Feb 15th: All Who Wilderness Wander Are Not Lost, with Rev. Sharon Edwards.
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All Who Wilderness Wander Are Not Lost with Rev. Sharon Edwards. Series: Standalone Services A Spacious Christianity, First Presbyterian Church of Bend, Oregon.
Curious about faith, doubt, and finding God in life’s “wilderness”? Join us this Sunday (online or in-person) as Sharon Edwards shares a hopeful message about being held in the very palm of God’s hand. Come as you are, ask your questions, and breathe in some grace with us.
Transcript:
Sharon Edwards: In the fall of 1849, 27 wagons started into that long desert Valley East of the Sierra Nevada. Only one came out. A survivor of that misguided party spoke of the dreadful sameness of the terrain, remembering only hunger and thirst and an awful silence when the only surviving wagon topped the Last Mountain, one of the settlers looked back at the place that almost claimed them and said, Goodbye, Death Valley. It has been called that ever since. But there is another name the Spanish used to describe this God forsaken land. They called it La Palma de le mano de Dios, the very palm of God’s hand. Every year, about this time, Christians around the world gear up for an event that is shorter than traveling by wagon train but longer than the Olympics. Every year, Lent comes around, less like a birthday and more like a flu shot. It’s not so much about fun as it is an opportunity to not get sick or more sick, like a flu shot. Lent is where we’re not too sure how it works or whether it will work, but it’s worth a try. Lent is the six weeks that lead up to Easter, and some of us are just tempted to recycle our failed New Year resolutions during this period, it has traditionally been a time of giving things up or taking things on. However, for many of us, this time is viewed as space to commit to deepening or growing our faith, and the usual scripture to kick it off is about Jesus, of course, but about Jesus wandering in the wilderness, Three out of the four gospels tell the same story with their own perspectives and what they choose to accent. However, there are a few things held in common in Matthew Mark and Luke. Jesus first is baptized in the River Jordan. He is told he is the beloved son with whom God is well pleased. Then still dripping from his baptism, Jesus goes not directly to brunch or a party celebrating his new found blessedness. Instead of basking in that kind of light he bakes in the heat of an arid desert. Both Matthew and Luke write at length about his time there, where out among the rocks and sand with little to sustain him, he is given an exam. The exam giver is described as the devil. However, the Greek original word is tempter. This is not necessarily the one with a pitchfork, horns and a pointy tail, or long red long johns. Some scholars suggest it may have been a seductive voice telling him who he should be rather than who he is. Perhaps the tests come from deep within Jesus Himself, hungry and alone and wondering, who am I again? What is my life? About? What am I supposed to do? Do any of these questions sound at all familiar, but Mark’s version of Jesus in the wilderness ends up being very different. Mark is considered to be the first gospel written down, and this is how he tells the story, and the spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness 40 days, tempted by Satan, and he was with the wild beasts and the angels waited on him. That’s it, this spirit who descends peacefully like a dove now drives him into the desert. The verb used here is the same one later used of Jesus casting out demons, suggesting there is quite. Quite a bit of force behind it. Mark does not describe the temptations. Rather, he focuses on the wilderness setting. There are wild beasts and there are also angels. Angels who diaconan in the Greek angels who serve or minister to him, this wilderness experience Mark sets the stage Jesus’s life and ministry will not be smooth, and all heavenly voices walking in the park, danger lurks. Wild beasts hover. This beloved will suffer, but angels will feed and he will triumph. Perhaps you too have wandered in the wilderness. There are geographical deserts outside, and there are spiritual deserts within. There are times when we are catapulted, launched, shoved into the desert. Something happens with such a blow that we are forced into a landscape full of hazards and exams that test our faith and even our sanity. We are stripped of what we thought was real, or at least Sure, and forced head first into a place where we hunger for more than physical food. The wild beasts of despair and hopelessness howl, the fanged ones of anger and rage eat away at our soul, the claws that dig into our hearts to convince us we are not beloved and honored creatures God has proclaimed. We are the wide eyed Memory Keepers that replay all the ways we have failed and do not belong. Sometimes our wilderness is the loss of faith itself, or at least the faith we thought we had, the sand shifts and the faith that raised us no longer rings true, and we wander in the tension filled desert of what is next. But what if the wild beasts transform into invitations to wake up to come back home to what is real and true, to surrender to the goodness and the grace of God. But what if the wilderness is also a place that we choose to wander? Perhaps this story in Mark is an invitation to deliberately walk out amongst the rock and the cacti and risk not knowing and go on a walk of wonder. Who am I now? What is my life? What am I to be about? The Wilderness would not always be a place of peril. For Jesus, we read that he would return to it intentionally between his various tasks and offerings of diaconom, service and ministry, the wilderness would be a sacred space to renew and probably refocus him, a place of discovering a deeper knowing of who he was and what he was about, also the wilderness a place to experience the profound mystery of God. Belden Lane writes in his book the solace of fierce landscapes, there is an unaccountable solace that fierce landscapes offer to the soul they hear as well as mirror the brokenness we find within.
Moving apprehensively into the desert’s emptiness, you discover a wild terrain, a metaphor of our deepest fears. If the danger is sufficient, you experience a loss of competence, a crisis of knowing that brings you to the end of yourself, to the only true place where God is met, beyond language, beyond human control, beyond all that is safe, one encounters a great beast prowling about the edges of uncertainty. Lesser fears in the presence of this beast give way to a still greater fear whose other name is love. It turns out the wilderness is where broken and hurting people are free to groan, to grow to stumble, get back up and learn to trust the God who fiercely loves at all times, but who also provides what we need now, what we think we need. So friends, whether you have been forced into a desert, deserted desert place, or choose to walk there yourself. Lace up those hiking boots, take some deep breaths, look for the angels, or be one yourself. Trust you are La Palma de la mana de DEOs. You are in the very palm of God’s hand the Ancient Ones have left us tools and practices for the wilderness, wilderness wandering, and one of those is called a breath prayer. It is a short phrase that is repeated over and over, with the first half of the phrase being placed on the inhale and the second part of the phrase being placed on the exhale. Some examples are Jesus Christ as you breathe in, have mercy on me as you breathe out. I remember who I am as you breathe in, beloved and free as you breathe out. So today I invite you to close your eyes, to first take a deep breath in, and then a breath out. As you breathe in, hear these words lost in the wilderness. As you breathe out, I am held by your love. Breathing in, lost in the wilderness, breathing out, I am held by your love. Breathing in, lost in the wilderness, breathing out, I am held by your love. Breathing in, lost in the wilderness, breathing out, I am held by your love. Wander loving God, we pray for all who are in the wilderness. May they be tended by angels, and may we be courageous angels, empowered by your love. Amen.
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