St Mary's

An elephant broke loose from the herd and charged across a little wooden structure that stretched across a ravine. The worn-out bridge shivered and groaned, barely able to support the elephant’s weight. Once it had gone safely to the other side, a FLEA that had lodged itself in the elephants ear jumped out and exclaimed in mighty satisfaction, ‘Boy, did WE shake that bridge’.

In much of our lives we can get lost in the belief that we are running the show. That we are in charge and running our lives, a bit like the flea who thinks it is in charge living in the ear of the elephant. It often takes times of crises, or some collapse of reality as we know it, to remind us that this is not the case.
These times of crises can force us to step back from our lives and to see them anew. These occasions can help us to get things in perspective. In fact any time we are able to do this adds richness and depth to the living of our lives.
The annual period of Lent is a time set aside by the church to invite people of faith to a season of refocusing; it can be an opportunity to re-direct our glance to the source and ground of our being.
With all the has been happening to us as a community at St Marys in recent times it can be easy for us to lose what lies at the core of what draws us together as a people.
Lent is an invitation to individuals and communities to re-commit to our true nature, our centre, the ground of our being. It can be an opportunity to keep our gaze on the bigger picture, on God, where our lives and life situations are a mere drop in an ocean.

Today’s opening Lenten Gospel story from Matthew is rich with wisdom to guide us in the living out of the spiritual life. The story is found in the very beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. Jesus has just being baptized by John the Baptist in the river Jordan. Almost immediately after his baptism he heads out into the wilderness for 40 days, as so many holy men and women had done previously and since. This time in the wilderness provides a foundation for Jesus’ whole life and teaching. In this story we witness in Jesus’ experiences the basis temptations and traps that we will also encounter as we attempt to live the spiritual life. These traps can distract us from encountering God, our bigger self.
(Many of the insights I want to share with you today come from Franciscan Priest Richard Rohr’s reflections on the True Self/ False Self. Very simply the false self is the small self that sees itself separate from the bigger self, God. The big self is God, and is the true self, which is who we truly are.)

The first and most basic trap for the spiritual life we witness in this gospel is repeated in the three other temptations and that is, (and it is put into the mouth of the devil) “if you are the son (or daughter) of God… do such and such.” The asking of the question is designed to place doubt in the spiritual seeker’s mind. The question asks our deeper self if we are even connected to our divine essence, our true self, the ground of our being, to God.
In Michael Morewoods’ latest book, “From Sand to Solid Ground”, he states that there are three issues foundational to Jesus teaching about the Reign of God and his call to follow him,
First, he wanted people to be set free from thinking poorly of themselves in relation to God. Yes we are all sons and daughters of God.
Second, however people imagined God, they were not to FEAR God.
Third, he wanted people to stop being dependent on religions middle management for access to God. They were to discover the presence of God in their everyday lives. This presence was not a commodity that people with special religious powers could control, made possible, or deny. It was this teaching that ultimately leads to his death.

Taking a look at the first temptation or trap for the false self, the devil asked Jesus, and therefore asking us, “If you are the Son/Daughter of God turn these stones into loaves of bread”. The devil thereby is asking Jesus to define himself by DOING.
Wow, what a Huge trap this is for the false self, especially in western culture. Where we define ourselves by what we do. One of the first questions we often ask one another is, ‘What do you DO?” It is such a seductive trap. Because what could be so wrong with doing something as important as making food from stone? The very fact of achieving this as a feat would surely be so spectacular it would attract people to the marvelous feats of God. The false self is drawn into doing extraordinary things and often good things, but is here that it can get lost. The temptation is for the false self to define itself by performances. Paul says it is like appealing to the law for your justification or identity; (Rom 3:28). If you appeal to the law, he says, it will lead to your death. You will lose yourself in outer performance principals: comparing yourself with others. Only by embracing your inner identity with God will you find your identity.

In the second Trap, “Jesus is taken to the Holy City and made to stand on the very Parapet of the temple.” It is the position of Social Aggrandizement, Social advancement, a place where you will be looked up to and admired. Who of us is not seduced by power, prestige and celebrity status, or simply concerned with what other people think of us? This is most surely a trap for the false self. Jesus refuses it. He responds by saying that the Angles of God will hold him up and nothing he can do, or what the devil can offer him, can ever hold him up. He says he has no fear of falling down, for he knows that it is in falling down is where often our greatest lessons are learnt.

In the Third temptation Jesus is taken to a very high mountain, and is shown all the empires of the world and their splender. “I will give you all these”, says the devil, “If you fall at my feet and worship me.”
One of the greatest temptations of all is live out of HAVING instead of BEING.
We can say to ourselves, “If I can only have THIS or THAT then I will be happy, content.”
Or, “I am someone because I have this degree, this job or place of honor, this type of car, or house on this side of town.” Jesus again and again refuses to find his Identity in an outer false public persona, but finds his identity anew in a bigger consciousness, the very ground of his being, a God who he calls affectionately ABBA.
“Be off”’, he says to Satan (the machinations of the false self) You must recognize, revere, respect and even worship this God and serve this God alone for it is your very essence, this is where your life it, where you will find your true self.

I would like to finish with a simple parable that captures what happens to us when we allow these traps such as doubting our true nature, spending all our time doing, and no time being, and getting lost in prestige and processions.

A group of tourists sits in a bus that is passing through gorgeously beautiful country; lakes and mountains and green fields and rivers. But the SHADES of the bus are pulled DOWN. They do not have the slightest idea of what lies beyond the windows of the bus. And all the time of their journey is spent in squabbling over who will have the seat of honor in the bus, who will be applauded, who will be well considered. And so they remain till the journeys end.

When we remain in our false self with our shades down, severed and cut off from the gorgeously beautiful bigger true self we miss out on truly living.