The First Sunday of Lent, 18 February 2024, Austwick
After he was baptised, the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.
After the baptism, the time of testing. You may have noticed those recent news reports accusing the Church of England of being 'complicit' in allowing what is described as an 'extraordinary' number of baptisms of asylum-seekers. [1] The so-called ‘conveyor belt’ of ‘asylum baptisms’ - which bears little relation to the truth, by the way - is not a new controversy, nor is it exclusive to the UK; it’s rooted in fears and hostilities as old as time, since people first began to move, and first invented borders and boundaries; fears and hostilities which were addressed head-on in the laws which Moses brought down from the mountain, where God instructs his people to ‘not wrong or oppress an alien residing with you in your land, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.’ [2]
The ‘bogus baptism’ debate plays out in other arenas, also: in prisons, for instance, where chaplains nurturing faith in the inmates, face criticism for allegedly giving criminals an easy advantage with their probation applications. And even in everyday education, parents suspected of having their children baptised just to get them into Church schools are ruthlessly disdained.
After the baptism, the time of testing. Picture Jesus cast out in the company of the Satan who accuses him, and the wild beasts who may devour him: figures of speech, perhaps, for all those secular forces of the volatile world in which he lived, a world broken by the forces of evil. [3]
And so after his baptism, came his time of testing: when the forces of the world tried to win Jesus back. But the effect of his baptism was absolute. Though the forces of the world continued to work their evil - with the arrest of John the Baptist, a prophet they needed to silence - Jesus emerged from the wilderness proclaiming the dawning of a whole new age. ‘The time is fulfilled,’ he said, ‘and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’ [4]
In the wilderness of our world Jesus invites us to relinquish its influences, and to abandon ourselves to the will and purposes of God. This involves shaking off our obligations to a society which will accuse us and devour us and which encourages us to accuse and condemn others; and to emerge from the waters with Jesus, to join with the others baptised, made into a new humanity. [5]
This language may sound strange, even extreme, and hard to relate to in our everyday lives. But it is purely and simply the language of Lent. It expresses precisely what is at the heart of this season of penitence: the possibility of our emerging from our wildernesses, knowing ourselves forgiven and liberated to throw ourselves into the ways of the kingdom of God.
Lent gives us time to allow the Spirit to help us in the struggle between our obligations towards the world and towards our God. The promise we can take from the gospel is that if we do make this wilderness journey, then we will find the angels ministering to our needs.
And our eyes will be opened to see the angels ministering to the needs of others whose journeys may be closer to ours than we ever thought; and we may come to find ourselves sharing with them the joy of life in the kingdom of God.
Theologian James Cone tells how Black Africans enslaved in North America found a way to keep their sense of self-worth and dignity by pretending to accept their masters’ ways, and their definitions of black and white, whilst actually rejecting them; as one slave song put it, ‘Got one mind for the boss to see, got another mind for what I know is me.’ [6]
Perhaps for some of these enslaved people, embracing Christianity was part of their survival strategy in the brutal world of their slave masters: just as it may be part of the survival strategy of refugees today seeking safety and security in a new land, or prisoners looking for a way out into a more hopeful future; or even ordinary young parents looking for the best for their children in a society which has turned education into a cult of competition.
But, even in such circumstances, perhaps especially in such circumstances, there is likely be a whole lot more behind their decision to embrace this new faith.
What did those black slaves find when they first opened their bibles together? A message quite different from the brutalising Christianity of their white slave masters: the message that in God’s eyes they were people of great worth, created in God’s image, ‘not slaves, not ‘niggers’, but God’s children’. [7] It gave them hope: ‘a Christian hope which is a vision and a promise for the poor, and the sick, and the weak and oppressed of the earth; a hope for a new heaven and a new earth: beginning now; a hope against the present order of injustice and slavery and for a new order of justice and peace.’ [8]
It is not difficult to imagine that what many of the black slaves found in Christianity, so also many of the refugees, the prisoners, and the struggling ones of our society will also find: good news, wonderful to believe in.
One reason religion has survived in the modern world despite four centuries of secularisation is that it answers the three questions every reflective human being will ask at some time in their life: Who am I? Why am I here? How then shall I live?
These cannot be answered by the four great institutions of the modern West: science, technology, the market economy and the liberal democratic state. Science tells us how but not why. Technology gives us power but cannot tell us how to use that power. The market gives us choices but does not tell us which choices to make. The liberal democratic state as a matter of principle holds back from endorsing any particular way of life. The result is that contemporary culture sets before us an almost infinite range of possibilities, but does not tell us who we are, why we are here, and how we should live. [9]
Initiation into a new faith helps us towards finding answers to those three fundamental questions. We could say that somehow, in the wilderness of enslavement, the slaves found angels ministering to them, opening to them a door to a new world of self-understanding, self-worth, faith and hope.
And so today, we might pray that, in the wilderness of exile from their homeland and loved ones, in the trauma of war and loss and displacement, the world’s refugees will find angels ministering to them.
We might pray that, in the wilderness of incarceration, in the sense of hopeless abandonment, the world’s prisoners will find angels ministering to them.
We might pray that all young families, struggling for answers to life’s fundamental questions, in the face of society’s distractions and misdirections, will find angels ministering to them.
And we might pray that we, seeking to be led by the Spirit in the just and good way of Christ, struggling in our own wildernesses to think, say, and do the right thing hour by hour, will find angels ministering to us.
Notes
This is a rewrite of my earlier sermon, After the waters, the wilderness, preached in Devon, 2012.
[1] Hattie Williams, Asylum-seeker ‘conveyor belt’ conversions is a fiction, says Bishop of Durham. Church Times, 12 February 2024.
[2] This teaching extends throughout the scriptures, see eg. Deuteronomy 10:19, Exodus 22:21, Leviticus 19:33-34, 1 John 3:17-18, James 2:15-16, Galatians 6:10, Luke 17:18, Luke 10:28-37, Luke 6:35.
[3] Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man, A Political Reading of Mark's Story of Jesus, p.130
[4] Mark 1.15.
[5] H. Waetjen quoted in Myers, p.129
[6] James H. Cone, The Spirituals and the Blues, An Interpretation. p.26. Quoting Julius Lester, To be a Slave. p.100.
[7] Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, We Are What We Remember. Yeshiva: Beit Midrash, 15 Elul 5776 (18 September 2016); quoted in Heinrich Arnold, Three Pillars of Education, Plough Quarterly, 11 December 2023.
[8] James H. Cone, The Spirituals and the Blues, An Interpretation. p.17. Quoting Howard Thurman, The Negro Spiritual Speaks of Life and Death. p.12.
[9] James H. Cone, The Spirituals and the Blues: 50th Anniversary Edition. Publisher’s Overview.
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