Into the Woods

Mark 1:9-13

February 18, 2018

            The first time I ever heard about the musical, “Into the Woods,” was not when Shawnee High School chose it for the spring musical a couple of years ago. It was not when the movie came out with Meryl Streep and Johnnie Depp. No, the first time I ever heard anything about this Stephen Sondheim production was when I was about to graduate from seminary. The graduating class officers sponsored a retreat for those of us about to enter into the real world of ministry. A local minister was asked to come and lead the retreat. “Into the Woods,” provided the template and the outline for the weekend’s discussions and reflection.

            Once upon a time, in a far off kingdom …

            “Into the Woods,” puts the characters that many of us know from fairy tales all together: Jack from Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Rapunzel and the Witch who kept her in a tower, a Baker and his Wife, Prince Charming and a couple of other princes who were charming as well.

            Every character had a happily-ever-after they were seeking, and the only way to capture that joyful ending was to go into the woods. Into the woods was where their destinies lay; going into the woods was necessary for them to find what they were seeking, to reach their goals, to make their fairy tale ending.

            But going into the woods changed them. It both disoriented and reoriented them. It made them see their lives a little differently. And it turned out that their happily-ever -afters were not quite so happy after all. Just like life, the character’s stories didn’t end just because they’d finally reached their goal, found what they were looking for or lived a longed for adventure. It was in the woods that they met their true selves, and understood that life was not about happily-ever-afters, but in facing fears and finding others to travel the woods with them.

            Can you guess why our retreat leader used this musical as a talking point? Here we all were, about to graduate, finally reaching the culmination of our seminary careers. We were about to cross the divide between learning to be ministers and actually being ministers. We were all about to go into our own woods. We were all about to be remade and reformed – whether we realized it or not. We were all in search of a happily-ever-after that may or may not exist. We were going into the woods.

            Jesus may not have gone into a literal woods or forest – the wilderness he wandered in would have been more barren and harsh, devoid of the lushness that might be found in the woods. But his wandering in the wilderness was no less a time of being remade and reformed.

            Jesus went into the wilderness and was tested. He was tempted. He relived in 40 days and nights what the Israelites endured for forty years. 

            As we should expect at this point in our year with Mark’s gospel, Mark’s version of the temptation story is much sparser, much sparer than the other gospel accounts. I’ve said before that Mark’s gospel is an urgent one. He doesn’t have time to waste on a lot of detail. But even with as few details as Mark provides, there is still much to learn, much to ponder about Jesus’ wilderness experience. According to the Greek, what is translated as “driven by the Spirit” is better read as “picked up and thrown.”  Jesus was tossed into the wilderness. Immediately. Immediately upon his baptism, and hearing God’s confirmation from the heavens, Jesus was thrown into the wilderness for 40 days. He was tempted by Satan. He wandered there, along with the wild beasts who also made the wilderness their home, and angels waited on him. 

            That is the extent of our details. But even in this brief description, we can come up with one picture of the wilderness that is terrifying. Just the thought of Satan sounds scary. But wild beasts?! I don’t do so well with wild beasts.

             One of the theological conclusions that we draw from the wilderness stories is that Jesus was tempted just like us, but he doesn’t sin in response to temptation. This helps us establish him as both human and divine. He faced temptations. They were real.  In his humanness he may have wanted to give in, but his divine nature resisted. He overcame. 

If Jesus did in forty days and forty nights what took the Israelites forty years, then his experience in the wilderness provides a stark contrast to the experience of the God’s chosen ones. Jesus was tested and tempted, but temptation did not win. God tested the Israelites as well, but they failed repeatedly. They endured the wilderness, and somehow got through it.

            When we speak of our wilderness times we express them as the times we’ve had to endure – hardships, sacrifice, temptation, struggles. Endure is the key word. We have to endure the wilderness. We have to go into those wilderness places because Jesus went there. We are so like the Israelites, complaining, never fully grateful for what we have, for what God has done for us, so we are sent into the wilderness, whether it’s spiritual, physical, emotional or all three and more. We endure the wilderness until finally we can work our way out breathing a sigh of relief that we survived. 

Yet as we make our way into this new Lenten season, I wonder if this is just one aspect of the wilderness. Maybe this is too one dimensional of an understanding of what the wilderness is and what happens to us while we’re in it. 

            The Israelites became the Israelites in the wilderness. That time shaped their identity as a nation, as the people of God. Perhaps Jesus was hurled into the wild for the same reason. It was there, in the wilderness, in the midst of the wild beasts, the temptations, the struggle that he came fully into himself as God’s Son, the Beloved.  Perhaps going into the wild was the true confirmation of his baptism. Jesus came into himself in the wild. When he emerged on the other side, the course of his ministry was set, and he did not veer from that path. 

            I promise you that I wanted to end this sermon on a happy and encouraging note about how this time of Lent is our time to be remade and reformed, to reorient ourselves back to God, to reprioritize, etc. It is all of those things, true, but I think we have found ourselves in a different kind of woods – as individuals, congregations and as a country.

            We all know about the school shooting in Parkland, Florida this past week. We all know that 17 people – students and faculty – were killed, along with many others who were wounded. This is the second most fatal mass shooting in a school since Sandy Hook; which means I am standing in this pulpit once again trying to make sense out of something that makes no sense, and I am angry. I am damn angry! It is all horrible, but what is even more horrible is that on the 18^th of February, 2018, we have already had 18 mass shootings since the year began. 18.

            I am not trying to veer into politics. I’m not going to preach that every one who owns a gun should get rid of it, or that every gun owner is bad. That’s nonsense. That’s like assuming that people who are not gun owners are all good. Again, nonsense.

            But we are in the woods in our culture. We are in the woods and we are failing our children. I was nervous taking Zach to school the day after the shooting in Florida, and I’m sure I was not the only parent or the only student or teacher who felt that way. Zach told me that they spent a lot of time talking about it at school that day, and at least one of his teachers cried.

            We are in the woods, and we can either use this time to be remade or we can go deeper and deeper into a wilderness that I fear we will not emerge from.

            One story I read from a student who survived was that as she was escaping the school, she heard a boy who had been shot calling for his mother.

            Think about that. Just think about it. Let that pierce your soul.

We are failing our children. If Lent is a time of repentance, of preparation, of being remade and reformed, of becoming more fully who we are created and called to be, then how are we preparing? How are we repenting? How will we stop failing our children? What is our next step? Because, my friends, we are failing our children. We are failing our children. We are in the woods. We are in the wilderness. Can we turn around, repent and find our way out?

            Amen and amen.