Why are we in this wilderness?

Numbers 21:4-9

They set out from Mount Hor by way of the Sea of Reeds to skirt the land of Edom. But the people grew restive on the journey, and the people spoke against Elohim and against Moses, “Why did you make us leave Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread and no water, and we have come to loathe this miserable food.” And I AM sent firey serpents against the people. They bit the people and many of the Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, “We sinned by speaking against I AM and against you. Intercede with I AM to take away the serpents from us!” And Moses interceded for the people. Then I AM said to Moses, “Make a firey serpent figure and mount it on a pole. And if anyone who is bitten looks at it, they shall recover.” Moses made a bronze serpent and mounted it on a pole; and when anyone was bitten by a serpent, they would look at the bronze serpent and recover.

Ephesians 2:1-10

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the children of disobedience - among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of humanity. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which God loves us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ - by grace you have been saved - and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

John 3:14-21

“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Humanity be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the cosmos that God gave the only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the cosmos to damn the cosmos, but in order that the cosmos might be made whole through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe in condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest their works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their works have been carried out in God.”

Why are we here? Why are we in the wilderness? Why are we in Chatham? Why are we in Lent? Why do we exist!?

Maybe a lot of questions for early in the morning. Or a lot of questions for any time of day. And it’s a big question, generally speaking. So perhaps we can take it in small bites, no pun intended. I mean, ‘small bites,’ and the first reading was about people getting bitten by snakes. See? Puns. They can be useful. 

Why we are in the wilderness has a lot to do with why we are in the season of Lent. That’s an easy one. The calendar takes us through this season every year. Old habits die hard. Even when those old habits are unhealthy. I’m not saying Lent isn’t healthy. Lent, in fact, is incredibly healthy, and we follow this calendar in the church year after year to form us into a more whole people. I’m saying that the wilderness people, in this morning's reading, were stuck in their old habits and wanted them back, even though those old habits included being owned and abused as slaves. In that first reading this morning, the first testament, first recorded history of God’s relationship with God’s people, we were led out of slavery into freedom, for the first time of many, on the road to the great promised land - and even though we had spent lifetimes dreaming and hoping for freedom it was pretty scary to get there. Habits are like that, when they’re broken. This far into Lent, if you’ve been trying to give up something like chocolate or dirty jokes or having that one extra drink after work, it’s probably getting pretty rough, especially if those were things you just sort of did without thinking. Habits. 

But Lent is about breaking habits - out of thoughtlessness and into awareness of who we are and how we are who we are - so it takes us out of our comfort zone, so we have to confront what we have been taking for granted. It’s great. It’s like sending the kids to camp so they can try new things and learn about their strengths and fears, and it’s for everybody, because we’re always in the process of learning more about our own strengths and fears, no matter what age we happen to be at the moment. Moses takes the people out of their abusive environment and on into a healthier freedom, and while it’s the best thing for them all they still crave that familiar pain and agony and bondage. They still crave the thing that was killing them, because, as the saying goes, ‘better the devil you know than the devil you don’t,’ right?

When I was a kid, my mother used to smoke. I don’t know how much or how often, really. By the time I was four or five I had gone through so many ear infections, from all of that second-hand smoke, that my mom quit smoking, cold turkey. She had picked it up in college, so it was easier to give up than if she’d started as a teen. Mom knew it was terrible for her own health, even though it fed her craving and kept her skinny, which helped her feel sexy. You know how it is. In any case, she ought to have quit for her own health, but she didn’t quit that habit for the sake of her own heart and lungs. She quit smoking because her firstborn was in pain. All of that to say that sometimes we end up in a wilderness of learning new ways to live because of other people in our lives. Sometimes it’s because we see and know in ourselves that we have to change something for our own sake. 

We are in the wilderness of Lent because it’s good to look at where we are, and where we are going, and where we would like to go, and where God might be leading us, and where we are cooperating with or fighting against God. Are we trying to grow our church? Are we trying to grow our faith? Are we impatient and discontented and wondering what we should be doing with our time that might give us joy? Are we angry, frightened, sick, tired, and unable to say why? Are we on auto-pilot and missing the view entirely? Are we even a ‘we,’ or are we just a collection of individuals all isolated one from another?

This is why we are in the wilderness. God is calling us, leading us, carrying us out of slavery into freedom, over and over again as we make slow progress in our faith journeys. Like the kids at camp, we are in Lent to discover what God can do with us and where we might face our fears together. There are healthy, good gifts we have been given to carry forward, and there are less-than-healthy practices which need to be set down and left behind. What are they? Only time with God will tell. And sometimes God forces out those things we need to drop, and often we whine and complain and want them back even if they were killing us. So God makes us look at them. God puts them up on a billboard in our midst and shows them to us as they are, shows us our sin as it is, shows us our pain in a way we cannot hide from, by carrying it in his own body and telling us the story again and again, year after year, of love come among us and murdered by us, only to come again to love us beyond death.

For love did not come into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. This being saved, this being made whole, is not an easy process, but it is completed in Christ, it is begun in Christ, it is shown in the love of Christ living and dying and rising among us. We may not know what it is like to be loved as deeply and as completely as God loves us. We may fight being known that completely, being loved that completely. We may try to hide behind works and words and rebellions and making ourselves important, but in the wilderness there is no place to hide. In the wilderness there is sand and sun and there are other travelers and there is the journey itself. We are in Lent to strip away all those things by which we would save ourselves, to look honestly at the things by which we are destroying ourselves, and to be met, time and again, by God walking among us to make the whole of us whole. This love leaves no one out, none of the whole infinite cosmos.

This is why we are here. To be loved. From this love we love others with the love with which God loves us, which is why we are here in Chatham. But first and foremost, primarily, most importantly, we are here to be loved. Openly, honestly, in all of our naked beauty and struggle, we are loved. You are loved. Look upon our failure to love and know that even then, even when we nail love to a tree to die, that love continues to love us all and for always.