Meanings
of the Cross: We Are Not Alone
Sermon preached by the Reverend Patricia Farris
February 13, 2005
Scripture:
Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7 and Matthew 4:1-11
This
morning after the second service, the 2005 Confirmation Class and
their parents will gather for a kick-off luncheon. We have a big group
this year and many from families not already involved in the church.
We will soon have their names and photos up in the narthex and in
the Sentinel so that we all might be in prayer with them and for them
as they study and reflect and decide for themselves to take on the
life of Christian discipleship and church membership. The next generation
of church is being formed. Thanks be to God!
It
is quite fitting to begin confirmation today, for it has been the
tradition of the church from the earliest times for this season of
Lent to be a season of preparation and formation of new Christians.
All those of you at our Ash Wednesday services this week heard me
say that in the early church, the 40-day season of Lent started as
a time of spiritual preparation for those who were converting to Christian
faith. For forty days and forty nights they were immersed in the Christian
faith--in the teachings of Christ, the prayers and creeds of the church,
in the fellowship of the community, and finally the sacraments of
Holy Communion and baptism.
Building
on that ancient tradition, Lent is still a time of spiritual preparation
acknowledging the need we all have to renew our faith. In Lent, the
church urges us to pray, to fast and to give away, to give generously
and prodigally as does God; to fast from the things we do; bad habits
we have; behaviors or thought patterns we’ve fallen into; or
anything that detract in any way from the person God has created us
to be. We need to give our time; our talents; our money; our love;
to give because others are in need; to give because we need to be
less comfortable, less prideful, less self-reliant, less defended
by our stuff, our ego, our accomplishments. We need to come back to
the bedrock truth that God is finally all there is and all we really
need.
Lent
has been described as a season of pruning: pruning away the deadwood,
pruning away the things that distract us and clutter up our minds
and spirits, to say nothing of the things that clutter up our homes
and apartments - pruning back. When I take my early morning walks
now, I see all the rose bushes in my neighborhood pruned way back.
They look odd and bare, but we know that soon, soon they will be bursting
with new leaves and roses, just as we will burst forth in joy in the
rising sun of Easter morn.
(continued...)
"Meanings
of the Cross: We Are Not Alone" Sermon by Rev. Patricia Farris,
Feb. 13, 2005 Also
today we rejoice to receive new members into this fellowship. We will
introduce them and greet them at the close of the service and in the
coffee hour. We will all look forward to getting to know them or getting
to know them better. But I want to tell them, these new members, a secret
about the rest of us, everybody who is a member and many who have been
members of this congregation for a very long time. You new folks may
think that everyone else here has it all figured out. You may think
that you’re the only one with a few questions about certain aspects
of the faith.
The secret
is that all of us have questions, just like you. And if we’re
sincere and if we’re growing in faith, all of us harbor a few
doubts. All of us admit that we’re far from the perfect Christian
we’d like to be. So what you are joining this morning is not a
bunch of know-it-alls, but a band of faithful pilgrims. You are getting
on board the ship of the church and together we have pledged to set
our sights on God.
This is a
community in which we pursue the big questions together: who am I? Why
am I on this earth? How do I live responsibly and with integrity? How
do I embrace God’s love for me? What does it mean to follow Christ?
How do I serve God’s people in this world? How will I find strength
for the challenges of life? How will I start over when I fall short?
Where do I find the strength to live fully and to love?
This is community
in which we live the questions together. Jesus created the church because
he knew how very much we need one another to have faith. Together we
continue to grow and learn, to pray and worship. Together we weep when
another weeps and we rejoice when another rejoices. Together we serve
and together we witness to what is real and true and powerful for us
and together now we enter this season of spiritual work, this season
of Lent, because we know and we acknowledge the need we all have to
grow in faith.
Welcome,
new members. Welcome, fellow travelers. May God bless you and keep you.
May the face of God shine upon you and may God be gracious unto you.
This
theme of needing one another in faith may seem like a strange emphasis
on the day we hear again, as we do at the beginning of each Lenten season,
of the Temptation of Jesus. After all, other than Good Friday itself,
there is perhaps no other day when we are faced so powerfully with Jesus’
solitude. We read that after his baptism, he is led by the Holy Spirit
into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. There, seemingly alone,
he fasts for forty days and forty nights. He fasts until he is so hungry
and so tired and so lonely that he is pruned down to the very essence
of who he is. It is then that temptation of the adversary confronts
him three times, three ways. Three offers that, as one preacher said,
are “delicious” rather than evil: food to satisfy hunger,
power to do good, and safety in an insecure time.
(continued...)
"Meanings
of the Cross: We Are Not Alone"
Sermon by Rev. Patricia Farris, Feb. 13,
2005
Delicious
because they seem to be what anyone would want. Delicious and truly
devious because they are surely what any Messiah would want: food
to satisfy hunger, power to do good and safety in an insecure time.
What’s the problem? Why did Jesus have to say “No”?
He said
“No” because a food give-away does not get to the root
causes of why people are hungry in the first place. He said “No”
because selling your soul for power is the road to spiritual bankruptcy.
He said “No” because God does not do magic tricks to keep
us safe in this world. Bottom line: Jesus said “No” because
his kingdom is not about quick fixes or self-aggrandizement or magical
thinking. It’s about justice and integrity and utter confidence
in God no matter what.
The goal
of our Lenten journey—all of us--confirmands, new members, old
members, hangers-on, passers-by, seekers and saints—the goal
of our Lenten journey is to understand more clearly what the Christian
faith is all about. We are framing it this year as an exploration
into the many meanings of the cross. Today we begin to see that Jesus’
own spiritual journey from the Temptation to the Crucifixion is about
justice and integrity and utter confidence in God no matter what.
Each Sunday
in Lent we will delve more deeply into this theme: “Meanings
of the Cross.” We will take this journey together, for truly
we need one another to undertake something as demanding and challenging
as this. On this first Sunday, maybe the most important thing revealed
about Jesus that the Devil soon found out was that although he appeared
to be alone, he wasn’t. Fasting forty days and forty nights
pruned him down so that what was at his core was revealed—not
loneliness, not vulnerability, but the strong, powerful presence of
the living God. God was with Jesus in the desert through it all. He
was never all alone. When the Devil left him, we could finally see
what was there all along: the angels of God, ministering to him, giving
him faith and hope.
In
the desert, Jesus had been powerfully tempted to think that he had
to rely on himself alone. God revealed to him this truth: God is with
us. In the wilderness, Jesus learned that he could not do it alone
and would not be asked to do it alone. Though he will again question
that, as do we, do we not? He will discover again and again that God
is always with him. The course of his life and death will be a continual
process of remembering that and of learning how to trust that God
is there.
Matthew
tells us, when Jesus came out from the wilderness, he began his ministry,
first by worshipping in the Temple with those who shared that faith.
And then the very next thing he does is to pull together the band
of disciples who will be asked to go on this new journey with him
and accompany him all the way to the cross. Jesus was not alone and
neither are we.
(continued...)
"Meanings
of the Cross: We Are Not Alone"
Sermon by Rev. Patricia Farris, Feb. 13,
2005
When
you arrived this morning, you were given a cross made of African palm.
These crosses were made in Africa, in Tanzania, and all the profits
go back to families who weave them. Keep this cross in a visible place
this Lent, and whenever you see it, pause for a moment of prayer and
reflect on its many meanings. The first meaning we see today: in the
cross, we are not alone. We have one another—all those in this
fellowship, all our sisters and brothers around the globe, all the
saints who have gone before. In the cross, we have one another. And
at its center, we are rooted and grounded in God. We are not alone.
God is with us. Thanks be to God.
Notes:
© Patricia Farris, 2005. Permission is given for brief quotation
with attribution. All other rights reserved.
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