Christopher Jage-Bowler's sermon addresses the meaning of Lent in the world today.

 Christopher Jage-Bowler has kindly given permission for his sermon from last Sunday (Lent 1) to be posted here. I specifically requested this sermon, because it emphasizes one of the themes of this blog, which is that simple everyday acts in our lives affect the environment and thus God's creation. As he says: "...giving up chocolate or beer or wine for Lent is rather small fry." We face larger challenges, not just during Lent but afterwards as well.

Sermon 21/02/2021 Lent 1
Genesis 9. 8 – 17; 1 Peter 3. 18 – 22; Mark 1. 9 - 15

 

Jesus said: “I have come that you may have life and have it more abundantly”. 

Lent 2021! It feels a bit like we began Lent before Christmas – with the lockdown, the “great shut down”. We have been giving up all sorts of things on and off for a year now. Is this now second lap Lent? 

The church’s call to mark the 40 days before Easter has, in recent years, fallen on deaf ears. The idea of intentionally doing without, entering into the discipline of giving something up, creating a kind of intentional discomfort in our lives to make space for a renewed awareness of God’s presence, is about as counter-cultural for our 21 century world as it gets. 

And then came Corona. And we‘ve all been giving up all sorts of things, with varying degrees of good grace! Shaking hands, giving hugs seeing friends, marking music together, gathering in church, going out, having parties, cinema trips, simply being with others. So how is Lent 2021 going to be different for us, surely we haven’t much left to give up? 

Perhaps in Lent 2021, we can rethink Lent a little. And to be honest, there’s a lot of breast-beating and austerity that can mislead us into thinking this must be what God demands of us, to be miserable. 

First off, the word Lent comes from an old English word, meaning spring. May be that is a helpful place to begin. Spring is a time of new light, new possibilities, potential, hope. Gone (or going!) are the long dark nights of winter and short grey winter days. Spring speaks delight to the human soul. 

In our Gospel reading today we hear of Jesus leaving his home in Nazareth and beginning his public ministry. There’s something spring-like in the air. He joins the crowds at the river Jordan who have gone to John the Baptist who was baptising people to give them a fresh start, a new beginning, spiritually in their lives. Baptism was the sign of a start over. Who wouldn’t like a new start in their lives? We all need it from time to time, a clear out, a re-formation, are thing, some blue sky thinking; a clean slate. 

Leaving home, a new beginning, a cleansing, speak to me of hope. Shiny clear, washed, refreshed, time for something new. And Jesus seems to have thought a bit like this. His first recorded words in the Gospel are: “The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God has come near: repent, and believe in the good news”. 

The church over the centuries has gone big time on the wilderness part of the story and has seemingly relished the idea of repentance. Perhaps it has a certain appeal to something in our human nature. 

But actually the Bible text suggests something different from breast-beating, self mortification and deprivation. Rather the Greek word for repent, Metanoia, means a change of heart, a change of mind, in the sense of turning around. 

The German word for the velvet revolution in 1989 “the Wende” (the turning) perhaps comes closer to the nearing of the word “repent” in the original text. Turn and believe. Look again. Change direction. Reconsider with the implication: “May be you have missed something and missed something important!” And what is it we have missed? What have we perhaps not seen up to now that is so fundamentally important? 

Jesus calls it “good news”. The word Gospel means Good news. Jesus calls it the good news of God. 

And if we look back a few verses, we see what this good news is: as Jesus came up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice from heaven: “You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased”. 

My brothers and sisters, that voice, those 12 words express the good news of God. And while that voice was spoken first and most literally to Jesus, that message is for each of his followers too. We are all baptised into his life – we too, at our baptism, become daughters and sons of the living God. We are adopted into his family. We are beloved; deeply, deeply loved of our heavenly father – and God delights in us. In each one of us, in you and me! 

Now before you go into the “Gosh me. No! I couldn’t possibly be.” God knows what I am like. Being forgiven is as far as it goes! No stop! Look at the opening words of today’s epistle: “Christ suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous in order to bring you to God”. Don’t we believe that? Of course we do!!! It is the Christmas faith. We have been saved by the cross on which our saviour died – so that we can be brought to God. And brought to God we are – as God’s children, God’s daughters and sons. God’s beloved! God’s delight! 

Now with all this going on, giving up chocolate or beer or wine for Lent is rather small fry. In fact, forgive me but I can’t really see what’s it got to do with good news at all!! 

If anything, we are called these 40 days to strip away all the extra things that we have added to our faith – and come back to the essentials we need for our lives, that we are children of God, daughters and sons of the living God. That God’s gift to us is his very spirit into our hearts, so that we live whole, joyful, generous, forgiving, healing, reconciling lives with the power and love of God’s very life inside us, what Jesus calls “life in abundance”. 

The 40 days in the wilderness seem for Jesus to have been a time where he was tempted to follow other voices rather than stay with the voice spoken to him at his baptism. And you and I know these temptations too: voices telling us wouldn’t you rather be powerful, rich, successful, famous; wouldn’t life be just perfect if we just hat that new gadget, this chic handy. Or this gorgeous home, or this wonderful lifestyle? 

The wilderness experience is discerning these voices from what is our real fundamental call in life: Is our calling in life the pursuit of a lifestyle? Or is it that we are, “we are” God’s beloved children, and that is what we are to be! 

That means a life of generosity, a life of offering a helping hand, a healing touch, a reconciling presence. That means sharing joy and hope and peace and justice wherever we meet people – and animals! It means not leaving a huge carbon footprint for future generations to deal with. It means walking the extra mile with a smile on our faces, because we have God smile in our hearts! 

Does all this sound far off, far-fetched, unreachable, too good to be true? Well then the work of Lent is to strip away all the things that crowd out that life. Give up the things that are taking up too much space in our lives, and learn again the freedom and the joy of our salvation.
Jesus said: “I have come that you may have life, and have it more abundantly”. (John 10.10)