Lent 1, 2022

 Sometimes we try to prove who we are by bullying other people.  Sometimes we try to prove who we are by giving and giving and giving until we just collapse.  Sometimes we try to prove who we are by all the possessions we collect.  Hopefully, sooner or later we know ourselves well enough and become secure enough in who we are that we have a sense of peace, even when the world is trying to tell us we’re nobody and even when we enter the wilderness of illness or war or grief or any other struggle. 

Today’s Gospel is about Jesus learning through temptation who he really is.  The temptation story comes directly after Jesus’ baptism.  He’s just heard from the heavens, the voice of God saying, “This is my son, the beloved.  With him I am well pleased.”  And Jesus is driven by the Holy Spirit out into the wilderness to find out what life is like when God is pleased.  This is a story that tells us who Jesus is at his core, when every comfort is taken away.  This is a story about what life is really about.  This is a story that can help us when we find ourselves in the wilderness.

This is a story about Jesus—who he really is and what he’s really about.  Jesus learns that he doesn’t need food to know who he is.  Jesus is fully human.  He feels hunger.  He feels deprived.  His body aches.  He feels tempted to relieve his own suffering.  But he doesn’t do it, because that’s not who he is.  Jesus did not come to serve himself but others.  Remember that ancient hymn from the book of Philippians, “Jesus did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but instead taking the form of a slave, he emptied himself and humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.” 

Jesus learns that he doesn’t need power to know he is a beloved child of God.  Jesus deserves glory and honor and yet he denies himself that throne of reverence and recognition and power over other people.  Jesus chooses instead to walk among the everyday people and be an everyday person with all the challenges that brings, as well as all the connections that brings.

Jesus learns that he doesn’t need to get God’s attention or demand a rescue to know he is a beloved child of God.  Jesus knows that he doesn’t have to test God to know himself.  This is a hard one because we have the Psalm about God’s protection.  He will bear you up on eagles wings and you won’t even stub your toe.  But we do stub our toes and Jesus stubbed his toe and much more, but that didn’t mean that God was absent or didn’t care.  The protection God offers is ultimate protection, accompaniment through all trials, community to offer care in times of trouble, and the new life that comes at resurrection.  But that also doesn’t mean we should go trying to stub our toe on purpose, expose ourselves to deadly disease on purpose, handle snakes as a display of faith, or leap from tall buildings.  God gives us tools to protect not only ourselves but the most vulnerable among us and we would do well to use them.

These temptations of Jesus tell us some truths about what life is really about.  If life is all about gathering food and possessions and about our own comfort, we’ll find we can never be at peace, because we’ll always be gathering and worrying and all these things will go away.  There will be times when we are hungry, that our house or car will fall apart, when the kids will take the car keys away, when we have to sell almost everything we own.  And in those times, we will grieve, but we will still be beloved children of God. 

If we think life is all about glory and power, and we spend our whole lives seeking that, we will be disappointed.  No matter how little glory or power we have, we will still be beloved children of God.

If we think life is all about God protecting us from harm and if we intentionally test God, when we do get hurt we might think God has abandoned us, but we will still be beloved children of God. 

Jesus was famished.  He was never given an earthly crown.  He didn’t receive any special protection.  But we know he’s beloved of God.  For us, too, who are at times deprived, who face illness and death and war and fire and flood and pandemic, we are also God’s beloved.  Those times of difficulty don’t tell us about the absence of God like we sometimes think.  So what use are they?  These times of difficulty are opportunities to learn.  We can learn compassion—what other people go through.  We can learn to quit blaming other people and instead let our hearts go out to them and do what we can to relieve their suffering.  We know that suffering produces endurance—that we learn steadiness and focus to find our way through these valleys.  That endurance produces hope—that when we’ve face difficulties we look for that light shining, for God in the shadows with us, moments of grace and community, and gratefulness for all God’s gifts.  We know through these wilderness times who we are when we don’t have our comforts and power and possessions.  Each little wilderness is a practice for the next and the one after that and eventually the wilderness that seems so vast and scary, like the death of a spouse or of a child or a terminal illness or war, but since we’ve known Jesus to be in the wilderness and we’ve trained our eye to look for him, we find that we are not alone.  Others are out in the wilderness, too, other widows and widowers, other grieving parents, peacemakers and brokenhearted people, and this is truly God’s grace and the presence of Jesus there with us.  The wilderness teaches us again and again who we are and who Jesus is, that strength can be found in vulnerability, and that we can be both beloved and famished, that power can be found in weakness and surrender, that true satisfaction is found when we are grounded in the source of all life and goodness.  

The Israelites in Deuteronomy are remembering who they are.  They are remembering their wilderness journey—when they felt abandoned and fearful and had nowhere to call home.  They are invited to remember who God is—the one who led them through to safety and provided all things good.  From that wilderness experience, they are called to give their first fruits to God as an offering and to love and include the foreigners in the land in their generosity and celebration.

Paul is reminding the Romans who they are.  By grounding themselves in the scriptures, they are reminded where they came from and where they are going, that all good gifts come from God, that God is with all creation and especially present in wilderness experiences of pain and difficulty, and that God grants new life, even in death.  As the Romans learn and relearn who they are and who Jesus is, they no longer have to prove to anyone their own power and value, but they can get on to serving God among those without power.

Lent is a journey to the cross.  As I consider these temptations, I see foreshadowing of what will happen on the cross.  In the wilderness, Jesus is hungry.  On the cross, he thirsts.  Here  he is tempted to throw himself off the pinnacle.  On the cross he is taunted by the onlookers, “If he is the King of the Jews, he would come down from the cross and save himself,” again tempted to prove himself by his power, again tempted to descend as proof of who he is.  On the cross he ascends the throne, is crowned with thorns, and dies beneath the sign that reads, “The King of the Jews.”  Jesus’ kingship is already established at the temptation in the wilderness and it is well established at the cross, but Jesus’ kingship has never been about building up himself.  Instead he uses it to build up to those who are hurting and hungry and thirsty and imprisoned.  Jesus calls us children of God, not so we would build ourselves up and use our power to bully or get attention or test God, but that we would be secure enough in knowing that we are God’s beloved children that we would give our power away so that others would know they are also God’s beloved children.