Beyond the Wildernesses: a sermon for Lent 1B

Posted on February 15, 2018 by Rev. Dawn Hutchings

This sermon is inspired by the work of Dr. Cornel West whose words and challenges infuse this sermon with courage and passion. The questions which frame the challenges are from W.E.B du Bois as quoted by Cornel West. Listen to the sermon here

On Ash Wednesday, this week, we began the season of Lent. Traditionally the Lent is a season for contemplation, repentance, confession, and self-denial designed to prepare us for Holy Week. 40 days, not counting Sundays because all Sundays are a celebration of resurrection, 40 days leading up to our commemoration of Jesus’ death and the celebration of Christ’s resurrection. 40 days inspired by the stories recounted by the gospel storytellers known as Mark, Matthew and Luke about Jesus’ journey into the wilderness, which of course are patterned after the story in the Hebrew Scriptures about Moses spending 40 nights on Mt Sinai, or the 40 days and nights it rained in the story of Noah and the flood, or the 40 years the Hebrew people spent wandering in the desert.

The gospel-storytellers cast Jesus out into the desert where he encounters Satan, the personification of evil. The first Sunday in Lent always includes a reading from one of these three gospel-storytellers about Jesus’ encounter…..this year our lectionary follows Mark, which you heard as our first reading. I’ve chosen the version out of Matthew for our gospel reading because it expands further on Jesus encounter with the personification of evil.

For several weeks now, our Adult Study Class has been ReThinking the concept of Evil; that is we have been looking at evil in light of all the ReThinking of Christianity that we have been doing for the past several years. How does our evolving Christian theology change the way we think of evil? Once you move beyond the doctrine of Original Sin and the Fall from grace as the prevailing explanation for the existence of evil in the world, from whence cometh the problem of evil. So, in preparation for those classes I’ve had the privilege of delving into the subject of evil. I’ve spent weeks, no months now, but it feels like years now, researching the topic of evil. I get all the fun jobs around here.

Turns out most of us don’t really believe in Satan. Sure, the guy still haunts the deepest darkest recesses of our psyche’s – both our personal psyche and our collective psyche. But when push comes to shove, we’ve confined Satan to the pits of hell, which of course we all know doesn’t exist anywhere but in our collective imaginations. What we have here in this morning’s story, is metaphor heaped upon metaphor. Metaphors are those things we use when we don’t really have words to adequately describe particular phenomenon. Meta which means beyond and phor which means words, metaphor means beyond words and that works both ways. Metaphors describe those things that are beyond words and when looking at metaphors we are supposed to look beyond the words of the metaphor itself. Satan is used to describe that which is beyond words and we need to look beyond the word Satan itself to understand the metaphor of Jesus encounter with Satan.

The gospel-storytellers place the story of Jesus temptation in the wilderness immediately following his baptism. Baptism was and is a public act; a sort of declaration of intent to be a certain kind of person. Jesus is about to step into his life as a public teacher. Jesus is baptized by John the Baptist who preached a baptism of repentance; repentance means to turn around, to turn from the direction you’ve been going, to turn around toward God so that you might live in God, recognizing that God lives in you. No sooner does Jesus engage in this public act which sets him up as a committed follower of YAHWEH in a world where committed followers of YAHWEH where hanging on crosses all over the place; no sooner does Jesus set himself up against the powers-that-be than he is driving by the Spirit into the wilderness where the personification of evil, Satan himself pays Jesus a visit for the sole purpose of enticing Jesus to follow Satan and not YAHWEH. Isn’t that always the way? Each and every time we resolve to follow one path, someone or something comes along and entices us to follow another. When that someone is the personification of Evil himself, well who else would be up to the task of tempting Jesus other than Satan himself. The gospel-storytellers are setting up a battle of cosmic proportions between good and evil. Our very lives write large upon the canvass of the heavens themselves, cause you know the big guy up in the sky and all the heavenly host will be watching this one; just as they tune in each and every time we are come face to face with the choice between good and evil. What better way to begin a season, which encourages contemplation, repentance, and confession? Continue reading →

Resisting Structural Evil: Love As Ecological-Economic Vocation by Cynthia D. Moe-Lobeda

Posted on February 26, 2015 by Rev. Dawn Hutchings

In the midst of teaching an adult education class on evil from the perspective of progressive Christianity, I was contacted by Dr. Cynthia Moe-Lobeda who had come across this website and wondered if I would be interested in her new book. What followed has been a splendid introduction to the work of a progressive christian ethicist who, despite the fact that she just happens to be Lutheran, I have failed to discover before now! That our little class just happens to be struggling with the problems of systemic evil and looking for signs of hope in the midst of our entanglement with institutions and structures which bind us up in evil that is hurting, oppressing, and condemning whole populations to poverty, prompted me to latch on to Dr. Moe-Lobeda’s invitation to take a look at her new book, if only for the resonance of the title Resisting Structural Evil: Love as Ecological-Economic Vocation with our current struggles.

Dr. Moe-Lobeda’s resume includes her work as Wismer Professor of Gender and Diversity Studies at Seattle University where she teaches Christian ethics and lectures and consults international on climate justice, economic globalization, white privilege, moral agency, Earth ethics, and being public church.

Resisting Structural Evil is a must read for those of us who are seeking ways to live in a world where we benefit from systems beyond our control which oppress and abuse whole populations and threaten entire ecosystems. Confronting the evil in which we are all implicated is a task so daunting that many of us are loath to engage the powers of evil lest we be overwhelmed by the multitude of problems in the world. Dr. Moe-Lobeda’s work provides a framework for a spirituality which can nurture and sustain us as we embrace our call to resist evil. After reading her excellent articulation of the moral crisis, enriched by Moe-Lobeda’s ability to embody ethics with stories that resonate with our deep hunger for justice, structural evils are unmasked with an eye to countering hopelessness. Sowing seeds of hope with a spirituality of love that is capable of engaging both Mystery and reality is not for the feint of heart. Yet, Moe-Lobeda’s carefully laid out, totally approachable, framework for the kind of morality capable of responding to the vision of justice which permeates her work, provides the reader with the courage to see new ways of being Love in the world!

Our little class has already benefited from Dr. Cynthia Moe-Lobeda’s invitation to resist structural evil. We began by devoting ourselves to unpacking the wisdom is the lecture she gave to the Common Good Cafe at University Temple United Methodist Church in Seattle, WA. entitled A Spirituality of Resistance. The talk provides a wonderful overview of Dr. Moe-Lobeda’s important work. Watch the video and see for yourself. Then, order her book! I know that we will be spending more time working with her book as we digest the rich nourishment of her wisdom!