When the Faithful Answer is No

Luke 4: 1 – 13

This morning as a congregation we enter into the season of Lent.  Lent is a season of preparation, a time for reflection, a time for introspection.  It’s a time to turn away from distractions, and focus on our relationship with God.  Lent has been compared to a kind of spiritual spring training.  In the same way that baseball players spend time getting in shape for the season every spring, Christians spend the forty days of Lent getting in shape spiritually, growing closer to God, taking a close look at our lives and asking ourselves, do our lives serve the gracious purposes of God?

 

Lent is a journey.  During Lent, day by day, we draw near to Good Friday.  We draw near to the mystery of the cross.  To us, the cross is fundamentally a mystery.  It’s a symbol of pain and loss.  At the same time, though, the cross is a reminder of God’s great love for us.  Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross says to you and me, “There is nothing we can do that will make God stop loving us.”

 

Every year, on the first Sunday of Lent, the scripture recommended for our reflection is the story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness.  Luke’s account: this story of Jesus, hungry and alone, standing firm against the powers of evil, can encourage us as we struggle to be faithful.  We can see that even Jesus went through tough times.  Because Jesus endured this time of testing, we know that we are not alone when times of testing come.  Because Jesus firmly refuses what the devil offers him, we know that as his followers, we will also have to refuse things at times. In order to be faithful, to live the lives God intends for us, we have to say no at times.  We find strength in Jesus’ steadfast “no” to the powers of evil.

 

Writing in first century Palestine, Luke describes this time of testing as a conversation between Jesus and the devil.  Living in twenty-first century America, you and I might wonder, was the devil a person, who appeared to Jesus?  Possibly.  Some of us may find it helpful to visualize a person we might call the devil; others may find it a distraction.  So if it’s a distraction for you, you might instead imagine this conversation as an inner dialogue in Jesus’ mind.  You might imagine Jesus debating in his mind, about the best way for him to use the power God has given him.

 

The Spirit has led him into the wilderness.  For the last forty days he’s had nothing to eat.  He’s all alone: not another human being around for miles.  He’s all alone and he’s famished.

 

Then an idea occurs to him:  how easy it would be for him to take care of his hunger.  A voice says,  “Hey, if you’re the Son of God,” a voice says, “command this stone to become a loaf of bread.  C’mon – when you were baptized – just weeks ago – everybody heard God say, ‘This is my beloved Son.’ So what are you waiting for?  Prove it!”

 

The voice is seductive, flattering, appealing to the pride Jesus might feel in being God’s Son.  But Jesus isn’t falling for this cheap trick.  He replies, “It takes more than bread to really live.”

 

The inner conversation continues, “Look at all the kingdoms of the world.” How easy it would be to take power over them: to be the one to make them rise and fall.  “No,” Jesus replies.  “We are to worship God and serve him with absolute single-heartedness.”

The testing isn’t over yet.  Suddenly Jesus is at the pinnacle of the Temple.  The demonic voice whispers, “C’mon…if you’re God’s Son, jump.  You know God will pick you up.  You know your Father will protect you.”  Again, Jesus says no.  “Don’t you dare tempt the Lord your God,” he says.  And finally the voice is silent.

 

What’s your reaction to this account of Jesus in the wilderness, put to the test by the powers of evil?  Does it seem to you like an exotic tale?  Does it seem like the kind of thing that happened long ago and far away?  Does it seem as if this story couldn’t have any bearing on what you and I go through in our lives today?  If this story of testing in the wilderness seems strange to you, try thinking about it a little differently.  Consider if you will the idea that in a sense, here in twenty-first century America, we are in a wilderness.

 

In a very real sense, the world we live in is a wilderness: a spiritual wilderness.  As we enter this season of Lent, as we head for Jesus’ self-sacrifice on the cross, we walk through a kind of wilderness.  Our wilderness is not a bleak, desert landscape, but it’s a wilderness just the same.  Our world is a wilderness where self-satisfied indulgence rules.

 

We may not hear the devil, but we are tempted.  From every direction voices tell us, “You are Number One.  You come first.  Your own needs, and your own desires, should always be front and center for you.” I think it’s safe to say we’ve never heard an advertisement saying, “Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me.”  Self-denial is not in style.  Instead, we hear, “Indulge yourself!  You owe it to yourself!  You deserve it!”  From every direction, we hear that our life work should be our personal self-satisfaction.  Self- satisfaction is the most important thing.

 

In the wilderness, the devil gave Jesus three chances to achieve self-satisfaction.  But Jesus clearly says “no” to all three.  His life work is not to put himself and his own needs front and center.  His life work isn’t to use his power over material things, like stones, or his power over the kingdoms of the world, or his power to prove that God will protect him no matter what.  His life work is not about his own power; it’s about God’s power: God’s power to transform, through him, the lives of men and women.  His life work is to lead us into the lives God intends for us, lives that serve God’s gracious purposes.

 

As followers of Jesus, we’re invited to walk in the way he walked.  We strive to put God first in our lives.  Our life work is not about self-satisfaction.  Our life work is not about getting what we want.  Our life work is about fulfilling what God wants.  As we follow Jesus, our life work is not centered on ourselves and our own needs.  Our life work is centered on God’s vision of a world of justice and compassion.

 

But sometimes we find ourselves in a spiritual wilderness: in a world that clamors for self-satisfaction.  When we’re in that wilderness, we have to say “no” to a lot of things.  We have to say “no” to the voices that urge us to put our own needs and desires front and center.  For example, parents, at times have to say “no” to their kids.

 

A father once said that the toughest part of being a parent is having “the courage to look your child in the eye and say no.”

 

No, you can’t go over to Caitlyn’s house when her parents aren’t home.

 

No, you can’t take your cell phone to bed and text your friends at 2 AM.

No, we won’t be serving alcohol at the party.  I don’t care if all the other parents do it.

 

One of the hardest parts of being a parent is to look your child in the eye and say no.  It can be especially tough because voices around us insist that our job as parents is to work hard to give our children everything their hearts desire.   In his book, What’s Right with the Church (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1985), Pastor Will Willimon writes about a Sunday School class he led.  The class was studying the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness.  Willimon gave a careful explanation of each of the three temptations.  Then he asked, “How are we tempted today?”

 

A young salesman named Jason was the first to speak.  He said, “Temptation is when your boss calls you, as mine did yesterday, and says, “’Jason, I’m going to give you a real opportunity.  I’m going to give you a bigger sales territory.  We believe that you are going places, young man.”

 

Jason replied, “But I don’t want a bigger territory.  I’m already away from home four nights a week.  It wouldn’t be fair to my wife and daughter.”

“Look,” his boss replied, “we’re asking you to do this for your wife and daughter.  Don’t you want to be a good father?  It takes money to support a family these days, to provide the things they need.  Families need things.  Sure, your little girl doesn’t take much money now, but think of the future.  Think of her future.  I’m only asking you to do this for them.”

 

Jason told the class, “Now, that’s temptation.”  The temptation was to take the job and the long hours away from home, so he could provide every thing his little girl could possibly desire.

 

Sometimes parents have to say no to the message that the best way to be a parent is to buy your children all the things they want.  Sometimes parents have concentrate instead on what’s really important; the things that are worth wanting.

 

A woman recalls a friend of hers who grew up in a strict, fundamentalist Christian church.  When they were in college, her friend often regaled his friends with tales of his fundamentalist childhood.  Movies, even Walt Disney movies, were off limits for him.  Soft drinks?  A no-no.  Dating? Not until he was eighteen, and then he had to be in by 10 PM.  In the college dorm, talking with his friends, he joked about the silly, authoritarian restrictions of the fundamentalist life.

 

Years later, the woman ran into her former fundamentalist friend.  His young son is in a drug treatment program.  His daughter is living through the hell of her second divorce.  He said his own life has been sad and disordered.  He reported that he is back at the fundamentalist church of his childhood.  The same church he used to think was so backward, so narrow and authoritarian.  Why?

 

He explained to the woman, “I realized too late that I had absolutely no means of saying “no.”  I knew how to go out and get everything I ever wanted, but I had no way to know what was worth wanting” (repeat) (Will Willimon, quoted in Pulpit Resource, vol. 36, no.1).

Alone and hungry in the wilderness, Jesus was put to the test.  As vulnerable as he was, he refused firmly the offers that were put before him – not once but three times.  He passed the test.  He showed he could be the self-sacrificing Savior God intended him to be.

 

Friends, in order to be faithful, to live the lives God intends for us, we will also have to say no at times.  Thanks be to God, in Jesus we find the strength to do that.  As our journey through Lent begins, may we make time for reflection, for growing in our relationship with God.   As we walk in the shadow of the cross, may our steps be strengthened by the One who stood up to the powers of evil.   And at the end of these forty days may we be ready to face the cross, to receive the gift of sacrifice that shatters the power of death and opens the way to new life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rev. Elva Merry Pawle

March 17, 2019

Lent 2