Sermon for the 1st Sunday in Lent: 14 February 2016

Sermon for the 1^st Sunday in Lent

14 February 2016

Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, Jerusalem

The Rev. Carrie Ballenger Smith

Luke 4:1-13

***

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

On the first day of school when my son, Caleb, was about 8 years old, I walked him into the school building to meet his new class. As we went down the hall to the classroom, I saw the newly-hired principal step out of the front office. I hadn’t yet met her, so I greeted her with “Good morning! Happy first day of school!”

She smiled and stopped for a moment to say good morning to us as well.

“This is my son. He’s in 3rd grade” I said.

“And what is your name, young man?” she asked him.

“You can call me Cody” ………….…said Caleb.

I looked at him, and then at the principal.

“Um, actually his name is Caleb.” I said.

Caleb sighed and rolled his eyes. 

“Cody is a much better name. I was hoping to be a Cody this year.”

***

Who are you?

This is the question posed to Jesus in today’s Gospel reading.

He does ask it in so many words, but three times, the devil tempts Jesus with an opportunity to choose an identity:

Are you a magician who can turn stones into bread and feed yourself?

Are you a master politician, with the skills to lead all the kingdoms of the world?

Are you able to command even God’s angels to do as you wish?

Who are you, Jesus?

Sandro Botticelli, The Temptation of Christ

It’s interesting that this identity crisis occurs just after Jesus was baptized in the Jordan by John. There in the water, Jesus heard a voice from heaven telling him exactly who he was: “You are my Son, the Beloved. With you I am well pleased.”

These words must have been ringing in Jesus’ ears as he fasted for those forty days in the wilderness. The implications must have kept his mind racing. “You are my Son.” Did he hear that right? What can this mean? It seems that in the wilderness Jesus began to understand that he was not just a carpenter’s son. He was not just a young man with an impressive command of Scripture. He was the Son of God, the Beloved. He was the Messiah.

Perhaps this was not the career path Jesus was expecting. Perhaps he was even considering other options. At least, that’s what the devil was hoping! Wasn’t there a chance that a hungry, weary Jesus, emerging from the wilderness, would choose food, or riches, or power if it were offered to him?

It’s easy to imagine how we would be tempted by such offers. Have you ever gone grocery shopping when you were hungry? How did you do with your shopping list that day? Now imagine doing that same shopping after forty days of fasting – and with the power to turn anything in front of you into food. If I only had the power to turn books into bread, I could feed all of Jerusalem for at least a week—but I would be tempted to keep the unread ones for myself.

While we can imagine ourselves being tempted by offers of food, riches, and power, at the same time it is difficult to think about Jesus being truly tempted. We like to imagine that the baby Jesus was brought out of the manger, and placed into Mary’s arms, and from that moment on was never tempted to throw a toddler temper tantrum, or to take a little too much food at the dinner table, or to annoy his parents, or to say a bad word to a friend who angered him.  

In fact, such notions of Jesus are taught to us from a very early age. Take the words of “Away in a Manger” as an example:

The cattle are lowing, the baby awakes, But little Lord Jesus no crying he makes.

See! The baby Jesus was not even tempted to cry, for goodness' sake!

But in this Gospel story we encounter the possibility that Jesus, the son of God, at the same time fully human and fully divine, actually was tempted by the devil. He actually was tested by the Spirit, who drove him into the wilderness in the first place. He had opportunities presented to him which he actually could have chosen:

Jesus could have been the CEO of a bread manufacturing company.

Jesus could have been the Donald Trump of the 1st century, owning all the kingdoms of the world and in general being a “winner.”

Jesus could have been a celebrity, making money off a popular reality show in which he throws himself off of tall things in Jerusalem and waits for the angels to catch him mid-air.

But thanks be to God, in answer to all the devil’s temptations, and after every test of the Spirit, Jesus chose the way of his Father in heaven.

Jesus chose to feed the hungry instead of himself.

He chose to be healer of the sick.

He chose to cast out demons.

He chose to be liberator of the oppressed.

He chose to be a thorn in the side of the scribes and religious authorities.

Thanks be to God, he chose to be the Jesus of the cross.

The truth is, the cross was the only possible outcome after this encounter with the devil in the wilderness. Because Jesus resisted the opportunity to use his power, his authority, and his relationship with the Creator God for his own personal benefit; because he did not align himself with the empire; because he said “no” to the powers and principalities of the world; he wrote himself a one-way ticket to Calvary. 

Stone carving of the crucifixion
in Wittenberg, Germany

He chose the cross.

Jesus chose us.  

As we begin this Lenten season of prayer, fasting, and repentance, it is this Jesus we are seeking to know more fully. It is this Jesus, who chose us sinners over the empire, who is our companion on this journey to Holy Week.

As we journey with him throughout these forty days, we are invited to consider the same question posed to Jesus in the wilderness: Who are we?

Who is the Body of Christ in the world today?

Are we a money making enterprise?

Are we a social club?

Are we an ethnic or family heritage society?

Or are we something more?

Too often, these questions are answered by worship attendance, or the budget, or by the circumstances of the day.

However, many spiritual fathers and mothers have guided the along the path to understanding our identity as the Body in the world:

Saint Teresa of Avila said: “Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said: “The Body of Christ is the living temple of God and of the new humanity.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. said of the early church body: “In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society.”

And St. Augustine put it this way: “You are the Body of Christ. In you and through you the work of the incarnation must go forward. You are to be taken. You are to be blessed, broken and distributed, that you may be the means of grace and vehicles of eternal love.”

Dear sisters and brothers in Christ, “Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.” (1 Corinthians 12:27) What does this mean? Who will you be?

The answer will not be found in our congregation’s constitution, or on the ELCJHL website, or in the accounting books of the church. This answer is only found by drawing closer to Jesus, understanding more fully who he was, and the path he walked, and who he is calling the Body of Christ to be today.

Let this season of Lent, then, be a time of intentionality about who we are and who we are becoming—as a congregation, as a global church, and as individual believers. 

Through prayer, through fasting, through disciplines which invite us to slow down and act with more intention, let us seek to know more fully Our Lord Jesus Christ, who chose life for the world, even though it meant choosing the cross for himself.

Let us pray:

Heavenly Father,
May we seek you and find you,
may we knock and the door be opened,
for we are sojourners looking for your Kingdom.
As we encounter suffering in this world,
turn our hearts, our ears, our eyes, our souls
toward Christ, who emptied himself,
and was tempted,
and suffered for us,
even giving his own life.
In this suffering, plant seeds of hope,
and let us never stray so far into despair,
that we forget the resurrection of Christ
and the power of his Spirit.
Amen

~ this prayer written by Thomas, and posted on Everyday Liturgy.  http://everydayliturgy.com/