3-5-17, Lent A1
(I read from the end of chapter 3 before the usual reading, which began:) 16And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. 17And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
Grace to you and peace from God our father and from our
Lord and savior Jesus the Christ, amen.
In light of the announcement that I knew I would make to
all of you this morning…. I confess to you that writing this sermon was really, really hard. It is, after all, a PREACHING
honor I have received, and so naturally that mean that ALL of my sermons from
now until eternity are going to be AMAZING. No pressure! But as I stared at the
computer screen, I could feel the blank white space whispering in my mind something
like this: “Since this happened to you, you should have no problem composing a
sermon to really knock everyone’s socks off. So, you had better be ready to prove
that you are the real deal, and that was not just some fluke.”
That voice is going strong today, since last night I read
what I had submitted, and found 3 typos! Oy.
We have all heard that voice. It’s the same voice has probably
spoken to JK Rowling right after she finished the Harry Potter series, or former
President Obama on January twenty-first, or Lin-Manuel Miranda after leaving
the cast of his wildly successful musical Hamilton. For all of us, after a big,
life-changing moments, we wonder – who am I now? Was this just a big accident?
Or did I actually deserve this? And now that this has happened to me, NOW what do I do? How do I live? Do I
have to keep proving to the world that I matter? In times like these, we
suddenly be experiencing an identity crisis.
Now we may not find ourselves lead out into the wilderness
by the Holy Spirit right after our baptisms, as Jesus did. We may not face a
serpent or the devil face to face. We may not have the ability to turn stones
to bread or ever be offered all the kingdoms of the world. But we DO have an identity given to us by God,
just as Jesus did. Jesus had just come from his baptism, still dripping, when
his freshly recognized and newly blessed identity as the Son of God was called
into question. And we too have an identity given to us by God, being called
Children of God in our baptisms, and we too are under the world’s scrutiny
before the water on our heads has a chance to dry.
In the wilderness Jesus
found himself in, his was identity tested. On the verge of starting his earthly
ministry, Jesus had to define what it meant to be “the son of God.” Here the
tone is set for the Jesus administration. Was is going to reflect a kind of
power and glory that the world could easily recognize? Or would Jesus set his agenda according to God’s definition of power and glory?
In the end, would Jesus be able to “prove” that he was
“good enough” for the job as the Son of God?
The first temptation does seem pretty harmless, though.
After all, it wouldn’t hurt anyone if Jesus did a little magic on those rocks
so he wouldn’t be so grumpy as he seems to be later. And not just one loaf,
which would be plenty for one person, but why not many, as the devil suggests,
just in case Jesus wants a snack later? But Jesus tells the devil “No Dice,”
and saves his divine breadmaking skills for another time, to feed 5,000 hungry people, later in the Gospel
of Matthew.
The same happens with the other two temptations. Instead
of throwing himself off a roof to test God plan for him, Jesus instead shows
his resolve do follow God’s will, which will result in Jesus being lifted high
on a cross and not on the pinnacle of the temple. And instead of seizing the
opportunity to rule all the kingdoms of the earth for himself, Jesus instead will open
the kingdom of heaven to all who
follow him. In the rest of his ministry, we can see how Jesus’ time in the
wilderness prepared him to fulfill
his baptismal identity.
In the wildernesses we
find ourselves in, be they physical, emotional, or spiritual, we too find our identity tested. We are constantly
tempted into thinking that, as we are right now, we are not good enough to be
children of God. I would
have turned those stones into bread in a heartbeat, and probably added some
hummus too, faster than you can say “Hangry.”
Most of us are aware of our limitations and our hang-ups,
and the tempter takes every opportunity to remind us where we fall short with a
never-ending commentary in our brains – Surely, we are mistaken if we think
that God has chosen us in our current state. Surely, God wants us to work a little harder
at being God’s children. Surely, we need to prove that we are worthy of being chosen.
 |
| From a mural by Ken Green in St. Paul MN |
I imagine something similar going through Eve’s mind
while she listened to the clever arguments of the serpent in the garden. When
the serpent told her that eating the fruit would make her more like God, to
have knowledge of good and evil, she jumped at the chance. Why would she listen
to the words of the serpent? Perhaps because she did not trust God to be God.
She did not trust that God had created her good,
just as she was. Perhaps she thought that she could help God out a little bit, to
prove her worth. Both Eve and Adam trusted the words of the serpent more than
the words of God.
The Adam and Eve in all of us all too often trust the
words of the crafty serpents around us, rather than the incredible promise that
we are loved and claimed as God’s children. When the rest of the world tells us
the opposite, God tells us that we are worthy, we are loved, and we are enough.
It’s hard for us to see ourselves as God sees us. We look
into ourselves and only see what is lacking, and so comes our tendency to reach
for too much power, too much security, too much comfort in order to fill the
gaps. But God sees us a different way. God sees us in a way that is not unlike
how parents see their children when they are born, or how brides and grooms see
one another as they say their vows on their wedding day.
In one of my favorite books I read last year called Lila
by Marilynn Robinson, the title character only saw herself through the eyes of
those who looked down on her because of things she did in her past in order to
survive as a homeless person in the 1930s. All her life she gave into the
temptation to see herself as not deserving anything good that happened to her. Somehow,
she ends up in a small town in Iowa, and met the local bachelor minister.
Through their relationship and eventual marriage, Lila starts to see herself as
God sees her, through the gentleness and kindness of another human being who
saw her with the eyes of love.
On the day that preacher proposed to and baptized Lila,
he remembered the day they met: “I expected to continue with [loneliness] the
rest of my life. Then I saw you that morning. I saw your face.”
Lila replied, “Don’t’ talk like that. I know about my
face.”
But he persisted. “I suspect you don’t. You don’t know
how I see it.”
One night during a snowstorm after they were married, the
two of them were talking, and Lila’s husband said, “Family is a prayer. Wife
is a prayer. Marriage is a prayer.”
Lila, remembering her own baptism, adds, “Baptism is a
prayer.”
To that, her husband replied, “No, baptism is what I call
a fact.”
Your baptism is a fact. God’s love for you is a fact. God
chose you – that’s a fact too.
Lent is the time of the church year that prepares us for
the Ultimate Fact. That in Jesus, God’s love is shown to the world. In Jesus, we
see that the love of God would go to any length for us, and would travel any
distance, and would even go to death and back for God’s beloved children. And
for Jesus, no wilderness is to wild or too forsaken to Jesus to travel with us.
Lent is not for us to improve ourselves with sacrifices
to become more worthy or more holy come Easter Sunday. Lent instead takes us
through the wilderness to reflect our own shortcomings, to remind us to let God
be God. Not so that we can feel guilty at where we have fallen short. But so that
we can get out of our own way and be nothing less than members of God’s family.
It’s been said that when Martin Luther felt tempted to despair by the devil, he
would shout in response, “I am baptized!” Not “I was”, but “I AM.” Present
tenses. True in this very moment.
The trip through Lent every year takes us from a garden
to a wilderness and back again, from human sin and transgression and death to
resurrection, from the ash crosses of Ash Wednesday to the shadow of
the cross on Good Friday, through the Garden of Eden, to the garden of Gethsemane,
to the garden that contained Jesus’ empty tomb. Every year, we tell the story,
to remind ourselves who we are and WHOSE we are. “I am baptized.” Present
tense. Now and forever. Amen.
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