This is a special musical presentation of Jesus Walked this Lonesome Valley/ Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen by the Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos Michigan Chancel Choir.
In today’s gospel reading, we get yet another example of the reversal of expectations in God’s kingdom. Today, Jesus speaks to us about getting lost and, of all the parables Jesus preached, the story of the Prodigal Son is perhaps the most profound. Today’s story tells of a father who had two sons. In this parable, the younger son asks for his share of his father's estate. He comes to his father and says, "Father, divide the inheritance between me and my brother and give it to me now." In effect, he is saying, "Dear Dad, drop dead now, legally speaking.” As a parent, when I look at what the youngest son is demanding, I can imagine there is something within his father that dies when hearing this. Anyway, the youngest son gets the money, and the older brother gets the farm and the family business. The younger brother goes off exploring the world and ends up spending all his inheritance on wild, thrill-seeking living. He ultimately ends up in want, working a job where he is slopping hogs for a farmer. Now it is important to remember that pigs were an abomination to the Jews and people who cared for swine were cursed. So, in this story, we are given a picture of a young man who is hungry, destitute, and cursed as he is sitting in the filth of a pigsty while envying the very slop he gives the pigs. All his resources have been depleted and he reaches the point where he must face his mistakes and failures. It is in that place that he has a revelation. For this wayward son, that filthy pigsty, that ditch of life, becomes a place of revelation!
When he finally comes to his senses he says, "This is crazy. How many hired servants does my father have who all have bread enough to spare and I'm perishing here with hunger? I know what I'm going to do." So, he develops yet one more scheme for his life. He decides he will go to his father and say, “Father, I've sinned against heaven and before you. And I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me one of your hired servants." He knows he has been as dead in the eyes of his father, and he doubts he can ever again go back and live as a son. Therefore, he tells himself, "I will now go back and work to earn my father's favor again. I will be a good servant and do whatever is possible."
What happens next is that, from a distance, the father sees the son returning. Luke writes that while the younger son "was still a long way off, his father caught sight of him and was filled with compassion. He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him." Did you notice the father never says a single word to the younger son? The father’s actions tell the whole story by his physical welcome and embrace. His actions alone say, "I have found my son." And did you notice that the son never even gets a word out of his mouth until after his father’s embrace. What a testimony to the Father’s love. The son’s confession is not a pre-condition of forgiveness. His confession comes after he discovers he has already been forgiven. Confession is not something we do to get forgiveness. The truth is we have already been forgiven. The act of confession is something we do to celebrate the forgiveness we have already received. You see, there is nothing we can do to earn forgiveness. When we know how much we have been forgiven, we want to turn back to God. This is truly a reversal of our assumptions and our expectations.
Well, what happens next is also astounding. The father, saying not a word to the son, turns to the servants and says, "Bring the best robe, bring a ring for his finger and shoes for his feet, kill the fatted calf and let us eat and be merry for this, my son, was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found." This son, the seemingly good for nothing son, is home. He has been raised from the dead by his father's embrace. He has done nothing to earn it, and all that matters is that the father has called for a party to celebrate the finding of the lost.
Yes, it is the father's will to have a party! Everything is fine and the celebration is in full swing. However, now the older brother re-enters the story. He comes up, hears the music and the dancing, sees the wait staff serving platters of food and fine wine, and asks one of the servants, "What is this all about? I didn't plan a party." The servant says, "No, no, your brother has come home, and your father has killed the fatted calf because your brother is back, safe and sound." Then, oh my, this older brother is so like us. He is focused on achievement, merit, and reward, and he gets angry and refuses to go into the house. He will not join the party. Instead, he gets out his score card. He says to his father, "Look, all these years I served you. I never broke one of your commandments and you never even gave me a goat that I might have a party with my friends. But when this, your son” - notice he doesn't say, this my brother - he says, “when this, your son, cuts off his relationship, this your son who has wasted his inheritance with riotous living, wasted all you gave him with prostitutes, when this son comes home, you kill the fatted calf and throw a party!" The father then responds, saying, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.”
This is a stunning story of reversal regarding our expectations of what God is like. You see, God is always with the lost. There is no point at which God will ever stop following and pursuing us. God will always seek the lost. The reversal theme in Luke’s gospel is all about a God who lavishly showers us with forgiveness and grace and will never give up on anyone. And this God will always shatter our expectations because Jesus turns a spirituality of climbing, achieving, and perfection – as with the older son – upside down. The one who has done wrong and is humbled about it is the one who is forgiven, transformed, lifted up, and rewarded. Those who are proud of how they have done everything right, but also feel superior to others or feel they are now entitled, are not open to God’s blessing. When commenting on this story, Richard Rohr writes:
This is Jesus’ Great Reversal theme. He turns religion itself on its head. We thought we came to God by doing it right, and lo and behold, surprise of surprises, we come to God by doing it wrong—and growing because of it! The only things strong enough to break open our heart are things like pain, mistakes, unjust suffering, tragedy, failure, and the general absurdity of life. I wish it were not so, but it clearly is. Fortunately, life will lead us to the edge of our own resources through such events. We must be led to an experience or situation that we cannot fix or control or understand. That’s where faith begins. Up to that moment it has just been religion!
God is always there with arms outstretched in welcome, ready to receive us with forgiveness, grace, love, and celebration. Come home to love. This is the place where the deepest joy in life is found!
“Hey there, all who are thirsty, come to the waters! Are you penniless? Come anyway – buy and eat! Come, buy your drinks, buy wine and milk. Buy without money – everything’s free!” In our first reading today, the prophet Isaiah speaks these words to the people of Israel as they experience chasmic dislocation, sorrow, desolation, grief, emptiness, and enormous loss, as they ask the often-unanswerable question, “Why?” The people are in exile, in Babylon. In 587 BCE, Jerusalem had been burned and the temple destroyed. The king was exiled, the leading citizens were deported, and the life they had known all had come to an end. It is into this context that Isaiah speaks words of consolation and hope saying, “Hey there, all who are thirsty, come to the waters!’ Imagine hearing these words, “come, buy and eat, even though you have no money, it is free.” The prophet addresses the void, the emptiness, the nothingness compared to what once was. He addresses the dislocation and the sorrow in the lives of the people. As he does this, he uses the metaphor of food to remind them of the covenant that God had established and renewed. Isaiah likens God’s faithful, everlasting covenant to food freely given, as he says, “Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good…. come to me, listen, so that you may live.” Isaiah is proclaiming a promise of hope to those in exile, a promise the God of Israel made to the descendants of David, a promise that applies to all nations and all people. God, whose mercy is beyond understanding, welcomes everyone who turns around and turns back to God, everyone who comes to enjoy the feast of forgiveness, grace, tenacious mercy, and love.
As I hear these words, I must say they touch the deepest places of my being when I think about the people of Ukraine. I realize this very God is right now faithfully present to the people in Ukraine, even though they may not feel it. They are experiencing chasmic dislocation, sorrow, desolation, grief, and enormous loss. The cry from the depth of their hearts is, “Why? Why, Lord, why?” The only thing that gives me hope right now is knowing that this gracious God in whom we trust is present to them as they live with such horror and grief. This gracious God is present to those seeking refuge, and present to the people welcoming those who seek refuge. This God of love is present to all of us, holding us in love, even as millions of people are experiencing dislocation, grief, and emptiness. And this God of love is calling us to be God’s hands and feet as we work to do whatever we can to address the senseless violence and tragedy and try to somehow make a difference in people’s lives.
In today’s gospel reading, Jesus is out preaching and teaching on his way to Jerusalem when some from the crowd ask him to comment on what to us is an obscure historical reference but what at the time must have been the latest news of violence and tragedy. It seems Pilate recently had a group of Galileans killed as they were making sacrifices at the temple in Jerusalem. As far as we’re told, these were just some pilgrims who had come from lowly Galilee to the Holy City to make their sacrifices. Now, we are not told why Pilate had these pilgrims killed. However, that may be because with Rome, “reasons” for violence and intimidation weren’t always necessary.
We also do not know just why they came and told Jesus about this tragedy. It could simply have been because that’s just what we do when tragedies happen or when violence strikes. We talk about it and ask, “Why?”
Why are the Russians attacking civilians in Ukraine?
Why are they bombing hospitals, schools, and children?
And the questions behind these questions are always bigger and more universal:
Why do bad things happen?
Why does violence and evil always seem to win?
No doubt these were the questions behind the questions the people asked of Jesus regarding this event – unanswered questions we know very well and ask this very day. But from the way Jesus responds, we can guess there might have been more going on here as he was asked this question. Jesus asks them, “Do you think these Galileans got what they deserved?” You see, Galilee was a rural region to the North of Jerusalem, viewed in those days as backwards and bumpkin by the people from the big city. Not only that, but the Galileans also had a reputation for being wild and rebellious, always getting in trouble with Rome, making life more difficult for everyone. To put it plainly, the Galileans were embarrassing and thought of as something like second-class Jews. So, Jesus addresses that skewed perspective and asks, “Do you think these Galileans got what was coming to them?” And he then asks them about another tragedy now lost to history, one that seems to have happened in their own backyard. He asks, “What about the 18 who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell in Jerusalem – do you think they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? Did they get what they deserved?”
It’s not just the age-old question of why tragedy happens that Jesus is addressing here, but the equally old impulse to wonder if somehow, someway, people get what they deserve, be it good or bad. Jesus addresses the flawed idea that suffering – be it our own or the suffering of others – must be a result of some mistake on the part of the victim, some infraction, some transgression, and God is simply settling the score.
We know this isn’t true. The truth is our bad decisions often come with consequences. However, we also know that not all suffering can be explained through cause and effect. A lifelong smoker who receives a lung cancer diagnosis is one thing, but what of all the kids in the cancer wards of children’s hospitals? Bad things just sometimes happen! God does not create and impose suffering upon the people God so dearly loves. God does NOT cause suffering!
Anyway, Jesus has more to say about the suffering of the innocent in other places, but here he drills in on the bigger issue, the deeper truth as he sees it. He simply tells them, “Repent. Turn around. Turn back to God.” In essence, it is as though he says, “Don’t you know that life is precious, that life is a gift? So, use it well!” And then, to make his point, he tells them this story about a fig tree.
Jesus tells of a fig tree that hasn’t born fruit for three years, and the owner of the vineyard would like to do what would have been the reasonable thing to do, which is to cut it down and make room for another tree that will bear fruit. But the gardener tells the owner, “Let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put more manure on it. If it bears fruit then, great, but if not, we will cut it down.”
What do we make of this strange, unusual parable? In the gospel of Luke, Jesus tells this story as he is about to face his own death. And, while this is a parable about judgement, it is first and foremost a story about forgiveness and grace. When commenting on this parable, theologian, Robert Farrar Capon, compares Jesus to the Gardener and he writes:
This entire world lives, as the fig tree lives, under the rubric of forgiveness. The world, of course, thinks and believes otherwise. In its blind wisdom, it thinks it lives by merit and reward….But by the foolishness of God, that is not the way it works. By the folly of the cross, Jesus becomes sin for us, and he goes outside the camp for us, and he is relegated to the dump for us, and he becomes garbage and compost and manure for us. And then he comes to us. The Gardener who on the cross said, “Father, forgive them,” comes to us with his own body dug deep by nails and spears, and his own being made dung by his death, and he sends our roots resurrection. He does not come to see if we are good: he comes to disturb the caked conventions by which we pretend to be good. He does not come to see if we are sorry: he knows our repentance isn’t worth the hot air we put into it. He doe not come to count anything….He comes only to forgive. For free. For nothing…We are saved by grace. We do nothing and we deserve nothing; it is all, absolutely and without qualification, one huge, hilarious gift.
So, come! Come even now as we presently face the challenging questions of WHY, and as our hearts bleed. Come, be fed the food that truly matters, the food that truly sustains us, the food that is all about forgiveness and grace. It is free, and it is all gift!
As I have been watching what is happening in Ukraine, my heart feels ripped apart. Watching such massive suffering, misery and grief ruthlessly and needlessly imposed upon the people of that country, is heart wrenching. The Ukrainian people are so vulnerable as Russian forces invade and destroy their lives. However, in that vulnerability, they are showing exemplary courage. Their example reminds me of the words of social scientist, and research professor, Brene Brown, when she writes, “Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren’t always comfortable, but they’re never weakness.” What the Ukrainians are experiencing is horrific and, as they vulnerably defend their nation while professing the truth of their identity and the fact that they want to be a democracy, they are showing remarkable courage and strength.
Vulnerability, truth, and courage are characteristics we find in our readings for today. In fact, we discover these are facets of God’s very being. Today, we are given deeper insight into a God who so deeply loves this world that God intentionally makes God’s very self vulnerable.
In our first reading, Abram is afraid that he will die without an heir. God has promised him a multitude of descendants as well as ownership of an extensive amount of land. However, Abram is getting old, and he has not yet received these things. It is as though he has reached an impasse. No child has been born from his marriage to Sarah, and he has not received the land that was promised. So, God establishes a covenant with Abram by using an ancient covenantal rite or ritual that seems very bizarre to us. God instructs Abram to gather these animals, kill them and cut them in half. The severed animals represented the penalty if one party broke the covenant. The people who walked between the torn bodies of the animals assumed the penalty of the covenant saying, "If I do not keep the covenant, may I end up as these animals are now.” As we read about this event and look at what happens, the smoking fire pot and flaming torch represent God. And, since the smoking fire pot and flaming torch are the only ones to pass between the animal pieces, God alone assumed the penalty for breaking the covenant. God alone walked between the torn animal bodies. God made God’s very self so vulnerable that God put God’s own reputation on the line. If God could not deliver on these promises, God was not worthy of Abram's trust. This ceremony was an iron-clad guarantee for Abram; he would receive descendants and land!
When we read about the history of the people of Israel, we know that God who loves this world so deeply and made God’s self so vulnerable in this covenantal promise kept that promise. And, we are descendants of that same promise.
In our gospel reading from Luke, we see Jesus as a vulnerable, prophetic leader who shows us that true leadership means showing vulnerability. Today, Jesus shows truth and courage as he allows himself to be vulnerable, and he is anything but weak.
In today’s reading, we find some of the Pharisees coming to Jesus to warn him about King Herod. They tell Jesus, "You better get out of here. Run for your life! Herod’s on the hunt. He wants to kill you.” Upon hearing this, Jesus is not at all phased. He tells the Pharisees, “Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. Yet, today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.’”
Now, it is important to note that Herod was not a nice man or a benevolent king. In fact, most historians depict Herod as a paranoid, ruthless madman, maybe not unlike Vladimir Putin. He brutally wielded his political power. He had executed one of his ten wives, two of his sons, numerous others, and he had John the Baptist beheaded on a dare. Herod was a hard-nosed, unjust, ruthless, callous leader. When Jesus enters the scene, Jesus provokes the status quo by addressing the injustice that was present in the culture and social constructs of the day. Like the prophets before him, those poets of social justice, Jesus speaks out for all who have no voice. So, after hearing this warning from the Pharisees, Jesus then intentionally proceeds to Jerusalem, that seat of political power, and speaks out for the powerless. He heals the sick, attempts to protect the weak, he feeds the poor, frees people from bondage, and welcomes all. By doing this, he riles those who hold political power, including Herod, and it is an understatement to say the powerful were antagonistic toward Jesus.
Jesus knows the stakes are very high, he knows he will die, but he continues to live into God’s call and, by doing this, allows himself to become vulnerable. And, then he astonishingly and remarkably laments the very ones who will reject him and are not willing to be gathered to him. He sees the role of God as one of a vulnerable mother hen, one who wishes to gather her brood under her protective wings, safe from the ravages of the foxes of life.
Now, I have received some secondhand knowledge about foxes and hens. If you are at all familiar with what happens when a fox gets into a hen house, you know that most of the time the mother hen herds her chicks under her wings for protection and bares her breast so that the fox must kill her first before it can get to her chicks. This is the only defense she has. After the attack, there will be a flutter of feathers with motherless chicks running around but at least they are alive, though their mother may be dead. When this happens, the chicks are given the chance to live. This is the image Jesus chooses to identify with, that of a tender, vulnerable mother hen attempting to protect her brood against a vicious and well-armed predator. Such vulnerability to proclaim and live the truth of God’s love for us takes enormous courage, as Brene Brown suggests. This is what Jesus lived.
The season of Lent is a time of repentance, a time to turn around and turn back to the vulnerable God who loves us. It is a time to consider what it means to open ourselves to this vulnerable God who loves us unconditionally. And, the more we encounter this vulnerable God, the more we understand the strength of our own vulnerability. Vulnerability is not easy because we like to control.
When speaking about vulnerability, Richard Rohr writes:
We like to control. God, it seems, loves vulnerability… What we call “vulnerability” might just be the key to ongoing growth. In my experience, healthily vulnerable people use every occasion to expand, change, and grow… Yet it is a risky position to live undefended in a kind of constant openness to the other – because it means others could sometimes actually wound us. Indeed, [the word ‘vulnerable’] comes from the Latin word “to wound.” But only if we take this risk, do we also allow the opposite possibility: the “other” [whom we encounter] might also gift us, free us, and even love us.
Our Lenten wilderness experience is a time to let go of our need to control, and to be reminded of who we are and whose we are. Lent is a time to become more vulnerable, to become more genuine and open-hearted; and vulnerable to the pain and suffering of those in our world. Lent is a time to be reminded that we are the chicks who are taken under the wing of a vulnerable God, the God who became vulnerable for the sake of this entire world. As Paul writes in Philippians, our God is not the belly of desire. No, our God is the loving, vulnerable mother hen who lays down God’s very life for us. To be vulnerable is a very courageous thing! After all, have we not come to know God best through the manger and the cross?
This is a special musical performance of My Jesus Walked by Tammy Heilman and Deb Borton at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan.
In his book, Everything Belongs, Richard Rohr writes:
We seldom go freely into the belly of the beast. … As a culture, we have to be taught the language of descent. That is the language of religion. It teaches us to enter willingly, trustingly into the dark period of life. These dark periods are good teachers. Religious energy is in the dark questions, seldom in the answers. Answers are the way out, but … when we look at the questions, we look for the opening to transformation.
It feels to me that we are truly in the “dark period of life.” In many ways, these past two years have been like living in the “belly of the beast.” And now, as we watch a needless, evil, ruthless, devastating war in Ukraine, it feels as though the belly of the beast just seems to grow wider and deeper. We are living in one of those dark times, a dark period we would not have freely entered. But, as Rohr says, dark times are good teachers. And, as we come to Ash Wednesday, this first day of Lent, just maybe our Lenten journey is part of the opening to transformation.
Today, we again begin that forty-day journey to the cross, a journey that will ultimately take us through the cross, and a journey that will finally reach the hope, joy, and surprise of Easter. As we embark on this journey, we begin by remembering.
We remember that we are dust and to dust we shall return. We remember the Jesus story. We remember this journey we are taking begins with the God of the universe putting on human flesh and entering the world through blood and water, just as each one of us does. And we remember this story ends as all human stories must: with death.
This Lenten story, however, which ends as all human stories must, is fundamentally different because the hero of this story, the One who could have escaped humanity’s fate, this Jesus whom we follow, intentionally lays down his life and chooses death. He goes freely into the “belly of the beast.” Jesus intentionally submits himself to full humanity. And, by doing this, death, humanity, indeed Christ’s very self, are all transformed. However, it is a transformation that comes by going through, and not around, the grave.
Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return. As we follow in the footsteps of Christ, we follow a journey that is about descent and not ascent. It is about turning around and turning back to God, it is about surrender, it is about letting go, it is about remembering that we are dust, it is about becoming nothing. As Richard Rohr says, “When we are nothing, we are then in a fine position to receive everything from God. It is about growing by subtraction much more than by addition.”
Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return. As we think about our lives and reflect upon the past two years, as we look at the horror of what is now happening in Ukraine, we remember and see the immense, unnecessary suffering and death of so many, whether by Covid-19 or by unjustifiable war. We cannot but be reminded of our own mortality, reminded of the fragile nature of life, and reminded that we truly are dust. All that we have worked for and all that we have done will someday be as nothing, it will someday be as dust. And the good news of this Ash Wednesday is this: God has gone there with us. God intentionally entered this world as Emmanuel, God with us; and, in the person of Jesus, entered the “belly of the beast.” God’s answer to the suffering in this world was to put on flesh and blood and hold the suffering itself. God’s answer was to put on human feet, walk into the suffering, and walk through it. And, by walking through it, allow it to shape, change, and transform life itself. For those of us who follow Jesus, we are called to do the same. Richard Rohr suggests, this is the heart of what it means to be a disciple of Christ. He writes, “So much is happening on earth that cannot be fixed or explained, but it can be felt and suffered. I think a Christian is one who, along with Jesus, agrees to feel, to suffer the pain of the world.” As I think about Rohr’s words, I believe we are living in a time when we are called to do just that – feel and suffer the pain of the world, as difficult as that may be. And, this is a holy form of suffering.
As we begin this journey to the cross, through the cross, and then finally on to Easter, the Paschal mystery is the mystery of transformation in and through the ashes. If Lent is the somber reminder of our human condition, then Easter declares that there is hope, but that hope lies not in escaping our humanity but in journeying through it. As we live in the darkness of this moment, this “belly of the beast,” easy and trite answers to the questions we ask regarding suffering and pain may seem to provide a way out of the dark, but they are not the way into transformation. Transformation requires that we walk into, that we walk through. Far too often, when we experience dark times, we try to live in denial. Or we try to change, master, or manipulate events and situations so that we can avoid changing ourselves, avoid being changed. Rohr suggests, “We must learn to stay with the pain of life, without answers, without conclusions, and some days even without meaning. That is the path, the perilous dark path of true prayer.” Quite frankly, when we look at tonight’s gospel reading, that is the way of life and path of prayer Jesus suggests we take. As a community of Faith, we have been living that over the past two years and we continue to live that path of prayer in the present time. We have been carrying and continue to carry the suffering of others. You see, two primary paths of transformation are pain and suffering. And, when I say that I must remind you that it is NOT that God desires any of us to suffer. Suffering is simply an aspect of being human. Rachel Held Evans once said, “Healing comes when we enter into one another’s pain, anoint it as holy, and stick around no matter the outcome.”
As we continue life together as a community of Faith, we continue to anoint each other’s pain as holy. You see, our neighbor’s suffering is holy, the horrific suffering of our friends in Ukraine is holy, and our suffering is holy. And it is NOT holy because God delights in suffering, NO. It is holy because God came and joined us within it. The experience of the suffering of so many is holy in the same way the bread and wine we share tonight is holy. It is holy because, through incarnation, Christ comes and meets us there.
Today, we remember that we are dust and to dust we shall return. We remember that we are mortal. We remember that we are human, and we remember that our lives are fragile. However, we also remember that being human is a holy thing. Our very mortality is a holy thing. We have been made holy by the One who came, the One who died, and the One who rose again. So, as we begin this Lenten journey, we choose to willingly travel that road to the cross, because it is the road that leads through the cross to transformation, to resurrection, and being made new. It is truly the way of hope. God is present, in our midst, and God is blessing this holy journey.
There is an increasing focus in our culture on what some call mindfulness. Mindfulness is the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are, aware of what we are doing, and not be overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us. It really is a form of self-discipline. I think mindfulness requires an element of intentionality in which one is directly focused on some object or situation. As we begin this Lenten season, we are invited into a forty-day journey of mindfulness, to be mindful of where Jesus is leading us, and to embrace an intentional way of living and being in this world.
If given a choice, most of us are not going to be intentional about choosing a path in life that is filled with difficulty. However, I must say that spiritual depth and growth happen as we mindfully respond to the trials, troubles, temptations, testing, and fear that arise in life. For many of us, it is in those times of challenge that we truly learn dependence on God. In such times we find that God graciously provides for all our needs in all of life’s seasons.
As we begin this forty-day Lenten journey and meet up with Jesus this morning, we find him in the wilderness. We find he has been “led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.” Note that the Spirit does not just drop Jesus off in the wilderness to fend for himself. He was led by the Spirit. The Spirit continues to abide with him and enable him to grow stronger through this season.
Jesus is in the wilderness, experiencing what will be a challenging forty days in a place that would seem barren and empty. And, in that place, the devil appears and tempts Jesus. Now, I can imagine Jesus is in a state, both mentally and physically, of utter desperation. He hasn’t eaten for weeks. He is likely hallucinating. He is probably thirsty and tired, and feeling empty and powerless. He might even feel as though he is about to die; vulnerable and alone, gaunt, and weak. But Jesus responds to these temptations with a sense of intentional mindfulness, rooted in the foundation of scripture and faith. First, Jesus is tempted with food, and Jesus says, “one does not live by bread alone.” Then, Jesus is tempted with power over all the kingdoms of the world. And Jesus answers, essentially saying, “I worship God, not power.” And finally, the devil tempts him to prove who he is by throwing himself down, and Jesus refuses by saying that we should not be in the business of trying to test God, or make God prove anything to us. Jesus passes every test by interpreting scripture, not by the Letter of the Law, but by the Law of Love.
Now, you and I are not Jesus. As we enter the wilderness experiences of our lives, I think we are far more susceptible to temptation. We are very likely to be tempted by evil when we are weak and tired and hungry and alone and uncertain and, maybe most of all, fearful. You see, fear, uncertainty and facing the unfamiliar create so much anxiety within us. Right now, the world is ridden with fear and anxiety and stress, and it does feel like a wilderness experience. Studies show that when people are under stressful conditions – like the anxiety of losing wealth or status, like illness, like worry over the decline of the middle class, like poverty, like inflation, like facing the horrors of war – people feel powerless, and they are less likely to love their neighbors and care for others. When you and I are in the wilderness of perceived powerlessness, we adopt tendencies to scapegoat, to blame, to become more tribalistic. So, it should come as no surprise that we are most apt to be tempted by power when we are feeling powerless. When there are circumstances and situations in our culture that we do not like, we are tempted to control those facets of culture by trying to eradicate them, by doing things like banning books and banning the honest teaching of our own history as a nation. We are tempted to believe that our comfort level and safety is more secure if we move to a new place where there is little racial, ethnic, or economic diversity, where others not only look just like us but also think just like us. We are tempted to believe that we can control an insecure economy by hoarding our own wealth, and by excluding and demonizing various groups of people like immigrants, welfare recipients, or any considered “other.”
The wilderness can appear to be a place of scarcity and, quite frankly, we are more likely to be tempted by evil when we see the world in terms of scarcity rather than abundance. We are most likely to be tempted when we see people in the world as objects to be feared and despised rather than as God’s own beloved. And so, we exploit the worst stereotypes we can think of about each other, so that we can no longer see one another; so that we can no longer see God in one another. And yet, Jesus reminds us: “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only God.’” Which, as we know, simply means this: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind and with all your soul, and love your neighbor as you love yourself.
Just maybe, we need to look at the wilderness in a different way, look at it from a different perspective. Just maybe these trying times, these wilderness experiences in life, provide for us times when we can truly be mindful, times when we can become more dependent upon God, times when we can really learn and become transformed. Just maybe, these experiences provide a time in life when we can adopt a posture of mindfulness, a time when we can focus more intentionally on God’s love to us and God’s love for this entire world. And, just maybe the wilderness experiences of our lives teach us to become more vulnerable and more human. Rachel Held Evans, in her book Wholehearted Faith, says something about this and the lessons we might learn in the wilderness. She writes:
Maybe one of the lessons is that the wilderness is a place where we can’t rely on the familiar, which can seem like a hardship but might also be an invitation – an invitation into the reality of our existence, an invitation into the truth of our vulnerability. After the Israelites had survived their long journey through the wilderness, they were reminded that it was the place “where you saw how the Lord your God carried you,” Deuteronomy says, “just as one carries a child.”
Just maybe, as we presently live through a wilderness experience, a time when war is creating enormous fear and anxiety around the world, just maybe we can take this time to become more mindful of how deeply God loves us and how deeply God loves this world. And, just maybe, we can be reminded that we are beloved children of God and reminded of the God who lovingly carries us through this experience. And, just maybe, we can become more mindful of how we, too, are continually called to carry, to carry and bear God’s redeeming, healing love in this broken, hurting world.
As we begin this season of Lent, we begin with Jesus in the wilderness of life. Jesus’ intentionality and his receptivity to God’s grace show us the way to turn toward God, rather than away from God during our trials and temptations and the pain of life. And, during this forty-day Lenten pilgrimage, if we choose to intentionally focus on God’s love to us, to be mindful of God’s presence to us, and receptive to the overwhelming grace of God, we will encounter a faithful God who not only carries us, but also leads us through the wilderness to new life.