Telling the whole story
Commentary
Object:
Oscar Wilde penned a powerful story about justice called The Picture of Dorian
Gray. Dorian was a handsome young man, a model of physical beauty and moral
virtue. People complimented him on his good graces. Parents pointed to him as an
example to their youth. One artist even painted an exquisite portrait of him.
Dorian idolized the painting. He woke each morning to admire it. He ended every day with a gaze at his mirrored perfection. Someone so lovely could do no wrong, he began to think, or at least would not be punished for it. In his vanity, he became selfish and indulgent. He sampled the sins of the streets. He debauched himself in the opium dens of London's darker dives.
Of course, Dorian's crimes and carelessness took their toll. Soon the perfect portrait on the wall began to haunt him. The picture of a radiant and wholesome young man gleamed down on his puffy face and diseased body and glazed eyes. If only he could look that way again! If only the portrait could absorb the marks of his sin!
And miraculously, that's what happened. Before long, his youthful glow returned. The more he caroused at night, the healthier and handsomer he became. And on the wall, the painting slowly became etched and lined with the wickedness of Dorian Gray.
What a life! Each day, people marveled at his virtue and eternal youth. And by night he wallowed in every vice, with no recrimination. The now-ugly painting on the wall absorbed every evil and tallied each painful degradation.
Dorian could no longer endure even a casual glance at the horrible picture. He hid it in the attic and only occasionally sneaked up to survey the damage. Over the years, what little resemblance there may have been between young Dorian Gray and the grotesque monster in the painting was all but lost.
But the painting remained a sacramental testimony of his wickedness. It was a haunting conscience, an inviolate judge on the life and times of Dorian Gray. It stood as accuser. It never lied. It drove him mad.
One night, he could stand it no longer. Knife in hand, he ascended the stairs to the attic courtroom and attacked the awful witness that spoke silently for the prosecution. When his servants searched the house the next day, looking for Master Gray, they found only the wretched body of a ghastly old man in the attic, knife through his heart. On the wall, however, beamed the handsome and virtuous face of the painting of Dorian Gray.
Wilde's story summarizes two themes that linger within each of us, particularly as we move again into the season of Lent. The first is a sense of morality. Dorian knew right from wrong. He realized there was a proper way to live and a style of life that was evil and degrading. So do we. God made us with a conscience, says the apostle Paul, and no one is without excuse in matters of morality.
Second, Wilde pointed a finger to justice -- blind justice -- standing there weighing our deeds with her scales, meting out punishments. We would like to be excused. We would like a way out, a miraculous painting that absorbs our punishments and lets us off with only an ugly glance. But we know it will never happen. We get what we deserve, if not now, then when we die. Dorian Gray got his; we'll get ours.
But justice, in the Bible, is, in fact, not sightless. Rather, God wields the deadly weapons of righteousness with keen perception, for they are aimed by mercy. The divine threat to wickedness is, at the same time, a comforting shield for those who know that the judge is also their Savior.
The warning of our Genesis reading today is clear: sin, evil, and immorality get their due in the cosmic courtroom presided over by God, the righteous judge. But thanks to amazing grace, Paul can claim "righteousness" and "mercy" at the same bar. And only in that courtroom is it possible to walk through the wilderness of temptation knowing that brother Jesus has first charted the way, defeated the devil, and shares the ministering angels of heaven with us.
Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7
The "mythical" qualities of Genesis 1-11 ought not to be interpreted as synonymous with either "untrue" or "non-historical." Myths are stories that summarize worldviews in elided prose, giving snapshots of the value systems that drive a culture, or providing hooks on which to hang the unspoken but ubiquitous understanding of a society's identity. So it is that the stories told by way of myths may be cartoon-like fairy tales, or they may be selected emblematic events from the actual unfolding of a community's early history, or a combination of both. Myths, by their very nature, do not intend to be read as scientific description or journalistic documentary. They serve instead to carry the fundamental values and worldview understandings of the culture in a manageable, memorable collection of tales.
In this respect, Genesis functions as an extended historical prologue to the Sinai covenant, answering a number of important questions that arise simply because Israel has been shaken loose from 400 years of enslaved slumber and is now being reshaped as the marriage partner of God in a divine mission that is not yet fully clarified. Genesis gives the context to the Suzerain-Vassal treaty formed in Exodus 20-24. It takes important moments from both the distant and recent past, and uses these as the shepherding banks by which to direct the flow of the people's river of identity.
If the creation stories of Genesis 1-2 are part of a lengthy historical prologue to the meeting of Yahweh and Israel at Mount Sinai, these cosmogonic myths are not to be read as the end product of scientific or historical analysis. They are designed to place Israel in an entirely different worldview context than that which shaped their neighbors. Humanity's place in this natural realm is one of intimacy with God, rather than fear and slavery. The human race exists in harmony with nature, not as its bitter opponent or only helpless minor element. Women and men together share creative responsibility with God, over animals and plants.
Moreover, there is no hint of evil or sin in the creation stories themselves. In fact, the recurring refrain is that God saw the coming-into-being of each successive wave of creation and declared it to be good. There is no eternal dualism of opposing forces that in their conflict engendered the world as we know it. Nor is the creative energy of human life itself derived from inherent powers of good and evil which, in their chasing of one another, produce the changes necessary to drive the system. Instead, evil appears only after a fully developed created realm is complete, and then enters as a usurping power that seeks to draw away the reflected creativity of the human race into alliance with forces, which deny the Creator's values and goals. Evil and sin are essentially linked to human perspectives that are in competition with the one declared true and genuine by the creation stories themselves.
This is the background to the biblical tale of the fall into sin. As Oscar Wilde put it: "I can resist every thing except temptation." What one wit has said is probably true: "Most people who fly from temptation usually leave a forwarding address."
Since the time our race first succumbed to evil desires, that is the way it must look from God's perspective. Crowded by the blatant godlessness of a self-righteous world, the few who know their guilt are almost afraid to cower in the folds of God's just, though merciful, robes. And while the world carries on with a drunken orgy of war, crime, and immorality, the lonely who buck the evil system seem swallowed up in its aftershocks. Even God appears powerless for the moment to change things.
Says the German poet, "If I were God, this world of sin and suffering would break my heart." In fact, it has. That is the rest of the biblical story. We call it gospel -- "good news."
Romans 5:12-19
Somewhere around late 53 AD, Paul believed the time had come for him to move on from his well-established mission in Ephesus. He traveled around the Aegean Sea, collecting the offerings that had been set aside in the churches for the large benevolent gift he was planning to bring to Jerusalem. He arrived in Corinth either late in 53 or early in 54 and stayed three months with his friend Gaius (Acts 19:1-3; Romans 16:23). When he found that a good friend (and a leader in the Christian congregation located in Cenchrea, one of Corinth's seaport suburbs) named Phoebe was making a trip to Rome (Romans 16:1), Paul quickly penned what has become the most orderly summary of early Christian theology.
Because Paul had not yet made a visit to Rome, his letter to that congregation was less personal and more rationally organized than was true of most of his other letters. Paul intended this missive to be a working document that the congregation already established in the capital city of the empire would be able to read and discuss together in anticipation of his arrival, which was planned for some months ahead (Romans 1:6-15). Paul's working theme and emphasis was the new expression of the "righteousness of God," which had been recently revealed with power through the coming of Jesus Christ (Romans 1:17).
Because Paul moved directly from a brief statement about the righteousness of God into an extended explication of the wrath of God revealed against wickedness (Romans 1:18), many have interpreted Paul's understanding of God's righteousness as an unattainable standard against which the whole of the human race is measured and fails. Only in the context of this desperate human situation would the grand salvation of Christ then be appreciated and enjoyed.
But more scholars believe that Paul's assertions of the righteousness of God have a positive and missional thrust. In their understanding of what Paul says, it is because of the corruption and sinfulness that is demeaning and destroying humanity that God needed again, as God did through Israel, to re-assert the divine will. In so doing, God's focus was not on heaping judgment upon humankind, but instead that of drawing people back to the creational goodness God had intended for them.
This more positive perspective on the righteousness of God fits well with the flow of Paul's message. In chapters 1:18--3:20, Paul describes the crippling effect of sin. But once the stage has been set for his readers to realize again the pervasive grip of evil in this world, including within their own divided and deluded hearts, Paul marches Abraham out onto the stage as a model of divine religious reconstruction. God does not wish to be distant from the world, judgmental and vengeful. Instead, as shown to Abraham, God desires an ever-renewing relationship with the people God made. Thus, as exhibited in Abraham's life (Romans 4), God initiates a relationship of favor and grace with us. In fact, according to Paul, this purpose of God is no less spectacular than the divine quest to re-create the world, undoing the effects that the cancer of sin has blighted upon us (Romans 5).
As we move into Lent we should place this picture before God's people. Lent is not merely a time for personal guilt and painful remorse in the footsteps of Jesus. It is a period of struggle when God seeks, through Jesus, to recreate the world. Such a process is painful, but the outcome is glorious.
Matthew 4:1-11
One day in 1748, the hymn writer, Charles Wesley, was in a dark and somber frame of mind. He was discouraged at the struggles Christians experience and troubled by his own weak faith.
As he walked in a small garden near his home, he watched an unusual sight in the sky above. A little sparrow was darting madly on the winds in a desperate attempt to escape the clutches of a pursuing hawk. The outcome was certain: in a moment the sparrow would perish.
But in that brief instant something happened. With a last frantic effort, the sparrow angled suddenly toward Wesley who was wearing a large overcoat, quite bulky and open at the neck. In a flash, the tiny bird dived into the comforting folds. The hawk gave an angry shriek, circled for a moment in hopes of a second chance, and then flew off to find other prey. Wesley could feel the feverish restlessness of his little friend slowly ebb away.
The imagery of the song that came out of this encounter is clear and precise:
Jesus, lover of my soul, let me to thy bosom fly,
While the nearer waters roll, while the tempest still is high;
Hide me, O my Savior, hide, till the storm of life is past;
Safe into the haven guide, O receive my soul at last!
Everyone needs a refuge, a place of retreat when the going gets rough. Behind the school where I taught in Nigeria was a high mountain. Circling its upper slopes were the remains of a centuries-old stone wall. This landmark was a symbol of hope to the Tiv people from ancient times. When marauding Hausa and Ibo and Udam raiding parties swarmed the Benue River basin, local farmers fled up Mkar Mountain until safety returned below.
The wilderness fortress of Masada served as similar protection for the first-century Jews in their desperate struggle against Rome. The stores and provisions laid up there, combined with the virtually unscalable walls of rock, created a standoff that lasted for years. And in Ireland today, the Irish Round Towers still dot the landscape. They are small stone castles with a single door positioned high off the ground. When the ladder was pulled in and the heavy door bolted shut, everyone inside felt safe from the hostile Scottish scavengers.
We know that our religion is more than just a refuge. Still, as Jesus makes clear when he quoted scripture to the devil, if our religion does not bring comfort in times of struggle, if it does not keep us sane through periods of sore distress, if God is not at least a "God of the gaps" whose unfailing presence can be counted on when life falls apart, then our religion is worthless. As Charles Wesley put it:
Other refuge have I none; hangs my helpless soul on thee;
Leave, ah! leave me not alone, still support and comfort me.
All my trust on thee is stayed, all my help from thee I bring;
Cover my defenseless head with the shadow of thy wing.
As we enter Lent with Jesus, we need to know the source of our comfort and the strength of our divine refuge. Especially when we spend time in the wilderness of temptation.
Application
Somewhere today, the aching of a million hearts will be covered over with polite smiles and ignored by forgetful friends. Somewhere today a child will die in a riot, simply because he or she was born in the wrong community. Somewhere today, a 57-year-old man will lose his dignity because a change in corporate policy in some distant boardroom put him out on the street with no job. Somewhere today, a teenage girl with a beautiful face will scream at herself in the mirror because a drug prescribed for her mother during pregnancy left her with no arms. Somewhere today, a young husband will miraculously survive a terrible car accident, only to waste away with AIDS, contracted from the blood that saved his life. It isn't fair!
What do you do with the unfairness of life? First, you look for someone who will listen to your moans, hear your tormented ranting, feel your raging pain. Second, you plead. You beg and you bargain and you cry: "God, make it right. I can't stand it anymore. Do something about it!"
SOS! That's the prayer when life's unfair. Will there be an answer? Is there any substance to religion? Does God exist, and can he hear, and will he do anything about it?
The church's strong testimony in the season of Lent is a resounding, "Yes!" We might be tempted to think at times that prayer is pious nonsense, except for one thing. One day, God stepped into this unfair world and wound up on a cross. Why? Simply because God wanted to let all who pray know that there is one who cares and wants to help. In Jesus, God was willing to go through some pretty unfair things with us, if that's what it took to balance the scales of life and death.
Cries of pain spill out of our hearts easily. But that does not mean they disappear into oblivion. For, as the writers of scripture knew, there is always someone monitoring the airwaves. And no distress call goes unanswered.
Alternative Application
Romans 5:12-19. The reading from the epistle is a very powerful text, and could well be preached on its own today. While the Genesis text brings along baggage about anthropology and archaeology, Paul's address in Romans 5 steps aside from those conundrums and debates, and instead focuses on the theology of sin and grace. Don Francisco's wonderful song, "Adam, Where Are You?" is a powerful teaching model for Paul's message. It would be a great introduction to the big picture of God's goodness that eventually emerges from Lent.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 32
Forgiveness is a beautiful thing. In the smog of anger and hurt that descends on the aftermath of human folly, forgiveness offers a new possibility. When people are locked in the circular frenzy of anger and hurt, forgiveness shatters the cycle. It is an almost comic understatement to suggest that those whose "transgressions" are forgiven are "happy!" Happy? Try ecstatic.
Forgiveness, it turns out, is tied closely to the notion of resurrection. After all, is it not forgiveness of sins that comes on the heels of an empty tomb? Is it not forgiveness that accompanied the thief to paradise? Is not forgiveness that gift that is shared in the Eucharist? To be forgiven is truly a holy experience. To forgive is to be in partnership with God.
Forgiveness is not just a mere dismissal of charges brought. Forgiveness involves an acknowledgment that wrong has been done. It doesn't gloss over or dismiss. Forgiveness is stark and clear about the reality that there is something that needs to be forgiven. You hurt my child? I have a basic right to strike back. You violate me? There is a visceral voice that justifies the call to even the score. Yet incredibly, forgiveness forfeits these legitimate claims to revenge. Forgiveness washes away the past and presents a clean slate; a new opportunity, a new beginning. Yes. Forgiveness is a beautiful thing. Happy indeed are those whose transgressions are forgiven.
But forgiveness isn't just a one-time thing. The act of forgiveness is not an end in itself. It doesn't merely stop there. Forgiveness begs a response. It yearns for a flow and rhythm of grace that rushes from one forgiven person to another who needs what has just been received. Forgiveness forges pathways of new life and new beginnings. Forgiveness is a journey whose first steps are scary, tentative steps into the unknown. But once on the path, forgiveness strides forth with eyes open to the brokenness of the world.
This psalm is a shining link to the work of salvation in Christ Jesus, calling us to not only receive the gift of God's grace and forgiveness, but to turn and offer that same gift to others. It is this kind of offering that will make possible the building of what Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. referred to as the "beloved community."
Dorian idolized the painting. He woke each morning to admire it. He ended every day with a gaze at his mirrored perfection. Someone so lovely could do no wrong, he began to think, or at least would not be punished for it. In his vanity, he became selfish and indulgent. He sampled the sins of the streets. He debauched himself in the opium dens of London's darker dives.
Of course, Dorian's crimes and carelessness took their toll. Soon the perfect portrait on the wall began to haunt him. The picture of a radiant and wholesome young man gleamed down on his puffy face and diseased body and glazed eyes. If only he could look that way again! If only the portrait could absorb the marks of his sin!
And miraculously, that's what happened. Before long, his youthful glow returned. The more he caroused at night, the healthier and handsomer he became. And on the wall, the painting slowly became etched and lined with the wickedness of Dorian Gray.
What a life! Each day, people marveled at his virtue and eternal youth. And by night he wallowed in every vice, with no recrimination. The now-ugly painting on the wall absorbed every evil and tallied each painful degradation.
Dorian could no longer endure even a casual glance at the horrible picture. He hid it in the attic and only occasionally sneaked up to survey the damage. Over the years, what little resemblance there may have been between young Dorian Gray and the grotesque monster in the painting was all but lost.
But the painting remained a sacramental testimony of his wickedness. It was a haunting conscience, an inviolate judge on the life and times of Dorian Gray. It stood as accuser. It never lied. It drove him mad.
One night, he could stand it no longer. Knife in hand, he ascended the stairs to the attic courtroom and attacked the awful witness that spoke silently for the prosecution. When his servants searched the house the next day, looking for Master Gray, they found only the wretched body of a ghastly old man in the attic, knife through his heart. On the wall, however, beamed the handsome and virtuous face of the painting of Dorian Gray.
Wilde's story summarizes two themes that linger within each of us, particularly as we move again into the season of Lent. The first is a sense of morality. Dorian knew right from wrong. He realized there was a proper way to live and a style of life that was evil and degrading. So do we. God made us with a conscience, says the apostle Paul, and no one is without excuse in matters of morality.
Second, Wilde pointed a finger to justice -- blind justice -- standing there weighing our deeds with her scales, meting out punishments. We would like to be excused. We would like a way out, a miraculous painting that absorbs our punishments and lets us off with only an ugly glance. But we know it will never happen. We get what we deserve, if not now, then when we die. Dorian Gray got his; we'll get ours.
But justice, in the Bible, is, in fact, not sightless. Rather, God wields the deadly weapons of righteousness with keen perception, for they are aimed by mercy. The divine threat to wickedness is, at the same time, a comforting shield for those who know that the judge is also their Savior.
The warning of our Genesis reading today is clear: sin, evil, and immorality get their due in the cosmic courtroom presided over by God, the righteous judge. But thanks to amazing grace, Paul can claim "righteousness" and "mercy" at the same bar. And only in that courtroom is it possible to walk through the wilderness of temptation knowing that brother Jesus has first charted the way, defeated the devil, and shares the ministering angels of heaven with us.
Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7
The "mythical" qualities of Genesis 1-11 ought not to be interpreted as synonymous with either "untrue" or "non-historical." Myths are stories that summarize worldviews in elided prose, giving snapshots of the value systems that drive a culture, or providing hooks on which to hang the unspoken but ubiquitous understanding of a society's identity. So it is that the stories told by way of myths may be cartoon-like fairy tales, or they may be selected emblematic events from the actual unfolding of a community's early history, or a combination of both. Myths, by their very nature, do not intend to be read as scientific description or journalistic documentary. They serve instead to carry the fundamental values and worldview understandings of the culture in a manageable, memorable collection of tales.
In this respect, Genesis functions as an extended historical prologue to the Sinai covenant, answering a number of important questions that arise simply because Israel has been shaken loose from 400 years of enslaved slumber and is now being reshaped as the marriage partner of God in a divine mission that is not yet fully clarified. Genesis gives the context to the Suzerain-Vassal treaty formed in Exodus 20-24. It takes important moments from both the distant and recent past, and uses these as the shepherding banks by which to direct the flow of the people's river of identity.
If the creation stories of Genesis 1-2 are part of a lengthy historical prologue to the meeting of Yahweh and Israel at Mount Sinai, these cosmogonic myths are not to be read as the end product of scientific or historical analysis. They are designed to place Israel in an entirely different worldview context than that which shaped their neighbors. Humanity's place in this natural realm is one of intimacy with God, rather than fear and slavery. The human race exists in harmony with nature, not as its bitter opponent or only helpless minor element. Women and men together share creative responsibility with God, over animals and plants.
Moreover, there is no hint of evil or sin in the creation stories themselves. In fact, the recurring refrain is that God saw the coming-into-being of each successive wave of creation and declared it to be good. There is no eternal dualism of opposing forces that in their conflict engendered the world as we know it. Nor is the creative energy of human life itself derived from inherent powers of good and evil which, in their chasing of one another, produce the changes necessary to drive the system. Instead, evil appears only after a fully developed created realm is complete, and then enters as a usurping power that seeks to draw away the reflected creativity of the human race into alliance with forces, which deny the Creator's values and goals. Evil and sin are essentially linked to human perspectives that are in competition with the one declared true and genuine by the creation stories themselves.
This is the background to the biblical tale of the fall into sin. As Oscar Wilde put it: "I can resist every thing except temptation." What one wit has said is probably true: "Most people who fly from temptation usually leave a forwarding address."
Since the time our race first succumbed to evil desires, that is the way it must look from God's perspective. Crowded by the blatant godlessness of a self-righteous world, the few who know their guilt are almost afraid to cower in the folds of God's just, though merciful, robes. And while the world carries on with a drunken orgy of war, crime, and immorality, the lonely who buck the evil system seem swallowed up in its aftershocks. Even God appears powerless for the moment to change things.
Says the German poet, "If I were God, this world of sin and suffering would break my heart." In fact, it has. That is the rest of the biblical story. We call it gospel -- "good news."
Romans 5:12-19
Somewhere around late 53 AD, Paul believed the time had come for him to move on from his well-established mission in Ephesus. He traveled around the Aegean Sea, collecting the offerings that had been set aside in the churches for the large benevolent gift he was planning to bring to Jerusalem. He arrived in Corinth either late in 53 or early in 54 and stayed three months with his friend Gaius (Acts 19:1-3; Romans 16:23). When he found that a good friend (and a leader in the Christian congregation located in Cenchrea, one of Corinth's seaport suburbs) named Phoebe was making a trip to Rome (Romans 16:1), Paul quickly penned what has become the most orderly summary of early Christian theology.
Because Paul had not yet made a visit to Rome, his letter to that congregation was less personal and more rationally organized than was true of most of his other letters. Paul intended this missive to be a working document that the congregation already established in the capital city of the empire would be able to read and discuss together in anticipation of his arrival, which was planned for some months ahead (Romans 1:6-15). Paul's working theme and emphasis was the new expression of the "righteousness of God," which had been recently revealed with power through the coming of Jesus Christ (Romans 1:17).
Because Paul moved directly from a brief statement about the righteousness of God into an extended explication of the wrath of God revealed against wickedness (Romans 1:18), many have interpreted Paul's understanding of God's righteousness as an unattainable standard against which the whole of the human race is measured and fails. Only in the context of this desperate human situation would the grand salvation of Christ then be appreciated and enjoyed.
But more scholars believe that Paul's assertions of the righteousness of God have a positive and missional thrust. In their understanding of what Paul says, it is because of the corruption and sinfulness that is demeaning and destroying humanity that God needed again, as God did through Israel, to re-assert the divine will. In so doing, God's focus was not on heaping judgment upon humankind, but instead that of drawing people back to the creational goodness God had intended for them.
This more positive perspective on the righteousness of God fits well with the flow of Paul's message. In chapters 1:18--3:20, Paul describes the crippling effect of sin. But once the stage has been set for his readers to realize again the pervasive grip of evil in this world, including within their own divided and deluded hearts, Paul marches Abraham out onto the stage as a model of divine religious reconstruction. God does not wish to be distant from the world, judgmental and vengeful. Instead, as shown to Abraham, God desires an ever-renewing relationship with the people God made. Thus, as exhibited in Abraham's life (Romans 4), God initiates a relationship of favor and grace with us. In fact, according to Paul, this purpose of God is no less spectacular than the divine quest to re-create the world, undoing the effects that the cancer of sin has blighted upon us (Romans 5).
As we move into Lent we should place this picture before God's people. Lent is not merely a time for personal guilt and painful remorse in the footsteps of Jesus. It is a period of struggle when God seeks, through Jesus, to recreate the world. Such a process is painful, but the outcome is glorious.
Matthew 4:1-11
One day in 1748, the hymn writer, Charles Wesley, was in a dark and somber frame of mind. He was discouraged at the struggles Christians experience and troubled by his own weak faith.
As he walked in a small garden near his home, he watched an unusual sight in the sky above. A little sparrow was darting madly on the winds in a desperate attempt to escape the clutches of a pursuing hawk. The outcome was certain: in a moment the sparrow would perish.
But in that brief instant something happened. With a last frantic effort, the sparrow angled suddenly toward Wesley who was wearing a large overcoat, quite bulky and open at the neck. In a flash, the tiny bird dived into the comforting folds. The hawk gave an angry shriek, circled for a moment in hopes of a second chance, and then flew off to find other prey. Wesley could feel the feverish restlessness of his little friend slowly ebb away.
The imagery of the song that came out of this encounter is clear and precise:
Jesus, lover of my soul, let me to thy bosom fly,
While the nearer waters roll, while the tempest still is high;
Hide me, O my Savior, hide, till the storm of life is past;
Safe into the haven guide, O receive my soul at last!
Everyone needs a refuge, a place of retreat when the going gets rough. Behind the school where I taught in Nigeria was a high mountain. Circling its upper slopes were the remains of a centuries-old stone wall. This landmark was a symbol of hope to the Tiv people from ancient times. When marauding Hausa and Ibo and Udam raiding parties swarmed the Benue River basin, local farmers fled up Mkar Mountain until safety returned below.
The wilderness fortress of Masada served as similar protection for the first-century Jews in their desperate struggle against Rome. The stores and provisions laid up there, combined with the virtually unscalable walls of rock, created a standoff that lasted for years. And in Ireland today, the Irish Round Towers still dot the landscape. They are small stone castles with a single door positioned high off the ground. When the ladder was pulled in and the heavy door bolted shut, everyone inside felt safe from the hostile Scottish scavengers.
We know that our religion is more than just a refuge. Still, as Jesus makes clear when he quoted scripture to the devil, if our religion does not bring comfort in times of struggle, if it does not keep us sane through periods of sore distress, if God is not at least a "God of the gaps" whose unfailing presence can be counted on when life falls apart, then our religion is worthless. As Charles Wesley put it:
Other refuge have I none; hangs my helpless soul on thee;
Leave, ah! leave me not alone, still support and comfort me.
All my trust on thee is stayed, all my help from thee I bring;
Cover my defenseless head with the shadow of thy wing.
As we enter Lent with Jesus, we need to know the source of our comfort and the strength of our divine refuge. Especially when we spend time in the wilderness of temptation.
Application
Somewhere today, the aching of a million hearts will be covered over with polite smiles and ignored by forgetful friends. Somewhere today a child will die in a riot, simply because he or she was born in the wrong community. Somewhere today, a 57-year-old man will lose his dignity because a change in corporate policy in some distant boardroom put him out on the street with no job. Somewhere today, a teenage girl with a beautiful face will scream at herself in the mirror because a drug prescribed for her mother during pregnancy left her with no arms. Somewhere today, a young husband will miraculously survive a terrible car accident, only to waste away with AIDS, contracted from the blood that saved his life. It isn't fair!
What do you do with the unfairness of life? First, you look for someone who will listen to your moans, hear your tormented ranting, feel your raging pain. Second, you plead. You beg and you bargain and you cry: "God, make it right. I can't stand it anymore. Do something about it!"
SOS! That's the prayer when life's unfair. Will there be an answer? Is there any substance to religion? Does God exist, and can he hear, and will he do anything about it?
The church's strong testimony in the season of Lent is a resounding, "Yes!" We might be tempted to think at times that prayer is pious nonsense, except for one thing. One day, God stepped into this unfair world and wound up on a cross. Why? Simply because God wanted to let all who pray know that there is one who cares and wants to help. In Jesus, God was willing to go through some pretty unfair things with us, if that's what it took to balance the scales of life and death.
Cries of pain spill out of our hearts easily. But that does not mean they disappear into oblivion. For, as the writers of scripture knew, there is always someone monitoring the airwaves. And no distress call goes unanswered.
Alternative Application
Romans 5:12-19. The reading from the epistle is a very powerful text, and could well be preached on its own today. While the Genesis text brings along baggage about anthropology and archaeology, Paul's address in Romans 5 steps aside from those conundrums and debates, and instead focuses on the theology of sin and grace. Don Francisco's wonderful song, "Adam, Where Are You?" is a powerful teaching model for Paul's message. It would be a great introduction to the big picture of God's goodness that eventually emerges from Lent.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 32
Forgiveness is a beautiful thing. In the smog of anger and hurt that descends on the aftermath of human folly, forgiveness offers a new possibility. When people are locked in the circular frenzy of anger and hurt, forgiveness shatters the cycle. It is an almost comic understatement to suggest that those whose "transgressions" are forgiven are "happy!" Happy? Try ecstatic.
Forgiveness, it turns out, is tied closely to the notion of resurrection. After all, is it not forgiveness of sins that comes on the heels of an empty tomb? Is it not forgiveness that accompanied the thief to paradise? Is not forgiveness that gift that is shared in the Eucharist? To be forgiven is truly a holy experience. To forgive is to be in partnership with God.
Forgiveness is not just a mere dismissal of charges brought. Forgiveness involves an acknowledgment that wrong has been done. It doesn't gloss over or dismiss. Forgiveness is stark and clear about the reality that there is something that needs to be forgiven. You hurt my child? I have a basic right to strike back. You violate me? There is a visceral voice that justifies the call to even the score. Yet incredibly, forgiveness forfeits these legitimate claims to revenge. Forgiveness washes away the past and presents a clean slate; a new opportunity, a new beginning. Yes. Forgiveness is a beautiful thing. Happy indeed are those whose transgressions are forgiven.
But forgiveness isn't just a one-time thing. The act of forgiveness is not an end in itself. It doesn't merely stop there. Forgiveness begs a response. It yearns for a flow and rhythm of grace that rushes from one forgiven person to another who needs what has just been received. Forgiveness forges pathways of new life and new beginnings. Forgiveness is a journey whose first steps are scary, tentative steps into the unknown. But once on the path, forgiveness strides forth with eyes open to the brokenness of the world.
This psalm is a shining link to the work of salvation in Christ Jesus, calling us to not only receive the gift of God's grace and forgiveness, but to turn and offer that same gift to others. It is this kind of offering that will make possible the building of what Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. referred to as the "beloved community."
