septuagesima sunday: out of the wilderness into the arena

septuagesima may not be a term familiar to you, but it is a term which has come back to me this year as a special gift. i had been wanting to revisit ezekiel, so since ephiphany i have been following the 1943 american episcopal lectionary, which provides readings from ezekiel for the first four weeks after that feast.

that lectionary also includes septuagesima sunday, which the newer, post-vatican ii lectionaries have abandoned. in 568, the lombards began to threaten italy, and john iii, bishop of rome, appointed three pre-lenten sundays for supplication against the impending peril. the first, which was celebrated at the church of st. laurence outside the walls, was (only approximately) 70 days before easter, hence the term septuagesima.

we of course begin the post-epiphany season reading about jesus' baptism in the jordan by john the forerunner, and "immediately the spirit driveth him into the wilderness." (mark 1:12) for the past three years i have been in the wilderness, driven by the spirit to seek answers to questions that keep me awake long into the night.

the first reading for matins of septuagesima is the beginning of the book of joshua. joshua (jesus in greek) leads israel through the jordan so they can begin the struggle for the promised land. i am grateful that although i fall short of our lord, who came to understand his mission in forty days, that by his grace it has not taken me longer than forty years.

the gospel for septuagesima is jesus' story of how "the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which went out early in the morning to hire laborers into his vineyard." he hired other laborers also throughout the day. "and when they came that were hired about the eleventh hours, they received every man a penny."

thanks be to god for this good news. there is still a bit of time for me to work. the good man of the house says, "i will give unto this last . . . ." (matthew 20:1ff)i can still pray with psalm 39 "lord, let me know mine end, and the number of my days."

but there is more in this day's wonderful propers: psalm 40, with its claim, "i waited patiently for the lord, and he inclined unto me, and heard my calling"--not that i have always been so patient as i should be. but in some ways the best is the encouragement from the blessed apostle: ". . . run, that ye may obtain. and every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible.

"i therefore so run, not so uncertainly . . . " (i corinthians 9:24ff).