Lent
V C_RCL _March 17, 2013
Good
Shepherd, Silver City NM
The Rev.
Brian H. O. A. McHugh +
I’ve been rereading the series of six novels about
the Church of England that English author Susan Howatch began in the late 80’s.
They seem a little dated now; many of the political and ecclesiastical issues
she deals with of a quarter of a century ago have shifted. But the theological
and devotional issues are eternal: Delusion & Truth; Sin and Love; Death
and Life. Counseling the Archdeacon Neville Aysgarth, whose life has become a
mess, Abbot Aidan voices the Gospel path to wholeness: “You sin. You go down into hell. You’re under
judgment. You face the pain. You acknowledge your sins. You repent. You’re led
out of hell. You’re shown the way forward— and the way forward signifies
forgiveness as well as the chance to begin a new life, by the grace of God, in
faith and in hope and in charity.”
[1] Necessary stuff to be pondering anytime, and especially during Lent.
[1] Necessary stuff to be pondering anytime, and especially during Lent.
Particularly powerful is the challenge of
self-delusion. Miss Howatch’s focus is laser sharp and, as I followed the
Archdeacon’s descent into a hell of his own making and the Abbot’s lovingly
ruthless stripping away of the mask of the lies we tell ourselves, I thought of
Jesus, of His own words and those of others, about truth and His fearless
commitment to it: [2] “the Word became flesh and lived among us … full
of grace and truth”; The law
indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth
came through Jesus Christ”; “the hour is
coming, is here now, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in
spirit and truth”; “You teach the way of God in accordance with truth”;
“I came into the world to testify to the truth”; Pilate asked, What is truth?”; Paul says about the Gospel way of Life, “let us celebrate the festival, not with the
old yeast, the yeast of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of
sincerity and truth”; “You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free”.
The apostle Paul was a seeker after truth. Where
did he ultimately find it? Did he find it in an intellectual belief system? Did
he find it in the Jewish Law? Did he find it in his own righteousness as a blameless
Pharisee? As a zealot in opposing the Christian challenge to his Jewish faith?
No, he didn’t. And what truth was Paul seeking? Simply put: he was … perhaps unawares until the Damascus
road … seeking himself, his true identity. Just like the rest of us. And in
seeking his true identity, he was looking for the power that sets us free, the
power that shatters all the delusions and the falsehoods that the World entices
us with, those “ultimate prizes” that the Archdeacon set his heart on only to
find, with the help of a wise and fearless counselor, they were lies and
self-delusion.
When Lent began, we saw Jesus reject all those
false ”ultimate prizes” that Satan offered Him in the Wilderness as the path of
self-definition … and every Lent He continues to reject them until we stand
with the women at the foot of the Cross on Good Friday and see the great cost
of choosing the truth. I think the message of the Gospel is clear: we find our true self, our true identity, in
our union with the mystery of Divine
Love, known in Jesus. I respectfully disagree with Paul about some things, but
I absolutely resonate with his experience of meeting the mystical Christ on the
Damascus road:
.. whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of
Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing
value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of
all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and
be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law,
but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on
faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing
of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain
the resurrection from the dead. [3]
As our Rector has preached, it’s all about death
and resurrection. The journey of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy
Saturday strip away all self-delusion. Only by embracing Love, and by being
willing to die to everything else … by “embracing the pain”, as Abbot Aidan
tells the Archdeacon … does the light of God’s love blaze out in our heart as
the indestructible core of our self-identity. It was and is Jesus’ deepest
Self, and for those of us who follow Him, it is ours. Being fallible mortals, it
is critical to remember what Paul says: I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do:
forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press
on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus”. We
will never be perfect. Perfection is one of those false “ultimate prizes”. We
can only try our best to follow Abbot Aidan’s wise words about the cycle of
death and resurrection.
The Gospel story today is a beautiful image of our
true identity to carry in our hearts. It is an icon of our soul made one with
Jesus. The Word of Love made Flesh comes to dwell in our hearts, the True Bread
that comes down from Heaven and gives Life. Lazarus … the symbol of our being
called, over and over, from death into Life … is there. Martha is there to remind
us that to love is to serve. Importantly, Judas the Betrayer is there, to
remind us of our capacity for self-delusion. And Mary is there, pouring her
priceless perfume over Jesus’ feet … reminding us that we are worth the
extravagant unconditional love that God pours over us, permitting us, as Paul
says, to “press on toward the goal” of knowing our true identity.
Why are we here Sunday by Sunday? To know who we
are. We are one with God in Christ. “We
shall know the truth, and the truth shall make us free”.
[1] Howatch, Susan
(2011-03-02). Ultimate Prizes (Church of England) (Kindle Locations 4267-4269).
Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
[2] John
1:14; 17; John 4: 23;
Matt 22:16; John 15:26; John 18:37; 38; I Cor 5:8
[3]
Philippians 4
