So I wonder if that was the shortest reading you have ever heard in church. I am pretty sure it is the shortest reading I have spoken on. While, this story is found in the three Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, the other two are much longer, they go into a lot more detail about Jesus temptations. Mark however leaves that out. Those familiar with the gospel of Mark will know this is pretty typical of this gospel. Mark it seems has a sense of urgency about sharing the good news.
But while the details are slight different, this story is always read on this, the first Sunday of Lent. An obvious reason for this is that Lent goes for 40 days. In the Bible, forty is a number of sacred significance. The Flood lasted forty days and forty nights. Israel wandered in the wilderness for forty years. Moses spent forty days and nights on Mt. Sinai. Jonah preached to Nineveh for forty days. And yes in today’s reading Jesus spent forty days in the desert.
Another reason of course is that Jesus spends this time fasting and praying, which is what we are invited to do in Lent. Benj was reflecting with me this week that these are always good things to do in the discipleship journey but there is something important about the fact that Lent invites us to do it together. Not only does it encourage us to keep going when we want to give up but also I think because it invites us into something bigger than ourselves.
I have to admit I was somewhat tempted to not read this story this year. Like I was talking about Christmas it can become quite a challenge to think of something new to say when the same story comes up at the same time every year. And regulars will know this year we are actually doing a series on John that will take us through Lent and Easter and this reading is not in John and so I had a perfectly good reason not to. This reading also jumps back in the story we have been telling chronologically since Advent began at the beginning of December and so its seriously messing with the order of our story.
I did not skip it however. Despite all that my commitment to the rhythms of the church remains. A commitment that has been affirmed by a book that Ralph lent me after Christmas called “you are what you love” by James Smith.
This book asserts that that our loves are formed by our immersion in practices and cultural rituals that shape us. He calls these “liturgies” which he defines as, “rituals that are loaded with an ultimate story about who we are and what we’re for.” Our culture has liturgies of consumerism that are seeking to form our loves towards things and have us define ourselves and the good life by what we have and what we do. They are not explicit, they are the very water we are swimming in.
But the church has a counter narrative to that, that who we are and what we are for is the Kingdom of God, the flourishing of all creation. And that where our hearts and souls find true peace, rest and joy is in Christ.
And so we also have counter liturgies, counter habits that form us to delight in the ways of God and to walk in the way of Jesus. To long not for more stuff, more power and privilege and prestige for ourselves but to long for love, justice, peace, kindness and equity.
One of these counter liturgies is the church calendar. From Advent through Christmas, through Lent and Easter we hear the story of Jesus again and again. The hope is that it becomes so familiar that it becomes part of our own story, our own memories. We come to know it in our bones, not just our head so that we see others and the world as Christ would and respond instinctively as he would.
This past week some of us gathered to share pancakes on Tuesday morning and then for an Ash Wednesday service on Wednesday evening. By eating food and touching ash that we put on our foreheads our bodies experience the story too. We come to feel them in our hearts not just know them in our minds. And for those of us who are giving up things for Lent, the physical experience of wanting something that we cannot have, is not to torture us, it’s not some kind of test but rather a formative experience.
Which brings me back to today’s passage. This time in the wilderness I believe was a formative experience for Jesus.
In year A of the lectionary this story is paired with the story of Adam and Eve choosing to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Many preachers have preached on the two together with the point being that Adam and Eve and Jesus were all tested but where Adam and Eve failed Jesus triumphed.
As I have reflected on this text this year I have come to see not as a test that Jesus passed but an experience that formed him for the challenges ahead.
This story follows on from Jesus baptism that we actually read about 3 weeks ago. At his baptism the heavens are torn apart and the Spirit ascends like a dove and voice from heaven declares, You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
This is first. This is always first.
But then this same Spirit drives Jesus into the desert. This is not the kind of activity we often associate with the Spirit. I know when I call upon the Spirit in prayer I am calling the Spirit to bring comfort and peace, healing and strength. I ask the Spirit for get me out of hard things, not drive me into them.
Most of us are pretty comfortable with the dove but the Spirit is also depicted as fire and wind and perhaps we need to get comfortable with that too.
This is complex, as it is always is.
It does not mean that the Sprit makes bad things happen to us because God wants us to suffer. Not at all. As we read today right from the start Jesus is proclaiming the good news of God. He brings healing and freedom for the poor and oppressed and so as Christians we are called to resist poverty and oppression and seek to heal suffering.
But just as the vines need pruning to bear fruit so we too seem to need the hard times, the failures to grow.
The truth is bad things do happen to good people, the journey of life does involve dark and desolate places. But during hard times we come to experience that we can in fact be God’s beloved and suffer as well. We, like Jesus in this story, can come to know a kind of love that is bigger than our external circumstances.
If the Easter story means anything it is this. God is always and everywhere in the business of taking the things of death, and wringing from them resurrection.
The truth is we live in a chaotic, fragile, and broken world that includes deserts and wild beasts. But this story shows us that God can redeem even them. With God even our deserts can become holy places.
As those of us who live here know, the desert, the wilderness, the wild places have their beauty as well and so I wonder if this a wholly negative time for Jesus.
And while this chaotic, fragile, and broken world includes deserts and wild beasts it also includes angels. We so want to believe I think that where the Spirit is the wild beasts are not. And where the angels are the Satan is not. But it’s not true. Life on this side of eternity include both.
The gift of Ash Wednesday and Lent, it’s a time when we tell the truth about this. And about ourselves, our brokenness, our mortality, but nevertheless trust in God’s redemptive love. It is a time to celebrate the gift of life with all its blessings and sorrows.
A few weeks ago when we were reflecting on Jesus baptism I said “Jesus was baptized in a wild place.”
In this story he goes into an even wilder place. Perhaps those of us who follow him, need to follow him there, to allow the Spirit to drive us to the place of the wild beasts and the angels. We, too, need to allow a good but wild God to disrupt us.
We live in a pretty wild place too. I know for some of us living here can be hard. Trust in the fact that God is the God of the wild places. And there are angels here as well.
And so let us sing “open out and empty me” that God might yet use this time of Lent to do just that. That we might be reminded of our need for him and gratitude for this place, this place on which we stand and the angels we stand here with. Church Newsletter 021824