Lincoln Park Presbyterian Church

This sermon was given by Joshua Dunham, our Seminary Intern.

The Refocusing of Lent

Psalm 23, and John 9:1-12

March 2, 2008

Whew, 4th Sunday of Lent. We made it! We’re now over half the way through. Only 3 more weeks until Easter! But frankly now is the time where the struggle of our Lenten disciplines can start to weigh us down. This is often where we can feel the weakest and fall into the temptation of giving up on our Lenten disciplines. I for one have had my weak moments. But hey look at it this way, we’ve already made it over the crest of the hill. It’s all down hill from here. Have hope, because can you believe it, Easter is only 3 weeks away!

Now during our first 3 Sundays of Lent, Cornel has diligently led us along the path of Lent, the path that Jesus took down from the mountain of Transfiguration, where he set his face upon Jerusalem. He has given us a great insight into the path that Jesus took and how it compares and influences our lives today. He also did a great comparison of Jesus’ journey with the the journey of the Chinese immigrant in America, which really touched my soul.

Cornel and I had spoken a little about this Sunday’s service and I had mentioned that I wanted to continue down the path of Lent, and continue to talk about the journey of Lent. And we are going to do that, but we will take a slightly different spin this Sunday, basically this is Josh’s take on the importance of Lent. I plan to focus on the Lenten disciplines and why they are important for us, as we live as modern Christians.

In a world dominated by fast moving images. Where a new thing is happening every 30 seconds. Where if you are still thinking about the same thing you were 15 minutes ago, then you are behind the times. We are inundated by advertisements selling new music, new games, new food, new diet products, new drugs, new vacation experiences, new clothes, new toys, new cars, new everything. When I start to think about the things that we are bombarded with as we walk out our doors, watch our televisions, open our newspapers, or turn on our computers, it makes my head spin. I have often had a feeling of overload that has made me crash. My wife can attest to those moments. And honestly I’ve gotten tired, tired of the rat race. I’m tired of having to be up and at it 24/7. I’m tired of always having to be “with it” in order to be accepted by my peers (or my perceived peers). And that tiredness, that disgust, is what brought me to my Lenten discipline, which was to give up television.

Now to be honest, I have been pretty diligent about this discipline. Much more than I have been during Lenten seasons of the past. I used to joke that I gave up exercise for Lent four years ago, and it’s going great! I honestly was pretty bad at taking Lent seriously. But this year things are different for me, mostly because I have had a great companion during this Lent. My wife has been a great person to lean on and she has been a great support. I don’t know if I would have been able to be so strong during this time if it had not been for the help my wife has provided. She has been my rock throughout this season.

Now I know, giving up TV, that’s no big thing. But honestly, for those who grew up in my generation, it is a big thing. The average American watches almost 4 hours of television a day! Four hours! I didn’t realize how much of my life was dictated by television. Giving up television has given me more time to read and it has allowed me to actually take time to think. I actually spend more time contemplating what I read, and thinking about my day, than I did when I would just turn on the TV at the end of a long and hard day of work. It has also allowed me to slow down and take my time in addressing the issues of day to day life. I no longer feel I have to be pushing, time and time again to get things done. Turning off the television has allowed me to censor one of the strong societal inputs that has dragged down on me and has honestly had a negative effect on me. I am no longer bombarded with the ever louder television ads, the inane un-reality shows, the constant talking heads on 24 hour news, or the useless reporting of what dress certain actresses wore to the last awards dinner. I do not want to imply that all television is bad. There is good programming, it just appears to me that it is becoming harder to find. Or maybe I’ve just gotten sucked in too far into the television watching machine. I had to find out what was the problem, and so that’s why I’ve taken the initiative to turn off my television for Lent.

But giving up television has allowed me to focus on something even bigger than getting 4 hours of my day back, it has given me the mind to focus on my relationship with God. Through my small sacrifice of not watching television I started to understand just a little into what it meant to fast like Christ did in the wilderness. Sure it’s not exactly like giving up everything and walking in the wilderness for 40 days. But it’s a start and I can’t say that it hasn’t been tough. But it has allowed me to start to think about what God has called me to do. It has allowed me to see how God is present in my life and where God is trying to direct me. It’s almost as if by taking on this Lenten discipline, taking the chance to give up something of value in my life, that I have found a stronger clarity about my relationship with God.

As we have been discussing the past couple of weeks in our Wednesday Bible Study, Jesus challenged the center of focus in lives of the 1st Century Jews and Gentiles. Jesus was constantly trying to refocus his disciples, his followers, on following God. As we read in tough passages in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus often went to extremes to try to prove his point, and to jostle his followers into understanding that your number one priority, your primary focus, the inspiration for your entire being, should be focused on God. And the season of Lent, our yearly celebration of Jesus in the wilderness and his journey to Jerusalem, should be seen as a time where we actively try to refocus on God. The refocusing of Lent, is the refocusing on God. The intention behind taking upon a discipline, by choosing to give up something important in your life, or choosing to take on something new like meditation, is to help us open our eyes to God. The idea is to help us come into greater relationship with God and help us to see how important God is in our lives.

But why refocus on God? Why should we put God at the center of our lives? If we place God high in our list of priorities, so what if we do not put God as the primary, as number one. Well the issue becomes one of placing our faith and center on something infinite versus something that is finite. H. Richard Niebuhr, a famous theologian and former Professor of Theology and Christian Ethics at Yale Divinity School would argue that if we place our faith in anything finite, if we place our faith in anything other than the infinite, other than God, that these other things, these finite things, these things that have a beginning and an end, will fail us. And by placing faith in them, when they fail (because they will fail), they will cause us despair. The only thing that will never fail us, the only thing that will be constant throughout our lives and the lives of others, the only thing that has been here since the beginning of time and will be here long after time has ended, is God. To Niebuhr, God is the only thing worth putting at the center of our being, placing in the center of our focus. God is the only thing worth really having faith in, because God will never fail you. God will always be present and will constantly be in your life.

And we can see the beauty of Neibuhr’s focus on God in Psalm 23. This psalm gives us an example of what it will be like if we place our center on God. Through the application of our Lenten disciplines we should be able to read Psalm 23 and respond like the author did. “The Lord is my shepherd.” my center of being, my alpha and omega, my beginning and my end. “I shall not want.” I shall be satisfied. The author is saying here that if we make the God the center of our lives we will not want for anything. God will provide and we will be satisfied. “God restores my soul.” God will give me great comfort. God will center me. And God will comfort me in times of trouble. “Even though I walk through the the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff - they comfort me.” And God will always be with me, “all the days of my life.” and through centering on God, through placing God in front of my mind, in the front of my heart, in the front of my life, I shall have eternal life with God. “and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.” The author of this Psalm knew what it would be like when you place God at the center. Through Lent we should remember Psalm 23 and recognize the comfort it gives if we place God alone at the center of our world.

And further in our passage from John we see the healing of a blind man. A simple act done by the miraculous person of Jesus. In this passage we see the power that Jesus, the second person of the trinity, wields in our world. Here he is asked by the disciples, “Who has sinned, this blind man or his parents?” What we can gather from this question, is that the relation between sin and disease was at the forefront of many people’s thoughts during Jesus’ time. Not much different than today. We often see people who relate sin to behavior. But Jesus does not answer their question, not in the way they’d like to here. Jesus takes the focus off of the behavior of sin, and places it as a condition we are all born into. He also states the man “was born blind so that God’s work might be revealed in him.” Jesus has said before that when the time comes, when the New Kingdom arrives, the blind will see and the sighted will become blind.

But how is this passage important to the message of refocusing? Well, in this passage, Jesus is again trying to get the disciples to change their focus, from human behavior, to undying devotion to God. Jesus is trying to change the direction from keeping their eyes set on earthly actions, to raising their eyes, their minds, their ears, their tongues to be set on heavenly actions. Through the statement, “so that God’s works might be revealed through him” Jesus is stating that we are not here for our own purposes, we are here for God’s purpose. And the sooner we realize that, the sooner we accept that, the sooner we change our direction, the sooner we can see what God has in store for us. The sooner we can read Psalm 23 and understand what is the true intent.

And there are many different ways to refocus. We are all different people and understand things on different levels. But God tries to speak to us wherever we are at. So your path to refocusing can be much different than the person sitting next to you. Refocusing happens in many different ways. As I stated above, the time of Lent is a time to refocus. It is a time to take something out, or add something in, that helps you create space for God in your life. And another important act in the life of the Church can be help to refocus on God and that is through the act of Communion, through the sharing of the Lord’s Supper. Through Communion we are called to remember God and remember the saving acts of Jesus Christ. We are called to share in the meal that the disciples shared with Christ so many years ago. In Communion we are called to enact one of the oldest rituals of the Christian Church that connects us with all the churches across the world, no matter which denomination, and all the churches in time. Communion is an act of refocusing. It is an act of acknowledgement towards the presence of God among us. That the works of God and Jesus Christ are being enacted by the Holy Spirit today and always. We are all invited to come to this table today and remember who is at the center of our faith, who is at the center of our lives. We are invited to acknowledge the person who really sits at the head of our tables, and that is our savior Jesus Christ. Amen.