Lent 1, Year, A, 2014, All Saints’ (click here to find readings)
A long, long, long time
before I met my beautiful, intelligent, amazing wife Jamie, I thought a girl
named Sally Baker was the prettiest girl I had ever met. I was in the third grade, and Sally and I
were both in Ms. Mayfield’s class. I
liked Sally, and I wanted Sally to like me too.
As I was considering how
to make my move, I remember watching an episode of the Wonder Years. If you have
never seen the show, this series dramatizes what it was like to be in middle
school and high school during the late 60s and early 70s. In that particular episode, the main
characters, Kevin and Winnie bumped into each other in the hallway and this
resulted in Winnie dropping all of her books on the ground. Kevin quickly knelt down to help Winnie pick
up her books. Winnie seemed to be swept
off her feet by this gesture. Kevin and
Winnie exchanged a smile and the rest, as they say, was history. A light bulb went off in my head! (you see where this is going don’t you?)
So the next day, as I
passed Sally in the classroom, I tried to “accidentally” bump into her so that
all of her books would fall on the ground.
Well, the accidental bump ended up being more like an intentional trip/push
to the ground. We both ended up on the floor
and the classroom fell silent. I looked
at Sally and Sally looked at me. Instead
of saying something like, “I’m sorry or let me help you with that,” I cut right
to the chase and asked Sally, “Do you like me?”
And to this day I’ll never forget the look on her face when she blurted
out, “No!”
I don’t think I have ever
been as embarrassed as I was that day.
That moment haunted me for years to come. Eventually, I recounted the story to Sally
when we were in high school and she had no idea what I was talking about. I guess that is just another reminder that we
are always our own worst critic.
All jokes aside, I confess
that I didn’t treat Sally with dignity and respect. I tried to make her like me. I tried to take away her choice to choose (as
if I could). I tried to control the
situation so that I would get a desired outcome. I believe all of our mistakes and failures
and disappointments start here—when we try too hard to be in control, when we
try too hard to have power over the situation.
Sound familiar?
This inability to resist
power and control is exactly what got Adam and Even in trouble in the garden. We are reminded of the serpent’s temptation
in Genesis when he says to Eve, “You will not die (even though God says they
will die); for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and
you will be like God.” In the end, Adam
and Eve could not resist the temptation to be like God and neither can we.
After Adam and Eve ate
from the tree scripture says, “They knew they were naked.” We know what this nakedness feels like too. For me, it feels a lot like the embarrassment
I felt after shoving Sally Baker to the ground.
There are two ways we can deal with our nakedness, with our guilt, with
our embarrassment. We can try to cover
ourselves up with good works in order to find favor again with God and
neighbor. Or we can admit that we are
vulnerable, we can admit to our mistakes and that we are powerless in the face
of temptation and seek the forgiveness of God and others.
Timothy Keller would
respond to these two options in this way, “God cannot be manipulated by
religious and moral performance—God can only be reached through
repentance, through the giving up of power.
If we are saved by sheer grace we can only become grateful, willing
servants of God and everyone around us.”
In other words, the experience of God’s love and forgiveness is what
will transform us and help us love God and others better. It is not about trying harder in order to
change God’s mind. It is about
repentance and being changed by God’s love and forgiveness.
Christianity has never
been about making God love us through our good deeds. God can’t even make us love Him so how can we
expect to make God love us? The simple
truth of the gospel is this—there is nothing we can do that will make us anything
less than children of God. God sent
Jesus to die on the cross to tell us this.
Through God’s sacrifice of his only Son, we know that we have a God who
will go to any measure to ensure that we are not abandoned to the power of sin
and death.
Yesterday, our 3rd
graders experienced this truth about God as they completed their preparation
for Solemn Communion. Solemn Communion is
way to enter a more intentional relationship with God through the sacraments of
Reconciliation and Holy Eucharist. In preparation
for today’s Solemn Communion, our 3rd graders made confessions and received
assurance that they are forgiven by God.
While I didn’t hear any of these confessions, I imagine some of the
confessions were similar to the Sally Baker story. I imagine some of the confessions were much
more serious than the confession I gave above.
Just because you are in the 3rd grade doesn’t mean you don’t
deal with the same issues that adults deal with.
In case you don’t know,
the Episcopal Church has a Rite of Reconciliation or private confession. While we do not have any confessional booths
like you see in Roman Catholic churches, we still hear private confessions and
announce absolution. The motto in the
Episcopal Church says, “all can, none must, some should.” What does this mean?
It means that anyone who
wants to experience this rite can. Any
of your priests are happy to set up an appointment. It means that going to private confession isn’t
mandatory in the Episcopal Church—your salvation doesn’t depend on it. It also means that those who are unable to experience
God’s forgiveness in their own daily prayers should experience the Rite of Reconciliation. These people should because this rite is a way
for the church to tell its members that God really does forgive the sins of all
who repent—even your sins! It also means
that priests and bishops should go to confession because if you are going to
hear confessions then you need to know how to give a confession.
Making a confession to
someone else is hard, I know. It takes a
lot of courage because you reveal how vulnerable you really are as an imperfect
human being. If it makes you feel better
you are also confessing to a priest who is, believe it or not, also an imperfect
human being. As the rite says, we are sinners
too. Making a confession is hard because
it brings up feelings of guilt and feelings of guilt are hard to live
with—aren’t they?
I do not believe God wants
us to remain guilty or ashamed forever.
Yes, God’s word of judgment can sometimes be harsh but God’s word of
judgment is also a word of love. God did
not banish Adam and Eve from the garden just for the simple pleasure of
it. Imagine if Adam and Eve were to remain
in the garden forever in their imperfect state…talk about hell on earth. God did what was best for Adam and Eve and
God wants the best for us even when God’s best doesn’t seem all that promising.
In God’s eyes, it is not
the end of the world when we mess up; it is an opportunity for a new beginning—even
if that new beginning starts in the wilderness.
I believe God wants us to see our mistakes and failures as an
opportunity. Yes, learning from our
mistakes is very important. But that is
not what I am talking about. Like one of
the prayers in our prayer book states, “we thank you for those disappointments
and failures that lead us to acknowledge our dependence on you alone.” Even more, admitting to our disappointments
and failures lead us to realize that God still loves us, that God still believes
in us, that God still has dreams for us.
At the Solemn Communion
retreat, our 3rd graders received a glimpse of God’s ultimate dream
for us with a great banquet, with a great feast. The best part of this great feast is that the
3rd graders got to plan the menu.
If you are hungry, I apologize in advance…then again this list might have
the opposite effect on some of you…
For appetizers they
had: sushi, queso fountain, and super
pretzels. For the main course they
had: pasta, steak, bacon, pizza,
spaghetti, shrimp, popcorn shrimp, and mac and cheese (mac and cheese counts as
a vegetable right? It did at my school
cafeteria). They saved the best for
last, dessert, they had: brownies, donuts, cake, carrot, Mom’s cookies, ice
cream cookie sandwich, strawberries (I think this deserves a moment of
silence), chocolate fountain, chocolate chip cookies, cheesecake, pancakes, and
it wouldn’t be a party without cotton candy.
Yes, there is a great big
party that awaits but we aren’t there—not yet.
We still live in a world where there is sin and suffering and heartbreak
and death. The cross is still in front
of us. As much as we’d like to, we cannot
escape the realty of the cross, the reality of death, the reality of our sin—no
matter how hard we try. But neither can
we escape the reality of God’s immeasurable love for us—no matter what. Amen.
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