have constructed, defined, limited, restrained, packaged, monitored, inhabited, invested in, and blows through the construction with a wind to carry us, push us, challenge us to a future where the grandeur of Moses and Elijah, the sheer grace of God’s covenants with God’s people explode our expectations, so that we move beyond simply seeing, to honestly dwell as a living embodiment of grace in the world; for a transfigured God demands a transfigured believer.

Words of the Gospel of Mark are about immediacy.  The disciples are confused and fearful, as they face so much, so quickly; too much, too fast… this is the untamed power of the Beloved.  There is no time to consider constructing dwellings.  The disciples, we are called through Jesus’s words in Mark:  follow me, pay attention to what you hear, do not be afraid, believe, you give them something to eat, it’s what comes out of a person that defiles, deny yourself, pick up the cross, those who are first will be last, whoever wishes to be first must be a slave, whenever you pray- forgive. This is what dwelling in God looks like. It is untamed and not stationary, not pent up in an edifice or a building. It is moving. It is not a retreat from reality; it is sweeping through the world knocking dwellings down, exposing the heart. It is dwelling in the transfigured God, who demands a transfigured us…which most certainly is a journey of confession, suffering, and death. 

Lord you have been our dwelling place in all generations – would that this continue to be so. In-dwell in us as we seek to dwell in you. Amen.