I’ve always been a big fan of the Arthurian legends, the stories and tales of the first king to unite Britain, especially as these stories have been expanded upon by contemporary writers such as Mary Stewart and T.H. White. Weaving together the pagan worship of Old Rome and the emergence of Christianity in post-Roman Britain, the legends of Arthur are stories about human nature, about our gifts, our flaws, and our dreams – and as such, they are stories that are timeless.
Using the vehicle of Broadway, Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s 1960 musical “Camelot” is a retelling of a portion of Arthur’s story, and its original cast included Richard Burton, Julie Andrews, and Robert Goulet. I mention all this because one of the songs from “Camelot” provides such a marked contrast to the Great Litany and the season of Lent that I feel bound to tell you about it.
The song is called “C’est Moi” – which is French for “It is I”. “C’est Moi” is the introductory song for Robert Goulet’s character of Sir Lancelot, and in this song Lancelot sings about the characteristics, both physical and spiritual, which are to be desired in a knight of the Round Table; all the while, of course, identifying these characteristics in himself. Having said that a knight’s soul should be restrained and immune to the ways of the flesh, Launcelot asks, “But where in the world is there in the world a man so untouched and pure?”
“C’est moi, c’est moi; I blush to disclose, I’m far too noble to lie. That man in whom these qualities bloom – c’est moi, c’est moi, ‘tis I. I’ve never strayed from all I believe, I’m blessed with an iron will. Had I been made the partner of Eve, we’d be in Eden still! C’est moi, c’est moi the angels have chose to fight their battles below – so here I stand, as pure as a prayer, incredibly clean, with virtue to spare…the godliest man I know – c’est moi!”
This is a classic song from a character who is blind to, and therefore doubly vulnerable to, the dangers of temptation; and in fact, in the legends as well as in the musical, Lancelot falls in love with Guinevere, Arthur’s queen, and she with him…and in their love, and their betrayal of King Arthur – which neither of them wanted – in these, lie the unraveling and the downfall of Camelot, the end of Arthur’s united peace, and the death of the dream of the Round Table.
One author has suggested that “Lenten penance may be more effective if we fail in our resolutions than if we succeed, for its purpose is not to confirm us in our sense of virtue but to bring home to us our radical need of salvation.” Before his story was done, and much to his own surprise, Lancelot’s iron will and his sense of virtue both lay in shreds; and he found that, like all of us, he too was in radical need of salvation.
Temptation, sin, and the lasting consequences of sin – plus a glimmer of hope - are the themes of this First Sunday in Lent.
Scripture talks about temptation in two different ways. The first is as a “strong inclination to do evil,” evil being understood quite starkly as any action that is contrary to God’s will; “a strong inclination to do evil” even though, and even when, we know that God wills good. This is “the temptation of Adam,” the temptation of pride, the temptation for us to go our own way, do our own thing, assert our own will, rather than God’s; to claim our own will as being the greatest good – at least for us!
The second kind of temptation in Scripture is testing, the testing of the strength of our commitment to God. This test of spiritual strength is Lancelot’s temptation, and it’s also the temptation that Jesus wrestles with in the wilderness in Matthew’s Gospel today.
We know from all the Gospel accounts that throughout his earthly ministry, Jesus was constantly dealing with crowds and disciples who completely misunderstood the nature of his messiahship. He too has had to wrestle with his messiahship and come to a resolution about it – and this forty days in the wilderness immediately after his baptism is the time and the place of his struggle.
Will he be the messiah that the people are waiting and praying for, the messiah of power and of conquest? Will he be the political zealot who will rebel against Rome and take Israel back to independence and glory? Will he be the Son of God who commands armies and goes into battle, supported by the adulation and the worship of the people?
Or will he be the Son of God who listens to his Father and who lives the opening words of the Shema, Israel’s ancient confession of faith: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD; and you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” Will Jesus be a servant messiah, a suffering messiah, a spiritually powerful but politically power-less messiah who will lead people not to the world’s glory, but to the glory of the cross? Which set of desires, which set of expectations will Jesus fulfill?
The point has been made that even though the Gospels describe Jesus’ temptations as separate events that seem to happen consecutively, like scenes in a play, it’s far more likely that these 40 days were filled with continual testing, continual temptation, a continual going back and forth, with Jesus being surrounded by what one author has called “a kaleidoscope of possibilities” as to his identity as Son of God.
This kaleidoscope of possibilities is much more what we face in our lives too. Rarely are we “assaulted” – to use the wording of the collect – rarely are we assaulted on only one front at a time, and rarely are our choices as clear as Jesus’ seem to be today.
Along the lines of clear choices, the story is told of the Anglican vicar who noticed that his Evangelical minister neighbor was having some success at drawing new people into his church through the use of an outside notice board with various slogans or exhortations on it, and the vicar decided to try the same thing. He put up his own board and, after a great deal of thought, wrote on it, “IF YOU’RE TIRED OF SIN, STEP IN.” You can imagine his distress when he went outside the next day and saw that someone had added “BUT IF YOU’RE NOT, PHONE PADDINGTON 04655.”
In our own temptations, we don’t usually get the luxury of choosing between the lady and the tiger, between clear good and clear evil. Our struggles tend to be more along the lines of bad versus worse, or good versus better. Which of several is the least of the evils? Which of our choices will lead to the least harm or the most good? Ethical positions get murky in these days of sharply divided politics and national interests; of emerging AI technology and how to use it to do good rather than to harm; of the noise and the reach of podcasters and social media influencers; and of increasingly sensitive economic and global relationships; and I think for many of us, the path of responsible Christian behavior in the midst of all the conflict and all the chaos can sometimes be difficult to discern.
Loving us, God has given us freedom, the freedom to give in to, as well as the freedom to resist, temptation; and in this freedom to choose our own way, we are constantly being challenged by the world around us to remember and claim our baptismal identity and values, as well as to remember and claim our responsibility to the world around us; responsibility that our identity, our values, and our freedom bring.
C.S. Lewis has written, “All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual: the pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronizing and spoiling sport, and back-biting; the pleasures of power, of hatred. For there are two things inside me,” Lewis says, “competing with the human self which I must try to become. They are the Animal self and the Diabolical self. The Diabolical self is the worse of the two….Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is.”
As Jesus did literally, during these forty days of Lent each of us is called to go into the wilderness spiritually, the wilderness of solitude where we have no one to confront, no one to struggle with, but ourselves and our temptations: our Diabolical selves, self-centered, rationalizing, putting ourselves forward at the expense of others, strutting about in pretense and illusion.
This call into the wilderness can be scary, and I’m just as reluctant to take the plunge as anyone else. On the plus side however, in 1 Corinthians 10:13 Paul says that “No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and [God] will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing [God] will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.”
This is a reassuring promise that Paul makes, but it’s also challenging. It’s challenging because this promise that we’re not alone in being tested, and that God will see us through our time of testing; this promise means that none of us has a legitimate excuse not to go into the wilderness…but at the same time, herein lies the single biggest temptation we face as Christians: as we perhaps reluctantly turn towards the wilderness armed with Paul’s words, we’re faced with the temptation to not believe him and to not believe the promises of God; to not believe that God is with us in our test, or in our illness, or in our loneliness and our pain. We’re tempted to believe that “God’s there” for everyone else but not for us, tempted to believe that we won’t in fact find God “mighty to save.”
It’s been said that the Devil’s greatest triumph is convincing people he doesn’t exist. I’d say rather that the Devil’s greatest triumph is convincing us that God’s grace doesn’t exist for us. Because Jesus tells us again and again not to be afraid, the Devil’s greatest triumph is, in fact, our fear: convincing us not to pray because of our fear that God might not be there to listen; convincing us not to give to others because of our fear that we won’t have enough for ourselves; convincing us not to come to church, not to receive communion, not to live as a member of the Body of Christ, because of our fear that at the end of the day, we’re not good enough for God to love us.
“Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved,” says Paul…and the Devil’s greatest triumph is convincing us that Paul is a liar.
But Paul doesn’t lie; and God doesn’t lie. It’s the Devil who is the liar and the father of lies, and we have the whole witness of Scripture and the life of the communion of saints to testify to that, and to support us in that.
The wilderness, both literal and spiritual, is a place of risk and of fear…but we are the baptized; we are marked as Christ’s own forever, and if we dare to enter this wilderness during these forty days, we will never be alone.
“IF YOU’RE TIRED OF SIN, STEP IN” – step into the wilderness, step into Lent -- because in the wilderness of Lent…lies hope.
Amen.