A Walk on the Wild Side

Portions of the sermon given March 1, 2009

I can think of no more powerful a story than this account of Jesus’ baptism and journey into the wilderness as we begin Lent. Because of where we have been, the story stands out in living color. I see the upsweeping of green hills in Galilee and the quiet, but steady rush of the River Jordan in my minds eye. I even see the wilderness, perhaps as the West Bank or the dry desert hills just outside of Jericho where Bedouin shacks dot the hillside and camels stubbornly stand by. These days, the River Jordan divides Israel and Jordan and the two countries vie for water rights. In order to cross over into either country, you need to be able to tolerate an intimidating passport check, complete with cocked AK 47’s and border police.

The River Jordan IS cold this time of year! Just before leaving Galilee, we stood in the River as we remembered our baptism and received a blessing for the journey ahead. As we lined up to enter the water, a heron flew overhead and the sun danced in the trees across the creek. It was easy to imagine Jesus coming down to the water to be baptized by the wild and crazy John, so full of the spirit, so compelled by the power of the living stream to wash away the old and flood in the new.

According to Mark, Jesus enters immediately into the wilderness for forty days, facing the temptations of Satan, hanging out with wild beasts and finding the strength of angels. Sometimes after a blessing, we barely have time to dry off before we are flung into the wilderness again, to do battle with the good and evil forces of life. This story is given to us to remind us that we will be blessed, but never coddled, in this life; along our way we will encounter the wilderness, with its accompanying temptations, wild beasts and occasional angels.

We enter the wilderness when we experience injustice that cannot be easily fixed or unrelenting loneliness that isolates or conflict that will not be healed. There were times on our pilgrimage when we experienced the harsh tragedy of land divided and people torn apart by the terrible burden on mistrust and hatred. We witnessed the huge wall that has been erected between two holy cities, Jerusalem and Bethlehem. We stood in the cold streets of a Palestinian Refuge Camp and walked through the halls of Yad Veshem, the Israeli Museum honoring the Holocaust. We walked upon the ancient stones of the Temple Mount, and circled the Dome of the Rock, a sacred place to Muslims. We followed the footsteps of Jesus on the Via Dolorosa and entered the Church of the Holy Sepulcher where five Christian denominations try to share rights to the space. Jerusalem is the city where the three Abrahamic faiths collide and crash into each other like difficult children playing in bumper cars.

Today, Israel and the Palestinian Territories are a wilderness where mistrust and disregard is full blown and actively pursued. It is a world where there is separation, tragedy, anxiety and profound despair. A world where there are walls and guards, guns and checkpoints, borders and broken promises.

But there were times of grace-filled blessing on our pilgrimage, Blessed Wilderness. In Bethlehem, children collected shattered glass from the destroyed buildings of the last Intifada and have made tiny dancing angels out of the shards of war. At the border, Israeli mothers come to watch and witness and to make sure that no one is harassed or held back without cause. Father Michael McGarry rises each day to give witness to the hope of peace between people and neighborhoods and continues to pray without ceasing for a just and lasting peace.

The world breaks everyone, but in the broken there may be blessing. We are broken open to discover the hope that is God’s in the midst of human despair. If we rely on our own strength and willfulness, we will never achieve the peace we long for, but if we can imagine the peace that is beyond our understanding, in the heart of God, we have a chance. May God create within each of us, an opening, a blessing in the wilderness, a spacious place for grace and hope filled transformation.