Sermon for the First Sunday in Lent – 6th March 2022: Deut 26, 1-11; Romans 10, 8-13; Luke 4, 1-13

Fr Leonard Doolan – St Paul’s Athens

For several years I had the privilege of travelling to the country of Cameroon in Central West Africa. I think I have been there to offer some teaching to the Readers and Clergy some five or six times. It is a beautiful country, perhaps best known now for its passion for football. However those of us who are old enough will remember Johnny Weissmuller, who played the role of Tarzan. This was filmed in Cameroon.

Flying either from Paris or from Brussels the flight to Douala took between five and six hours. If you were lucky enough to have a window seat you would see the extraordinary sight of the Sahara desert beneath you for at least a quarter of the journey time. It seemed to go on for ever and ever.

It always struck me as extraordinary that human beings would have the courage, the determination, and the physical stamina to cross this desert on foot, fleeing perhaps from an area of war, or drought, or persecution. Yet so many countless thousands of people have managed this perilous journey – preferring to face the physical dangers of the desert and personal and social uncertainties, than to stay suffering in their own countries. Whether it is over the Sahara desert, over stretches of water, or through unknown lands with unknown languages and cultures, the human spirit drives them on in search of a better life, a better chance for their children, or an improved economic outcome.

Greece is no stranger to people of this sort of courage – though often they arrive in an alien country, damaged, traumatized, and mourning the loss of loved ones, or with those left behind still with a place in their hearts.  There has always been migration. There will always be refugees. We put our heads in the sand if we think otherwise. Our prayers continue today for Ukrainians, for those made homeless, for those who have fled to Poland, Hungary, Moldova and other lands of safety.

Very few of us would choose a migrant life. Yes, there were and are nomadic peoples still for whom travel is simply their historic and preferred way of life. Some years ago Queen Noor of Jordan attempted to settle the nomadic peoples so that women could have access to established health care, and children education. Small houses were built for Bedouin families. They quickly constructed their enormous tents beside the houses and let their sheep use the house. It is in their blood to be people on the move with their ancient inherited wisdom about where the pasturing was best, or where water would be more readily available.

The majority of us prefer stability; Homes, jobs, work, communities, relatives and friends around us, security, transport and much more. Over the centuries the church has developed in this same way. From desert Mothers and Fathers, choosing isolation in rock faces, deserts, and high mountains, to establishing communities of monasteries where ‘stabilitas’ was one of the key features of monastic life, and then the development of parishes. St. Theodore of Tarsus, whom I mentioned last week, as Archbishop of Canterbury in the 7^th century was one of the architects of the parish system with its boundaries and stability.

It is a migrant people, a tribe in exile, to which our Old Testament reading refers this morning. Though it speaks of God establishing this tribe in a land, so commonly referred to as ‘of milk and honey’ owes its origins to movement of people with no land to call its own. ‘A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down to Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous.’ (Deuteronomy 26, 5).  Thus were the descendants of Abraham, the Father of many nations.

For Abraham there was no stability – he stepped out in faith as God called him on his journeys across wildernesses and into the deserts of Egypt.

“Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head’. (Luke 9 58). This truth has early evidence in scripture. As a baby the parents of Jesus, to escape persecution under King Herod, flee form their home and their kinsmen to Egypt, and live for a time in exile, as aliens in a foreign land – even from infancy we have an example of travelling, of seeking safety, of being nomadic; quite the opposite of stability, of permanence, and of security.

Jesus enters the desert some thirty years after his sojourn in Egypt. He enters the desert and in this environment he is forged into a deeper wisdom and understanding of destiny – his humanity calibrating his divine purpose. All that is not of God is thrown at him to test his resolve, to test his dependence on God – his Abba, Father. The jewels of mundane human existence that distract us and often destroy us are handed to him on a plate – power, self -reliance, possessions, and more. We know nothing of his forty days other than what we are told in scripture. St. Mark tells us almost nothing. St. Matthew and St. Luke furnish us with some details; but we know the temptations ourselves, all too well.

The holy season of Lent is a great opportunity for us to be reminded annually of the need to enter our own sort of desert. For few of us is there a call to live a Christian life as a desert mother or father; but of our own creation we can enter into the wilderness experience not just to ‘recall’ the forty days that Christ was in the wilderness, but also to change the pattern of our normal lives a bit; to change our eating habits a bit; to read something different that helps us spiritually; or to find time for prayer that we would otherwise try to avoid. The word discipline, not much liked these days, can be positive and liberating when we discover that we have found some new time of peace in the presence of God. The ancient and brief spiritual prayer, called the ‘Jesus Prayer’ is so simple and can be repeated silently while we do all our normal daily business – ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me’.

Lent is a time to face the hard rocks in our lives, the arid plains that so often enter into our prayer lives, or our attendance in church. It is also a period to challenge our attitudes and behaviour towards our sisters and brothers in the community. A good Lent is not just to be judged by a congregation doing a number of extra spiritual activities. A good Lent leads to a metanoia – life upturned and inside out by Christ. Lent is about God, and Lent is about our neighbour in and out of our church community. This year we have the added Lenten responsibilities to pray for and help in any way our sisters and brothers in Ukraine. If you would like to make a donation to support our congregation members in Kyiv you can find the details on our Diocese of Europe website, along with other material in support of Ukraine.

In Henri Nouwen’s book Desert Wisdom: Sayings from the Desert Fathers (Orbis 1982) we read this, ‘It was said about one brother that when he had woven baskets and put handles on them, he heard a monk next door saying: what shall I do? The trader is coming but I don’t have the handles to put on my baskets! Then he took the handles off his own baskets and brought them to his neighbor [sic], saying: Look, I have these left over. Why don’t you put them on your baskets? And he made his brother’s work complete, as there was need, leaving his own unfinished.”  P27.

St. Luke’s ends his Temptation narrative in this way, please take note, ‘When the devil had finished every test, he departed from Jesus until an opportune time.’  (Luke 4, 13)