I’m sure many people here know Maurice Sendak’s classic
children’s book, Where the Wild Things Are. Max, a small boy in an animal costume, runs riot round his house until
his mother tells him he’s a wild thing and sends him to bed without his supper.
But in his room a forest grows, and a boat appears and Max sails away to a
distant island “where the wild things
are”. They have a wonderful wild rumpus together, until Max starts to feel
a bit lonely, and wants to be where “someone
loved him best of all”. So he sails home to his room, and there is his
supper on the table, where his mother has left it for him – “and it was still hot”, says the story.
What seemed like years was really only a short time. But in that time Max had
found out a little about his own wildness, and realised that while it might
seem like fun for a bit, being with
“someone who loved you best of all” was far better in the long term.
I can’t help thinking of that book whenever we come to the
beginning of Lent and to the story of Jesus going into the wilderness, because
this too is a place “where the wild
things are”.
“Wilderness” is a
word we’re especially familiar with here in Seal, of course, because it is the
name of what was once the big estate where the lords of this particular manor
lived. It was given that name in the late seventeenth century, probably because
it contained a deer park, a place where the wealthy could hunt, without having
to cope with the vagaries of real wild places. Wildernesses like this became
very fashionable in the century that followed, with artificial lakes and
grottoes. Some estates even hired what were called ornamental
hermits to live in caves in their grounds to add to the effect. They were
paid quite well, on the condition that they didn’t shave and maintained an air
of elegant melancholy. It’s an idea if you’re looking for a new job…!
Wildernesses were all the rage, but they were a bit like
Disneyland or Center Parcs, places where the wildness was safely contained and
domesticated.
By the early nineteenth century, the Romantic movement in
art had begun to glamorise wild places. The Lake District and the Scottish
Highlands became holiday destinations, places to visit, preferably with a
comfortable carriage and some servants to carry your picnic. It was an antidote to the Industrial
Revolution, for those who could afford it, a way of escaping the
ever-expanding, dirty cities. But those
who had to scratch a living from the harsh terrain of these wild places all
year round knew that they weren’t romantic at all. They were unforgiving
places, places of danger, places not to be treated lightly, just as they’d
always been.
Romanticising the wilderness is a modern phenomenon, then,
in the scale of human history. Our medieval, and more ancient, ancestors would
have been baffled at the idea of taking a holiday in the wilderness, or seeing
it as a place of beauty and peace. Wilderness, for them was a place of danger,
not only physical, but also spiritual. It was a place where wild things were –
wild weather, wild animals, and demons too.
So when we hear of Jesus going out into the wilderness it’s
really important that we understand that it wasn’t for a bit of quiet
reflection and peace. As the beginning
of today’s Gospel reading pointed out, he went “to be tempted by the devil,” not to escape what threatened
his ministry, but to confront it. You don’t have to believe in a literal devil
to understand what Jesus went through. He had to sort out how he was going to
carry out his mission, and that meant looking very closely at his own
motivation. Was it all going to be about miracles, to make people love him? Did
he think God would never let anything bad happen to him? Was his goal going to
be secular power and glory? He could have set off on any of those paths, but he
rejected them all, and instead took a route that would involve sacrifice,
humility and costly love. In the end, the wildest things Jesus wrestled with
and defeated weren’t supernatural beings, or savage beasts, or harsh physical
conditions, but his own desires and fears, and it would matter that he had done.
He went into the unknown, wild territory of the desert to prepare himself for
the unknown, wild territory of his ministry and the wildest of all, of his
death on the cross.
There are wild things in the other readings we heard today
too. Eve comes face to face with a wild animal in the Garden of Eden. All the
animals were wild at this point, of course, but this one, the serpent, was
particularly crafty, capable of outwitting the trusting, naïve human beings he
came across in the Garden. He knew the weak spots of the people God had made,
and tapped into what might be seen as their perfectly good and worthy desires. What
was wrong with knowing good and evil? What was wrong with wanting to be wise,
like God? Eve was out of her depth. Unlike Jesus, she hadn’t got the skill or
experience to recognise the trick that was being played on her. There were wild
things in her own heart, her desire for knowledge and power, which she hadn’t
got to know yet, and the result was disaster.
In the letter to the Romans, the wild things aren’t animals
or demons. They are the power of sin and death, which wreak havoc in us. We are
all born into a world which is tangled and scarred. None of us, however good by
nature, however lovingly brought up, manages to avoid doing things wrong, being
mean, hitting out when we feel threatened, clinging to things we should be
sharing, because we grow up in a world that is already bent out of shape and
mangled . And we then mangle it in our own way for the generations that come
after us. The “wild things” we need saving from are the things which lurk
unacknowledged in our hearts, waiting to ambush us when we least expect them.
It’s as the life of Jesus takes root in us, says Paul, that these wild things
can be recognised, named and known, that we can be straightened out and
untangled, made right again.
Lent is a time when, traditionally, we try to go out into
the wilderness in some way with Christ, to share some of what he experienced. We
give things up, or take things up. We give to charity or go to study groups.
But our “wilderness” experiences can very easily be no more real than those
eighteenth century ones I talked about earlier, a Disneyland pilgrimage along a
carefully pre-planned route that will bring us right round to where we started,
unscathed but also unchanged.
Perhaps we’ve given up chocolate, or alcohol, because that’s
what we always do during Lent. We know we can manage it. It’s only six weeks,
and though there might be some tough times along the way, we know that when we
get to Easter Day we can stuff ourselves with Easter eggs or crack open the gin
bottle and think, “thank goodness that’s
over for another year”. There’s nothing wrong with giving up chocolate or
alcohol, of course. Our bodies will probably thank us for it. But if that’s all
we do, it probably won’t make much difference to our souls. If we want real
change in our lives, we’ll need to ask, “What
is it about chocolate, or alcohol, which might get in the way of my relationship
with God and with others? Why do I need to give this up?” We need to go out into the territory in us
that isn’t tamed and known. We need to talk to the wild things that lurk there,
just as Jesus talks to the wild thing, Satan.
It might be that chocolate is a comfort food that helps us
to endure a difficult situation at work or home. If that’s the case, fasting
from it is only really going to help if we also face the “wild thing” in our
lives – that situation we’re being worn down by – and see what we can do
permanently to change it.
It might be that alcohol is a prop we reach for in social
situations, because we don’t feel confident enough to mix with others without
it. If that’s the case, fasting from it will only make a difference if we use
this time to confront the “wild thing” that is our lack of self-confidence.
It might even be that we discover that giving up things
which we know we can do without is really just an easy substitute for giving up
something else in our lives which we feel we can’t. The question isn’t just what
we should do to observe Lent, but why we should do it, which wild places
it will lead us into, which wild things it will bring us face to face with.
Lent is a time of self-discipline, and discipline often has
a very negative vibe. We think it’s about punishment. But in fact discipline really means
“learning”. The disciples were learners. Whatever we give up or take up during Lent
should enable us to learn something we didn’t know already, and learning always
means going out beyond our comfort zone, into the wild places, where the wild
things are, the things we don’t understand about ourselves and so can’t yet control.
And if we find something that we can’t deal with on our own, Lent’s a good time
to talk to someone else about it. I’m always happy to listen – just ask!
Max, that little boy in the story, went “where the wild things are”, and he learned from his time in his own
“wild place” that there was someone
who “loved him best of all”, even
when she was telling him off. He couldn’t really have learned that any other
way. And when he got back, there was his supper, the nourishment he needed, “and it was still hot.” The promise of Lent is that if we have the
courage to face whatever the real wild things are in the real
wildernesses of our lives, we too will find ourselves fed with the supper that
love provides, the Bread of heaven , the food we really need.
Amen
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