Feb. 21 Sermon: Lent 1
1st Sunday in Lent
Holy Covenant UMC, February 21, 2010
Rev. Kate Hurst Floyd
Luke 4:1-13
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Today, the first Sunday of Lent, we step into the wilderness with Jesus, led by the Spirit. We feel the hot sand burning our toes, the unending light blinding our eyes, and we long for a cool, quenching drink.
This is a familiar feeling. A feeling that we’re not eager to summon. For we know what it’s like to be in the wilderness all too well. Though the wildernesses of our lives look different than the desert of Jesus….The wildernesses of our lives look less like sand and more like an empty seat around a holiday table, where your grandfather sat until Alzheimer’s took him away; a lonely Sunday morning at the park after being kicked out of a faith community you loved; an empty pillow next to your head where your lover used to sleep; the bottom of a bottle you swore you wouldn’t drink today. Wilderness appears in our lives in many forms. You know what your wilderness looks, smells, feels, sounds, and tastes like.
We know that life’s wildernesses are inevitable. Everybody in this room has journeyed through one; perhaps you’re in the middle of the wilderness now, feeling like you are crawling through sand; and the hard truth is, all of us will find ourselves in the desert in the future. Jesus, of all people, couldn’t escape the wilderness, and neither can we. We find ourselves with parched throats in the oppressive sun because of choices we’ve made, or choices that other people have made, or because of oppressive and unfair systems. Because of life’s brokenness.
And yet…and yet we’re here, this morning, the first Sunday of Lent, willfully walking, some of us running, right behind Jesus, guided by the Spirit, into a land of uncertainty and temptation and hunger. A place where we willingly deprive and test ourselves and wonder how we’ll survive.
Lent is the season in the Christian year, observed the 40 days leading up to Easter, when we choose to enter the wilderness. It’s not a time when the wilderness chooses us, it’s a time when we, in good faith, with open and contrite hearts, choose to walk with Jesus towards the cross, towards death. On this, the first Sunday of Lent, we hear the text about Jesus entering his own wilderness, 40 days of being tempted by the devil: Tempted to turn stones into bread when he’s hungry; tempted to gain political power over all the nations of the world; tempted to fly off a cliff, just to prove that he could.
And yes, Jesus is divine, but he is also fully human, so he knows and feels those wilderness pangs as much as we do. He knows what it’s like to be so hungry, so empty, that you want more than anything a quick fix that will easily satisfy—he wants to turn those stones into bread to fulfill his desire. He knows what it’s like to want to numb emotional pain with a drink; to placate grief by buying another pair of shoes; to sleep with someone we barely know because we believe deep down that nobody loves us.
He knows what it’s like to want power—a glimpse of what it might be like to rule over all people, to be the one in charge; He knows how it feels to want to take out feelings of being powerless in your job out on your family; knows the temptation to earn more money so we can appear as if we are in charge, even when are inner lives are chaotic; to want to brag to our brother that we are more successful, because we can’t forgive what he’s done to us.
He knows what it’s like to be tempted by all the quick fixes that life hands us to fill up the places we are empty….distracting ourselves with blackberries, meaningless sex, workaholism, alcohol, controlling our bodies with food and exercise, shopping, lying to our partners, being busy all the time with others or work so we don’t have to face ourselves, all alone.
Jesus knows the ways we are tempted, for he was tempted too.
The wilderness can be a painful, scary place. So, then, why do we every year, around this time, decide that we, as a community, as Christians, will walk into that wilderness head-on? Willingly face our own demons, examine our stones, our temptations to power or powerlessness, our egos to do things just because we can?
We enter this wilderness because we know, that like Jesus, we will emerge on the other side empowered to live lives that bring us closer to God and model God’s love, compassion, and justice to all we meet. For Jesus needed the wilderness before he could begin his public ministry.
But in order to live with this kind of freedom, to love ourselves and our neighbors, as Jesus teaches us to do, we have to be willing to let ourselves be thirsty. And hungry. And tempted. And self-critical. We have to be willing to repent.
The word repent, as we talked about in Advent, comes from the Greek word that means “to turn around”. Turn around. So when we take time, during Lent, to truly repent, we aren’t simply confessing our wrongdoings and feeling like terrible and guilty people. Not at all.
When we repent, we examine what we need to change in our lives so that we can turn around. Turn around from the things that are hurting us, hurting others, and keeping us from God. And when we take the time to do this work, we will turn our lives towards self-care and love, love for others, and a deep intimacy with God.
Our theme for Lent this year, at Holy Covenant, is “Search me, Know Me: Practicing Intimacy with God”. Because when we let God truly search us and know us, when we bare our souls, our minds, bodies and souls before God, with sheer honesty—no pretenses or excuses—we will achieve intimacy with God, for we will stop hiding. This journey will look different for each of us—for some of us it means giving things up, things that tempt us and thus distract us from God; for some of us it means taking things on, practices that carve out time so we can be intentional about our primary and most important relationship.
Why didn’t Jesus give into temptation? I mean, how bad would it have been if he allowed himself to eat some bread. To fly for a bit. Would it have hurt anybody?
Jesus didn’t give in, because he knew that if he gave in to temptation, he wasn’t simply eating a roll, he was abandoning his relationship with God.
For Jesus knew that his strength, the only true strength, comes from God. And giving in to temptation meant admitting otherwise, surrendering to other powers. He knew that fasting would help him realize his reliance on God in the places he felt empty, and choosing to eat would distract him; He knew that being powerful over all the nations would feed his ego to be in charge, but wouldn’t bring about the message of love and mutuality and justice that he came to bring about through God. He would be succumbing to the world’s power instead of God’s, which looks very different. He knew that flying would be a way to show off, instead of using his gifts to better the world.
So during Lent, our call, like the call of Jesus, is to recognize what in our lives tempts us to abandon God, to succumb to other powers. God never abandons us, no matter what we do…but we abandon God by letting all the temptations and quick fixes in the world fill us up, instead of relying on what we really need, which is the love and care of God, God who is the beginning and the end, the source of all creation, and the living breathing word for us today.
God who came to earth as Jesus and was tempted by the very same earthly temptations we face. Temptations that we face in the form of quick fixes and temporary pleasure. God who knows that succumbing to these temptations will never lead us out of the wilderness. But if we let ourselves be comfortable with being uncomfortable, if we let ourselves take time to really rely on God instead of anything or anybody else, what will happen?
What will happen if we refuse to turn bread to stones just because we can? What happens when we allow ourselves long stretches of time to be silent? To refuse to fill up our own emotions and thoughts with the internet and 400 TV channels? When we allow ourselves to really feel lonely instead of hopping on Facebook or calling someone to spend the night with us? What happens when we examine our emptiness instead of ignoring it? To be honest about our addictions instead of continually hiding them?
What happens is that we will find God. It won’t be easy, and it won’t always feel good. And it won’t happen immediately…it’s why Lent is 40 days, not 40 minutes. And it’s why we’re on this Christian journey for a lifetime.
And it’s why we practice it as a community…we share with one another, we read blog posts and write our own; we pray for and with each other; we fill ourselves up on worship; we sit in silence together; and we let God’s love filter to us through other people. We allow ourselves to be filled up on the bread of life, when we come to this table each week, bread that satisfies our need for intimacy and wholeness more than any quick fix ever can.
And the good news is, when we choose to enter this wilderness, the Spirit, who is with us the whole time, will lead us out. So that the next time we face a wilderness, not of our own choosing, we will have the tools to help us crawl out of there closer to God. And we can be confident that the spirit is with us the whole time, and rely on that power, not on our own. For when we emerge, we will be stronger, closer to God, and free. Free to live lives of obedience to God’s ways, free from distractions that tempt us to fill up on what will not actually satiate our hunger. And at the end of this journey, this 40 days, we will be free to throw off the world’s temptations.
For as we journey towards Easter, as we follow Jesus towards the cross and then resurrection, we too must first die. Die to temptations. Die to old habits of heart and mind and body that keep us away from God. But when we have the courage to face these deaths, empowered by the gift and guidance of the Spirit, imagine…imagine the resurrection we will experience on Easter. For no quick fix or temptation on earth can bring life out of death. Resurrection comes from God. And friends, it is coming. New life, for all of us, is waiting for us on the other side.
Thanks be to God.
