1 KINGS 19:9-18

PSALM 27

2 PETER 1:16-21

MARK 9:2-9

Sermon – 3/2/03

What to Give Up for Lent

We ate breakfast at 3 o’clock that morning, then checked our equipment: sturdy hiking boots, water, hat, sunglasses, more water, suntan lotion, flashlight, more water. Then we formed a line in the dark, flashlights on, and started hiking in the pre-dawn chill. Yes, the desert gets cold at night, even in August; there is nothing to hold the heat to the ground—no asphalt, no foliage, and no clouds. On we hiked and at last gray dawn granted us a brief intermission between needing flashlights in the inky, star-washed night and needing sunglasses in the overpowering, merciless daylight.

This was not light like the heart-warming, cozy light of a Thomas Kinkaide painting; it was light like a superpowered searchlight of a solar “inquisition” turned full-force on us, light the likes of which made us need—and want—to hike up the mountain and then be back down, safe, in the shade of St. Catherine’s monastery by 12:00 noon, so that we would not be fried by the afternoon mid-summer Egyptian sun. It was August 6, 1994—The Feast of the Transfiguration in the Church’s calendar—and we were hiking up the mountain referred to by the northern tribes of ancient Israel as Horeb but better known to us today by the name given it by the tribe of Judah: Mount Sinai.

Our group of 40 paused for water and snacks to watch the sun come up, revealing a vast, limitless landscape of rock and dirt. Brown and gray as far as the eye could see—north, south, east, west. Mountains as friendly and safe as Mike Tyson on one side, endless rugged desert wilderness elsewhere. This landscape was not in the least “geographical comfort food”—except, perhaps, to scorpions.

Yet, towering above the uneven plateau where we celebrated the Eucharist was The Peak, The Place where, tradition says, Moses received two tablets of stone on which God Himself had inscribed the Ten Commandments. We would shortly walk to the very spot. But from here, we could walk a little ways and see something totally unexpected: a football field-sized hollow in the side of the mountain hidden from below on all four sides and on the far side of our trail up, a rocky hollow in the mountain in which we spotted a POND. TREES. Green looked as out of place here as it would look on Mars.

And next to this rarity (a high altitude oasis), we saw a cave, a cave on Mount Horeb, where for one memorable night over 2,800 years ago the greatest prophet of Israel, Elijah the Tishbite, spent the night drowning in self-pity, depression and hopelessness. In the midst of this desolate, hopeless landscape, and feeling understandably hopeless, Elijah found an oasis—spiritually as well as literally.

Elijah, the same man who had promised the widow of Zarephath that she would never starve if she gave him hospitality (thus inspiring the soup kitchen in New Brunswick to name itself “Elijah’s Promise”), the same man who raised that widow’s son from the dead, the same man who had just demonstrated in a spectacular public display at Mount Carmel the reality of God’s power and the utter uselessness of pagan worship, this same man now had a contract put on his head by Queen Jezebel, feared for his life and was totally exhausted. Physically, emotionally, and spiritually exhausted.

God said to him, twice, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” and then God twice listened to Elijah’s lament that he had been faithful, was totally alone in faithfulness, and his life was in danger.

In response, God instructed Elijah, “Go.”

The instructions were a lot more detailed than that, as we have heard, including instructing Elijah to launch two coups to overthrow two kingdoms, a command later indeed carried out by Elijah’s successor, Elisha. (And you think preaching about politics is controversial?) But the essential first command of the Lord to Elijah was “Go.” Don’t stay here. Don’t stay feeling sorry for yourself—and don’t think you’re alone, Elijah, for there are 7,000 other faithful worshippers of God in Israel.

To obey, Elijah had to give something up. He had to give up his hopelessness. Once he did that, the rest followed. Likewise, whenever we feel hopeless, God can offer us an oasis where we can give up our hopelessness.

The author of today’s psalm also had to give something up.

The psalmist had plenty of troubles, real and potential: he speaks of the time “when evildoers came upon me to eat up my flesh” and imagines his reaction if “an army should encamp against me” and “war rise up against me.”

In all cases his answer is the same, declared in the ringing, glorious first verse: “The LORD is my light and my salvation; who then shall I fear? The LORD is the strength of my life; of whom then shall I be afraid?”

The psalmist had given up fearfulness. Nothing and no one could stop the LORD from being the strength of his life, his light and his salvation no matter what happened. Let’s take notes.

About 900 years after Elijah’s “mountaintop experience”, Peter, James and John followed Jesus up a less intimidating mountain, probably Mt. Tabor in the north of Israel, rising dramatically but not loftily from the plain. Peter, James and John saw the wonder-working carpenter’s son they thought they knew revealed as one who talked with the all-time Hall-of-Famers, Moses and Elijah—and was indeed superior to them. But in the midst of this extraordinary revelation, Peter seems to think that something’s lacking, and that he should have stopped at Home Depot on the way so that he could have built three booths—one for Jesus, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.

Good old St. Peter the impulsive. “Peter, just shut up!” I want to say when reading this passage.

“Then the cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!’”

Peter had to give up his cluelessness. Listen to Jesus; stop trying to figure it all out on your own. We need to heed that voice, too.

Lent starts on this Wednesday, Ash Wednesday. Lent starts at a time of fearfulness in our nation and our world, a time some people for many reasons may feel hopelessness, a time others try to make sense of the meaning of everything all by themselves and in so doing only reveal their own cluelessness.

People wonder sometimes “what they should give up for Lent.” Chocolate chip cookies, maybe?

Let’s go a little deeper than that.

Let’s give up hopelessness, fearfulness and cluelessness for Lent—in fact, for good. To give up fearfulness, we must TRUST in the Lord, as the Psalm says: what God can give us is more important than any other gifts and can never be destroyed no matter what. To give up cluelessness, we must LISTEN to Jesus: soak ourselves in his words and deeds by reading the Gospels this Lent, and spend time quietly listening for his guidance for us personally. And to give up hopelessness, we must GO about our ministries in accordance with God’s instructions. Let us give up fearfulness, cluelessness and hopelessness; instead TRUST, LISTEN and GO.

(The Rev.) Francis A. Hubbard

St. Barnabas Episcopal Church