Year B Lent 3 WED 2018 Take Care

Year B Lent 3 Wednesday, 7 March 2018

St. James the Less Episcopal, Ashland, VA

“Take Care”

Collect: Give ear to our prayers, O Lord, and direct the way of your servants in safety under your protection, that, amid all the changes of our earthly pilgrimage, we may be guarded by your mighty aid; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Deuteronomy 4:1–2,5–9
Moses said: So now, Israel, give heed to the statutes and ordinances that I am teaching you to observe, so that you may live to enter and occupy the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, is giving you. You must neither add anything to what I command you nor take away anything from it, but keep the commandments of the Lord your God with which I am charging you.

See, just as the Lord my God has charged me, I now teach you statutes and ordinances for you to observe in the land that you are about to enter and occupy. You must observe them diligently, for this will show your wisdom and discernment to the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, "Surely this great nation is a wise and discerning people!" For what other great nation has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is whenever we call to him? And what other great nation has statutes and ordinances as just as this entire law that I am setting before you today?

But take care and watch yourselves closely, so as neither to forget the things that your eyes have seen nor to let them slip from your mind all the days of your life; make them known to your children and your children's children.

Matthew 5:17–19
Jesus said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven."

“But take care and watch yourselves closely, so as neither to forget the things that your eyes have seen nor to let them slip from your mind all the days of your life; make them known to your children and your children's children.”

These are the closing words from our Old Testament reading for the day. We hear the words of admonition. So easy to forget, or let down our guard, or to slip and let things go astray or away…

But we are given these words so that we can be at our best, who would God have us be. God wants the best for us, and wants us to be able to live the Good Life.

I remember when I first started heading out and do things on my own. My mother, my mother-in-law, even my wife, would all say things like, “Be safe.” Or, “Take care.” Or, “Be careful.” I used to take it personally, wondering what I would do that would be so hazardous or worrisome. But as I have matured, finally, I hear it differently. I hear it coming from a place of love, a place of wanting the best for me. It is not me, necessarily, that there is the concern. It is the that the world is wide, and can be mean and cruel or just uncaring. They tell me to take care, because THEY CARE. God is the same.

We have been empowered and enabled with the most dangerous of gifts, Free Will. And we can wield it with the eventual outcomes that come from our choices. In the instructions of Deuteronomy reading, Israel was instructed to hold fast to the lessons learned wandering in the Wilderness, relying on God to survive.

There have been times in my life when I have had to rely on what I had learned to keep things going well. I have mentioned this before that I used to get paid to take children in caves. We were safe, took our time, and did things properly and correctly so that all were safe. Even with all these precautions, all this care and safety, things could happen.

Once I was about a mile in a cave, down about 200’ feet below the surface and hours before any help would arrive. A girl was on the trip, and she had been holding it together, but stood up at the wrong moment, when there was four feet of clearance for her 5+ foot torso, and bonked her head, but good. She spazzed, and starting screaming and crying. She had had enough and the bonk on her helmeted head was the last straw. Because we had been in a single file line on our hands and knees I did not see how distraught she was, but she sure let us know. She could not calm down, and the crying and getting worked up led to her hyperventilating. Now I could not have her pass out down there, as it would take forever to get her out. And what do you do when you have someone hyperventilate? Slow their breathing, and the easiest way is for them to breathe in a paper bag, get some CO₂ into her system to calm her. But remember, we are a mile in and I did not ever need a paper bag in a cave. Not once before, and not once since. But I did that day. I took care. I made precautions, but we needed a solution now. I opened my backpack, looking at what I had, and I pulled out a pack of 2 D-size batteries. I did not use the batteries. I did not use the cardboard, though it is a lot like a paper sack. I used something that everyone just throws away. I used the plastic cover for the batteries, holding them to the cardboard. And if you put it over a hyperventilating girl’s mouth, it is a lot like a facemask. And it helps her breathe in her own CO₂  so she can calm down. Which after a couple of minutes of calming her and her breathing slowly, she did.

Now I did not miss taking care. I did not miss bringing in adequate supplies, first aid kit, backup flashlights and batteries, and I did not miss a paper sack. There was no reason to think to bring in a paper sack. But when an unforeseen crisis arose, I knew two things: 1) I knew something would come together; and, 2) I was not in it alone. When we follow the rules, we may lose for a season, but we win the game, if we take care.

Jesus wants us to take care, too. He warns us not to let our guard down, or stray from the path. “For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” And Jesus, teaching on and living by Grace, he reminds his followers then, and we his followers now, that because we have God’s Grace we still must strive to be and do our best. Grace is the free gift of God, undeserved and unattainable, but showered on us each and every day. Now we could cheapen this most precious of gifts by making poor choices, or choosing not to take care. Dietrich Bonhoeffer spoke to that idea of Cheap Grace versus Costly Grace in his famous book, The Cost of Discipleship. Bonhoeffer urged us to live the life worthy of the that Grace we receive. Jesus does the same thing here. Jesus said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.” We are not given carte blanche to do whatever we want. We were given this liberty in Christ to do what we ought, not to do whatever we want.

As we continue in this Lenten path, leading us up to Jerusalem, to Golgotha, and the tomb, may we take up our cross, and follow Christ who leads the way. May we daily die to self, to the glory of God. “Take care and watch yourselves closely, so as neither to forget the things that your eyes have seen nor to let them slip from your mind all the days of your life.”