Saugatuck Congregational Church, UCC
© Rev. Alison J. Buttrick Patton
March 5, 2017
Scripture: Scripture: Psalm 32:1-11 and Matthew 4:1-11
“Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil…” – Matthew 4:1
Hundreds of battered, dusty backpacks form a wall at one end of the exhibit hall. They are bags left behind by undocumented migrants crossing the arid Sonoran Desert from Mexico to the US. They are piled close to 20 feet tall. Their owners struck out into the harsh wilderness to flee poverty, drug cartel violence or political instability, to reunite with family or to begin a new life north of the border. Between 2001 and 2009, at least 2,500 migrants perished in the desert – probably many more – overcome by the heat, dehydration or assault by bandits.
Anthropologist Dr. Jason De Leόn of the University of Michigan has been documenting the journeys of these migrants, gathering their stories, the detritus left behind by those who made it, and the relics collected from those who did not. Many of these artifacts are currently on display as part of the exhibit, “State of Exception / Estado de Excepciόn” at the Parsons School of Design in NYC. Perhaps you saw the photo of the backpacks on the front page of the Arts Section in Saturday’s NYTimes…
Although my Tucson-dwelling sister will sing the praises of desert terrain and enthuse about hiking among the red rocks of the southwest, she’s also the first to note that the desert is not to be trifled with. It does not accommodate; it is utterly unforgiving. Unlike the desert creatures that have adapted to their arid home, we people are ill-equipped to survive for long in these wild environs – all rock and sand and unrelenting heat. Writer Belden Lane calls the desert a “fierce landscape.”
Why, then, would Jesus leave the Jordan River, still dripping wet from his own baptism, and head into the desert? Or, more precisely, why would the Spirit of God lead him there? In the moments after John the Baptiser dunked Jesus beneath the murky surface of the Jordan River, the gospel writer reports that the skies opened up, and the Spirit of God descended like a dove, alighted on Jesus and declared him to be God’s Beloved son. In the very next verse, “Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness…” This is how you treat your beloved? Lead him out into the fierce, untamed lands beyond the safety of civilization, without so much as a backpack of food, for 40 days and 40 nights? What’s going on here?
I wonder whether Jesus’ journey isn’t somehow bound up with the journey of those Central American migrants memorialized by Dr. De Leόn. We know it was bound up with the journey of a much earlier generation of migrants – the ones who fled violence and slavery in Egypt, many centuries before Jesus was born. When the writer of Matthew’s gospel penned this episode, he no doubt intended his readers to hear the echoes of that earlier wilderness crossing by the Israelites, who spent forty years halfway between slavery and freedom, displaced and completely dependent on God for their survival in a barren land.
Jesus is not the first to sojourn in the wilderness, nor the last. What he does during those 40 days and 40 nights may give us some clues about what links him to those other wilderness wanderers, clues to God’s purpose in leading him there in the first place. “Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil…” The Tempter, Satan, that provocateur whose role in the narrative is to test Jesus’ resolve. The devil tempts a famished and sun-weary Jesus with visions of wealth, safety, and power:
“Feeling hungry? Wave a hand, and you’ll have more than you need.”
“Afraid of falling? No worries: God will surely keep you safe from all harm.”
“Anxious that you’ll never succeed? I’ll give you the whole world to command.”
Three times, the Tempter offered Jesus that most seductive choice: to avoid suffering. “Buy your way out; talk your way out; muscle your way out and all this will go away. Just say the word. Surely God who loves you will make it so.” How desperately Jesus must have longed for a morsel of bread, the comfort of angels’ arms, the assurance of a successful ministry… But Jesus knew (as perhaps we know) that there is no way around the struggle; we have to go through.
This is not easy news. On the contrary, it’s the kind of news that makes us want to stick our fingers in our ears and hum “Zippidy Doo Dah” as loud as we can, or stream insanely cute animal videos on YouTube until someone changes the subject. But the truth is: the journey of faith, this journey through life, can be heart-achingly, gut-wrenchingly hard. “Be kind, for everyone is fighting a hard battle,” wrote the 19th-century author Ian McLaren. Or in the words of the Dread Pirate Roberts, a.k.a. our hero Wesley in the film “PrincessBride”: “Life IS pain. Anyone who says differently is selling something.”
God knows that there is heartbreak and to spare in the world. So God sent us God’s only son, “to share our common lot” in the words of the United Church of Christ Statement of Faith. Those who know what it is to feel desperate, to face limits, to grapple with despair; those who cling to hope as they confront wall after wall… these are the people among whom Jesus was called to serve.
Refugees cannot wish away the war that has decimated their home; instantaneously turn guns into plows or empty bowls into loaves of bread. They cannot wave a hand and undo the economic policies that keep them impoverished. Nor could they stand on the heights and command that their crops flourish, or that malicious forces steer clear of their children. Parents cannot vanquish their child’s addiction with the snap of a finger, nor children wipe away the vagaries of aging for their parents. There is no Get out of the Wilderness Free card in this life. So neither would Jesus take the quick and painless way out.
Indeed, you could say that his whole ministry would be a journey through the wilderness, and not around. Again and again, Jesus found his way into the lives of those who struggled – oddballs and outcasts of all sorts. We will meet some of them in the coming weeks: a skeptical Pharisee named Nicodemus, a Samaritan woman at the well; a man born blind; two sisters mourning the death of their brother. These are women and men who grappled with doubt, ridicule, disability, or grief. Jesus would meet each one of them right in the middle of their grappling. Unflinchingly, and without judgment, he would name the truth about their circumstances, and then he would offer hope.
He could do that because he knew what it was to put his life in God’s hands. It seems to me that his promises would have sounded hollow, had Jesus himself chosen the easy way around. But he didn’t. He never does. Instead, he trusts in God to accompany him the long way through.
And what about us? Could we trust like that? Could we put ourselves in God’s hands, as together we traverse the wilderness of the world’s suffering? Lent is our chance to ask: What short cuts have we taken, when it comes to loving God and neighbor; when it comes to walking this journey of faith? When have we tried to buy our way out, talk our way out, muscle our way out of the hard work that faith demands of us? NOT, I need to be clear, that faith requires suffering for its own sake. But rather, that trusting God gives us the courage to confront the pain, our own and others’. For what we cannot face, we cannot heal.
And there is so much healing to be done. So much discord to be transformed. So many battered bodies to be tended to; so many parched spirits to be soothed. The Rev. John Edgerton says that to sin is “to be tied up with and implicated in the heartbreaks of the world.” So we are all sinners, both compromised and complicit, all walking the same wilderness road.
Here is a startling truth: that fierce landscapes not only test us, they also have the power to restore us to wholeness. Perhaps because it’s only when everything else has been stripped away that we can we finally concede that neither wealth nor power nor safety can save us; finally concede, along with those Israelites of ancient times, that there is nothing to do but rely on God, our source, and our hope.
Here’s the Good News: God is a desert dweller. Did you notice? The Spirit of God does not send Jesus into the wilderness. The Spirit leads Jesus, which means that God went first. This, this changes everything. For we may not have the power to wish away suffering, but God has the power to transform it completely. Spoiler alert: after Jesus banishes Satan from his sight, he goes on to work miracle after miracle: healed a blind man, raised the dead, multiplied loaves… Look! He says, again and again. God is HERE in our midst. God resides IN the struggle. When we rely on God, She can work wonders!
In God, every gun shall be turned to a plow, and every empty bowl shall be filled; every oppressive system will be brought down and every body shall be made whole. In God, every thirst will be quenched, every brow soother, every hunger filled, and every wilderness wanderer will finally be welcomed home. Together, we shall march into the Kingdom of God, and the children shall lead us. THIS is the vision. This is the promise that took tangible shape in Christ’s heart during those 40 days and 40 nights: God’s will. Not mine. God’s reign. Not Satan’s. God’s vision, God’s power, God’s love overflowing. This is the Good News. Thanks be to God!
Thanks be to God!
Amen
Scriptures
Psalm 32 1-11New Revised Standard Version
1Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.
2Happy are those to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. 3While I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. 4For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. 5Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and you forgave the guilt of my sin. 6Therefore let all who are faithful offer prayer to you; at a time of distress, the rush of mighty waters shall not reach them. 7You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with glad cries of deliverance. 8I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you. 9Do not be like a horse or a mule, without understanding, whose temper must be curbed with bit and bridle, else it will not stay near you. 10Many are the torments of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds those who trust in the Lord. 11Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart.
Matthew 4:1-11 New Revised Standard Version
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. 3The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” 4But he answered, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” 5Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, 6saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’” 7Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” 8Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; 9and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” 10Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’” 11Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.