Lent I

The First Sunday of Lent

Deuteronomy 26:4-10; Psalm 91; Romans 10:8-13; Luke 4:1-13

Recently I saw Tennessee William’s play, “A Streetcar Named Desire.” Many of us are familiar with the movie version starring Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh. But when actors are just feet away from you in live theatre you become very aware they are acting in your place. Every character in “Streetcar” is broken: Blanche, her boy – husband, Stanley, Mitch, and Stella. Every character is us in some manner. Watching the rage and grief on stage gives voice to the grief and rage within us.  In offering me insight on “Streetcar” an actor – friend who has played the character of Stanley told me, “There is nothing genteel about Stanley. He trusts nothing or no one who he perceives above his status. He must destroy it, as he does with Blanche, or break it down, as he does with Stella. The challenge in playing Stanley is finding some humanity and tenderness in him, and it’s there. Stella saw it, or else she wouldn’t have married and stayed with him.

In his theatre piece, “MASS”, composer/lyricist Leonard Bernstein offers the same insight: “Isn’t that odd – glass shines brighter when it’s broken – how easily things get broken.”

Yes, how easily things get broken. So much is breaking in my spirit because so much is broken in our world. I’ve moved beyond frustration to a feeling of helplessness. I feel like the prophet Jeremiah as imaged by Rembrandt. A prophet who is lamenting the destruction of the holy city of Jerusalem that you can see aflame on the horizon; or is it Kharkiv, Mariupol, or the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant?

We hear Senator Lindsey Graham call for someone to assassinate Vladimir Putin. The Supreme Court reinstate the death penalty for the Boston Marathon bomber. A nihilistic conversation I had with a man whose wife was in ICU with COVID. He remarked how he was playing a game of chess with death à la the Bergman film, “The Seventh Seal,” and didn’t care whether he won or lost – he lost.

Does no one value human life?

Jeremiah is a prophet who is lamenting his people because no one listened. Is anyone listening today? People come to “get ashes” rather than speak of conversion of heart. Parents come to “get sacraments” rather than speak of Christian lifestyle. Every wants but few step up to the plate. Parishes have become stores. You come to get, not give. I’ve come to realize that in the parable of the Sower, three – quarters of the seed eventually produce no harvest. I suppose there is some solace in that but over the years it wears you down.

To be a poet, a prophet or a playwright, requires living in and looking at the present, at what is really going on around you. Playwrights, poets and prophets need a clear, unemotional, and critical eye that stands apart from offering any easy explanation and comfort. That is why theatre, prophecy and poetry are so powerful and frightening – dangerous. They offer us a true image of ourselves.  Regrettably, we live in a culture which little values poetry and theatre. We prefer Disney and Pixar, entertainment.

I am frightened how the arrogance of one man and those who support him can bring about so much destruction in a mere eleven days. Did we ever think we could imagine the spectre of a mushroom cloud on the horizon again?

I expect that each of you may resonate with some aspect of my remarks and feelings. If not, this is where I am at the moment. It is not an easy place to be emotionally and spiritually, particularly for a Christian. Because it is Christians warring against Christians in Ukraine. Christians who sit in Congress. Christians on the bench. Christians sitting by the bedsides of their family members who might die. Christians who treat the church as a 7 – 11. That is what is most distressing for me.

The Gospel of the temptation of Jesus in the desert gives me little solace. It is a sparring match. The Devil and Jesus boxing with jabs of the Word of God. The match ends up a draw. Anyone can quote scripture. But how many of us have scripture “in our mouth and in our heart”?

The Gospel ends on an ominous note, “When the devil had finished every temptation, he departed from Jesus – for a time”.  “For a time…” This is all far from over. Maybe that’s why I am having difficulty finding humanity and tenderness in the present moment and broken glass that shines brighter.