In the Wilderness

I was on television once.

It made national news; in fact, an old teacher who lived in the capital came up to me weeks later when I was visiting some friends down there and told me that he had seen me on the TV news.

Now, I’m not sure if I should have disclosed my infamy prior to arriving here, but there you have it.

Your priest was famous once for about 15 minutes, just as Warhol predicted we would all be someday.

Now, before y’all go on speculating as to why I was on the national news, I should explain myself.

I was not made famous by absconding with the church funds.

I did not run off with a senator’s wife.

I did not slew a man.

Nor was it a combination of all three.

(That, folks, was a reference to one of my favorite movies, Casablanca, by the way!)

No, none of that.

You see, a long time ago, long enough ago that I can honestly say, well, it doesn’t seem that long ago, I was in the Peace Corps for a short while.

I applied hoping to find adventure, to see a part of the world I wouldn’t have the opportunity to probably see ever again, and, mostly, to serve my fellow citizens of the world.

It was a wonderful experience and for various reasons, I did not stay the full two years.

Still though, it is a time in my life that resides in my heart alongside those other fondest memories that I keep close.

One experience though not as fondly recalled, made me famous.

I was stationed in a small town called Contuboel, well, small by our measures but somewhat large in the context of the country I served called Guinea-Bissau.

Guinea-Bissau is a small country in West Africa, just south of Senegal and Contuboel is a sector capital.

Think of New Haven in terms of a country of one million people compared to Washington, DC.

There was a café and a market and other amenities, but it did not have the hustle and bustle of a larger city like that of the national capital, Bissau.

And Contuboel also had a larger madrassa of the region.

Muslim boys from around Western Africa would come to this school to learn Arabic and all about Islam.

And some of those boys along with others from the town, all around the age of nine or ten, would participate in a transition ritual towards manhood.

Part of that ritual involved their circumcision as boys didn’t traditionally go through that procedure until a later age.

I attended that ceremony as a guest of the city and that is when I filmed for television.

A small fish in a small pond, yet what made that day so interesting was afterwards because after the ceremony, the boys would be taken by a group of men, mentors really, and brought into the wilderness where they were expected to pray and survive and fast.

And they did this for three days or so and they came back changed.

They were now on their path to manhood; they had survived their trials.

I wonder about those boys, their time mostly spent alone under African skies in a forest not too far from their hometown.

I wonder about their rumbling bellies, their fears beneath the moonlight, their hopes realized as they witness the dappled sun rise behind the Acacia tree.

I wonder about them and I remember them.

I remember them this morning because of Jesus’ own temptations; his own time in the wilderness and how he too, came back changed.

Because up until this reading in Mark’s gospel this morning, we’ve heard nothing from Jesus.

We heard Mark quoting Isaiah, yes.

You remember the paths being straightened?

And we heard John proclaim he was not fit to untie his sandals.

We even heard God proclaim God’s pride in Jesus.

And then Jesus was whisked off into the wilderness where he was tempted by Satan, was amongst the wild animals, and cared for by the angels.

It is only now, fifteen verses into the gospel of Mark, that we finally hear from Jesus himself.

And, he says: ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the good news.”

The time is fulfilled.

The kingdom is near.

Repent.

Believe.

Near.

Repent.

Believe.

Repent.

Believe.

In the very first sentence we hear Jesus speak, he distills all that we need to do in order to realize our faith.

Know the Kingdom is near; repent of your sins; believe in the Word.

From silence to this.

From his time in the wilderness, to this.

Was Jesus changed as those boys were?

Did they come back committed to their own faith that God was near just as Jesus told the world of his faith?

And I wonder, have you experienced your own bit of wilderness?

Have you struggled against the demons that would tempt you and have you overcome.

Or, will you overcome?

Have you been amongst the harms that would threaten you, the wild animals that circle your encampment in the darkest night, and have you persevered?

Or, will you persevere?

And ever during those threatening nights and amidst those temptations, have you realized the angels were there to wait on you?

Or, will you now realize such a thing?

Because Jesus was tempted just as we are tempted and he struggled as any human struggles with temptation, yet he was still the son of God.

We are not.

So, what comes from this is our need to realize that along with temptation and along with the wild beasts, we are surrounded by angels.

Just as the angels were there to support and lift up Jesus in his wilderness, they are here for us now in our own wildernesses.

We are surrounded by angels, the angels who make us laugh, the angels who ease our pains, the angels who allow our souls to rest.

They are our sponsors, our therapists, our doctors.

They are the helpers, the ones with strong shoulders, the ones we love and love us back without question, the ones who give us rest.

And the angels change us.

They allow us to reach calm; they trample the wild beasts, they push us away from our temptations.

And when we are changed, and because we are changed, we can know of something better.

We can know that the kingdom is near and our faith is real.

Our faith is real!

And from the clarity of faith, from our changedness as we overcome so many of those temptations and trample those lions and adders, comes the sense that we not alone in our struggles; we are not alone in our hurt.

Jesus, perhaps realizing it was time for his ministry to begin upon hearing the news of his cousin John’s arrest, said, “the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom is near.”

From his time in the wilderness to John’s arrest, Jesus was changed and he began a new day.

The time was then for Jesus’ ministry to proceed; the time is now for us to be changed by that ministry.

Just as Jesus found his apostles who will be our angels?

Who will help us to become closer to Christ and closer to God?

And I imagine that search begins in this room, because you, all of you, are someone’s angel, and we, all of us, are in need of an angel that will change us for the better and help us realize that the time is now.

The kingdom is close by; God is close by, repent and believe in the Word that tells us to love God and each other.

Drop your biases, your pain, your hurt; drop all of that!

Drop all of that by first realizing that you are not alone; there are angels amongst us.

Drop your nets and with your angels, follow Jesus.

Shortly after their experience in the wilderness I was walking with a friend past one of the boys who spent time in the woods after the circumcision ceremony.

Normally a shy kid who would usually not say anything to me, he smiled and nodded as he walked past me.

I said to my friend, “he doesn’t look too bad after three days in the forest without food.”

My friend replied, “Eh. His mother snuck him food during the night.”

I guess that part wasn’t on TV!

Friends, while we are surrounded by wild animals and Satan himself, we will forever be changed by the angels around us.

From that change, let us tell the world the kingdom is near.

Amen.