Romans 10:8-13
The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in
your heart,” that is, the message concerning faith that we proclaim: If you
declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God
raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you
believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your
faith and are saved. As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never
be put to shame.” For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same
God is God of all and richly blesses all who call on the Holy One, for,
“Everyone who calls on the name of the Holy One will be saved.”
Luke 4:1-13
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the
Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the
devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.
The devil said to him, “If you are the
Child of God, tell this stone to become bread.”
Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Mortals
shall not live on bread alone.’”
The devil led him up to a high place and
showed him in an instant all the realms of the world. And he said to Jesus, “I will give you all
their authority and splendour; it has been given to me, and I can give it to
anyone I want to. If you worship me, it will all be yours.”
Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Worship
the Holy One your God and serve God only.’”
The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him
stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Child of God,” he
said, “throw yourself down from here. For it is written:
“‘God will command the angels concerning
you
to guard you carefully;
they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”
Jesus answered, “It is said: ‘Do not put
the Holy One your God to the test.’”
When the devil had finished all this
tempting, he left Jesus until an opportune time.
****
Will
you pray with and for me? Holy One, you are the ultimate source of our lives.
Teach us to trust in you for all our needs—for safety, for nourishment, for
grace. Open our hearts to your loving presence; and may all we speak and hear
be a reflection of your great love for us. Amen.
Today’s the first Sunday in Lent. "What is
Lent?" some of you may be asking. It’s a season, a time within the church, the
forty days before Easter—we don’t count the Sundays, because every Sunday is
considered a “little Easter” for worship purposes. It begins with Ash
Wednesday. The day before is Mardi Gras—aka Fat Tuesday, Carnival, or Fasching.
In many countries, especially those with a Roman Catholic heritage, like
France, southern Germany, the Philippines, Italy, and Brazil, the carnival
season begins very shortly after Epiphany—the twelfth day after Christmas—which
is also celebrated with lots of parties and good food. Carnival is
traditionally a time of freedom, laissez les bon temps rouler, as they say in
New Orleans. It’s a time to clean out all the goodies left from Christmas and
have a great time before the quiet and more somber time of Lent. In Munich,
there’s a tradition of going to a certain fountain and washing out your purse
to show you have spent all your money on Fasching, on Carnival, and are now
ready to settle down and be contemplative.
On Ash Wednesday, many Christian traditions
have services to mark this first day of Lent; foreheads are marked with a cross
of ashes to show that the person is preparing to fast and reflect as Lent
arrives.
In the days of the early church, it was
also a time of preparation for baptisms, which only took place on Easter
morning. For forty days, those who wished to be baptized Christians studied and
learned and prayed and discerned as they prepared to make their decision for
baptism or not. Remember that Christianity was a very minority religion at the
time—like Judaism, Christianity did not permit its followers to worship Caesar
as a God. Unlike Judaism, Christianity did not have a long history behind it to
give it stature and an argument for not worshiping Caesar as the Roman required
their subjects to do. Becoming a Christian meant placing yourself in a position
of oppression and marginalization. It was not undertaken lightly or without due
prayer and consideration.
We who are already baptized, however, can
also use this time of Lent as a time for reflection and thought and prayer.
Traditionally, Christians give up something that they enjoy—chocolate, TV,
meat, and so on—as a sacrifice and in order to focus more fully on God. Or they
might take something on—reading spiritual books, studying a specific book of
the Bible in depth, a regularly scheduled time at the local soup kitchen, doing
something for someone else every day, and so on, again, as a form of self
discipline. We can do either or both of these. Whatever we choose, we are
making a decision to mark this time as set apart and special—forty days to
think about our faith, what we believe, what is really important to us, what we
cannot give up in any circumstance.
This is exactly what Jesus was doing in the
wilderness for forty days. We can see Satan as more of a concept than a literal
being here; Jesus is being tempted by his own dark side, to take a simpler,
more worldly route. Some things to notice here. First Jesus is
tempted—if he were not drawn to what is offered in exchange for his worship,
there would be no point in it. A friend always makes a New Year’s resolution to
not become a brain surgeon—it's an easy resolution to keep because she has no
interest in becoming a brain surgeon! If you’re not drawn to something, there’s
no sacrifice, there’s no struggle to give it up. I can give up Brussels sprouts
easily; chocolate, not so much!
I think we can look at this forty-day
retreat of Jesus as a time for him to discern what is truly important to him,
and how he will carry his message of God’s faithful and eternal love into the
world. Each of those temptations relate to a kind of power--political power, in
which Jesus would rule the world; economic power, in which he would feed
everyone, be sure they had what they needed; and spiritual power, the ability
to work miracles, and thus gain power. And yes, Jesus is drawn to the simple
expedients of power—political power, ruling over all nations; to economic
power, filling people’s bellies and thus controlling them; or spiritual
coercion, the demand for God to perform in order to increase his own power. Any
one of them could have led him to power of a sort.
But Jesus denies all of them.
This Lent we are examining questions as
markers on our journey through Lent. This week’s question asks about the
purpose and meaning of our lives. In his forty days of prayer, fasting, and
discernment, Jesus came to understand that he did not want any earthly power,
that the purpose and focus of his life was make God very present to humans, to
remind them that God cares for them, and that the best use of any life is
sharing that love and grace with others, even—or especially—those we fear and
distrust. He refused the temptations of the easy way, the path of earthly fame
and glory, trusting in God's power of grace and wisdom over any earthly power.
What temptations do we face in our lives?
Our temptations may not be the same—remember what I said about the things that
we want being temptations, but things we don’t want aren’t temptations. So what
is a temptation to me may not be at all tempting to you. And this is true for
material things as well as our values and our purposes in life—see chocolate
and Brussels sprouts above. Perhaps the temptation is to inaction and inertia—it’s
easier to let someone else do the work of struggling for what is right. Or
maybe the lure is to anger and hatred towards those who hate us; or to fear the
new rather than embracing it.
This is a valid and valuable use of our
Lenten time, of those forty days of prayer and reflection. What is my purpose
in life? What is most important to me, when I strip away the extras and the
decorations? Is it my family? My work? My friends? My creativity? My partner?
Is it justice, or hope, or healing? There's a spiritual practice called a Rule
of Life, based on the idea of the rules of orders of the monks.
"Rule" here doesn't mean "law," or "regulation,"
but rather guidelines on how to live. The metaphor of a trellis is often
used--our Rule of Life is the trellis, our lives the vine that grows on and
around the trellis, which supports our lives and gives them form. My Lenten
goal this year is to create my own Rule of Life--those guiding principles which
inform all I do. If the idea intrigues you, the book I am using is
"Crafting a Rule of Life," by Steven Maccia. Creating a rule of life
involves asking ourselves questions--those difficult questions about what we
really believe and whether that is shown in our lives, what our temptations
are, and how to resist them, and recognising God's call on our lives--the same
sorts of questions we will be examining in our worship time--discovering or
re-affirming our purpose and our call.
Once we know that, then we know more
clearly what our path should be. In the coming weeks, we will be asking other
questions: questions of doubt, about
good and evil, of belonging, of fear, of how God works in our lives. They are
not easy questions. But take the time and energy to dig deep into the questions,
to explore, to contemplate. Lent is not a time of sadness and despair, but a
time for reflection and prayer, with hope and renewal promised us at Easter.
May your Lenten journey be full of
questions and answers. In all God’s names, amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment