LENT 1-A, February 13, 2005

The week before last I was at Camp Allen outside of Houston along with about 150 other clergy and laity reading and grading General Ordination Examinations. Seminary seniors took the exam at the beginning of January. Most bishops require that a candidate has to pass all seven parts of the test before he or she can be ordained. Taking that exam has to be a very nerve-wracking experience.

In a very real way, today’s Gospel reading recounts Jesus’ General Ordination Exam. Before he could begin his ministry, he, too, had to pass a test. Of course, the circumstances between this year’s General Ordination Exams and Jesus’s Ordination Exam are markedly different. This year’s seminarians had three square meals a day, had a comfortable bed to sleep in each night, and had a day off half way through the exam. And they had the prayers and encouragement of the whole student body.

Jesus, on the other hand, had to take his exam after fasting for forty days, after having slept in the desert each night with a rock as a pillow, and no one around to give him any encouragement. I suspect had anyone of us had to take an exam, any exam, under those circumstances, we would have failed miserably. The wonder of it all is that Jesus not only could take that exam but that he passed it with flying colors to boot.

Quite a few years ago Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote what has almost become a spiritual classic he titled When Bad Things Happen to Good People. When the book first arrived at the local Barnes and Noble, it was quickly bought up, mostly because so many people misheard the title. They thought Kushner was writing to try to answer the questions that arise as to why bad things happen to good people. But, of course, that was not Kushner’s intention. He had then and still today has no idea why bad things happen to good people. Neither do we. What he does is give us some advice about what to do when bad things do happen. What Kushner knew, what we all know, is that bad things do indeed happen to good people because they happen to us.

And why shouldn’t they? I mean, if bad things happened to Jesus, like the crucifixion, why should we be exempt? Yet, even though we know we sometimes deserve some of the bad things that happen to us, we certainly don’t like it when they do. Who does? No one likes to suffer, be in pain, hurt all over, even if that suffering and pain and hurt are justified, because they were caused by our own foolishness. Only a masochist loves pain, and masochists we definitely are not.

So what does this have to do with Jesus’ being tested in the desert by the devil? It means, I think, first of all, that when we are tested in our own lives, when our faith in God is tested, we are usually not tested after a good night’s sleep and a satisfying meal. Our faith in God is tested when we are at our wit’s end, when we are exhausted, when we can hardly put two and two together, when nothing makes much sense. As trying as those General Ordination Exams were concerned, they were a piece of cake compared to Jesus’s temptation in the desert or when we are faced with something bad that has happened to us and we want some answers.

Bad things happen to each and every one of us. Sometimes some very bad things happen to us, like the fatal illness of a child, as happened to the Kushners; bad things like a parent or even ourselves being diagnosed with cancer; bad things like the loss of a job; bad things like failing the General Ordination Exam. Bad things happening to good and innocent people are part and parcel of our lives as human beings. And when we find ourselves in the throes of pain and suffering, all we want are some answers as to why?

But we do not get those answers, not at those times and in those circumstances. When we are in pain, whatever that pain, nothing makes much sense. Even if we heard the truth, the truth itself would not be comprehended, not then anyway. Pain and suffering dulls our ability to understand. It does not prevent us from asking, however. And we do. We must. Nevertheless, when we want answers in a most desperate way because our pain is so great, whatever that pain, we do not seem to get answers that satisfy.

We come to God, we come to church, seeking answers to difficult and personal questions. What we get is something we do not expect but perhaps what we really need. What we get, what the church gives us is Lent. Lent is our forty days not of fasting from food and sleeping out in the cold and being all alone. If that were what it is or is supposed to be, we would avoid Lent like the plague. Lent is a time for asking questions, seeking answers and disciplining our whole being. We need Lent more that we think we do. We need Lent to get our lives into perspective.

This leads me to my second thought about how Jesus’s temptation in the desert and the General Ordination Exams and Kushner’s question about bad things happening to good people – how they have so much in common and why we need Lent to get it all into perspective. Those who wrote those ordination exams limited the number of pages for each answer. They wanted concise answers to specific questions. In the desert Jesus was tempted to use a concise response to fulfill his ministry: work a miracle, wow the people, intimidate them and they will believe. You and I want simple answers to complex faith and life questions. We want answers we can understand.

There’s a story about a martial arts student who went to his teacher and said earnestly, "I’m devoted to studying your martial arts system. How long will it take me to master is?" The teacher casually replied, "Ten years." The impatient student replied, "But I want to master it faster than that. I will work very hard. I will practice every day, ten or more hours a day if I have to. How long will it take then?" The teacher thought for a moment. "Twenty years," he said.

Even if every one of those who took the General Ordination Exam aced it, it would still take them a lifetime to become good priests. There are no shortcuts. There are no easy answers. There are no simple solutions. If you and I have not learned that by now, there’s still time.

You and I can read all the books on theology we can find, meditate on scripture every day, pray our hearts out all night long, and it will still take us a lifetime to understand God’s will and God’s way for us – and we will never understand, not fully, why bad things happen to good people. I wish they’d ask that question some day on the ordination exam. I’d love to read the responses.

Yet, even though we will never fully understand why bad things happen to us, why even Jesus himself suffered and died an innocent victim of someone else’s envy or prejudice or hatred, we still must ask those questions and seek those answers. And we can only do that if we make the time and take the time when we are not in pain and we can listen with clear minds and open hearts. As the story of the martial arts student reminds us, we can’t hurry life. We can only take the time given to us and use it as best we can. We will all have questions. We will not find all the answers.

It has been said that it is not what we eat but what we digest that makes us strong. Not what we gain but what we save that makes us rich. Not what we read but what we remember that makes us learned. Not what we preach or pray but what we practice that makes us disciples. Lent, all forty days of it, is a time for digesting, saving, remembering and practicing what our faith is all about. We can’t hurry Lent just as we can’t hurry life. We can only live it, as trite as it may seem, one day at a time.

At the end of Lent, when we arrive, at last, at Easter, we will not have all the answers. We may not even have some of the answers. We may even have more questions than we had when we started. But if we have digested, saved, remembered and practiced what our faith is all about, we will have used Lent wisely and well.