1st Sunday of Lent
READING 1:
Genesis 9:8-15
Psalm
25
READING 2:
1 Peter 3:18-22
GOSPEL:
Mark 1:12 -15
In ancient days, people studied the mythological lives of gods and goddesses often misbehaving with serious consequences for themselves or for the hapless mortal beings in this world. Zeus and Apollo and Aphrodite and Narcissus and all the others fighting and loving and scheming and punishing on a battlefield of life between heaven and earth. Today, we have “check out line mythology.” The gods and goddesses of fame and fortune divorcing and dating, having babies in or out of wedlock, marrying and divorcing, dating, having babies and marrying and divorcing. The names change from week to week but the faces look amazingly alike and the stories seem to be the same every week. Their stories could teach us lessons. But we mortal human beings live in a fog. There is some sort of disconnect that attracts us to their foolishness; strangely, people seem to desire what the rich and famous suffer through. So much of our unhappiness comes from comparing ourselves to people we don’t know or to some idealized and non-Christian vision that suggests heaven is on earth. Meanwhile the rich and famous are searching through the various pseudo-religions of the season for what we have in our Christian faith. I read a story about Florence Chadwick, the great competitive swimmer from San Diego , who started swimming at the age of four. In 1950, at the age of 33, she was the first woman to swim the English Channel in both directions from England to France and from France to England . But her ambitious goal was to swim from Catalina Island to the California Coast . On the 4 th of July, 1952 , in the morning, she had been swimming for nearly 16 hours. The sea was freezing cold, and the fog was so dense she could hardly see her support boats. She could hear them, though; when sharks cruised toward her lone figure, only to be driven off by rifle shots. Against the frigid grip of the sea, she struggled on—hour after hour---while millions watched on TV. Alongside Florence in one of the boats, her mother and her trainer offered encouragement. They told her it wasn’t much farther. But all she could see was fog. They urged her not to quit. She never had quit up until then. With only a half mile to go, she asked to be pulled out. Still thawing her chilled body several hours later she said, “Look, I’m not excusing myself, but I if I could have seen land I might have made it.” It was not the fatigue or even the cold water that defeated her. It was the fog. She was unable to see her goal. We easily lose sight of our goal! We live in a fog of false expectations generated in the place between heaven and hell we call home. Foggy thinking creeps in on a sea of insecurities and anxieties born of the unrealistic expectations that we can be saved by anything other than the love and mercy of God enfleshed in Jesus Christ. Lent is time to wake up and fight through the fog! Jesus didn’t need Baptism, of course, but he is showing us that we can also face the devil as he did with the powerful armor of baptism. Jesus, as the psalm today says, “Shows us the way.” Baptism and confirmation give us the weapons to do battle with Satan and all his empty promises. We are not given these armaments to stand at ease, but to fight. The devil would not relentlessly pursue and aggressively tempt us and cruelly attack us so much if he did not consider victory over a Christian so desirable. Lent is intended to lead us to our annual renewal of our Baptismal vows on Easter. Our vows are to love God and our neighbor knowing our neighbor is often the person we most like to not like, to build the community of goodness, to live justly the kingdom of God . We are not going to experience the resurrection without going through the temptations of the desert, the denseness of the fog that hides our goal, or the suffering of Good Friday. Now, the rest of the story: Two months later, Florence Chadwick tried swimming from Catalina to California again. This time she had her goal pictured in her mind, her faith that land was somewhere beyond that fog and she pushed her way through. Despite the same dense fog, she made it. She was the first woman to swim the Catalina Channel, eclipsing the men’s record by two hours! This Lent, we reclaim our goals and prepare for the battles ahead with renewed confidence that when the fog rises, we will be standing on the shore of heaven. Praise God for Good News! Fr. Jeff McGowan |
