March 24, 2013
Palm Sunday, Year C
Isaiah 50:4-9a
Philippians 2:5-11
Luke 19:29-40
 
X In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.
 
      Welcome to the beginning of Holy Week, to Palm Sunday.  It’s a complex day: both celebrating Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem and also turning to the darkness and agony of the week to come.  It’s been all lightness and light, but after communion, we’ll sing the Passion, the account of Jesus’ last eighteen hours or so.  “Passion” comes from the Latin ‘passio,’ meaning suffering.  That’s one way to understand the meaning of passion.
 
      Last week, I spoke about God’s desire for us.  God wants us to act and live out of passion, not out of duty and obligation.  So passion refers to what moves us, what ignites our energy, what deepens our commitment, what stirs our enthusiasm.  Jesus’ great passion was for us to enter the Kingdom of God, to be part of God’s rule of love, to be full of trust and hope, to live in mercy and justice.  Jesus’ passion, his love for us, brought him to the Passion, the horror and pain of arrest, abandonment, trial, humiliation, torture, and crucifixion.
 
      Jesus began this day almost two thousand years ago with a small, unimpressive peasant procession, a procession capping a long journey.[i]  He and his disciples, his followers, had been traveling to Jerusalem from Galilee, a hundred miles to the north.  They gathered that morning on the Mount of Olives, just to the east of Jerusalem, and put Jesus on an ass, a work animal, a humble mount not befitting true royalty.  It invoked the prophet Zechariah’s promise that Israel’s king would come humble and riding on an ass. (Zech 9:9)  They set off on the short, couple mile walk down the steep hill, across the narrow Kidron Valley, to Jerusalem.
 
      Jesus’ enthusiastic followers cried, “Hosanna,” and “Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord.”  But their procession probably did not attract much public attention.  Jesus did it primarily as a symbolic act to show the disciples that he is the king, a special kind of king inaugurating a new kingdom, a new world order.
 
      Among the onlookers, a few Pharisees, as we heard in today’s gospel, told Jesus to stifle it.  “Tell your followers to control themselves.”  It looked like a political demonstration, an act designed to rile up the Romans and the ruling Jewish elite.  The Pharisees didn’t want Jesus and his disciples troubling the Romans, who had a habit of drawing blood and not asking questions later.  The Romans often acted brutally at the slightest provocation, and there’d be lots of collateral damage.  The Pharisees likely were frightened for themselves.
 
      Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judaea, was a savage, cruel, boorish thug.  The evangelists don’t paint that picture of him, but other contemporary accounts do.  Ironically, the evangelists are comparatively kind to him.  But Pilate appalled even his Roman bosses who appear to have eventually fired him for excessive ferocity.
 
      Remember: Jesus lived and ministered during a highly tense time.  Tensions would boil over about thirty years after his death, and there would be a bloody, disastrous revolution.  In Jesus’ time there were underground rebel groups, illegal militias, regular terrorist acts, vicious and violent repression by a powerful foreign army.  The region then has some similarities with the tensions between Israel and Palestine in our day.
 
      As the Passover approached, hundreds of thousands of Jews made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.  The city itself was quite small, much less than a square mile.  The city probably filled up with as many as three or four hundred thousand pilgrims, an enormous gathering even by today’s standards.  People would’ve stayed in Jerusalem and in neighboring villages and would’ve pitched tents outside the city walls.   
 
      Lots of people, living densely, on top of each other, but few of them would have noticed Jesus and his procession because on that same day, on the west side of town, there was another procession, one far grander and, most would have thought, far more important.  Attention focused on the west side of town where Pilate as he entered with his imperial infantry and cavalry, thousands of warriors, marching or riding, but not on meek donkeys.  Horses – an animal of war and power.
 
      A couple scholars ask us to imagine the imperial procession’s arrival:
A visual panoply of imperial power: cavalry on horses, foot soldiers, leather armor, helmets, weapons, banners, golden eagles mounted on poles, sun glinting on metal and gold.  Sounds: the marching feet, the creaking of leather, the clinking of bridles, the beating of drums.  The swirling of dust.  The eyes of silent onlookers, some curious, some awed, some resentful.[ii]
 
      Jewish religious festivals were prime time for trouble, and especially Passover which celebrated liberation from slavery in Egypt.  Every festival Pilate made a show of force to discourage Jews from getting ideas.  He had marched in from his palace in Caesarea, a new and relatively large, cosmopolitan, sophisticated city about sixty miles to the west and north.  Overlooking the Mediterranean Caesarea was comfortable and pleasant.  I imagine Pilate being annoyed, having to trudge up to Jerusalem, that dusty, rocky, backward, provincial tinderbox of unwashed religious fanatics.
 
      The Roman army came to support their puppets, the ruling Herodian family.  If the Roman and Herodian elites had known about Jesus and his disciples’ alternative procession, they would have regarded it as highly inflammatory, as a political provocation requiring a response.
 
      Jesus, of course, did not seek to be a king like Caesar, or Pilate, or Herod, but he did offer a vision in stark conflict with them: the power of God versus the power of humanity; love and trust versus control and coercion; the peasant procession versus the imperial procession; the overlooked and oppressed versus the elite and privileged; peace from meekness versus peace from force; the kingdom of God versus the kingdom of Caesar.  Two processions, two powers, two paths, two ways – the conflict of Holy Week, the conflict of Christianity and our world, the age old conflict that runs through each of our hearts.
 
      The Golden Rule in the gospels, and as expressed by numerous religious traditions, is essentially do to others as you’d like them to do to you. (Mt 7:12, Lk 6:31)  But there’s another Golden Rule: the ones with the gold make the rules.  The people in power – those controlling the state, the economy, the religious and learning institutions, entertainment and publications – ally with the status quo, and Jesus and his disciples challenge the status quo.  Christians offer a different vision of what’s important.  Our work is to turn the world upside down. (Acts 17:6)
 
      In Israel, like in most places, the wealthy elites ruled and allowed no other voices.  The vast majority were exploited economically: a half to two-thirds of the wealth went to the elite, the top percent or two, meaning that many suffered great deprivation.  Roman religion, the divine Caesar, of course, justified this arrangement.
 
      But so did the establishment officials of Judaism.  Jesus repeatedly criticized and opposed the religious authorities for their corruption, for not being true to the teachings of God as found in Judaism.  Like so many prophets before him – Amos, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah, Jesus attacked those in charge for abusing their position and their religion to promote injustice.  Jesus opposed the status quo, and that meant challenging the elites, those running society and oppressing people.  His message was that they were using God and religion for themselves; they had betrayed God.
 
      Two processions, two ways, two kingdoms, two types of power.  The Golden Rule versus the rule of gold.  A conflict.  Who are we going to follow?  Jesus or the powers that be?  It’s a conflict in the heart of each of us, and so a conflict always troubling our world, preventing peace.  This is the conflict that leads to Jesus’ crucifixion.  It’s not Jesus against Judaism.  It’s not Jesus against us.  It’s Jesus against a corrupt, unjust kingdom, humanity’s use of God and religion to legitimate a system of cruelty and abuse of ordinary people for the benefit of a few.  He wants us to turn from that way to his way.
 
      Jesus calls us to live not in this present age, not according to the values of empire and control, but live as belonging to the age to come, to the Kingdom of God, the rule of love and justice.  That’s what Paul means when he says, “Do not conform yourselves to this world, but be transformed, be changed from the inside out… God brings out the best in you.” (Romans 12:2)
 
      Jesus’ vision of the kingdom, of his followers, is not the gathering of the strong, the wealthy, the celebrated, the comfortable, the accomplished, the elite.  No.  It’s the home of the broken, the weak, the flawed, the addicted, the troubled, the lost, the overlooked, the hurting, the home where we come for healing, nurturing, encouraging, understanding.  It’s the home of grace and acceptance and transformation.  It’s the home of God’s children.  This was his passion.  May we enter it and share it.  That’s what this week is for.
 
+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.
 
 
The Rev. Lane Davenport
www.asa-dc.org
(202) 347-8161
 

[i] E.P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, Fortress Press (1985), pp. 306-308; E.P. Saunders, The Historical Figure of Jesus, Allen Lane The Penguin Press (1993), pp. 249-254; and Marcus J. Borg & John Dominic Crossan, The Last Week, HarperSanFrancisco (2006), pp. 1-30.  Information in this sermon derives from these sources, especially Borg & Crossan’s discussion of the two processions.
[ii] Borg & Crossan, p. 3.

February 24, 2013
Lent 2, Year C
Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18
Philippians 3:17-4:1
Luke 3:31-35
 
+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.
 
      In the beginning of the Bible, Genesis, God created the heavens and the earth.  Toward the end of the first chapter, he got around to making human beings – “in our image” God said.  At the end of the chapter, God looked around at everything he had made, “and look, behold, it was very good.”
 
      Then things became more complex.  Human beings wanted to become like God, and they upset the harmony, the life of communion and intimacy with God.  Exiled from Eden, Cain killed his brother Abel, and the mistrust, enmity, and pain intensified.  As things got messier, more corrupt and violent, God, grieved and heartbroken and also angry, decided to start again.  He sent a flood to wipe out his creatures, but saved righteous Noah and his family.
 
      The problem: as soon as the flood waters receded, the old problems emerged.  Punishment had not worked.  God adapted.  We could say: God repented.  He determined to stay in relationship with humanity no matter what.  He chose to renew his relationship with humanity through Abraham, and he came to Abraham who was living in Haran, what is now southern Turkey, just north of the Syrian border.  He called Abraham and Sarah to go on a journey into the unknown.  God is always asking people to move, to go to new places.
 
      God promised Abraham and Sarah that he would bless them, make them into a great nation, a blessing to all the families of the earth.  Abraham and Sarah did not have any children.  Abraham was in his 70s.  It seemed impossible to them that they could have children, but they began their journey of hope.
 
      In today’s reading from Genesis, God appeared once again to Abraham.  It was years after the initial promise, and Abraham and Sarah were still childless; Abraham was in his upper 80s, and they’ve made some mistakes along the way.  They’ve not always trusted God.  Why should they continue to trust him?  Today’s scene shows us a crisis of trust, of faith.
 
      God’s first word, “Fear not.”  Then God renewed his promise of a great reward.  If I were Abraham, I’d think, “Of course, I’m frightened, anxious about my future, separated from my home and people.  I have no heir.  It doesn’t appear things are going to change.  I can’t believe that you’re still promising me a reward.”  And Abraham said as much, protesting that God had not delivered.
 
      God responded by doubling down on his promise.  He assured Abraham: “Look to the night skies, and number the stars. You can’t count them all.  Those are your descendants.  Your family will be enormous beyond your imagining.”  The promise got bigger, even more outlandish.
 
      Then the most remarkable moment.  Abraham didn’t complain or object, but rather choose to believe.  He repented.  He renewed his commitment to God, to orient his life around God’s promise, even though the promise appeared ludicrous.  A wife well past menopause.  No Cialis.  Despite what appeared to be a dim chance, Abraham turned away from his own understanding of reality and accepted God’s framing of reality.  He would let God be in control and embrace the mystery, the uncertainty.  Abraham would have to wait another dozen years to father Isaac with Sarah.
 
      Abraham became the model of faith and righteousness, but not because he was perfect.  He and Sarah had their doubts and failures.  Yet they desired a right relationship with God.  They cared about their relationship with God and worked on it.  The righteous sin, fall away, doubt, mistrust, but then turn back to God, and renew their relationship with him.  The righteous give and receive forgiveness and work for reconciliation.
 
      Abraham’s relationship with God is not unlike our relationship with God.  Anyone who seeks God, gives room for God, can look in the mirror and say, “Look at that righteous dude.”  We can think of ourselves as righteous.  Not perfect.  Not always trusting.  Not always on great terms with everyone.  But most of us desire, at least parts of us desire, right relationship with God and other people.  We desire reconciliation.  
 
      Besides recognizing ourselves as righteous, let’s also appreciate the great gift of faith we’ve been given.  Last week, at our Wednesday evening program, the discussion really helped me to appreciate how fortunate anyone is to have God as part of their lives, to be able to trust in something other than ourselves.
 
      How would we orient or organize our lives without God?  I could be a moralist, make everything a matter of right and wrong, good and bad, and I regret sometimes Christianity gets diminished to that, or to dogmatism, believing all the right things, instead of being about love and relationship, about trust and commitment and hope.
 
      I could order my life according to capitalism, or socialism, or liberalism, or conservatism, or humanism, or hedonism, or materialism, or individualism, or skepticism, or any of hundreds of other isms.[i]  Instead, following Jesus, we choose to try to trust God, to hope in the future, and to hold to that even when things here and now seem bleak and dark.
 
      For Paul, this conversation between God and Abraham is super important.  Paul pointed out that Abraham’s faith is not only based upon the goodness we experience in this world, but more.  It’s faith based upon God’s promise in spite of the way things are here and now, that things will be better than we can imagine or comprehend.  God will overcome all the horror and pain and difficulties of the here and now and make life new.
 
      Abraham showed us that faith has nothing to do with doctrine, but a way of life, a life disposed to openness to God, to receiving God, to giving to God, rather than trying to control and arrange the world, rather than trying to satisfy ourselves.  Faith is about being willing to journey into the unknown and to look for God in the people we encounter and be grateful for God’s presence there.  Faith is about doing our best, risking and making mistakes, and finding opportunity even in our troubles.
 
      Human beings don’t always live with that kind of faith, but we do at times.  Lent is about turning to that kind of faith, renewing it in our lives.  Sometimes I get a bit resentful and grim about Lent, all this focus on repentance, that we “have to” repent and change things.  But that’s not a helpful or true way to look at it.  Let’s flip it; re-frame it.  It’s not obligation and burden.  It’s good fortune that I am part of community that turns my attention back to truth north, that helps me, and expect me, to re-orient my life in God.
 
      Imagine someone who can’t repent.  Imagine someone who has nowhere to turn for renewal.  Imagine someone who has to construct their own purpose and identity and belonging.  Imagine someone who has little sense of acceptance as they are.  Imagine someone who feels they have to prove their worth.
 
      Here’s the good news.  Following Jesus means we repeatedly get to turn back to God and find ourselves again in him, renew our sense of belonging to him, being cherished by him.  As Christians, our identity involves the changing of our hearts and minds, of growing and learning, of adventure into the unknown, but sure of God’s presence and care, being taken under his wing.  It’s re-ordering our lives and trusting in God’s promise of love no matter what.  We’re fortunate: we get to repent.
 
+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.
 
 
The Rev. Lane Davenport
www.asa-dc.org
(202) 347-8161
 

[i] Walter Brueggemann, Genesis, John Knox Press (1982), p. 145, compares trusting God to trusting isms.  I derived much of the Abraham material from his commentary on Genesis 15, pp. 140-150

Deuteronomy 26:1-11
Romans 10:8b-13
Luke 4:1-13
 
+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.
 
      The flirty, bawdy Mae West, probably Hollywood’s most notorious sex kitten in the ‘30s, maybe ever, described her life: “I was pure as the driven snow until I drifted.”
 
      Mae West reveled in being a temptress, but most temptations are so much more complex than what she offered… as distinguished and marvelous as it was.  Most temptations we encounter are far more subtle than seduction by a buxom blond.
 
      We’re more likely to drift off course in trying to achieve something positive than pursuing something obviously evil.  Sometimes, in order to do something positive, something good, we are tempted to do something bad.  Sometimes we are tempted to do something good for a bad reason.  Real temptation calls us to do things that are not all bad, but contain some good.  Even Mae West whispering in your ear is luring you to something good, just in the wrong circumstances.

    For centuries Christians have read the story of Jesus’ temptations on the first Sunday of Lent, the season of repentance, a time to take stock of our lives and the direction we’re headed, a time to concentrate on renewal.  But too much emphasis on temptation can deform our sense of repentance.  Temptation talk limits our understanding of repentance to its association with sin.
 
      Lent is a time to deal with our sin, our separation from God, how we’ve missed the mark, but it’s a lot more than that as well.  Lent is not just for moralists, not just for tsk-tsking.  Repentance means more than being sorry that we’ve drifted and succumbed to temptation.
 
      Mark summarized Jesus’ basic message as God’s kingdom, his rule of love has arrived.  Repent.  Believe the gospel.  But we notice as we read the gospel that Jesus hung out with a lot of people whether they repented from their sins or not.
 
      In ancient Palestine, controlled by the Romans, Jews considered tax collectors to be sinners.  Tax collectors took from the poor and gave to the oppressive, exploitative Romans, and they made as much profit as possible for themselves, often by corrupt, illegal means.  Tax collectors were part of a class of people, sinners, the wicked, people who lived apart from God, ignoring him and scoffing at his way.
 
      Jesus befriended sinners, and it scandalized everyone.  When Jesus called Levi the tax collector to follow him, Levi threw a party with the disreputable types, and the upright religious folks came by and attacked Jesus for eating and drinking with sinners.  
 
      Zacchaeus, a chief tax collector, a rich man, sought Jesus, climbed a tree so he could see Jesus, and Jesus called him, and then Zacchaeus took Jesus to his house.  Jesus said nothing critical of Zacchaeus, but rather improved Zacchaeus’ status, a holy man going to a sinner’s home.  Zacchaeus then changed his behavior, promised to give away half his income to the poor and to repay quadruple those he had cheated.  A big change of life.  But Jesus had never told him to repent.
 
      While Jesus called on people in general to repent, he never told individuals to repent.  Never.  Jesus hung out with sinners and crooks, but he did not condemn them, or scold them, or criticize them.  Some of the sinners repented after they had been part of Jesus’ circle, but not because Jesus ordered them to repent.  They belonged first, felt accepted, close to Jesus, and then they changed.
 
      The gospels suggest that Jesus enjoyed the company of sinners, possibly more than the company of religious folks.  Nathan Baxter, once the Dean of our cathedral, now a bishop, quipped, “Whoever said, ‘I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord than dwell in the tents of sinners,’ has never dwelt in the tents of sinners.”[i]  Perhaps Jesus found sinners better company, more fun.
 
      Think of someone you disapprove of.  Think of a group of people you disapprove of.  Now think of Jesus hanging out with them, laughing with them, enjoying their company.  He didn’t tell them to change their ways or reinforce their shame.  Instead, he identified with them, became friends with them.
 
      It says something to the church, that people don’t earn their way to God, that it’s a gift, that Christians might try to widen our own circles.  It tells me: lighten up, reach out, appreciate every person you meet, accept people as they are.
 
      I bet that Jesus never told any individual to repent because that would have been drawing a line, implying that some people need to repent and others don’t.  The deeper truth is that we all need to repent: not repentance merely about succumbing on occasion to temptation, but a fuller repentance.
 
      In Jewish scripture, the Hebrew word we translate as “repentance” means “to turn” or “to return.”[ii]  It implies a journey of return.  It implies a historical event: the best and the brightest of Israel were taken away into exile in Babylon.  Decades later, when they were released from captivity, they returned to the Holy Land, the land of milk and honey, the Promised Land, Jerusalem, Mount Zion, the place of God’s presence.  From the point of Jewish scripture then, repentance is not so much about contrition or sorrow for sin, but rather about a return to God, being close to God.
 
      The evangelists and Paul imply this return imagery in their writings, but they wrote in Greek, not Hebrew, and the Greek word for repentance is “metanoia,” which literally means “to change one’s mind or heart,” or more precisely “to go beyond the mind we have now.”  Repentance implies seeing in a new way, seeing beyond convention, beyond what we think we know.  There’s an element of learning in it.  Repentance, the season of Lent, places less emphasis on sin and contrition, and more emphasis on change, growth, seeing in new ways, going beyond where we are now.
 
      The value of reading the temptation story in Lent is not merely Jesus the great moral exemplar, the one who can put Satan in his place, wittily quoting scripture to stick it to him.  Perhaps more exciting, Jesus’ responses to the devil help us see God in new ways, to raise our sights.  Jesus helps us see God’s way more clearly.
 
      First, the devil asked Jesus to turn the stones into bread.  Jesus, led into battle by the Holy Spirit, the gentle, dove-like Spirit, suffered hunger.  He didn’t eat for forty days.  Weakened, famished, the devil tempted Jesus’ control over his physical desire.  It’s a temptation for Jesus to take away the physical suffering of the world.  Surely, the millions who hunger pray and long for God to take away their suffering, to turn stone into bread.  Surely, God could do that.  Why doesn’t he?  Perhaps we see that’s our role, our work.  Repentance, returning to God, involves serving others, sharing and caring, giving and receiving care.
 
      Second, the devil offered Jesus political power, the potential to do good on an enormous scale, the possibility of creating Utopia, the perfect community.  The devil offered a kingdom of this world where justice and peace are compelled, but not freely chosen by the people.  Surely, the oppressed and exploited of the world, the victims of war and violence, pray and long for God to act, to use his power to crush human power.  Why doesn’t he?  Maybe we see that it undermines the possibility for people to have authentic, close relationship, to be together united despite conflict and differences.  Repentance, returning to God, involves reconciling with others.
 
      Third, the devil prompted Jesus to test God, to make God prove himself.  If Jesus leaped from the top of the Temple, God would act to save Jesus.  The religious authorities would fall in line behind Jesus.  All people would recognize Jesus as Son of God.  Surely, in a world where God often seems absent, those longing for proof of his existence long for God to reveal himself, to be clear about himself.  Why doesn’t he?  Maybe we see that it eliminates the journey to God.  The devil wants Jesus to give us instant gratification instead of having us engage in the work of life.  The devil says faith in God, trust in God, must be coerced, forced.  Repentance, returning to God, involves growing and learning, a gradual change of heart and mind.
 
      If Jesus had succumbed to any of the temptations, he would have diminished human dignity, his vision of us as children of God.  Instead, the good news: by refusing the devil, Jesus affirmed that we are capable of caring for each other and sharing what we have; that we are capable of working together and being close to each other; that we are capable of growth and learning.
 
+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.
 
 
The Rev. Lane Davenport
www.asa-dc.org
(202) 347-8161
 

[i] Quoted by Greg Carey, Sinners¸ Baylor University Press (2009), p. 22.  I relied upon Carey’s discussion of Jesus’ Table Company (pp. 21-29) and his observation that Jesus never asked an individual to repent.
[ii] Marcus Borg, Speaking Christian, HarperOne (2011), pp. 158-59 on meaning of repentance.

Joel 2:1-2, 12-17
2 Corinthians 5:20b – 6:10
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
 
+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.
 
      Welcome to Lent.  Someone last night at our pancake supper wished me an “appropriate Lent.”  I think that we can be more full blooded.  I wish you a happy Lent, a joyful Lent.  That’s not perverse.  A “happy Lent” is not an oxymoron, not an impossibility.
 
      I am well aware that Christians often emphasize human sin, punishment, self-denial, and guilt more than the goodness of God, of his creation, of our hearts and bodies, more than the love of God and our preciousness to him; that Christians can be more interested in shaming and accusing other human beings than in sharing God’s blessings.  That’s not joyful.  That’s perverse.
 
      Still, Lent does direct us to look at parts of ourselves we’d rather avoid, our selfishness and fear and hatred and pettiness, and Lent does encourage us to deny ourselves, to practice at least a bit more restraint and discipline.  Therefore, one of the dangers of Lent is that we see God disapproving of us, wagging the finger at us, and pushing us away from him.  It’s an alarming and dreadful picture of God, and not true.
 
      Let’s always keep at the heart of our faith God’s inexhaustible love and care for us, that each of us is his beloved child in whom he delights.  We might better see Lent as part of Easter, a way for us to enter more fully into Christ’s life, his temptations in the wilderness, his journey from death to resurrection.
 
      As we go through life, our journey in the wilderness, each of us makes decisions about how we orient our lives.  What will lead us to the Promised Land, the Good Life?  We can focus on external things, like social status, comfort, influence, wealth; or, we can seek intrinsic rewards – strong personal connections and relationships, growth and learning, character and virtue.  Pursuing extrinsic rewards will not give us the good life; they will not give us fulfillment, meaning, and joy.  The gospel offers another way.
 
      In today’s gospel, Jesus told us that our spiritual practices should be in secret, that they should not draw attention to ourselves.  If we pray to get noticed and to have people think well of us, if we fast or give alms so that others have higher regard for us, then our true motivation is for superiority, for social status.  Our piety then is hypocritical, play acting.  It appears to be directed for inner growth, for spiritual ends, but it’s really about receiving extrinsic reward, public recognition, a sense of superiority.
 
      True spirituality, what strengthens our relationship with God, happens in secret, out of the public view.  The benefit has to do with our inner transformation, not how others perceive us or treat us.
 
      Almost everyone struggles between these, pulled on one side by the desire for external validation, power and honor, and on the other side by the desire for internal growth and stronger, authentic relationships.  Lent offers us an opportunity to renew our orientation.
 
      Lent is a time of repentance, and typically we associate repentance with punishment and self-mortification, feeling regret and grief, but repentance translates the Greek word, metanoia, which means a change of heart or mind, a change of consciousness, and it implies a “spiritual or inner transformation.”  That’s what Lent is about, and why we can wish each other a happy Lent.
 
      The intent of Lent is not to inflict pain and punishment.  When we feel pain and sorrow, it is not God’s judgment against us.  Our pain and sorrow may work to our benefit, if we allow it.
 
      In a few minutes, we’ll sing Psalm 51: “the sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit: a broken and contrite heart, O God, shalt thou not despise.”  We just heard Joel: “rend your heart and not your garments.”  Why does God welcome a broken heart?  When our hearts are broken and troubled, then we often make room for God.
 
      Our need often leads us to repent, to have a change of heart and mind, a change of consciousness.  The inevitable and normal difficulties of life, our sorrows and disappointments, things that make us vulnerable and humble, these can promote inner transformation, the change of our habits, values, and attitudes.
 
      In today’s gospel, Jesus directed us to pray, fast, and give alms – the basic spiritual practices.  They promote our inner transformation, the change of our heart and mind.  This Lent I hope that each of us will make an effort in at least one of these areas.
 
      First, prayer.  There are as many different ways to pray as there are people.  I find most valuable simply trying to be still, silent; to try to cut off the images and noise running through my head; to focus on a single word.  I don’t “achieve” this, but the practice of sitting still, simply trying to be present to God, has done as much or more to awaken me to his reality and care than anything else.  For me, it’s been truly transformative.
 
      Your way to pray may be different.  Try different ways to pray.  Try not to judge yourself.  Try not to worry about how well you are praying or whether you are wasting your time.  Prayer will not change our hearts and minds overnight, but gradually a real transformation takes place, helping us feel closer to God and his creation.
 
      Fasting usually means reducing the amount of food we eat.  The value in being a bit hungry is not simply to feel discomfort and annoyance.  Rather, the discomfort can make us more grateful for how much we do have, how richly our lives our blessed.  A bit of hunger can help us experience empathy, to connect with the millions, probably billions, who don’t have enough to eat or to connect with those who feel constant pain and discomfort.  Feeling a little bit of the experience of other human beings might help us become more compassionate.
 
      Fasting alone, just like any act of self-denial, is not guaranteed to strengthen our relationship with God.  Our self-denial can be ourselves, trying to prove how tough we are, or how holy we are, or it can be about vanity.  The spiritual value of self-denial is to help us be grateful and empathetic.  Self-denial can motivate us to seek justice, to care about and identify with those in need.
 
      The third practice is almsgiving, better known as acts of mercy or charity.  Jesus said don’t let your left hand know what the right is doing.  In other words, when you help someone, don’t draw attention to yourself.  Keep a low profile.  Work behind the scenes.  That’s the way God operates.
 
      Serving and caring for others helps us understand and identify with other people.  It also involves us in giving and receiving.  We discover that in serving often we’re not only giving, but receiving.  There’s mutuality, reciprocity, that dignifies us, makes us more like God and makes us feel more unity with other people, that we’re all in it together.
 
      Prayer, fasting, and acts of charity – these are the foundational practices of Christian piety, Christian righteousness.  And here’s an irony.  We practice them in secret, not drawing attention to ourselves, not making a public show, but the effect of them is highly social.  They help us to develop stronger relationship not only with God and with ourselves, but with each other.  They work toward reconciling us.
 
      Lent is an opportunity to re-orient our lives to what is truly meaningful.  It is a time to acknowledge our sin and short-comings, and the point of that is not to shame us or make us feel guilt, but to help us move through the shame and guilt, to accept ourselves and to feel God’s acceptance, to help us feel that we belong to God, close to God.
 
+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.
 
 
The Rev. Lane Davenport
www.asa-dc.org
(202) 347-8161

Malachi 3:1-4
Hebrews 2:14-18
Luke 2:22-40
 
+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.
 
      A blessed Super Bowl Sunday to you.  You may think that the Presentation, Candlemas – the day we bless candles for the year, is pretty special, but frankly in our world it pales in comparison.  Super Sunday is one of our national high holy days.  Thousands of pilgrims have converged at one of the nation’s great cathedrals, the Super Dome, and New Orleans must be our greatest party town.  Hundreds of millions will watch the action this evening, and it will generate many billions in economic activity.  It is a moment of cultural significance, highly meaningful to millions.
 
      I appreciate that some of us may be trying to avoid this spectacle, but if you like liturgy and ritual, this is your event.  If you like Beyonce shaking it and singing about getting a ring on a finger, this is your event.  If you like men in tights jumping on each other, this is your event.  And, perhaps most interesting this year, if you like sibling rivalry, this is your event.
 
      The story of the Harbaugh brothers deeply impresses me.[i]  John Harbaugh is the head coach of the Baltimore Ravens.  He’s a bit more than a year older than his brother, Jim Harbaugh, the head coach of the San Francisco 49ers.  Both are fierce competitors and willing to take risks.  Their ability to make big changes, to adapt to new situations, landed them in the Super Bowl, facing each other.
 
      Midway through the season, Jim, the San Francisco coach, watched his star quarterback, Alex Smith, suffer a concussion.  The quarterback, of course, is by far the most important position; the team’s fate hangs on him.  When he was injured, Smith was the third highest ranked quarterback in the NFL with the highest completion percentage.  His NFL record was 19-5 over the last couple of seasons.
 
      Jim Harbaugh had to play his backup quarterback, Colin Kaepernick, an untested second year player.  Kaepernick played solidly, and after a couple weeks, the doctors cleared Smith, the star, to return.  But Jim Harbaugh made the highly controversial decision to continue to play Kaepernick, who got better and better, having moments of dazzling brilliance.  His tremendous play led the 49ers over terrific teams to land in the Super Bowl.
 
      Jim Harbaugh’s gutsy call to play the backup is uncommon in the NFL.  Most head coaches don’t hazard such big risks.  It doesn’t promote their job security.  It upsets owners as well as fans.  A point that might cause some pain: if the Redskins’ head coach had played his backup quarterback in the playoff game instead of his injured, ineffective star, they very well might be in the Super Bowl.  I notice that only a very few have suggested the Skins’ coach be fired.
 
      Like his brother, John Harbaugh, the head coach of Baltimore, hasn’t played it safe and conventional, but has displayed a remarkable ability to adapt.  His team was cruising along to playoffs, leading their division with a 9-4 record, but in mid-December, just three games left in the season, he fired his offensive coordinator, the guy in charge of offense.  A couple weeks before the playoffs, John Harbaugh fired one of his closest, key people.  That’s not done.
 
      John Harbaugh saw promise and opportunity in another one of his coaches and promoted him.  Since then, Baltimore’s offense has been remarkable, playing significantly better.  It averaged 30 points in three playoff games.  It reached new heights.
 
      Both of the Harbaugh brothers made huge, gutsy decisions, decisions far more likely to ignite criticism and upset people than if they’d played it safe.  Both recognized an opportunity.  Both became aware of a possibility to take their teams to the next level, to become special.  Both adapted to developing circumstances.  Both made an unexpected, difficult decision where the implications were not at all clear.  Both put themselves on the line for decisions that have made an enormous difference, to me the difference between being in the Super Bowl and not being in it.
 
      That Beyonce hit, “Single Ladies,” and I’m sure that she’ll be singing it tonight at halftime; the main refrain is “put a ring on it,” as in put a Super Bowl ring on it.  The song really is about decision-making.  To guys, the message is: get off the stick and propose to your gal, get married.  To women, the message is: if you’re not getting a ring, you’ve got to ditch that guy.  Beyonce’s song makes the point that avoiding decisions, ignoring them, is another way of making them, a way of usually making poor decisions.
 
      Moments of crisis, moments of decision, are a regular part of our lives.  Do you ever wonder what you’re missing, what you’re not seeing, some possibility or opportunity just beyond your awareness?  The Harbaugh brothers have me asking myself: what might be a game-changing perception or decision I could make in my life?  The Harbaugh brothers have reminded me of the importance of asking the Holy Spirit to awaken me to what’s going on, to see more.  We have to ask: what’s possible?  What might be?
 
      What’s this have to do with today’s gospel.  Of all the evangelists, Luke is probably the most interested in the Holy Spirit.  In chapter two, Luke first described Jesus’ birth and then made the point that Mary and Joseph were obedient to God, to Jewish religious custom.  Luke recorded Jesus’ circumcision on the eighth day, the child receiving the name “Jesus” as directed by the angel Gabriel, the presentation of the first born son, and the sacrifice offered for the mother’s ritual purification.  He showed that the Holy Family was pious, following Jewish custom, making decisions to orient their lives toward God.
 
      When Joseph and Mary brought their baby into the temple, somehow both Simeon and Anna discerned the significance of what seemed like a perfectly ordinary, routine moment, and both Simeon and Anna responded by acting in unexpected, extraordinary ways.  Luke told us that guided by the Spirit, Simeon entered the Temple and took Jesus in his arms, and then Simeon spoke for God blessing Jesus, declaring Jesus’ importance.  Somehow, through the Spirit, Simeon recognized Jesus, this ordinary, forty day old infant, as the Messiah, as God’s Son.
 
      I very much doubt that the Holy Spirit whispered into Simeon’s ear and gave him specific directions about what to do and say.  Perhaps on occasion the Spirit works in such ways, but I think that the Spirit usually works in more subtle, complex, deep, interior ways.  Luke described Simeon and Anna as devout, prayerful, obedient – characteristics that connect us with the Spirit.  He also described them as longing for God to act, as expecting God to act.  They were looking for God.
 
      Do we expect God to be active in our lives?  Do we recognize him in ordinary events?  Do we turn to him, look for him, ask him to be with us and awaken us to his presence, in our moments of decision?  Obviously, we don’t always.  We’re not aware enough of God’s presence with us.  Do you remember that poignant moment as Jesus drew near to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday?  When Jesus saw the city, he wept.  He cried to Jerusalem, “If you had only recognized what would give you peace… you did not recognize God coming to you.” (Luke 19:41-44)
 
      Unlike Jerusalem, Simeon did recognize Jesus.  His moment of recognition inspired his hymn, what we call the “Nunc dimittis,” the Latin beginning of “Lord, now let thy servant depart in peace.”  Simeon sounded the main themes of Jesus ministry: God’s salvation, God’s life, for all people; the joy, peace, and deliverance offered by God; the light coming into the world.
 
      Simeon also anticipated the coming conflict about Jesus, that even though he brought good news, that he lightened the darkness of the world, he would not be welcomed by all.  Jesus would be a decision point, the point of falling and rising of people.  How we respond to Jesus is, as it were, “divine judgment.”  We can choose to move toward or away from God.       
 
      John Taylor, an English bishop, who died about a decade ago, wrote a marvelous little book, The Go Between God.  I’ve turned to it repeatedly over twenty years.  It has helped me appreciate how the Holy Spirit works.  Taylor pointed out that the Spirit startles us “into awareness and recognition and [lures us] towards ever higher degrees of consciousness and personhood,” and the Spirit does this in part by creating the necessity for choice.[ii]

      And that choice arises from the contrast between the actual and the potential, between things as they are and things as they might be.  It is as though [the Spirit’s] ceaselessly repeated word to every detail of his creation is: “Choose!  I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse; therefore choose life.  Stay as you are and drop out; change, however painfully, and move towards life.
 
      Taylor believed that the Holy Spirit gambled all past gains on new initiatives, that the Holy Spirit incited human beings to adventure and risk.  No doubt, every change of habit, most of the changes we experience, most feel like a kind of little death, at least at first.  In our lives, what is real advance, real growth, never initially feels like self-fulfillment.  Probably, it doesn’t initially feel good, but rather feels like loss.
 
      But if we stick with it, if we remain open to adaptation, to sacrifice, to learning, to becoming something new, that promotes real growth in us.  We can be sure that the Spirit is working in us, and with us, and through us, even when we don’t feel positive or sure.  In every moment, in every decision, we can turn to the Spirit, ask for guidance and strength, and then leap in faith.  Our choice may not take us where we want, but the good news is that regardless of our choice, the Spirit does not abandon us, always there strengthening us for the next step.
 
+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.
 
 
The Rev. Lane Davenport
www.asa-dc.org
(202) 347-8161
 

[i] Jason Reid, “Super Bowl XLVII: Big Gambles by Both Harbaughs Put Their Teams in the Final Game,” The Washington Post, January 21, 2013.
[ii] John V. Taylor, The Go Between God: The Holy Spirit and the Christian Mission, SCM Press (1972), p. 33.