HOMILY FROM CANON STEPHEN FOR THE 1st SUNDAY OF LENT
1st Sunday of Lent
Wilderness
On this first Sunday of Lent, we are invited to embrace the wilderness. The past year has given us experience of wilderness as our world battles a pandemic. Many people were afraid, isolated, alone and uncertain of what the future would bring. Humanity was adrift in what seemed like a desert moment. Where is God in the pandemic? How could God who loves us permit such sickness, suffering and death? Questions abound but satisfactory answers are not easily found.
Lent is a time for us to be with Jesus in his suffering and death. With Jesus we pray His prayer on the Cross, “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” Lent is a time for us to pray from the heart, to plead before God for His mercy and to be aware of His presence with us though we may only feel His absence. Lent is an experience of the wilderness, a time to be aware of all that we allow to come between us and God, our worldly attachments. In Lent we pray to be freed from these attachments that we might love and serve God more fully.
However, the wilderness can bring opportunity. It can be a time for deep reflection, a time to count our blessings, a time when we take stock of what is most important to us, a chance to let go of things that are really not important and focus on where we are being called to be. God invites us to embrace the fullness of life in Jesus, His Son and Lent can be that moment to accept the fullness of life in Jesus Christ. During this past year, what opportunity did this wilderness offer you?
- Was it a chance to see your parents, realise the importance of family?
- How do I treat and value my friends?
- Am I in a rut, where I need to review my lifestyle?
- Am I happy being who am I? is this what God created me to be like or can I become a better, kinder, generous and more thoughtful person?
- Where is God in all this hustle and bustle of life?
- People say I talk too fast; my mother says I’m like a whirlwind when I go home! But I respond with – well, I walk fast, I eat fast, BUT here you and I have a perfect opportunity to be still in the wilderness!
Lent is also a time where people give up something, focus on weight loss or getting fit, take on a course, try to better themselves in some way. And these can be good things, but Lent is so much more than that. It is a retreat time, a time to make room for something deeper. It is a spring-cleaning sort of time, an opportunity to ask, ‘what needs cleaning out in my life, so I can make more room for God?’ ‘What changes am I being called to embrace?’ Without change we cannot grow, and things fast become stale in our lives. God is always urging us on because God knows just what possibilities there are for each of us. Lent offers us the opportunity to make space for something new, to let go of that which is keeping us from living life to the full.
The Gospel today is short, Jesus is sent into the wilderness, into the desert, and we too are invited into a desert time. Desert are interesting places which can allow us to reflect, give ourselves space. It is true that we might encounter something we don’t like!!, but we should not be afraid because as the Gospel tells us clearly today, this is a Spirit-led desert. God is with us. In the symbolic language of Mark’s Gospel, we are told this Sunday that Jesus was “with the wild beasts, and the angels looked after him.”
Lent allows us to see where we are and what we need to change. We can’t stay in the same place. Whether we are housebound, sick, active in life, living the calling of a single or married life, a priest, bishop or religious – Lent is an invitation for EVERYONE, not just YOU but every person, no matter who we are – to reflect each day and notice God’s presence – even in the places where you imagine God wouldn’t be found. Lent is full of surprises! If you can achieve that, you have found the wilderness! Let us try to embrace this wilderness. How we make use of this time determines how you will experience the Resurrection at Easter.
