Saugatuck Congregational Church, UCC
©Rev. Alison J. Buttrick Patton
February 14, 2016
Scripture: Luke 4:1-13
For 40 days, Jesus wandered in the wilderness – inhabiting that arid landscape without food or shelter to speak of. He was accompanied only by desert-dwelling creatures and that ruinous tempter, the devil; weighed down by nothing more than his own thoughts and the lingering memory of his dunking in the Jordan River (how he must have longed for another drenching in the Jordan’s depths, during those weeks in the desert!). I wonder where his thoughts took him, as his stomach grumbled and his shoulders baked in the sun, whether he used the time to develop a strategy for his ministry, to chart a clear course and map out his miracles, or whether his thoughts were too muddled by hunger, so that he could think of only one thing: bread.
We are entering the season of Lent, when we are called to repent from sin. The current agreed-upon list of the “seven deadly sins,” according to Wikipedia, includes pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath and sloth. It’s a good list. But it strikes me that impatience isn’t included. And I wonder whether it should be (at least for me). The last time I developed a craving for chocolate, I got in my car and drove the 0.3 miles to Trader Joe’s – adding carbon to the atmosphere and congestion to the roads, and denying my body 10 minutes of exercise and fresh air. If I’d had the ability to snap my fingers and turn the stones in my back yard into chocolate, I would have done that instead, thereby eliminating the wait altogether.
Impatience is a pernicious thing: it masquerades as efficiency. Why wouldn’t you feed yourself if you could, without the added labor? Just think how much more you could do, how many more mouths you could feed, if all it took was a wave of the hands. But the quick fix is rarely the faithful one. It may get you what you want in the short run, but at what cost? When I rush, I’m more likely to speak harshly, drive dangerously, hurt someone’s feelings, abuse my body, harm the earth, or miss the voice the God…
It may be that impatience is not always a bad thing: We should be impatient for justice, impatient for peace, impatient to see God’s beloved community lived out among us. If impatience spurs us to creative action and greater acts of courage and kindness, that seems to me to be a good thing. But even then, we cannot snap our fingers and transport ourselves to the finish line, any more than Jesus could skip those forty days. There are no short cuts on the road to transformation – personal or communal.
To become wise, we must study. To build a relationship, we must spend time together; to change a habit, we must gradually rewire our brains; to dismantle anti-Semitism or Islamaphobia, we must listen unflinchingly to our neighbors; to grow a garden, we must persistently tend the soil. This is the unavoidable truth: the journey, every journey, takes us smack dab through the middle of the wilderness. What we do there, matters as much as where it leads us.
This may not feel like good news. And Lent may not fill you with joyful anticipation or pleasant nostalgia, the way Christmas or Easter can do. At first glance, it looks like Lent demands a lot more of us: repentance, sacrifice, and self-denial on the way to self-improvement. Maybe it’s good for us, like cauliflower or 30 minutes on a treadmill, but it’s got nothing on a brand new baby gurgling in the straw, or on a shining vision of Christ at sunrise, framed by a field of vibrant lilies. As liturgical seasons go, Lent has the reputation for being a total downer by comparison. We mostly prefer our appetites sated.
But here’s the thing: neither Christmas nor Easter is all bright lights and lilies, either. Before the baby there was the labor; and before the resurrection there was the cross. Easter begins in the dark corners of a cave. There is no life without struggle; no coming fully alive without something dying.
At least the season of Lent is honest about this. On day one, Ash Wednesday, a smudge of ash on the forehead reminds us that we are mortal. ie, that we will die, are dying. If you’ve never done it, had your forehead marked with ashes, I recommend it. There is something about confronting our own mortality – about recognizing that (in the words of the late rock star Jim Morrison) “no one here gets out alive” – that can be both sobering and freeing. I’m dying. Well, that’s settled. The question becomes, what do I do in the meantime?
Maybe that’s what Jesus thought about in the wilderness: “How can I wring all the life out of the years I have, while I have them? How can I fill them with hope and joy and also convey this sense of urgency that we’ve got work to do? How can I keep my priorities straight and help others to do the same? Because this I know: Bread is not enough. We do not live by bread alone…”
There’s the positive power of the wilderness: It puts things in perspective. When I am feeling profoundly vulnerable – outside my comfort zone – it’s a little easier to remember: there is one God, and I’m not it. I can eat, or not eat, but only God can give me life. Once I get clear about what’s not my job, I can move on to contemplate what IS my job. Jesus was quoting Moses when he said to the devil, “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only God.” Later, he would put it another way: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength.”
That’s our job. What if these 40 days in the wilderness are as a chance to deepen that love? To strengthen those ties that bind us to the one who created us from the dust of the earth? What if the journey was a gift? Not something to avoid, or work around, or get past, but something to embrace, struggle and all?
When I was pregnant with my second son, I learned that women in other parts of the world talk very differently about labor, compared to women in the United States. We are much more likely to describe the intense pain of labor in negative terms, as terrifying and to be avoided. Think about every labor you’ve ever seen depicted in the movies. By contrast, studies show that women in Scandinavia more often describe their contractions as uncomfortable rather than painful, because they think of labor in positive terms. Those intense muscle spasms, they are a sign that the body is working to bring forth new life. It is hard, but it is also beautiful…
I wonder whether we could think of our journey through the wilderness like that? As an invitation to patiently, persistently bring forth new life in our lives? Our ancestors in the faith understood that repentance includes two aspects, equally important: mortificatio and vivificatio – dying and coming alive, moving in a new direction. My preaching professor, Dr. Dow Edgerton, whom some of you have met and who describes himself as a happy Calvinist, says, “How could you not love a season of repentance, because it’s about stopping being dead! It’s about stopping be bound by the powers of death!”[1] We can’t shed those bonds on our own, but we know who can. God.
Giver of bread. Lord of Life.
I don’t know exactly when it happened for Jesus: whether in the womb, or at the moment of his birth, or as he lay in his mother’s arms, or as the waters closed over his head in the Jordan, or when he saw the skies open and a dove descend, or as he sat on a sun-baked rock in the wilderness and confronted the devil, but it did happen: Jesus got clear, very clear, that there is but one thing that matters, and that is God alone. Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer. God the Life-maker, Life-saver, Life-shaper. Held up by the force of that most powerful, life-giving truth, Jesus was able to plant his feet and look the devil in the eye. Although his stomach ached with hunger, perhaps because it did, Jesus could think of only one thing, and that one thing was God – in whom we live and move and have our being.
Why would you want to miss the wilderness, if the wilderness is where you find your footing, find the courage to confront the devils that torment you, whether your own torment comes in the form of bondage to alcohol, or wealth, or power or beauty or control or impatience masquerading as efficiency… Why wouldn’t you want to go where you might find the courage to say to those devils, “You are not the boss of me. You, I will not worship one minute more. I may not know exactly how this will play out, but I know that God has something better, something life-restoring, in store.” Yes, this is hard, but as I tell my children: We can do hard things.
Here’s the good news. The Holy Spirit does show up. Was with Jesus all along. Remember? “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan… he was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness…” The Holy Spirit never left him. There may be no shortcuts on this journey towards transformation, but that’s ok, because God is in it for the long haul.
So, Sisters and brothers in Christ, this year, consider moving through Lent at a measured pace. Be patient, see what God might do with you, with us, whether we might just find the courage to stand firm, look the devil right in the eye and say, “It’s not about you, or about me. It’s about GOD.” Here’s the thing: We may be inadequate to this task, but we are more adequate together. And (in the words of my preaching professor Dr. Dow Edgerton), “if the Holy Spirit shows up, odds are decisively in our favor.” There may even be new life in store.
Scripture
Luke 4:1-13 – New Revised Standard Translation
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, 2where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished. 3The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” 4Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’” 5Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. 6And the devil said to him, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. 7If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” 8Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’” 9Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, 10for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,’ 11and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’” 12Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” 13When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJskp3KT0_k&index=1&list=PLtbk2iL3YV9XV3iRb_xanl37GpfRjvB47