Genesis 2: 15-17; 3: 1-7
Grace and peace this First Sunday in Lent, and as we sail on ahead into
this season--and to repeat again as we hear so often the invitation from the
Prayer Book service for Ash Wednesday, a time we are encouraged to set
apart “by self-examination and
repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating
on God’s holy Word.” And then the words
we heard on Wednesday, in the Imposition of Ashes. In the sentence prescribed by the Prayer Book,
“Remember that thou art dust, and unto dust shalt thou return.” The reminder of our mortality, from Genesis
3, the consequence of the catastrophe that we had heard about in this morning’s
first lesson.
In the Roman Catholic
order the person administering the ashes on Ash Wednesday has two sentences--“Remember
that you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” followed by this direct
appeal, “Turn away from sin and be faithful to the gospel.” Turn
away from sin and be faithful to the gospel. The hard reality of our fallen condition, but
then also and I think so importantly the reminder that this is no dead
end. By God’s grace given in fullness in
Jesus and in the work of his Cross, a door that swings open. The dead end transformed by the one who is
the way, the truth, the life. Remember that you are dust. Turn away from sin, and be faithful to the
gospel.
The famous psychiatrist Karl Menninger wrote a popular book 40 years
ago or so, Whatever became of sin? It has been nearly all those 40 years since I
read it, when I was in college, but as I recall what Menninger was talking
about in this book was that even though the concept of sin has largely
disappeared from mainstream vocabularies, certainly in the therapeutic
disciplines, the traces remain primarily in a kind of disconnected sense of
guilt. That we all of us have this
nagging feeling that something isn’t right, that our lives aren’t fully in
alignment, that things need to be repaired and put back in order not just out
in the wide world, where things are crazy enough, for sure--but also in the
matters of our thinking and feeling. Even
if we’re not sure exactly what it is, something seems wrong. Psychologist Thomas Harris just a few years
before had written his famous book, I’m O.K.,
You’re O.K. Two books perhaps
signposts of the decades to come. Menninger, an Orthodox Jew, suggesting that
it was a mistake and even a tragic mistake to lose track of the concept of
sin. Harris suggesting that the further
away humanity could get from that concept , the better.
In any event, remembering that it was back in the 1920’s that President
Coolidge, known as “Silent Cal” because of his succinct way of expressing
himself, was asked, when he came out of church one Sunday morning, what the preacher’s
sermon had been about. “Sin,” Coolidge
replied. After a pause, the follow -up,
“Well, what did he have to say about sin?”
“He was against it.”
These days
of course the odds are somewhat long that you’d hear a sermon about sin most
Sundays. Seems kind of old fashioned, I
guess, maybe even on the First Sunday in Lent.
But if the usual cluster of newspaper and television reporters are
gathered outside St. Andrew’s this morning to find out what the Rector’s sermon
is about this week: sin is the topic. In
case you were wondering. I believe there
is such a thing. Absolutely, as a
powerful force and an intentional force, in rebellion against God and devoted
to our destruction. Yours and mine. For my money the one thing we really need to
understand about the human condition, before we can even begin to talk about
the human condition. And just to be
clear: I’m against it. I don’t want to turn the news on tonight and
hear anything different.
I suppose the point is to whatever extent the scriptures and these
ancient prayers and hymns in Lent make it possible, and perhaps flying in the
face of the whole weight of Romantic individualism and all the 19th
and 20th century psychological movements of Self-Actualization and
Self-Esteem, we only begin to make our way forward through this once we are
able to get a handle on an inversion of Harris’s thesis. Something like, “I’m not o.k. You’re not o.k. Now what?”
Now what?
In the 2006 Brian Singer film, “Superman Returns,” the Man of Steel has
come back to Metropolis after a few years of sabbatical, and Lois Lane brushes
him aside, actually kind of rudely, with the news that in her opinion anyway the
era of Superheroes has come to an end.
We’ve grown up now, she tells him.
We’re beyond childish dependence.
We can get done what needs to be
done. She tells him, “the fact of the
matter is, we don’t need a savior. We can take care of ourselves.” Though
of course even as we hear her say these words we are cringing in horror,
because we already know what she doesn’t know yet, but will soon learn, which
is that the inherently and thoroughly evil villain Lex Luthor is at that very
moment, at that very moment, putting into motion a sinister plot that will
essentially destroy the world as we know it and leave everyone cowering in
slavery under his evil domination. And
the irony is that actually the evidence of this plot had been right in front of
her for some time. She had just found it
easier to pretend that it wasn’t there.
To rationalize, to minimize, to look the other way. As
they say, “Denial isn’t just a river in Egypt.”
There’s a place out on Route 22 I think just beyond Blairsville where a
little white frame church sits right off the highway, so that if you’re driving
west toward Pittsburgh you see the front door, from far in the distance, and
over the front door in brightly glowing neon red, “Jesus Saves.” Which is of course a more-or-less meaningless
message, if you don’t really feel like there’s anything you need to be saved
from . . . .” For Lois Lane, it’s just a
joke. You can see her roll her eyes as
she drives by. “We’re so beyond that.”
Amazing in a way how quickly we can skim past the account of Genesis 3. Lots of art work of course, both serious and
whimsical. Used to be a popular story
in Children’s Bibles and Sunday School curricula, though I’m not sure how most
religious publishers handle it any more.
Adam and Eve, the Serpent, the Apple. Rolling our eyes. I mean, are we supposed to take this
literally? Forbidden Fruit. Almost a joke, a cliché. What in the world this strange story could
have to do with me. With us.
But it may
begin to haunt us a little, around the edges, even so--even when we can’t look
at it straight on. Just to let it
percolate. Pick up the morning
newspaper. Horrible murders in the
Ukraine and South Sudan and right around the corner on Chislett Street. Horrible.
Respected law enforcement officials convicted of stealing public
funds. Politicians lying. Heartless drug dealers marketing the latest
lethal blend. Athletes mainlining
illegal performance enhancing substances.
Or of course we just take one long look in the mirror in the morning.
The shadow of that Tree in the Garden, which is a long shadow indeed,
and a very dark shadow. Very dark. Every lie, every betrayal. Even the little lies and betrayals that don’t
make the front page. Fudging “just a
little” on the old 1040. Every
intentional wrong. Every theft. Every infidelity. Every degrading thought. Every
broken promise. Every false god. Every act of violence. Every hatred.
Greed. Lust. Gluttonous consumption. The classic “deadly sins” that never go
away. The kind of self-indulgent pride
that wants to flourish in the diminishing of others. Every act of abuse and assault, every cynical
strategy. All right here for us in Genesis
3 this morning.
Every mean-spirited and
cutting e-mail and Facebook post. So
easy to write, and click, and then move on.
No big deal. Self-aggrandizement. Bullying and unkindness. Jealousy.
Murder. All here in front of us,
in the ruins of the Garden. And very
relevant to your life and my life. Very
relevant. As we know sin. As it grinds down our lives, and the lives of
others, those around us. Twists us into
contorted parodies of what God created on the afternoon of the Sixth Day. We look like people. We talk like people. But it’s a superficial resemblance. Skin deep, if that. If
you’ve ever been betrayed, or lied to.
If you’ve ever been the betrayer, or the liar. Distorting the image, damaging us in such
profound ways spiritually, morally, emotionally, even physically. We might try to minimize. “There are of course a lot of nice things you
can say about us too. Why emphasize the
negative? I’m certainly not that bad,
compared to some others.” Actually,
I’m pretty o.k., it seems to me, and if I say you’re o.k. too maybe we can just
leave it at that and move along.
But then again. A sermon about
sin, after all, and I hope with clarity a sermon against sin. Remember that you are dust, and that your
destiny is to be dust. That in the between-time the shadow of death
is all around, permeating every cell of our body and every corner of our heart
and soul. Who the enemy is, his best
instrument and weapon. I’m not sure it’s exactly what she meant, but
as Lady Gaga reminds us: we were born this way.
And if we have at least a hint of self-recognition this morning, in all
this grim Lenten preachifying-- if we watch Eve and her Adam and their collapse
before the assault of the Enemy and suddenly realize that this is in some real
way about us, about who we are, and if
our heart begins to sink, that is all goodness and grace. Be thankful for that. Be thankful for not missing it. For not succumbing to the temptation to sweep it under the rug. If we hear in the distance on this first
Sunday in Lent the ringing metallic sound of the hammer pounding in the nails,
through his flesh and into the hard wood of the cross, and if we even for a
minute take a deep breath and begin to understand that we’re the ones swinging
that hammer, that’s grace. Be thankful.
Perhaps an echo of the First Step of the Twelve Step movement. “We admitted we were powerless, that our lives
had become unmanageable.” Looking at
sin straight on, if only for a moment. No
easy grace of course. No cheap
grace. It happens when you hit
bottom. But that’s good news. First step in a new direction, which we can
only take because he chooses to lean down and pick us up and carry us
forward. Our East End Preaching series
this year, beginning this coming Wednesday.
“The Journey of Lent.” In our Lent, the journey toward Holy Week, and
to catch a glimpse of the One who put down the enemy, who overturned the old
order of brokenness and crushed the Serpent’s head once and for all. Who is
holding us up even when we aren’t sure he’s there.
It has been his plan and intention from the beginning to reveal himself
to us, to be for us everything that was lost in the Garden. That’s the promise to hear when we leave
this devastated garden in Genesis 3 and move forward to the new Garden, where
as the women come on Sunday morning they find that the Stone has been rolled
away from the Tomb. To be here for us as
we know ourselves to be trapped in the dead end, and hitting a brick wall,
something more. If we just take an
honest look at ourselves, an honest look, and to see how bad things have
gotten, then that gives us something to look forward to. A
reminder through Lent and Holy Week and Easter of his promise, and why he
came. In John 10, once we discover that
we’re at a dead end. “Truly, truly, I
say to you, I am the door. I am the door
of the sheep. All who came before me are
thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not heed them. I am the door; if any one enters by me, he
will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.” We might say, through him, by way of his
cross, a return to the Garden. To rest
in the rich pasture of God’s love. The
door that swings open for us.
It is good news, in Lent and Holy Week and Easter. As the old hymn had it: “Blessed
assurance.” All good news for us. It is the good news that begins with sin, the
battle that begins when we know and really understand who our enemy is, what
power he has over us, and what the stakes are.
And how victory is won.
As we continue to wrestle with the ongoing story of what is bad in us
and in our world, the Open Door. An
encouragement every day, is what it can be.
Remember that you are dust. And
that you must return to the dust. I’m
not o.k. You’re not o.k. But it’s o.k.: Turn away from sin. Be faithful to the gospel.
Walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself for us, an offering
and a sacrifice to God.
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