The First Sunday in Lent - The Rev. Canon Joshua Varner

 

Dependency & Relationship

The Rev. Canon Joshua Varner

1 Lent - Year C

March 9, 2025

St. Thomas Episcopal Church, Savannah, Georgia 

Welcome to the season of Lent at St. Thomas. The hangings are different, the colors are different, even the liturgy itself is different in places. We have moved from a time in which we were paying attention to God showing Godself in the world, into a time in which we focus more on our own need for God, ways in which we fall short, and ways in which we can turn toward God. It’s a new season and while it is deeply holy, I believe, it is not always popular. Case in point, in our Hymnal some of our hymns are organized by season, while others are organized by theme. And for the Easter season, which is the time between Easter Day and the Day of Pentecost and includes the section labeled Ascension, for that section, there are 49 hymns in our hymnal. For the season of Lent, there are 13 hymns. Which season do you think inspires more composers? 

Of course, we use hymns from all over the hymnal and beyond it, so we’re not stuck with just these 13 songs for the entire season. But I’m really more interested in what this difference says about where we would rather focus. We don’t always enjoy being reminded of our dependence. 

At the start of Lent each year, we hear the story of Jesus’ journey into the desert, which comes just after his baptism and the words from God naming him God’s son. And in the desert he fasts for forty days. And then we hear that the devil shows up, and whispers in his ear, ‘since you’re God’s son…turn those stones into bread. It won’t take much effort and then you’ll have plenty to eat. You won’t have to be so hungry, so empty, the way you are now.’

 And when that offering fails, the devil shows him a vision of all the kingdoms of the world, and says ‘since you’re the Son of God…these can all be yours. All you have to do is abandon God, declare yourself to be supreme in the world, and you will rule.’ 

And finally, the devil brings him to the Temple in Jerusalem, to the place that is the very seat of God, and says ‘since you’re the Son of God…you can force God’s hand. You can jump from the highest peak and God’s angels will catch you. You can make even God do what you want.’ 

There is so much in these scenes that we could explore. But this week, I’ve been thinking about how each of these temptations, in its own way, is trying to convince Jesus that he should be fully independent, completely in charge of everything, totally in control, and, most critically, needing no one else. And to each temptation, Jesus responds with words of dependence. At first, he says, we do not live only by bread, but by God’s word. Our life depends on God. Then he reminds the devil that we are to worship God, to acknowledge God as the one who is over all and in all and through all. And then finally, when the devil tries to twist Jesus’ identity as the Son of God one last time, implying that by jumping from the Temple, Jesus is depending on God, Jesus sees the trap. By deliberately forcing circumstances on God in order to make God do something, Jesus is in effect declaring God to be Jesus’ minion, or perhaps his something more like his vending machine, a thing that has no volition but is simply obligated to do the required thing when the correct circumstances are met. And Jesus says no, we do not treat God like that, because we remember that we depend on God for our very existence, and we do not ‘put God to the test’ just because we feel like it. 

This sense of dependency that Jesus reaffirms each time he says no to the devil is at the heart of who we are. And yet, it is also seemingly anathema to our culture. We are told, over and over again, that we should need no one. That we should make lots of money, that we should seek power above all else, that needing another person or thing, is a failure and a threat to be avoided or rejected out of hand. We isolate ourselves, and associate only with people like us, or we attack those with whom we disagree. But in the end, all of that is the pursuit of an illusion. The illusion that we are enough, all by ourselves, that we need no one and nothing else. 

In Lent, we focus on those things we have done and left undone, the ways in which we have fallen short, the ways in which we have not honored the image of God in us. We walk through Lent in order, in part, to learn, again and again, year after year, that we are not perfect, either in the sense of doing everything right, or in the sense of being completely independent. We remember on Ash Wednesday, that all of us have an ultimate limitation, an ultimate dependency. At some point, we will all die. Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. And as we move through Lent, as we engage in prayer, fasting, and self-denial, to use the language of the Prayer Book, as we read and meditate on God’s holy word, we see that we are limited creatures. That we depend on God. And that we also depend on each other. This is part of what our Lenten disciplines are about. If we give something up, for example, chocolate, that’s a perfectly good discipline if by doing so we are reminded, each time we do not have chocolate that we do not live by chocolate alone, but by the grace and mercy of God. And if and when we slip up, and have chocolate, or don’t engage in the discipline we set out to do this Lent, that too can remind us that we are limited. We fail, we fall short, sometimes we eat the chocolate. And when we do, all is not lost. God helps us up, and helps us to turn back toward God once again, and again, and again.

Everything we are comes back, ultimately, to the deep truth that we are dependent beings, limited in our scope, and prone to failure. 

But here is the good news of Lent, even in this season that has only inspired 13 hymns in the hymnal. The good news of Lent is that we are dependent. Because in our dependency, we are connected; we are joined to each other, even and especially in our weakness and our failure, and in all those times God is present with us. Our dependency means that we are always in relationship with God. Think about a parent with a newborn child, who is totally dependent. That parent spends so much of their time caring for the child, thinking about them, worrying about them, holding them in their heart, not just when they are babies, but, if my parents are to be believed, even when they are 49 and a half years old! Our dependency shows us that we are always held in God’s heart, and that we are, each and every one of us, God’s beloved children. 

So this Lent, I encourage you to notice the ways you depend on others. To notice the people you see, and even the systems we all rely on that are created by others. I invite you to give thanks for the people whom you love, but also for those who are simply part of your day, maybe in the background. The cashier, or the server at a restaurant. The co-worker, or the classmate. I invite you to notice and give thanks for roads, and stoplights, and safe running water, and electricity, and all the things we rely on that have been created by the work of others. And as you do so, remember that you depend on each of these people, they depend on you and all of us together depend on God, who loves us and will never leave us alone. Amen.