Pasadena Presbyterian Church
Sermon Text
 

THE IMPORTANCE

OF SPIRITUAL WRESTLING 

Sermon preached by Dr. Mark Smutny

Sunday, March 1, 2009

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.  And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him.  And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased." And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.  He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.  Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God,  and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news."                                                                                                                                                               - Mark 1:9-15 

Creative religious leaders have frequently reported periods of intense spiritual unrest, struggle, or ecstatic vision at the outset of their careers, times when their sense of mission and world-changing message were formed.  Martin Luther King reports an all night struggle with intense fear and wrestling with God the night before he led the march from Selma to Montgomery.  The Apostle Paul, struck by lightning on the Damascus Road and plagued by guilt for the abuse he heaped upon Christians, wrestled with his conscience before he proclaimed Jesus as his Savior.  And in this simple story of Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness, immediately after he is named as God’s own beloved Son, Jesus wrestles with his destiny.

Have you ever had an upheaval in your life, a reorganization of your inner world, an event that realigned you into a profound attunement with what is your highest and best use?  If you have, then you know how spiritual wrestling is essential to a mature faith.

Maybe your wrestling match was triggered by a crisis of health and you discovered that your next breath was not guaranteed; maybe it happened when a loved one confronted you with a behavior that was destructive and you were forced into deep self-examination; maybe it happened when you made a thorough-going assessment of your most dearly-held values and how you spent your time and realized that what you said you believed and your day-to-day conduct were not congruent.

When I was on my sabbatical this past fall, I had many opportunities to wrestle spiritually in vast wilderness landscapes.  Through an outward journey of traversing cross-county through some of our nation’s most beautiful and rugged terrain, I intentionally sought to journey inward blessed by the absence of distractions and busyness to fill up my time. 

When you journey in the wilderness, before you take your first step, you have to decide what to haul around and what to leave behind.  You ask yourself, “What is essential to life, and what is not?”  When you have to carry too much on your back, so-called necessities can become just discarded baggage.

Then there’s that matter of having quite a lot of time to think.  You ask yourself, “Can I handle the silence?”  “What will I do with all the thoughts and feelings I normally outrun?”  There’s plenty of time to have them catch up with you.

Then there’s the matter of wild animals.  Should I encounter some wild animals of my own special variety, what will I do with them: anger, fatigue, doubt, the failure to forgive?  Do you allow your wild animals to control you?  Or do you entrust them and you to God’s healing? 

Then there’s the matter of needing to tell the difference between your own voice, or Satan’s voice, and God’s voice?  How do you sift self-interest from the voice of God? 

There’s also the matter of where and in whom we place our trust.  Do we trust that everything comes from God or will we trust in our own devices?

Then there’s the matter of caring for self.  Will I accept the ministry of angels?  They come in many forms, you know, usually in the form of those closest to us.  Will I hear their voices urging me to do those things that care for my own soul or will I live a driven life?  

Some of you aren’t going to go into any physical wilderness anytime soon.  You’ll have to settle for a vicarious wilderness experience — a desert of the soul — not a bad place at all in Biblical faith, but a place where it’s between you and God and nothing else, save your own inner demons, your wild animals, and the angels who would minister to you if you would let them in.

The time is at hand.  There’s not a better time of the year than now at the beginning of Lent to get real, to reorganize your inner world, to realign your life into a more congruent attunement with what is your highest and best use.

Are your priorities straight?  Are your most deeply held values and the conduct of your life congruent?  You say you love your family; then why do you worship work to buy more things?  You say love of God, neighbor and self is the highest law; have you loved yourself or do you exhaust yourself loving others until no self is left?  And if time is so precious, why do you squander it?  Are you a human being or a human doing? 

The wilderness is a spiritual place that God drives us into, rife with spots to engage in self-examination and repentance commended to the faithful during Lent.  

What in you is not of God?  What is bitter, burned-out, edgy, or intolerant?  What is your deepest need?  What does God want of your life?  What baggage do you carry?  What do you need to discard in order to meet life in its essence?  What of your wild animals?

When a voice from heaven told Jesus he was God’s own beloved, Jesus attached no special privilege to the announcement of his divine favor.  When the Spirit drove him into the wilderness, Jesus did not seek a way out.  When the Beloved Son, the favored one, journeyed into the vast desert landscapes, he accepted the company God gave him: Satan, wild animals, ministering angels—no drama, just encounter with the rawness of life without distraction.  In the wilderness, Jesus looked to the cross and knew that between the desert in which he stood and that lonely hill where he would die, the only thing that mattered was trusting in God.

Here we are at the beginning of Lent, forty days of reflection, repentance and self-examination.  May the Spirit of God drive you into unfriendly places, into vast dry sands where too much baggage will only bog you down; into stunning mountain landscapes where the echo of your own voice grows quiet that the still small voice of God may be heard.  May you journey inward where you wrestle with demons: hopelessness, addictions, anger, self-deprecation, pretending to believe one way and living another.  May you confront your wild animals: edginess, the failure to forgive, unhealthy secrets.  Allow the angels to minister to you.  They are always with you if you allow yourself to be cared for by them.  And trust.  Trust that in the wrestling you will come out clean, pure, and clear.  Trust in the Lord. For everything that is good proceeds from the Lord.  And in your spiritual wrestling, meet your destiny as his disciple and walk with him to the cross and in so doing find your redemption.  This is Good News.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.