A
Reflection for I Lent All
Saints’ Church, Southern Shores, NC February 18, 2018 Thomas E.
Wilson, Rector
Temple
One Tikal
Question:
What decision are you going to make this week?
The
Gospel lesson from Mark today is about Jesus making a decision, and it is in
three parts:
1) Jesus leaves the past behind in Nazareth to
find his way into his future. He stops by the Jordan River where he sees John
inviting people to prepare for the future by putting behind the past in a
symbolic way, washing away the dust of his wanderings. Jesus figures, “What can
it hurt?” As he comes out of the water, he has a vision of God’s love for him
and he decides that he needs to explore where, how, and with whom to make a
commitment to share that love.
2) Jesus does what we all do when we decide to
take a new path in our lives - we have to deal with a lot of baggage that we
don’t need to carry with us. Mark says that the Spirit drove Jesus into the
Wilderness, and my thought was that Jesus did not know what to do with that
love he heard at his baptism; it is a fearful thing to be loved and know that
you are not alone. Many times we run from love because it calls us to a new
path. Here in the Wilderness he struggles: the term that the Gospel writers use
is to be “Tempted by Satan”, that force which keeps wanting to burden us with a
whole bunch of all sorts of baggage we don’t need. Satan operates through fear
by suggesting that we need to take shortcuts to making a full commitment and that
we need to hold on to things that don’t work like selling ourselves out to get
approval or wasting energy in impressing others, or doing anything else that
creates stumbling blocks in the new path.
3) Jesus makes the commitment to the new
path not knowing fully where it will finally lead, but he begins, one step at a
time, trusting not that everything will go fine but that God is walking with him
and all things will be redeemed. He has seen that John the Baptizer has been
betrayed and turned over into the hands of the political and religious power
base and that might well be his own fate. He begins his ministry and places his
trust in the love which he heard.
If
we are to grow in faith and in life, we will be faced with making decisions about
facing new paths. If we choose, we all make decisions where we 1) leave behind
the past, 2) struggle with the baggage, and 3) make the commitment.
How
did it go with you? Where was God walking with you? Because even if you didn’t feel it, God was.
I was reminded this last week of the poem by Francis Thompson, Hound of Heaven, which tells how, while
we might want to run from God, God keeps coming with us. It is a long poem of
183 lines - don’t worry, I will not read all of them - but let me introduce you
to the first 12:
The
poet runs away, but God, the “Voice more instant than the Feet”, reminds him
that we mere mortals cannot outrun God’s love.
For
instance, I know that almost none of you were born on the Outer Banks and yet
here you are. What gave you the strength to give up the past? What was your
struggle like with the Satans of your hearts? When did you make the full
commitment before or after you moved—or still not yet?? Was God with you every step of the way?
I
remember a February in Lent 29 years ago, right around Valentine’s Day which
was a big celebration in Guatemala where I was on vacation with my mother. I
was trying to figure out what to do in my life after I had gotten awfully friendly
with an older woman named Mrs. Robinson:
My
mother had arrived in Tikal, an ancient Mayan city that was in ruins and
covered over by the Rain Forest and rediscovered in the 19th
century. It is now a National Park of ruins of temples, pyramids, acropolis,
stele, and ball courts surrounded by the rainforest (it rains more than six
feet a year) where we could hear the jaguars roar, the parrots squawk, and
monkeys howl. I was climbing Temple One, the Great Jaguar Temple, built
probably in the 8th century when London, England had mainly one or
two-story buildings. The steps are so steep that you have to walk up or down
sideways for about 50 yards up; it slows you down a lot which it is meant to
do. There are nine levels of stairs, each a level of the afterlife, Xibalba,
House of Fright, so it is a way to contemplate one’s existence in this life. It
has a Temple on the top with a burial chamber for the King.
My
mother then was about my age now so she left me alone to climb and to think
about what I would do with Mrs. Robinson, whom you know as Pat. I was very fond
of her, but both of us had been married before and both of us were worried
about any future built on the ruins of failure. Looking down from the top of
this pagan place where their demons tormented their dead souls in this
wilderness, I had to make a decision about moving into an unknown future. I did
not know the future but I did know that God would be walking with us every step
of the way to strengthen and redeem whatever path we took together..
How
about you? Do you need to choose a path? Please know that, whatever you decide,
God will be walking with you to redeem any decision you make.
Temple One Tikal
Climbing
the Xibalba, House of Fright, nine level Pyramid,
one
side step at a time through the layers of Hell to light,
each
level with tempting Satans to ignore each to rise right,
until
reaching the top to reflect on meaning of what I did.
It’s
now time to make a decision on the many paths ahead,
of
staying in the past to pretend it was to random wander
with
no goal in sight, except a vision of my life to squander
by
working and being alone until that day when I’d be dead.
I
knew I was loved, but feeling had happened times before
and
had not lasted, displaying plenty of fault on every side,
with
a hesitation to commit for another roller coaster ride
with
a strong possibility of failure; then that recovery chore!
Clouds
scatter as the sun shines through the jungle canopy,
Angels
saying this journey doesn’t have to end as a tragedy
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