Readings for the First Sunday in Lent (Year B)
This sermon was preached at Christ Episcopal Church in Eureka CA on February 18, 2018
“He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts.”
…
It is probably because my name is Daniel that I have always had a particular love and fondness for lions: those in the Bible, those in the wild, and that not-so-safe but good one in the land of Narnia. On Ash Wednesday this year, we sang a hymn titled “The Glory of these Forty Days” which included this verse that I loved about the prophet Daniel (my namesake) and the lion’s den: “So Daniel trained his mystic sight, delivered from the lion’s might.”[1]
This liturgical year (Year B), the lectionary invites us to focus our attention primarily on the Gospel according to St. Mark, the saint and evangelist who is traditionally associated with the symbol of the lion. [John is associated with the eagle; Matthew with the angel; Luke with the ox; Mark with the lion]. According to Christian tradition, St. Mark ventured into the wilderness (like Jesus does in the Gospel) where Mark encountered a hungry and ferocious lion, ready to pounce on his human flesh. But like the Prophet Daniel before him, Mark trusted in the Lord and escaped unscathed. It is worth noting that Mark’s account of Christ’s temptation in the wilderness is the only one that mentions Jesus being “with the wild beasts.”
St. Mark eventually suffered death as a martyr in Rome, but not before founding the Coptic Christian Church, a community of Christians in Egypt that still thrives to this day. It is to this Christian community that we owe the powerful witnesses of the Desert Fathers and Mothers, who also followed the Spirit’s lead into the wilderness in the 4th and 5th centuries to wrestle with Satan and to be with wild beasts. The great Desert Father, Abba Antony of Egypt said, “Obedience with abstinence gives people power over wild beasts.” And saints throughout the history of Christian spirituality have lived in harmony with a panoply of wild animals: The Celtic St. Columbanus shared a cave with a wild bear; sea otters kept St. Cuthbert’s feet warm; St. Godric welcomed a hunted stag into his home; St. Francis made a pact with the violent wolf of Gubbio; and St. Seraphim took a bear as his pet and close friend. Sister Benedicta Ward points out this miraculous concord between saint and beast was a return to paradise, to the Garden of Eden where humanity and all animals enjoyed each other’s company and friendship. Also, this harmony was a blessing that resulted from one of the earliest covenants that God made with humanity, known as the Noahic covenant, the covenant with Noah, in which God promises protection and providence to all humans and living creatures, including wild beasts. God says in Genesis, “Whenever the rainbow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant and promise I made to every living creature on earth.”
So it is no wonder that the Spirit led Jesus, immediately after his baptism, into the wilderness to be with the wild beasts in order to launch his mission to bring heaven to earth, to bring back the Garden of Eden and the blessings of the Noahic covenant. And part of taming the wild beasts in the wilderness involves, as Jesus shows us, taming the wild beasts within ourselves and wrestling with our own inner demons and devils; our own inner violence and egos. As Peter says, “The devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). And the desert fathers remind us of the vicious beasts that roam within us by calling our anger the lion and our fornication the bear.”[2] And they also call us to tame our lusts and selfish desires in the same way that lions tame wild beasts that encroach upon their territory and pride. Abba Hyperechius said, “As the lion is terrible to wild asses, so is the experienced monk to lusts and selfish desires.”[3] The desert tradition calls us to be a powerful lion like the Lion of Judah (Jesus Christ) in order to tame the wild lions within.
In our world today, we continue to be hounded by wild beasts of violence. Last year, on Palm Sunday, (you might remember) 45 of St. Mark’s spiritual descendants, the Coptic Christians, were murdered in the Egyptian cities of Tanta and Alexandria as a result of a suicide bombing. Let us not forget our Christian brothers and sisters around the world, who remain vulnerable to the wild beasts of violence. And our country in particular has been haunted and hounded and bullied by the wild beast of gun violence. This Ash Wednesday witnessed our country’s 18th school shooting of this year (and it’s only February!). In our country, about 33,000 people die each year from this wild beast that is gun violence. Although gun violence is a political issue (about which there is much disagreement), it is also a spiritual issue and we are called to repent and to tame this wild and ferocious beast. We are called to take action that is rooted in humble prayer and communal repentance. Our participation in Lenten worship and discipline (especially in praying the Stations of the Cross on Friday mornings) is an important way for us to stand in solidarity with all victims of violence, to mourn and pray for them, and to stand in defiance against such monstrous acts of terror. Lent and Holy Week also invite us to recognize the ways that we, as Christians and US citizens, have unintentionally and perhaps intentionally participated in and supported the violence and oppression of vulnerable people. A wise philosopher once said, “He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster.” We cannot tame the violent beasts around us if we do not first learn to tame the violent beasts within.
The lion associated with St. Mark is sometimes pictured above water, reminding us that our strength in resisting monstrous evil is deeply rooted in and empowered by our baptism, which, like the baptism of Jesus, commissions us by the divine voice of love and calls us into the wilderness to live in harmony with the beasts (internal and external) and to repent and to restore the Garden of Eden, to claim the blessings of the Noahic covenant, and to bring God’s Reign on earth, to tame and tap into the life-giving powers of our own inner lions.
[1] Pope Gregory the Great, “The Glory of These Forty Days,” translated by Maurice F. Bell. 6th century. Hymn 143 in The Hymnal 1982.
[2] The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection, trans. Benedicta Ward. Pi, Abba Poemen Saying 115 (Trappist KY: Cistercian Publications, 1975), 184.
[3] Upsilon, Abba Hyperechius Saying 1, p. 238.
DANIEL DeFOREST LONDON 