Lenten Perseverance

Mark 1:9-15

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.

---

Many of you joined me in watching live as NASA’s rover named Perseverance safely touched down on the surface of Mars on Thursday. I watched it live out of a combined sense of responsibility (feeling like it was my duty to watch and be a part of a significant achievement for our nation) and curiosity (would the mission be successful?). I was surprised to find myself on the verge of tears as I watched this scene unfold:

I think what had me so choked up was a sense of admiration and awe in witnessing the culmination of years of constant hard work and attention and the extreme brilliance of the scientists and engineers, all in service of the audacious desire to reach and learn more about our neighboring planet. I realize this is not the first rover to successfully land on Mars, but that does not diminish their accomplishment. In fact, it adds to how impressive the accomplishment was. Repeat success means the first time wasn’t a fluke, they did it again and can do it again. It’s how our beloved sister Bettina must feel when Alabama wins the college football championship every single year. Their 86th championship in a row wasn’t any less impressive than any that had come before (at least, in the minds of Alabama fans). 

Unlike sports championships, however, this was a victory for everyone. Every person can celebrate this testament to human achievement, determination, and scientific discovery.  

I found it interesting that the phrase “Seven minutes of terror” was used to describe the anticipatory period right before the rover’s landing. That was certainly a great marketing tactic to get people to invest emotionally in the event. But I wonder how nervous the Perseverance team really was. They had, after all, dedicated an unfathomable amount of time and resources to crafting models, formulas, and simulations to ensure the mission would be a success. I’m not discounting their achievement in any way, but I think that whole-hearted and authentic celebration was less a surprise and more an expression of joy at seeing all their hard work pay off. 

Again I’ll dip back into a sports analogy. Every time we witness a game-winning buzzer-beater that secures victory for a team, we think about how incredible and unlikely that shot was. What we don’t truly realize is just how much time and hard work that athlete dedicated in order to make that game-winning shot a statistical probability, rather than a miraculous stroke of luck. We’re a couple of weeks away from seeing Valpo’s 1998 NCAA tournament game-winning shot over and over on TV. Actually, we’re not weeks away, let’s watch it right now:

After that game-winning shot, the team talked about how they had practiced that play every day. We relive and celebrate that moment each March not because it was improbable, but because it was planned for, practiced, and flawlessly executed–a testament to what can be accomplished with hard work, time, and focus.

There is a challenge in all this, though. I’ll speak for myself in admitting a certain amount of sadness because it's hard for me to imagine being a part of a team that accomplishes something as incredible or worthy of celebration as a 290-million mile hole-in-one. I’ll never be on a team rushing the court after a game-winning shot. And that’s the challenge, right? Sure, we were not a direct part of that success, but we can be inspired by them and commit ourselves to the hard work of dedicating ourselves to a purpose bigger than ourselves. 

All of this can inform our life of faith, particularly in this season of the year that we call Lent. People tend to struggle with the idea of the season of Lent. What do I give up? Do I give something up or add something? What is the point of living any differently for 40 days anyways? What if my Lenten fast doesn’t even last as long as my failed New Year’s resolution? 

The season of Lent is a time of preparation and examination that stems from the story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. This story in Mark’s gospel is pretty succinct–only two verses long–and we’re not told the exact nature of Jesus’ temptations. This gives us the freedom to recognize our own temptations and work to root them out, with the help of God. The temptation that you are invited to root out of your life is anything that distracts you from believing that you are God’s beloved and that God’s love is enough for you. The list of possible temptations is too long to adequately cover here, but suffice it to say, I doubt a daily snack of chocolate or eating meat on Fridays is really what’s separating us from experiencing God’s love. Our temptations are for power, control, wealth, despair, worry, independence, numbness, willful ignorance, laziness or overwork, just to name a few. Something in that list might be pulling you away from the experience of God’s love, and that is what you are invited to address throughout this season. 

I’ll conclude by going back to Mars for a moment. Here’s one of the strangest facts about the martian rover landing. The rover successfully landed 17 minutes before the NASA team knew it. That’s how long it takes a signal from Mars to reach Earth. The thing they joyously celebrated had technically already happened 17 minutes earlier. 

We, like those scientists and engineers in the JPL control center, await the news of a successful mission; the mission: to see Jesus raised triumphantly from death and to find our true identity in this fact.

The good news, of course, is that this event has already happened, it just takes 40 days until we hear the Easter proclamation. In the meantime, we watch with eager anticipation for signs of life out of death. We do our part to follow in Jesus’ footsteps and dwell with God in scripture. Each day we trust God to give us the strength to create a little more distance between us and our worldly temptations. We take steps to live in a way that contributes to the health and wellbeing of our fellow man and the planet we call home. And we commit ourselves to the hard work of dedicating ourselves to a purpose bigger than ourselves.

May you be aware of those things in your life that seek to pull you away from God’s love.

May God’s angels wait on you and serve you in your restorative and life-giving work.

May you endure the suffering and disappointment that accompanies everyone’s Lenten journey to the cross.

May you dedicate yourself to a purpose bigger than yourself.

And May you celebrate Jesus’ victory over death and the powers of darkness with the enthusiasm and relief of a room full of NASA mission controllers. 

Amen.

If Snow Were Ashes

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

“Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.

“So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

“And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

“And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

 If snow were ashes…

That’s been my working title for this sermon, since Indiana and so much of our country started to receive warning upon warning that ‘winter was coming’ over the last week or so. And that it was going to show up all at once… winter… in Indiana at least. Piles and piles of snow we hadn’t seen yet, this year, until the middle of February when it all showed up at once. And that it would hit places like Texas, too, where they aren’t so used to or prepared or able to handle what came with such weight and depth and cold.

If snow were ashes…

But that working title really hit home for me yesterday, when the first wave of all that snow had arrived, as predicted, and I did my annual dusting off of the snow blower. You know that machine that gets packed away in the Spring, parked in the far reaches of the mini-barn, until Fall rolls around and I make space for it in the garage where it sits and waits for winter and cold and snow high and heavy enough to earn its keep.

Along with the annual dusting off of the snow blower comes the annual testing of my patience when the thing doesn’t start as it should. And the annual frustration I feel as I check the oil and wonder about the spark plug and pull that rope until I break a sweat. And then the shame … oh the shame is real … for knowing, every year … every God-blessed year … that I should have started the thing a time or two or twelve since last time I used it … and probably changed the oil … and apparently used different, better gas, according to the guy at the hardware store.

If snow were ashes…

Then comes the crow I eat (whatever that means) as I recruit my boys to help me shovel – back-breaking work this time around – and as I hear the sounds of happy snow blowers, starting up without fail, in garages and driveways all around me, over the clear, driven snow. And as I watch those driveways get cleared with efficiency and ease – just as it should be when one owns such a piece of snow blowing equipment. Oh, and the mix of shame and deep gratitude for the kind neighbor who comes to our aid by snow-blowing out the biggest, heaviest piles of it all just after the city plow does a drive-by in the middle of our work and blocks the end of our driveway again.

If snow were ashes…

I say that because I think a lot of us – me included – treat the sin and death these ashes represent for us with about as much respect, regard and preparation as I treat my snow blower and the prospect of snow. I mean, I think we avoid and dodge and deny the inevitability of our sin, our shame, and our ultimate demise to the point that it catches us off-guard and finds us unprepared and leaves us frustrated and ashamed and afraid, even, too much of the time.

Which is so much of what Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent are meant to be for us: a reckoning for our brokenness and sin; a reminder that the winter of our dying will, indeed, come; and an invitation to do something – to live differently – because of it; and with hope that someone – God, in Jesus, to be specific – has and will get us out of this mess, to redeem all of it for our sake and for the sake of the world.

So what would we, could we, should we do, if snow were ashes?

Let’s stop denying that death will come – and indeed is on the way – for every one of us. Let’s stop denying the Sin that besets us as individuals and as disciples and as a people… as God’s Church in the world.

We’ve had enough, too many, reminders of that death and our Sins since our last Ash Wednesday worship a year ago have we not?

When we last shared and received our ashes in 2020, the pandemic wasn’t being called a pandemic yet. We thought it might be something like the flu and we tried to convince ourselves of that for quite a while. Too long, probably. 485,000+ deaths in the U.S. and almost 2 million more deaths worldwide later, this death is impossible to deny. (If snow were ashes…)

Last Ash Wednesday we’d never heard of George Floyd or Breonna Taylor or Ahmaud Arbery; we didn’t know who Rayshard Brooks or Daniel Prude or Casey Goodson were, either. Too many of us still keep the truth and the ugliness of the deadly racism that infects our country hidden away in the back of the mini-barn until it rears its ugly head, like it did on the steps of the US Capitol, for instance. (If snow were ashes…) 

Last Ash Wednesday, cancer and chemotherapy and radiation were things I wondered and worried and prayed about for all of you and for so many others. But it all moved into my house this summer, fast and furious, like a blizzard you might say, and things have changed for our family because of it. And, I know, the same is true for so many … some disease, some diagnosis, some treatment – or worse – find us all, eventually… (If snow were ashes…)

And this is how Sin and death come together so much of the time for us – like something we know is there; like something that could happen; like something that will, eventually happen; like something we can choose to put off or deny or pretend away. But something that looms, nonetheless. And lingers for those of us who are left behind.

So what to do? – if snow were ashes or ashes were snow, or whatever – dumped so predictably, yet by surprise in so many ways.

These ashes we wear on our foreheads and these words we hear from Jesus and the promises we read in Scripture remind us that we need not fear the sin and death that send us running and reeling, dodging and denying so much of the time.

Instead, in the midst of it all, we’re called to tend our faith. We practice our piety, faithfully and quietly – not before others, in order to be seen by them. We give our offering without expecting applause or accolades for being generous. We pray, we fast, we worship, we learn, we serve.

And there’s more. We love our enemies and we pray for those who persecute us. We love the Lord our God with all of our hearts, minds, souls, and strength. And we love our neighbors as ourselves, too – which means even more than blowing snow for the knucklehead next door, truth be told. It means recognizing that our enemies are our neighbors a lot of the time. And that Jesus died and was raised for the whole lot of us.

And we do all of this, not because we have to but because we get to. And we do all of this imperfectly, tending to our faith, I mean, like the broken, sinful, dying children that we are. But we do it with gratitude, with gusto, and with as much faith as we can find – even if that faith is too small to see or to be seen some days.

And we live this way, with hope, in spite of these ashes and all they represent, because it is by way of ashes … dust … and even death that God does God’s best work, remember.

God looks forward to repairing what is so broken in our lives and in this world.

God has plans to redeem the ashes and the soot of our sinfulness.

God promises to breathe life into the dust and dirt of our dying.

Because if snow were ashes or ashes were snow, today reminds us that none of that lasts forever. It will all melt away, in the end, thanks to the grace we know in Jesus. And Spring will come, in God’s sweet time.

Amen