Sermon March 1, 2009

Lent 1

Today's gospel reading is - as every year - about temptation. Jesus' is, in a series of visions, invited to abandon everything he believes in and focus simply on what I would describe as archetypal human desires....to focus on self. The phrase "self-centered" comes to mind.

In Lent we're invited to consider those traps for ourselves....and to do something about how we respond to temptation.

This comes out in the "invitation....to the observance of a holy Lent" the Book of Common Prayer, which invites us to adopt a series of specific practices: self-examination and repentance, prayer, fasting, and self-denial, and....reading and meditating on God's holy Word."

On Wednesday - Ash Wednesday - I issued an invitation at both services to do two things: firstly, take that list seriously! Think about what's on it:

• We're not that good as human beings at engaging in rigorous or regular self-examination. Mostly that's because we tend to focus on the negatives in our lives, and that's not - for most of us, anyway - a fun thing to do! Remember, as you seek to do this, that self-examination is a positive thing!
• Prayer? Well, on Sundays! Some of us are better than others. Do you find time to pray outside of the liturgy?
• Fasting - I think we fast only when we're trying to lose weight, or, perhaps, before a medical test! And for some of us fasting's plain bad for our health - so fasting is a challenge.
• Then there's Self-denial.....you be the judge. I think we're doing a better job of self-denial at this moment in our country's history, but that's more to do with self-preservation than with a spiritual discipline.
• And then there's "reading and meditating on God's word". Again, some of us are better than others. But how many of us crack a bible at any time? Would you know where to even begin (since beginning at the beginning is not the way to read the bible!!)

I think that most of you would agree that this list represents a challenge for us - that's a good thing. We all need challenges in our lives. And responding to that invitation to intentionality when it comes to these spiritual practices is a positive thing. there's some work that needs to be done, and we know it!

But there's something else - and that's the second thing, the additional thing that Lent invites us to remember and bring to our conscious minds. It's this: that this list is a personal list; it's about us as individuals, it's not really about us as a community - or, perhaps, it could be about us as a community, but we tend to think about it as us as individuals!

Lent is an invitation to us to focus on these disciplines both as individuals and as a community.

Now some of it we do all the time - communal prayer, and reading and meditating on God's word is what we do every time we come together in here.

What I really want to invite us to focus on this Lent is the first thing on that list: "self-examination".

• Self-examination as a community.
• Self-examination as a community in a particular context.

That context is today - this world - our world: where it is, what's going on.

There are two things I want to invite you to reflect on during Lent are these:

1. The state of the economy and our place and responsibility within it as Christians; and,
2. A deeper reality that the state of the economy is only moving closer to us.

First, there's the economy. Now we could talk about the Wall Street bankers and bank failures but that's not really helpful this morning. If there was ever an example of communal self-centeredness this economic crisis is it! We have all given in to temptation and bankers have simply enabled us. What is helpful is to talk about where we are and how where we are is effecting churches.

Did you know that in 2000 our shared debt - not just the nation's official debt, but every individual's personal debt - was 50% of our Gross National Produce? That means that we as a nation and as individuals owed half of what we made.

• Do you know what the percentage was last year? Anyone want to guess? 100%
• Anyone want to guess the only other year in the history of this nation when that was true? 1929...................................So what do you think this is doing to churches?

Quote: "Shortly before Christmas....Stan Ledbetter returned to his Texas home from a weekend business trip to some stunning news: While he was away, the vestry at his Episcopal church laid off nearly the entire [lay] staff.

"They fired the youth director, the children's ministry director, the parish manager," said Ledbetter, vice president for finance and administration at Texas Lutheran University in Seguin, Texas. "The only paid person we have left is the organist." God only knows who they would have fired if they had had a rector rather than a part-time interim!

Newsflash: this is happening all across the country, in every denomination. We can take very small consolation that the mega-churches are the hardest hit.

Nearly four in 10 congregations had reported a dip in income and 12 percent had resorted to layoffs. A growing number of churches have even been forced into bankruptcy.

How about at home? By that I mean, our own denomination. In January, our National Church treasurer Kurt Barnes told the Executive Council (that's like the vestry but for the whole Church) that our national investment fund dropped by one-third in 2008, to about $363 million. In other words, $181 million of our investments are gone. That has led, he said, to cutbacks in spending and personnel, deferral of debt repayments and a greater reliance on the endowment. The drop-off has been so swift that Barnes said the Episcopal Church will "be dealing with the 2008 result for the next five years." And that's assuming it doesn't get any worse.

Now to the second thing, the broader context - one that I've mentioned before.

It is apparent to many in our time that there are great changes occurring in human consciousness, understanding, relationships, and identity that are radical and far-reaching - far more radical and far-reaching that at almost any other time in human history. Most of us are aware of this on some level - it's rather like the words of a character in the Lord of the Rings - Treebeard: "The world is changing; I feel it in the water, I feel it in the earth, and I smell it in the air."

The fancy description of that change is "paradigm-shift". Writers on this subject say that we are in a time of great shifting, a turning-point in human consciousness and understanding that has happened perhaps only one or two other times in human history.

We face a tidal wave. Because of the economic crisis the inevitable changes that lie ahead of as a denomination - as a community of Episcopal Christians" - are simply going to come more quickly.

We as Christians - we as human beings - cannot avoid this tidal wave. We will either drown, or learn to surf. I say let's learn to surf!

Do I have your attention now?!! Let me say that there is good news here: The economic crisis invites us into a place of reflection and response that will serve us well as we face the far greater reality of the paradigm shift.

I also believe - and I am not alone, but really am in the mainstream of those who are reflecting on this reality - I also believe that we can not only survive but flourish as Episcopal Christians, and that we will do so without having to sacrifice so many of the things that lie at the core of our communal identity.

But we will have to let some things go, and we will have to allow some things to change.

Next week Fletcher preaches, and J.R. the week after. So you'll have to wait until March 22nd for the next part of this.

So let me leave you with this observation and then and then a cluster of questions. What I believe we are being invited into is a deeper, more long-term conversation that involves the future of Christian faith as we know it, the nature of human community, and our understanding of human identity. Small potatoes, huh?!!

And here are the cluster of questions to think about; questions that at the very least are being asked of us because of the economic crisis (though the paradigm shift will ask the same questions): Who are we? What are we supposed to be? What are we about what are we supposed to be doing; what's our mission? What are we being called into by God?

As Stan Ledbetter said: "Are we, in Detroit terms, selling a model no one wants to buy? And are we willing to transform ourselves?"

Vital questions. Questions that can transform us. In the end, that's what Christian faith is all about.

So reflect, wonder, ask, and stay tuned! Amen.