Into the desert

A sermon for the first Sunday of Lent, 2009.

The desert is a close presence here in southern California. But I grew up in places like Connecticut, upstate New York and Indiana, which is its own kind of desert. I had no experience of a real desert until I saw Lawrence of Arabia when I was in junior high school. The multiple Academy Award winning movie of 1963 told the story of Thomas E. Lawrence, and his role during WWI in the Middle East. The movie won Best Picture, Best Director, Best cinematography, Best Music and nominations for Peter O’Toole and Omar Sharif. But as I watched it, for me the desert was the star. I’d always thought that deserts were flat, boring stretches of sand, I had no idea of all that one could find in the desert.
The Judean desert, referred to as the wilderness, is an awe inspiring place – you feel that it could swallow you and not even notice. Having been there, the story of Jesus out in the desert has taken on a clarity that simply reading the Gospels does not impart. Spending any amount of time out there without an air conditioned bus is nearly inconceivable to my pampered, comfort expecting self. I was there in May of 1999 so it was not nearly as hot as it was going to get later in the summer. The day we went up on Masada, the plateau fortress in the middle of the desert, the air temperature was 114. The heat from the rocks burned my skin. You realize that survival is a constant struggle out there. That kind of extreme place focuses your understanding of what is important.
That’s why Jesus went. Today’s Gospel reading says that the Spirit drove him into the wilderness. In Matthew and Luke, he is led by the Spirit, although they use different words. Apparently the writers of the gospels had different understandings of why Jesus went into the desert. The word that Mark uses is ekballai – which gives a sense of being compelled. He wasn’t cajoled or merely invited into the desert by the Holy Spirit, it was that Spirit of Wisdom within him which said, to do what you are going to do, you must go to prepare. You must go so that you may understand who you are for that is what you learn in the desert.
Mark tells us nothing about his time there except that is lasted 40 days; he was tempted by Satan, was with the wild beasts and the angels waited on him. That’s all it says so we have to drill down for deeper understanding. The cast of characters in this drama is clearly listed. There is a Divine Spirit, a tempter, wild beasts and angels, and one human. Psalm 8 asks the question “What is man that you should be mindful of him? The son of man that you should seek him out?” Perhaps the wisdom that Jesus is seeking in the desert is the answer to the question, “What does it mean to be human?” “What does it mean to be the one made in the image of God and different from all the others?”
In 2004 when Max and I drove across the country to come here to Faith and new life, it was a startling drive through the painted desert of Utah. It was a breath-taking drive, the beauty and scale of it were humbling. The rich colors of the rocks and hills were other-worldly for someone who had grown up in the green of New England. It was like being in an art gallery filled with beautiful paintings but dangerous. Driving along in a little car reading signs about how to carry on in the event of a sand storm put things in perspective. I was a speck in that desert and one that could easily be blotted out if I got in nature’s way. The thing that differentiated me from Max, the other life form in the car, was that I could anticipate and respect the wilderness and its demands. And then the most amazing thing happened – it rained. It was early August and suddenly life giving water was falling in the searing desert. It felt like blessing. At that time, I was a fairly fragile human, having been humiliated by a second divorce, hiding out at my dad’s place, needing a job, not knowing what the future might bring. And yet here I was on my way to new life and it was raining in the desert. None of the metaphors were lost on me. I had been driven into a desert yet even in my misery and uncertainty, God was there.
In the Book of Genesis, the one thing that God says is not good is for the human to be alone. We are created to be in relationship, with one another and with God. Relationship is not something that we create, it is, by virtue of our being. We can work on the quality of the relationship, but we cannot create our relatedness, it is a gift from God and it is God’s response to realizing that we should not be alone. Sadly, we bustle through life, on our busy way to success and fulfillment and often miss the wealth and blessing of being with. The desert will clarify that for you. By faith you know that even in its most desolate places you are not alone. God is in the emptiness, too. The mystery of the desert is found in its contrasts.
But beware, if you enter the desert with an agenda or a timetable, your experience may not satisfy. You cannot march out into the wilderness and announce to it your intention to achieve enlightenment, fulfillment and to know peace. The desert will observe you and say, “Is that so?” The lessons of self-understanding are curiously elusive when we pursue them with a vengeance. They wait for us to stop demanding, to still our impatience, to resist the temptation of our ego.
Allessandro Pronzato is an Italian writer with a particular affinity for the dynamics of the desert. He says:
I invite you therefore to the observance of a holy Lent. Let go of impatience to know all things, to be healed of all ills. Let us walk through this desert season respectfully, waiting in stillness for the gifts that the desert will offer. Amen.