Mark
1:9-15 - (The Message)
At this time, Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was
baptized by John in the Jordan. The moment he came out of the water, he saw the
sky split open and God’s Spirit, looking like a dove, come down on him. Along
with the Spirit, a voice: “You are my Son, chosen and marked by my love, pride
of my life.”
At once, this same Spirit pushed Jesus out into the wild.
For forty wilderness days and nights he was tested by Satan. Wild animals were
his companions, and angels took care of him.
After John was arrested, Jesus went to Galilee
preaching the Message of God: “Time’s up! God’s kingdom is here. Change your
life and believe the Good News!
The Rev.
Maureen R. Frescott
Congregational
Church of Amherst, UCC
February 18,
2018 – First Sunday in Lent
Mark 1:9-15
“Pushed Into
the Wild”
It
can be a very disconcerting feeling to be pushed out into the wild.
There
are no shortage of books out there that detail what it’s like to be surrounded
by wilderness with little hope of finding a way out.
Tales
of people losing their way on darkened trails, getting caught by unexpected
storms, falling off cliffs and breaking bones, climbing mountains and succumbing to altitude sickness,
being bitten by poisonous snakes, or having their limbs pinned by falling
boulders or trees.
With
all that can go wrong in the wilderness it’s a miracle that any of us makes it
out alive.
Not
many of us have had the experience of being dropped in the middle of the
wilderness with just the clothes on our back and the shoes on our feet.
(Unless
you happen to be an Army Ranger or an Eagle Scout.)
But
living in the beautiful state of NH, there are many of us who know what it’s
like to be in the midst of wilderness - and experience moments of panic, when
we get turned around or lose the trail, or injure ourselves in some way, or
encounter some other obstacle that lengthens our journey or raises our concern
for our safety.
On
of my favorite wilderness tales comes from a book written by Scottish author,
Robert MacFarlane. The book is called “The Old Ways” and its full of poetic
accounts of MacFarlane’s walking journeys - following the ancient footpaths
that wind their way through England, Scotland, and Wales.
In
one chapter, MacFarlane describes a walk he took with four of his companions
following an old drove road into the Grey Corries, a mountain range in the west
Highlands of Scotland.
The
“drove roads” are the ancient trails worn into earth and rock alike by
thousands of years of shepherds and farmers moving their livestock between summer
and winter grazing grounds.
On
this particular journey in the mountainous highlands, the path was obscured by
layers of snow and ice.
But
much to his delight, MacFarlane found a trail of footprints to follow into the
wild.
Well,
they weren’t footprints as much as “foot plinths” as MacFarlane calls them. A
phenomenon that happens when loosely packed snow is trod upon and then freezes.
As
the loose snow surrounding the frozen prints blows away it leaves a raised set
of footprints, pushing upward from the ground and defying gravity.
MacFarlane
and his four companions followed these relief footsteps for miles before the
steps began to lead down a steepening slope.
In
hindsight, MacFarlane says he shouldn’t have continued to follow the prints,
but when you’re in uncertain territory it’s human nature to follow the
precedent set by others who came before you.
He
led his companions down the slope until the prints wound their way across a 10-foot
chute of hard packed ice that skirted a 70-foot drop to rocks below.
Again
MacFarlane writes, “I shouldn’t have continued to follow the prints, but I
did.”
And
the others followed along behind him.
After
sliding and skidding their way down the ice chute, the footprints led the group
to a narrow ledge with a sheer drop to the valley below.
Again
MacFarlane writes, “I shouldn’t have continued to follow the prints, but I
did.”
At
this point, they were committed. Surely the person who made the tracks would
lead them to safer ground.
Hugging
the side of the cliff and inching along the ledge the journeyers eventually
came to a point where the ledge disappeared all together and before them was an
impossibly steep and rocky slope that led almost straight down.
And
defying all logic, the footprints led straight down as well.
At
this point MacFarlane writes, “I felt sick. We clung to that terrace in horror
not wanting to go on or retreat. Then at last I decided that death looked more
likely ahead than behind, so step by step, we climbed our way back up out of
trouble, following our own footprints to the summit of the ridge where it had
all began.”
As
with many of these tales of harrowing journeys in the wilderness, everything
turns out okay in the end.
Most
of these stories came to be written because the person who was lost in the
wilderness did manage to make it out alive, despite the colossal odds against
them.
We’re
drawn to these stories because they serve as evidence of the resilience and
fortitude of the human spirit, and stand as metaphors for the human experience.
We
don’t have to go on a wilderness trek to feel as if we’ve been pushed out into
the wild.
Any
journey we undertake can make us feel as if we’re sailing into uncharted waters
or pushing ourselves way outside our comfort zone.
It
could be a physical journey to a foreign country where we don’t speak the
language or understand the customs,
a
learning opportunity that exposes us to a different cultural perspective or a
different way of thinking,
or
a spiritual pilgrimage that takes us deeper into our own heart and soul, and
into a deeper relationship with God.
If
we’re looking for a tale of finding a way in and out of the wilderness,
we
need look no further than the Gospel of Mark and the handful of sentences he
devoted to Jesus’ journey after his baptism:
“At once, the Spirit pushed Jesus out into the wild.
For forty wilderness days and nights he was tested.
Wild animals were his companions, and angels took care
of him.”
Just
as with any wilderness journey, Jesus’ story has seemingly impossible obstacles
he must overcome, unknown dangers that lurk in the shadows, and agents of
comfort that help him through the times when he feels like giving up.
It’s
the “feeling like giving up part” that makes this gospel story so relatable to
us mere mortal human beings.
Even
in the midst of civilization it can feel like we’re lost in the wilderness when
we feel the weight of the world’s inequalities, instabilities, and perceived
insanities hemming us in.
There
aren’t many of us who aren’t feeling overwhelmed by the insidious string of
human failings and atrocities that fill our 24/7 news cycles.
And
while statistically our world is much less violent and oppressive than it once
was - our constant exposure to bad news can’t help but make us think otherwise.
One
can only imagine what our news reports would have looked like if cell phone
cameras and social media had existed during the Crusades, or the Civil War, or
when Hitler was exterminating 11-million people in his death camps.
On
the contrary, the argument could be made that the world has fewer of these
atrocities because the world is watching – and because visibility raises
awareness and sparks outrage that leads to action that leads to change.
Swiss
Theologian, Karl Barth, was forced to resign from his University professorship
in 1935, after refusing to swear an oath to Hitler.
His
was a voice in the wilderness as he attempted to organize other Christians to stand
against Hitler and reject the influence of Nazism.
Not
surprisingly, there weren’t many who pledged to join him.
When
we humans find ourselves in the wilderness – forced outside our comfort zones –
it’s not uncommon for us to become paralyzed by fear,
or
numbed to the point of inaction, or
overcome with the urge to look the other way and deny that we’re lost in the
first place.
Barth
famously wrote that as Christians we must practice our faith with a Bible in
one hand and a newspaper in the other – because our faith compels us to act and
respond to the issues of our world, just as Jesus did.
Some
of you may have seen Friday’s edition of the Boston Globe.
Where
for the first time ever, the editors devoted the front page to an incident that
hasn’t happened yet.
Written
by columnist Nestor Ramos, the headline reads:
“We
Know What Will Happen Next”
It’s
not a commentary as much as it is a narrative of a script with which we’ve all
become too familiar.
Ramos
writes:
WE KNOW WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT
He will be a man, or maybe
still a boy.
He will have a semiautomatic
rifle and several high-capacity magazines filled with ammunition.
He will walk into a school,
or a concert, or a church.
And he will open fire into a
crowd of innocents.
Televisions will play the
videos recorded amid the carnage, the sound somehow worse than the images
We will hear about the
heroes: Teachers who barricaded their classrooms or threw themselves between
their students and the gunfire.
And we will hear about him:
He was strange and troubled; he’d shown signs of mental illness; he lost his
job; he beat his wife.
A chorus will rise to ask
why anybody should own such a weapon, much less someone so obviously troubled;
another chorus will accuse the first of politicizing tragedy.
Some will point to the
Second Amendment, and blame a lack of treatment for the mentally ill.
Politicians will emerge.
Some will plead for new laws.
More will ask only for
thoughts and prayers. Some will not mention guns at all.
Any promises made will be
broken.
Beyond the shattered orbit
of the school or church or concert hall that became a shooting gallery, the
whole thing will recede too soon into memory.
And then it will all happen again.
Whoever he is, he will follow the script.
So will we.
There are only three things we don’t know
about the next time:
WHO, WHERE, AND HOW MANY?
The
problem with being in the wilderness is that often we can’t see the forest for
the trees.
Every
tree, every rock, every river, becomes an obstacle to overcome.
We
can’t see a way out because we’re so focused on what is holding us in place.
We
try to look for patterns in the trees,
or
expend energy trying to move boulders out of our way,
or
continuously walk in circles in an attempt to avoid crossing the raging river.
Because
no one wants to risk wading into a current that will surely knock us off our
feet and potentially cause us pain.
So
instead we follow the script and continue to walk the same well-worn path.
But
as Robert MacFarlane learned on his journey into the Scottish Highlands,
following the footsteps of those who came before us isn’t always the safe or
wise thing to do.
Sometimes
the wise thing to do is to retrace your steps to where you began,
and
start anew down a different path.
Jesus
walked into the wilderness because he knew that God was calling him down a much
different path than those who came before.
He
spent 40 days contemplating the things that tempted him
-
the objects and desires that brought with them the promise of security, and
power, and pleasure, and adulation.
And
he worked on setting all of those desires aside – so he would instead be led
and fed only by love, compassion, and grace.
When
we learn to do the same.
And
stop being led by OUR desires for security, power, pleasure, and adulation.
And
instead approach every person - and every problem - with our eye on what is the
most loving, most compassionate, and most graceful way to respond….
We’ll
find that all the trees and rocks and rivers that obscure our view will
disappear, and the way out of the wilderness will become clear.
We
are not Jesus.
We
are mere mortals.
And
our time in the wilderness, whether during Lent, or during our lifetime, is not
going to result in miraculous changes to our world.
But
if we can enact even small changes in ourselves.
And
start down a path that will lead to even one less child of God being killed at
the hands of another,
And
one less child of God being tempted to pull a trigger, out of anger, pain, or
desperation,
Then
we will have changed the world for the better.
The
Good News is that God is moving in our world, and longs to create us anew.
And
that same Spirit that pushes us into the wild,
will
lead us out, once again.
Thanks be to God, and Amen.
