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Church of the Crossroads
First Sunday in Lent
March 5, 2006
Neal MacPherson

“SEND THY NECESSITY”

  “And the Spirit immediately drove him out
into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness
forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with
the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.”
       - Mark 1:12,13

Just before Jesus was driven by the Spirit into the wilderness, he was baptized by John in the Jordan. At his baptism, Jesus appears, literally, from nowhere. In the Gospel of Mark, there are no detailed genealogies establishing a royal lineage for Jesus. There are no elaborate birth narratives establishing a special beginning for the life of Jesus.

In Mark’s Gospel, it is only said that “Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.” Galilee was a district everyone avoided, and Nazareth was an obscure village. To say that Jesus came from Nazareth was akin to saying that he came from “Nowheresville.” The great new movement of history that invades the world at Jesus’ baptism does not occur at the center of the social order (in our terms, a New York, or a Washington), but at the periphery. If it had been Hawai‘i, Jesus would not have appeared to be baptized at the State Capitol or at one of the prominent churches in town, but at some obscure location in the back streets of lower Kalihi.

Now, John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins and Jesus submits to it. He “turns around,” which is the real meaning of repentance. We often view repentance in personal terms, as in a turning from personal sin and towards personal salvation. Repentance, however, can also be viewed in social terms, a turning from social oppression and towards social transformation. This is how some New Testament teachers have viewed the baptism of repentance that Jesus underwent. In social terms, Jesus turns from the religious institutions of his day through which religious power was ordered and towards a new understanding and practice of religious faith. He also turns from the Roman social construction of reality, with its use of force to maintain political order, and towards the vision of a world infused with the peace and justice of God’s realm.

Leaving the old order behind at his baptism, Jesus is driven into the wilderness. One might think that Jesus, having undergone such a baptism and repentance, would have made a grand entrance into the social and religious centers of his day. Not so. The narrator of the story “drives Jesus off stage altogether” into the wilderness. (Chad Myers)

The parallel narrative is the one we find in the Hebrew scriptures. The ancient Hebrews, having been released from their oppression in Egypt, must enter the wilderness. It is in the wilderness, for forty years, that they will come face to face with their fragile existence and come to realize their dependence upon God. It is God who will supply them with the meat and manna they need in order to survive. It is God who will accompany them.

In like manner, the angels will attend Jesus as he finds himself among the wild beasts of the wilderness. Mark’s use of the image of the wild beasts is a curious one until we learn that they function as symbols of oppressive power in apocalyptic literature, such as the Book of Daniel and the Book of Revelation. The beasts represent the sum total of power as exercised by rulers both political and religious.

In the wilderness, Jesus must contend with the principalities and powers. Even more so, he must discover the necessities that will be needed as he goes forth from the wilderness to engage in his prophetic ministry in the world.

He will need food and companions, cloak and sandals, certainly. He will need a message, to be sure. He will need courage and wisdom. These are necessities, but his most basic need will be his need for God as he confronts the principalities and powers. This is what he learns in the wilderness.

This is what we too must learn in the wilderness. First, though, as Jesus before us, we must be prepared to undergo a repentance. We must be ready to turn from a religion that is comfortable and certain and turn towards a discipleship that is both risky and joyful. We must be ready to turn from political and religious ideologies that blind our sight and turn towards the justice and peace of God’s realm.

Furthermore, we must be ready to set aside our enslavement to greed and consumption that prevents us from fulfilling our best intentions. This is the call of Lent in our lives. I recall the then New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani saying in the days following 9/11 that the one thing we could do to confront the terrorism that was responsible for the destruction of the Twin Towers was to go shopping. He should have called us to a national Lenten experience of reflection and examination and questioning so that we might begin to learn why we had become the targets of such hatred, but no, it would be better, he said, for us to shop and keep the economy going. To maintain the illusion of control and security, at least in the short run, there is nothing quite as effective as shopping and acquiring things.

In contrast to Rudolph Giuliani’s call, the call of Lent is a call to turn from our enslavement to things and self-securing, and turn towards a simplicity of life that gives us the freedom to give of ourselves for the sake of others and to engage ourselves in a ministry of peace and justice in our world.

A poem written by Wendell Berry reads:

We find ourselves, at least for the forty days of Lent, in the wilderness. For us, the wilderness is not a location. It is a state of soul. Or, as Alessandro Pronsato has said, the desert is any place where we rediscover the roots of our existence. It could be in a corner of our house, on a highway, in a square, or in a crowded street. The wilderness is that place where we pray, “Lord, send thy necessity.”

In the wilderness, we learn the Lord’s necessity. We learn what is necessary for us to carry out the prophetic ministry in our time and place. The wilderness, sparse and empty and bare, teaches us what is necessary. The wilderness teaches us that we do not need more than we need. The wilderness teaches us that we really need just a little protein and some manna, something to wear, a place to lay our head, and yes, a few companions (how blessed we are to be with one another in this community of Crossroads). Of course, we also need a measure of wisdom and courage, and also a message. But most of all, as Jesus must have learned in his wilderness, the wilderness has the capacity to teach us our need of God. Only a trust in God will enable us to set aside a comfortable and certain religion in favor of a costly and joyful discipleship. Only a trust in God will help us free ourselves from all religious and political ideologies and set our sights upon the peace and justice of God’s realm. Only a trust in God can free us to be the people we were called to be.

My friends, may this Lenten Season remind us of these things. Let us not be afraid to examine ourselves and our lives with courage and honesty. Let us not be afraid to unmask the illusions by which we live and confront the wild beasts and demons that seek to control us. So shall we be set on a path towards greater faithfulness, and nothing could be more important than that.

Amen.

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