By R. William Carroll
As is true with other portions of his Gospel, Mark’s account of Satan tempting Jesus in the desert is remarkable for its brevity. Mark’s is a simple, punchy story, filled with movement. An incident is recorded, often in very few words, and then, boom, the camera cuts to the next scene. Mark knows nothing of the devil’s three famous questions or the three equally famous replies of our Lord. Instead, he inserts just two short verses between the baptism of Jesus and the beginning of his public ministry. Still dripping wet with the waters of Jordan, Jesus is plunged into the wilderness and tested. Listen to what Mark says: “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.”
In early Christianity, as for Jesus himself, the desert is a place of temptation and prayer. Early monks withdrew from inhabited places, such as Alexandria in Egypt, so that they could face their demons and discover the mercy of God. This week I’ve been having an online discussion with a small group of friends around the world. We’ve been talking about prayer. How do we pray? Why do we pray? What, if anything, do we ask for? Do we use words? Or do we pray better through our desires and actions? What is going on in our hearts? These are questions that can become the focus of reflection for each one of us in Lent.
In the course of our conversation, a friend of mine named Ted Mellor observed that he finds that “when words fail, it can be an invitation to move beyond the kind of praying we’ve been doing, full of words, words, words, about our plans for ourselves (and for others!). A chance to move into a wordless reliance on the Word, an utter dependence on the wisdom and love of God.” Ted went on to tell a story about one of the desert Christians of ancient times. “Abba Macarius was asked, ‘How should one pray?’ The old man said ‘There is no need at all to make long discourses; it is enough to stretch out one’s hands and say, ‘Lord, as you will, and as you know, have mercy.’ And if the conflict grows fiercer say, ‘Lord, help!'”
Brothers and sisters, it should not surprise us if we find ourselves in desert places this Lent. The Christian life is filled with temptations. In fact, it may only be in the context of Christ’s calling to holiness that we can name our temptations for what they are. Our lives in the early twenty-first century are filled with things that are killing us but have come to seem normal.
Whatever temptations and dangers we face, our Lord knew them first. For he chose to live and die as one of us. The path from the waters of baptism to the joys of the Kingdom runs straight through the wilderness. Christianity is not safe. It is not all sweetness and light. If we are to find God and discover our true lives, we will often walk on wilderness paths. Forty years, the People of Israel wandered in the desert. Forty days, our Lord fasted and prayed. The saints have always returned here, year after year. The disciplines of Lent are meant to remind us of the desert, which, if we are honest, is where we often find ourselves. Even the inhabited places—our cities, our neighborhoods, our churches—can become so many deserts for us. Do we dare to hope that we may also discover here the half-remembered promise of freedom? The flight from the world can also be a flight into real community with others. Our most pressing temptations involve sins against love.
On Ash Wednesday, we confessed our “blindness to human need and suffering, and our indifference to injustice and cruelty.” We also confessed our “false judgments,” “uncharitable thoughts toward our neighbors,” and “our prejudice and contempt toward those who differ from us.” It is these sins among others—sins that are deeply ingrained in us—which have helped transform paradise into a dry and barren land. Our greed and malice have turned the manifold gifts of God into so many things to clutch—into so many weapons to hurt each other with. The desert is a place we go to be disarmed—to rediscover our radical dependence on God and our interdependence with one another. On Ash Wednesday, one of the possible Old Testament readings comes from Isaiah. In it, the prophet calls us to a fast that involves housing the homeless poor, feeding and remembering our own kin.
This Lent, we intentionally journey into the wilderness, but we do not go alone. We go, first and foremost, with Christ, who shows us the way. We go also in the presence of our brothers and sisters. Even the desert hermits came to one another for counsel and strength. Hence, the brothers went to Abba Macarius to ask him how to pray. His answer is profound, and it comes straight from the Gospel. There is no need for so many words. What we do need is a direct appeal to Christ for mercy. We are to raise our hands up and say, “’Lord, as you will, and as you know, have mercy.’” And if our conflict grows fiercer, we are to cry out, “Lord, help!”
True prayer finds its power in a simple confidence in God’s goodness, as well as the depth of our own need. All prayer, moreover, is the work of the Spirit within us becoming our very own. As Christians, we believe that even now, the Holy Spirit, the Lord and lifegiver, is at work in the world. The Spirit is an outpouring of God’s mercy and love, who is always moistening our dry places and preparing us for new graces. The Spirit does so, even when we have no idea God is there.
This Lent, may we rediscover what one great spiritual teacher (Karl Rahner) called the “need and blessing of prayer.” May we be delivered from every temptation by the never failing presence of Christ. May we be caught up in the wordless presence of the Word. And, if we should find ourselves moved to speak at all, may our hearts cry out continually to God for mercy, in these or other words: “Lord, as you will, and as you know, have mercy.”
Like those who sought wisdom on the subject from Abba Macarius, the disciples of Jesus also asked him how to pray. His answer still forms the heart of our prayer in the Eucharist. There is some evidence that it was the original form of the Eucharistic Prayer and that all the other words we pray are but an elaboration of it. Recently, I encountered a tradition that goes back at least to Saint Augustine, according to which each of the seven petitions of the Lord’s Prayer is a request for one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. Whatever we make of this tradition, the Our Father draws us into the prayer of Jesus. It involves crying out for God’s mercy and our daily bread in power of the Holy Spirit.
I commend it to you, along with the simple prayer of Abba Macarius and the wordless prayer of the heart. These are powerful tools as we confront our ancient enemy and “every power that corrupts and destroys the creatures of God.” As we walk along desert paths, may God make speed to save us.
“Lord, help us!”
The Rev. R. William Carroll serves as rector of the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd in Athens, Ohio (Diocese of Southern Ohio). He received his Ph.D. in Christian theology from the University of Chicago Divinity School. His sermons appear on his parish blog. He is a member pf the Third Order of the Society of Saint Francis.