That We All May Be One

I’ve often wondered how the disciples must have felt on the Sunday we are commemorating today! They must have been pretty confused.  First, Jesus had called them to leave everything and follow him on his very difficult three-year journey and ministry. Their hopes had been so high in those days!

But then, it had all come crashing down! He’d been arrested, beaten up, convicted of crimes he never committed, and executed like a common criminal!  They were devastated, So, they huddled together for safety and for support, and then some women of their company brought the wonderful news that he was not dead after all…or rather, he was not dead anymore!

At first, of course, the disciples didn’t believe it, but then they too began to experience his risen Presence in a variety of ways and circumstances and they were overjoyed that it wasn’t over after all! Yet, after only forty days, Jesus’ presence was withdrawn from them again. Something about having to return to the Father…described by our Collect today as “being exalted with great triumph to God’s kingdom in heaven.”

But Jesus’ Ascension must not have seemed like “triumph” to them at first. It must have seemed like another defeat…another desertion!  Where was Jesus now? They remembered him saying something about “going where they could not go.” They remembered something about being told that it was to their “advantage” for him to go way; for if he did not, the “Counselor…(their Advocate) would not come to them. (John 17:7)

Well, they had no clue what that meant!  All they knew was that Jesus was gone again. So, they did what they had done before – they made their way back to Jerusalem, worshipped with their fellow Jews in the Temple, and met together once again for safety and for support…and to try and figure out what to do next!

Undoubtedly, they would have pored back over his teaching to try and figure out if there were hints about what to expect. Perhaps they would have focused particularly on things Jesus said to them on that last night…at the Supper. They would have especially remembered what he prayed for…what he prayed for them!

“I ask not only on behalf of these,” Jesus had prayed, “but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they all may be one.”  So clearly he wanted them to remain together – to be one Body, one community, not to fragment and splinter apart.

“As you, Father are in me and I am in you, “he continued, “may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” So Jesus obviously wanted them to remain connected to him and to his God so that people would believe that Jesus came from God and that he was speaking for God.

And finally, they remembered him praying for something they thought very odd, “Righteous Father, “ he said, “I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” (John 17:26)

Somehow Jesus was saying that he wanted them to be filled not only with God’s love, but that they would actually be filled with him!  With his very life!  Well, on the one hand, we don’t want to get too far ahead of the story here! Next week is when we will celebrate just how that “indwelling” happened – by the outpouring of God’s Holy Spirit on those same disciples on the Day of Pentecost.

On the other hand, we already know “the rest of the story,” don’t we? We live on this side of Pentecost, and we know that it was the pouring out of God’s mighty Spirit on Pentecost that changed those frightened “disciples” (learners) into confident “apostles” (those who were sent)!

Today (at the 10:30 service) we have the opportunity to continue that process. Two members of our parish, Andrew Petersen and Carly Savareid, will be changed from “disciples” (learners) into “apostles” (ones who are sent). Like the other 20 members of our Wednesday night Catechism class, they have spent the last six months learning something about the Christian faith (and about The Episcopal Church). Today, they are prepared to begin putting that faith into action in new ways.

I don’t know exactly what form that action will take, and maybe they don’t either yet. But Andrew will be baptized and confirmed in one action, making his adult decision to follow Christ. And Carly will renew the promises which were made on her behalf by her parents and godparents when she was just a little one – and she will take those vows on herself today, becoming an “adult Christian” in the eyes of this Church.

I hope both of them, and all of you, will continue to be “disciples” because learning is a lifelong experience, and we will never exhaust all there is to know about God and about God’s will for our lives. But I do hope that they, and all of you, will also take their responsibility as “apostles” seriously from this day forward. To know that they (and we) are “sent out” from this place, Sunday by Sunday, to be God’s people in the world!

In the family, in school, at the workplace, in our neighborhoods: we are to do exactly what Jesus prayed for those first apostles to do – to remain united to him through worship and prayer and study…to remain united to us here by faithful attendance at worship and by engaging in some ministry either here or in the community…and to know that (because of the prayers we will say for them today…and by the laying on of hands) Jesus no longer has to be “out there” somewhere, some distant Presence or Power to be obeyed and followed.

But that they (and we) can always rely on Jesus’ promise in today’s Gospel: that the love of God we see so clearly in Jesus may actually be “in here”, in our hearts. And, more than that, Jesus himself will be in us…by his spirit!  What a gift!

What a God we have!

I think in many ways Jesus gives us one of his scariest commandments in today’s Gospel!  He says, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35).

Well, you say, why should that be so scary? Sounds like a simple command to me – love one another.  Of course we should do that!  Yet, it may not be as simple as it sounds when first we hear it.  For one thing, Jesus does not simply say: “Love one another,” does he? He says, “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”

And just how did Jesus love his disciples? Well, he left his home and family in order to prepare himself to give his entire energy and attention to teaching and forming those disciples into the kind of community which could carry on God’s mission when Jesus’ earthly work was done.

He spent three tough years traveling about Galilee and Judea, living on the generosity of strangers, putting himself in jeopardy time and time again by hanging around with people who were unacceptable to “polite society,” teaching a dangerous message about the kingdom of God and, in the process, alienating both the religious establishment and the political “powers that be” because they were so threatened by that message.

Jesus concluded that public ministry by marching into the teeth of the opposition in the holy city of Jerusalem, fully aware that there was a plot against his life and that such public preaching would likely lead to his arrest, “trial”, and execution. And that those twelve disciples he had so carefully and lovingly nurtured would probably cave in and desert him when the going got rough, leaving him a spectacle of failure in the eyes of most people.

That’s how much Jesus loved his disciples! Enough to give himself totally to them, make their education and formation his highest priority, model the kind of life he expected them to live no matter how dangerous that was, and ultimately forgive them for betraying him and running away after all he had done for them!  And that is the kind of love Jesus commands us to have for one another! That’s the kind of love we are to have for one another right here at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral

But it gets worse than that! For Jesus goes on to say, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another!” In other words, it was not because of their brilliant teaching or miraculous healings that people would know that they were Jesus’ disciples. It was not because of their piety or even their holiness that people would know that they were Jesus’ disciples. It was to be because of how they loved each other that people would know.

I think that must have been in Peter’s mind in today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles as he wrestles with whether God could possibly accept these filthy, unclean Gentles also as disciples of Jesus Christ!  All Peter’s life he had been taught that these people were sinners, that they were an abomination in the eyes of God, and that they were so unclean that he would be putting himself in jeopardy just by eating with them…or even by eating the same kind of food that they ate! Now, he has become convinced that God is saying ‘not to make a distinction between them and us…and that “what God has made clean” he was not to call profane! (Acts 11: 12, 9)

In other words, he was being asked to love people he never thought he could love because it was only by doing so that they, and people around them, would know that he was a disciple of Jesus! He was beginning to learn that, while John the Baptist, had baptized with water, he and these Gentiles were to be baptized with the Holy Spirit – with God’s Spirit…with the Spirit of love!

Well, (at the next service…in a few minutes…) we are going to baptize Nolan Muenstermann with that same Holy Spirit…with God’s Spirit…with the Spirit of love.

And members of his family and members of this parish are going to promise that we will be responsible for seeing that Nolan is brought up in the Christian faith and life… we’re going to promise to pray and to be the kind of witnesses which will help him grow into the full stature of Christ…and that we are going to support him in his life in Christ.

Do you know that that’s going to require of us?  It’s going to require that we make the kind of sacrifices for him and for Trinity Cathedral that Jesus made for his disciples! We’re going to have to be willing to work and pray and give so that Trinity Episcopal Cathedral will be around to nurture Nolan in his Christian faith and life.

We’re going to have to build up this community by loving one another – through thick and thin, whether we agree with one another or not (frankly, whether we even like one another or not!) – with the kind of love Jesus had for his disciples. Because it is only when people see that kind of love that they will know that we are Jesus’ disciples, and will be drawn to join us here!

Because ultimately, it will not be because of our meticulous liturgy (as much as we love it) that people will know we are Jesus’ disciples. It will not be because of our fine music program (as superb as it is!) that people will know we are Jesus’ disciples. It will not be because of occasionally eloquent words from this pulpit (or any other) that people will know we are Jesus’ disciples.

“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, “ Jesus said, “if…you have love for one another!”

What kind of love? Sacrificial, risking, patient, forgiving love – for one another. “Just as I have loved you, “ Jesus said, “you also should love one another.”

Remember that, beloved, if you want this church to grow…and to be around…and to make a difference! Love one another. As he loves you!

Easter 3C Trinity Cathedral.

I don’t think it’s too much of an exaggeration to say that – in today’s readings from Scripture – we are witnessing the calling of two of the greatest figures in the New Testament Church.  Peter and Paul!

Now it’s true that Peter had actually been called to be a disciple of Jesus several years before when his brother Andrew had found him and brought him to meet Jesus.  It was on that occasion that Jesus had nicknamed him “Cephas” which is Aramaic for “Rock” (Petros, or Peter, in the Greek of the New Testament).

But Peter had been anything, but a Rock during much of his time as a follower of Jesus. He had loved him and wanted to serve him, but Peter almost always seemed to be getting it wrong in some way, missing Jesus’ point time and time again. And, of course, finally (and famously) he had denied even knowing Jesus three times on that terrible night and must have wondered if there was any hope for him even when he had become convinced that Jesus had been raised from the dead.

Yet in today’s Gospel, the risen Christ appears to Peter in the midst of his daily work of fishing, blessing him with a great catch and even joining him for breakfast!  But it was only after that incredible meal that Jesus asks him three times “Do you love me?” And Peter is invited to respond – each of those three times – “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” (John 21) It could not have been lost on him that he had to affirm his love three times…the same number of times he had denied even knowing his rabbi and friend because of his own fear.

I’ve often wondered if, when you and I meet Jesus face to face, if part of that moment of judgment will be affirming our love as many times as we have denied him in this life.  I don’t know about you, but if that’s so, I’m going to be standing there a long time. (Pause) But then, I guess we have all eternity!

The conversion of St. Paul – which we heard about in our First Lesson today from the Acts of the Apostles – is not all that different in some ways. Once again we have a notorious sinner – Saul the Pharisee – who was zealously going about his business of threatening and arresting followers of this same Jesus.  When he too is confronted with the Risen Christ – this time experienced in a brilliant light from heaven.  And a voice asking him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” (And when) he asked, “Who are you, Lord?” The reply came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” (Acts 9)

It would take Saul (who also, later, has his name changed to Paul) twenty years to figure out how in the world he could be persecuting Jesus – the man who had already been arrested, executed, and whom some were claiming had been raised from the dead. It would, I believe, only be while dictating his First Letter to the little church in Corinth, two decades after his conversion, that Paul would realize that those whom he was persecuting were actually members – limbs and organs – of Christ’s Body.  And that what he was doing to them….he really was doing to Jesus!

So, with the conversion (or perhaps in Peter’s case the “re-conversion”) of these two men, the stage is set for the greatest missionary movement in the history of the world.

Peter, the conservative leader of the Jerusalem church who initially thought that you had to be a Jew first in order to become a Christian. Paul, the revolutionary, who seemed to believe almost from the beginning that God was doing a new thing in this crucified and resurrected Messiah and opening the door of salvation to all people, to all who put their trust in him.

These two men didn’t even get along very well. They could not have been more different! The “conservative” working man and the “liberal” scholar. The “traditionalist” leader of the original apostles who had actually spent time with Jesus, and the “progressive” missionary and tent-making evangelist who was willing to risk it all for the sake of One he never met “in the flesh” but certainly encountered “in the Spirit!”

Yet somehow God used them both to transform a local “movement” into a worldwide phenomenon. Peter becomes the model for apostolic leadership and a voice for the unity of the Church across time and space. Paul not only planted individual Christian communities all across the Mediterranean world but wrote most of the New Testament in the form of letters and exhortations to those young Christians about how to remain faithful.

Is there a lesson in all that for us today?  In a church and a secular society which are, all too often, rent asunder by partisanship and division, it’s so easy to want to choose sides and identify the “good guys” and the “bad guys.”  To believe that we have all the truth and that “they” (whoever the “they” are!) have none of it. But what if the early Church had done that in the case of Peter and Paul?

What if they had seen these two men bickering as they regularly did – by letter and sometimes even in person – and decided that the Church could do without one or both of them? Would we be any better off without Peter’s remembrance of Jesus’ earthly life and ministry (which may have eventually become enshrined in the four Gospels)? Or, how would it be if the church had decided that only good Jews could become good Christians after all?  How many of us would be sitting in this church if that had been the decision?

No, good Queen Elizabeth the First had it about right when she fashioned a balanced English Christianity which sought to hold together the Petrine Catholics and the Pauline Protestants in her Realm by refusing to “make a window into men’s souls” but to provide space at the Altar for any Christian who could embrace the Gospel, worship with the Book of Common Prayer, and come forward to receive the Sacrament of Christ’s Body and Blood in the Eucharist (even if they didn’t all understand it in exactly the same way!).

It all goes back to Peter and Paul who, I believe could affirm with Queen Elizabeth and, I hope, US the words of this morning’s Collect: “O God, whose blessed Son made himself known to his disciples in the breaking of the bread:  Open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in ALL his redeeming work; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

In 2008, I celebrated Easter in the Cathedral Church of St. George in Jerusalem…with Bishop Suheil Dawani and the Presiding Bishop whom I had accompanied on a visitation there.  We sang a wonderful hymn text set to the tune of “Praise my soul the King of heaven” which I’m going to ask Krista Mays to use sometime during the Easter season.  The verses read like this:

Easter people, raise your voices/ sounds of heaven in earth should ring/ Christ has brought us heaven’s choices/ heavenly music, let it ring/ Alleluia! Alleluia!  Easter people, let us sing.

Fear of death can no more stop us/ from our pressing here below/ For our Lord empowered us to/ triumph over every foe/ Alleluia! Alleluia! On to victory now we go.

Every day to us is Easter/ with its resurrection song/ When in trouble move the faster/ To our God who rights the wrong/ Alleluia! Alleluia! See the power of heavenly throngs!

I thought of those words last week when I read an article in “The Christian Century” magazine by William Willimon, a Methodist bishop who used to be a professor at the Duke Divinity School.  It was entitled “Now can we sing?” and he writes: “On two mission trips to Haiti with undergrads, there was widespread agreement that the most disarming thing about the country was the laughter of the children, along with their raucous singing.”

“How dare they sing when their life expectancy is so horribly short?  Was their laughter an escapist respite from the unmitigated tragedy of their lives… or a smart rebuke to our assumption that their lives were trapped in tragedy?  As darkness fell upon Port-au-Prince after the earth heaved that January night, people danced in the streets and sang hymns.  On CNN, Anderson Cooper was incredulous.” (1)

Yes, I imagine he was…but are we? Are we “incredulous” at Christians singing in the midst of tragedy? I mean we just heard the story of women coming to a tomb and finding the stone rolled away…women who discovered that Jesus was not there, but had risen. They told that Good News to Peter who checked it our for himself and, not long afterwards, was able to preach that:

“We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, not to all the people but to us, who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.  He commanded us to preach to the people…” (Acts 10:39-42

And one of those preachers was Paul the Apostle.  We heard from him today as well: that “since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being: for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ” (I Corinthians 15: 21-22).

The Presiding Bishop wrote in her Easter letter this year that: “The Christian community is meant to be a mutual hope society, with each one offering courage to another whose hope has waned, insisting that even in the darkest of night, new life is being prepared. That work is constant – it will not end until the end of all things. And still the community persists, year in and year out, in time of earthquake and war and flood, in time of joy and new birth and discovery. Together we can shout, “Alleluia, he is risen! Indeed, he is risen, Alleluia!” even when some among us are not quite so confident as others. For indeed, the body of Christ is rising and risen when even a small part of it can rejoice and insist that God is renewing the face of the earth and light has dawned upon us.”

Dear friends: It is that story, that testimony, that proclamation, which somehow makes us understand how Christians could dance in the streets and sing hymns on that January night when the earth heaved in Port-au-Prince.

On one level, of course, it makes no sense at all!  And if Paul’s preaching is all fantasy, it doesn’t make sense. If Peter’s testimony is nothing but a fable, it makes no sense at all.

“But what if the grieving women who came to the tomb on Easter morning are right?  What if Friday isn’t the end of the story?  What if God is rewriting human tragedy into surprising comedy?  What if Jesus told the truth when he declared, toward the opening of his ministry, that he was turning today’s tears into tomorrow’s laughter?”

“… Luke’s Good News ends not with the disciples grim determination to right what’s wrong with the world, but with their turning toward Jerusalem, the scene of the greatest of tragedies, ‘with great joy’ (the text says)”

“This world is full of death.  Open your eyes and you will see the weeping all around.  Human life can be, even for the undeservedly well fixed among us, one long series of funerals…

[We’ve certainly seen that here at Trinity Cathedral since the first of the year! We’ve lost some wonderful members of this parish this year – seven of them already…the same number we buried in all of 2009. But we’ve celebrated the resurrection at each one of those funerals! We’ve celebrated their earthly lives and we’ve celebrated their eternal lives.  And many people have joined us, marveling at our ability to do that.]

“As far as I can tell,” concludes Bishop Willimon in his “Christian Century” article, “there’s only one thing we know that the world doesn’t…we know another story.  In the gloom, on the margins, there are women singing…without earthly justification.  Their only rationale is theological.  They have learned the secret about God and can’t help singing.  The God who could have been sovereign chose rather to love.”

“…Listen, in Port-au-Prince they are singing: Christ the Lord is risen today, Alleluia!” (2)…and Amen!

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(1) and (2) “Now Can We Sing” the Christian Century; March 23, 2010

Lent 5C – Trinity Cathedral.  Very poignant story in today’s Gospel: Jesus is invited to an amazing dinner party in the home of his friends Mary and Martha in the village of Bethany, which is not far from Jerusalem.  It was actually quite dangerous for Jesus to get this close to Jerusalem. There was already a plot against his life, and undoubtedly that would have been one of the topics discussed at the dinner table that evening.

Death and resurrection would have been very much on their minds since another of the guests was Mary and Martha’s brother, Lazarus who (John’s Gospel has just told us) Jesus had raised from the dead!  The two women are fulfilling their expected and predictable roles – Martha bustling around serving the meal; Mary absolutely focused on Jesus and, no doubt, worrying about his fate and the danger he was in by just being there!

Her love for Jesus leads her to go far beyond the servants’ role of washing his feet, but to anoint them with an expensive perfume — a kind which would have been imported all the way from the Himalayan mountains!  Judas takes offense at this extravagant offering, making what is actually a pretty logical argument that this expensive stuff could have been sold and the money given to the poor. Why waste it on someone’s feet?

The Gospel writer, John, interjects himself into the story here, to call Judas’ sincerity into question. Apparently he wasn’t known for his generosity at all, but rather was known to steal from the common fund Jesus and his friends used to live on! In any case, Jesus sees a deeper meaning in Mary’s action (probably because they had been talking about his possible assassination).

He sees the anointing as a kind of symbolic gesture, the kind of “in-acted parable” the prophets used to engage in.  He sees it as a solemn warning. Before too long (Mary seems to be saying by her actions) there will be another anointing of his body. But it will be the anointing reserved for his corpse! The traditional anointing of the body before burial. So, Jesus says, “Leave her alone! You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me!” (John 12:8)

Now I don’t think for a minute that Jesus is minimizing the need to give to the poor. He’s not setting up some competition between money used to make an offering to him, and money given to the poor. I think he was saying, “You always have the poor with you (and you can help them whenever you will), but this is a special time, a unique moment in history…and it’s right for Mary to observe it in this way.”

In fact, I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to say that when you make an offering to Jesus, you ARE making an offering to the poor.  And when you make an offering to the poor, you’re making an offering to Jesus!  After all, didn’t he once say, “Inasmuch as you have done it to one of the least of these…you have done it unto me?”

Actually, this is one of the reasons, I like the “unified offering” system we have in The Episcopal Church. Except for emergencies and very rare occasions we try not to take up special offerings for this cause and that, Sunday by Sunday, like some churches are wont to do. Offerings for domestic mission, offerings for overseas mission, special offerings to repair the church heating system…and on and on! Instead, we ask you to tithe…or estimate some percentage of your income…pledge to offer it here on Sunday mornings, and trust us to be good stewards of what you give.

Because good stewardship is not actually “fund raising.” Good stewardship is not paying the light or heating bills for Trinity Cathedral.  Good stewardship is certainly not supporting things you approve of, and withholding money from things you disapprove of.

Good stewardship is doing what Mary did in today’s Gospel – offering something to Jesus because you love him. Taking care of the Body of Christ…because the Body of Christ cares of you. That’s why we lift up the offering at God’s altar every Sunday with the words “All things come of thee, O Lord, and of thine own have we given thee!” We’re giving it to Jesus!

I’ve been a tither for most of my adult life.  That means ten per cent of my income given away for purposes that align with the heart of God.  A good portion of that tithe comes here. Some of it goes directly to poor and marginalized people.  Some of it goes to certain family responsibilities we have. Of the amount we pledge here, some of it goes for institutional concerns – building and grounds, staff salaries, and the like. Some of it goes for children’s and adult education, music, evangelism, and outreach.

Some of it goes to our diocese – to support youth ministry and small congregations, overseas mission in Swaziland and Brechin, St. Paul’s Indian Mission in Sioux City, prison ministry, and much more. Of that, some goes on to The Episcopal Church to support similar initiatives on a national and international level that we could not possibly do by ourselves.

The problem is, of course, at least in this congregation, not nearly enough is offered to make all this possible or even to fulfill our responsibilities as a parish. And I’m not really sure why that is. Whether it’s because people think we can live on our endowments (which we cannot); whether people think we’re not being good stewards of your gifts; whether many of you just do not think this church is a high enough priority in your life. I don’t know…

I don’t think it’s because you lack any love for Jesus!  I see that acted out in too many different ways each week to believe that!  But somehow, we all need to catch that vision of a “unified offering.” To know that we need to take care of the Body of Christ because the Body of Christ cares for us.  To know that what we offer to Jesus, we also offer to the poor, and what we offer to the poor, we also offer to Jesus.

We need to be as sacrificial in our giving as Mary of Bethany was in today’s Gospel.  We need to see our tithes and offerings as pure nard…anointing the body of Jesus…so that the fragrance of that perfume (that perfect offering) may…fill…this…house!     Amen.

Lent 1C. Trinity Cathedral.

I know I have mentioned from this pulpit several times that I spent part of my sabbatical years ago studying at St. George’s College in Jerusalem and traveling around the Holy Land.  Now I’ll try not to be a bore about this (like people used to be about showing home movies of their vacation!) but I cannot read Gospel passages like the one we had today without reliving some of those experiences. And sharing them with you!

The desert in which Jesus spent some forty days, fasting and in prayer, begins just outside the city of Jerusalem.  In fact, it’s positively startling to drive (or walk) a total of a few miles from Jerusalem’s city center…to crest the top of a little hill…and to find yourself gazing out into some of the bleakest and most dangerous countryside in that part of the world.  This particular desert is not miles and miles of snow-white sand drifts like you sometimes visualize it.

It is bleak, barren, rocky ground…so hot and dry that you must wear a hat at all times, and drink water constantly in order not to dehydrate and suffer heat stroke in a hurry.  Whenever our professor and guide would note one of us yawning, he would shout, “You’re dehydrating, drink some water!”  A person can die in a couple of days in the desert unless you can find shade and drink plenty of water.  My assumption is that Jesus fasted from solid food for forty days (which other people have done), but not from water!

During those days of fasting and prayer, Jesus – as a relatively young man, by our standards, but in those days it may have seemed more like mid-life – Jesus struggles with just what his life and mission were going to look like.  He had inaugurated his public ministry by being baptized by John in the Jordan River, and immediately felt led by the Holy Spirit to make an extended retreat and to get some perspective on his life and to seek fresh energy for what lay ahead.

In doing this, Jesus had to wrestle with several primary temptations to his life and ministry. First, he was tempted to try and meet everyone’s needs by turning miles and miles of rocks and stones and boulders into bread enough to feed the known world! And, as wonderful as that would have been, Jesus came to see that even ending world hunger would not satisfy what we are really hungry for.

Deep down, we’re hungry for God! We’re hungry for God’s word!  We want to hear from our God, and to know that he loves us and cares for us and will, ultimately, make it all well for us!  And so Jesus said, “One does not live by bread alone.” (Matthew’s account makes it even clearer by adding “one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”)

Next, Jesus was tempted to “sell out” for this world’s goods: “…the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world…To you I will give their glory and all this authority…if you…will worship me, it will all be yours.”  But Jesus said, “It is written, Worship the Lord your God and serve only him.”

And finally, Jesus was tempted to do something dramatic, to do something spectacular to prove that he was God’s Anointed One and that God would come through for him by sending angels to protect him just like Psalm 91 had said. But Jesus told him, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” He was not about to “tempt” his heavenly Father just to demonstrate his credentials or to impress his Adversary.

Well, I don’t know what kind of temptations you may be facing in your life. But, if you’re like me, they may not be all that different in substance from what Jesus faced. If you’re a “people pleaser” (one who always tries to make everyone happy, to have no enemies, to avoid confrontation, then you may be tempted to try and meet everyone’s needs, to be available to everybody, all the time. And sometimes that may mean everyone except your own family or closest friends or even taking care of yourself and your own needs. And you may need to learn that you can’t please everyone! You have to say No sometimes!

Or, you may face the temptation to “sell out,” to be “bought” or to compromise your own ideals. That doesn’t just happen in the business world. We’re all tempted to do that. We need to resist that temptation and to stand up for what is right!

Or,  maybe you’re tempted to try and do something spectacular, or even outrageous, to get everyone’s attention, to stand out in the crowd. “They’ll respect me, or like me, if I just take this risk or do this one thing that I know I shouldn’t really do.” Those temptations are common to all of us.

But if we seek to be people of deep faith and people of prayer, we’ll ward off those temptations in much the same way Jesus did.  By being attentive to God’s word…by worshipping God and God alone…and by refusing to put our God to the test.

You may not be able to go on an extended retreat right now like Jesus did in the desert…to sort out your life.  But you are entering more fully today into the holy season of Lent.  Like Jesus’ experience, it is a forty-day period of fasting and prayer.  A time to listen for God’s word in your life…a time for worship and for service…a time to stop testing and challenging God.  I hope you’ve taken on some spiritual disciplines which can help you do some of that.

The Ash Wednesday liturgy told you what some of those disciplines are (and it’s not too late to begin today!).  Self-examination and repentance…prayer, fasting, and self-denial…reading and meditating on Holy Scripture.  I continue to invite you to keep a holy Lent this year by observing at least some of those disciplines.

May our prayer this Lent always be the one we prayed today on this first Sunday of the season:

Almighty God, whose blessed Son was led by the Spirit to be tempted by Satan: Come quickly to help us who are assaulted by many temptations; and, as you know the weaknesses of each of us, let each one find you mighty to save; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.