Our culture bombards us with myriad assertions that yearn to shape our lives. Be what you want to be. Whatever you want, you deserve it. If you want it, it’s your right. If it feels good do it. Failure is not an option, so I have the right to succeed. You are the boss of your world.
If you would, let’s open our service bulletins and read the Collect of the day together:
Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves: keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
What a wonderful prayer for the third Sunday in Lent. It is particularly special in what it asserts as our condition: “That we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves”. That is certainly a counter-cultural assertion given where we are today.
We are encouraged to live self-focused, needs based, self-gratifying, individualistic lives. I am my own answer for everything.
The problem is, according to scripture, according to the Christian faith, these assertions are all false.
In our scripture lessons this morning, and if we are honest, in our own experience, it is the assertion in our Collect this morning that rings true: we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves.
Consider the passage from Exodus.
With everything the Hebrew people have experienced in their history up to this point, you would think that by now their faith and confidence in God would be robust and unwavering.
They were leaderless; God sent them Moses. They were slaves; God gave them freedom. They were being pursued to the death; God delivered them through the Red Sea and destroyed the pursuers. They were not sure Moses knew where he was going. God gave them a compass, a pillar of fire by night, and cloud by day. They were hungry, he fed them with manna.
Today finds them without water. In spite of all God had done so far, they grumble that God isn’t doing enough, my needs aren’t being met right now, not fast enough. And because their immediate needs are not met immediately, they doubt God cares.
In the gospel lesson we see Jesus encountering a woman of Samaria at the well. The details are not there but evidentially she spent her life up to this point seeking something: peace, comfort security in a series of failed relationships. Five marriages in fact, and now she was living with a guy; looking for love in all the wrong places! Jesus talks to her of living water and she wants it, so she doesn’t have to come to the well anymore!
Gail and I do Civil War re-enacting, and a couple weeks ago we participated in the annual re-enactment of the Battle of Olustee, Florida, just east of Lake City. And our five-year-old grandniece Lily was with us for the weekend. She plays the part, dressed in period attire, and had a ball playing with her friends throughout the camp.
And she is always full of surprises. As I was setting up to do Eucharist on Sunday morning, unbeknownst to me, she was doing the work of an evangelist. She was going through the camp proclaiming: “Hey guys, come on, it’s time for church! Let’s go to church everyone!”
The response to her proclamation was not great but she showered great buckets of conviction on those that heard her, as some adults actually tried to defend their decision not to attend worship to a 5 year-old! At one point during the weekend, I saw her looking rather downcast as she disappeared into our tent.
At the same time I saw one of her friends, Jack (a seven year-old) looking so dejected, plop himself down by the fire. Being the observant and discerning man that I am, I thought nothing of it! Gail later told me what had happened. She had noticed Lily looking sad and retreating into the tent, so she went and asked her what happened. Lily told her that Jack had punched her. And she told Gail she didn’t know why.
So Gail then went up to Jack in his dejection and asked him Jack did you punch Lily? Poor Jack responded: “Yes, I did. She was trying to kiss me and I didn’t want her to. I used my words three times to tell her no. Then I used my big voice. Then I punched her!” It seems both of these children lived out that assertion that they have no power in themselves to help themselves. Lily was going to kiss Jack whatever it took. I need to talk to her about that!
Now it is true, or I hope so, that Lily did not understand what was driving her want, her need at that moment. But she wanted what she wanted, right then.
And she not only didn’t get it, she got punched! And things got reoriented.
That happened to the Samaritan woman at the well, not literally, Jesus didn’t literally punch her. But her encounter with Jesus stopped her in her tracks and reoriented her life from herself to Jesus to the point she brings others to believe that Jesus is the Savior of the world.
And if you know your Old Testament history, you know it happened to the Hebrew people and Moses, too. Repeatedly God intervenes in their history to punch them, to move their focus from self to him.
Ever get punched like that—ever had that experience when a Christian brother or sister comes up and says: Hey, Marsden, maybe you shouldn’t be using these words. Or maybe you should not be doing this or that? Or maybe it happens when you hear the Ten Commandments read in church and a light comes on and you realize how many of them you have broken in the last week? In the last 15 minutes?
We have no power to help ourselves—thank God when we get punched by the Holy Spirit. That’s conviction.
Conviction; that sudden realization that you are off track, that you are doing or thinking something you shouldn’t because it’s you at the center of life, and not Jesus. Acting like everything is about me and my needs and desires: “I don’t really need God or what he offers right now. Thanks, I can do it myself.” And only the Holy Spirit can punch us out of that.
Lent is a time we open ourselves to be punched, to be jarred. We spend 40 days in the ring sparring with the Holy Spirit in the hopes he will punch us, will shake us out of our self-centeredness, our self-sufficiency, our self-satisfaction to realize that our real need is Jesus, and dealing with that thing called sin.
Though there are lots of theological books written about it, it is not hard to understand what sin is. Just think about the word: sin. What letter is in the center? So, where are we living life with “I” in the center, instead of Jesus?
Let’s climb into the ring this Lent. Let the Holy Spirit punch us and get our attention. Let him convince us of the reality of that Collect that we don’t have the power to help ourselves. And, owning that reality, reorient our lives, turning to God and asking him to:
Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Sermon preached by the Rev. Richard C. Marsden
Church of the Redeemer
Sarasota Florida
3rd Sunday of Lent
19 March 2017