The First Sunday in Lent (Year A, RCL)
February 10, 2008
David S. Deutsch
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Here we are at the start of our Lenten journey and surrounded on all sides by temptation. In our readings we hear about temptation in Paradise and
temptation in the Wilderness…Makes me wonder if there really is no difference between the two…Both are places of temptation and choice.
In our Gospel passage Matthew writes, “After he was baptized by John, Jesus was led up by the Spirit up into the Wilderness to be tempted by the
Devil.” I like to think that Matthew originally wrote, “After he was baptized by John, Jesus was led kicking and screaming by the Spirit up into
the Wilderness.” He just left that out the “kicking and screaming” so as not to embarrass Jesus right at the start of his ministry. Why do I think
that? First of all Jesus knows that a forty day fast in the wilderness is no picnic. Secondly, he knows he is going to face tough choices from that
super-salesman, the devil. Thirdly, he is in God’s proving ground: That awesome wilderness where the wind whistles through the craggy rocks, the
big sky glows overhead, a place where the landscape is eroded to its bare essentials. Any one of those reasons justifies kicking and screaming. So
Jesus, not yet the miracle worker he was to become, is led by the Spirit to face those temptations—He did not go on his own.
Now the question I ask is “Why?” Why did God need to test Jesus? Just a few verses earlier, as Jesus was being baptized by John, a dove dropped on
Jesus’ shoulders and God’s voice boomed down that Jesus was his beloved son “with whom I am well pleased.” This is not subtle, and I’m sure Jesus
thought it was a done deal. But God, you see, had been burned bad twice before. Once in Paradise by his newly created, fresh-in-his- own-image
humankind and once in the Wilderness with those kvetching Israelites. Moses had told the Israelites no uncertain terms: “Choose life and worship
the Lord your God!” So the Israelites, listening carefully, decided to worship a Golden Calf. So wrong choices were made by God’s chosen
people. Given those failures in Paradise and in the Wilderness, God really wanted to make sure he picked the right person for the right job. And what was
that job? No less than to make humankind understand that the Kingdom of God is here and it is humankind’s mission to live into it and maintain it.
What is the Kingdom of God asks the Eucharistic prayer adapted from Verna Dozier’s The Dream of God?
A world where all are welcome and no one is despised.
A world where the broken are made whole and the marginalized brought to the center of life.
A world where Jesus dwells among us, calling us to be a new creation.
In a sense God is entrusting Jesus with restoring Paradise here on earth. Failure is not an option. So God sends Jesus on a forty day struggle in the
Wilderness. The Israelites struggled in that same Wilderness to understand their own destiny as the chosen people of God. So Jesus, the chosen Son of
God, like Israel before him, must struggle find the deeper meaning of his messianic calling. He is driven by the Spirit of God to the exact place
the people of Israel went wrong. Jesus, right at the start of his career, must confront the past in which Israel was lured into injustice and
unrighteousness. Jesus has to confront the evil that bedevils our world.
Oscar Wilde said, “The only thing I cannot resist is temptation.” We all know what he meant. Jesus is being tempted with the promise of earthly power
to abandon the path of trust, obedience, and service of God. He must choose. Whispering in the wind are Moses’ words as he pleaded to the Israelites,
“Choose life.” Echoing off the cliffs, are Satan’s words, “Choose power and worship me.” And where is God? Waiting to see what Jesus will do. There
will be no dramatic rescue. Jesus must find his steadfast faith in God. What happens? Jesus unhesitating faces down the temptations by recalling
God’s very words from the book of Deuteronomy to the Israelites as they were being tested: One does not live by bread alone but by every word that
comes from the mouth of God…Do not put the Lord, your God, to the test…and Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him. At this point I think God
realizes that his Son, Jesus will be ready to face what will be his ultimate temptation: Jesus will not lose faith even on the cross. Matthew writes
that Jesus will die with a cry of anguish and abandonment, but yet not despair: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” In his darkness and pain,
Jesus still says, MY God. Jesus will keep his faith.
We know God must be pleased with Jesus because two angels come and lead Jesus to eat and drink. I imagine the table in the 23rd Psalm which is set
up right in the Valley of Death in the presence of the enemy—a bit of Paradise in the Wilderness. Having rested and eaten, Jesus can begin his
ministry. The Kingdom of God is at hand – The ball is now in our court.
I had a recent wilderness experience that vividly remains with me. I participated in the kingdom of God…but I was led there kicking and screaming
because I had to make hard choices to give up power and control. And I know something about control…for 38 years as a television director I worked
in the control room. Last November, the day after Thanksgiving arrived. After the joy and inevitable exhaustion of yesterday’s Thanksgiving dinner,
Stephanie, Noah, our oldest son, and I are looking forward to a quiet evening at home…maybe reading out loud to each other. You know those blessed
moments when you can quietly recharge your batteries. It’s 3 in the afternoon and the phone rings. The caller is an eighteen year old woman we know
from the Shelter Project. A court order has separated her from her mother. She cannot go to her mother’s apartment. She is unexpectedly homeless.
Where can she go? Stephanie gets on the phone and starts to call DC Government and social service agencies. But it is the Friday after Thanksgiving.
No answers emerge. The temperature is dropping promising a cold evening. The big question hangs in the air: Can she come to our house? I am
embarrassed to admit in front of all of you that I was tempted to say, “No!” She cannot come here–We need to practice tough love–What if she steals
the stuff that I have lying around everywhere–We promised ourselves an evening of quiet togetherness, and I just can’t deal with this. In short I am
tempted by all the trappings of privilege and power, which lead to a pernicious disengagement from the real the world. I wrestle with myself and
hate myself for doing so. I sit stewing in the living room. Stephanie, who had already come to a conclusion of her own, knows she needs me to be
fully on board if we are to have this “other”…this “guest”… stay with us. At 6 PM, Stephanie and I look at each other, and I say, “Well, I guess
she has to come here.” All I can tell you is that I had to clear out all that blocked the love and sense of justice that I know are in my heart.
I had to find God’s spirit within me Then, kicking and screaming, I had to follow that Spirit. And where that Spirit led me is why this story stays
with me…She arrives shy, upset and feeling awkward. So are Stephanie, Noah and I: All of us are feeling shy, nervous and mighty awkward. Would she
like the pasta concoction prepared for dinner? What are we going to talk about? Dinner is ready. Noah lights the candles. We say a blessing. The meal
is served. She like it. Noah starts talking baseball. She joins in. We talk about music. She joins in. The candles glow, and we found ourselves bound
together, sharing of ourselves. That meal turns into a true Eucharist. We are all simply joined together, sitting across from each other in a spiritual
relationship that transcended “otherness.” We are not just giving food and shelter to a person who needs them, all four of us are being nourished by
each other physically and spiritually. Hospitality has taken a spiritual dimension. We are simply us, laughing, chatting, and even becoming
teary-eyed. God is in the kitchen with his arms around all of us.
I want to add a coda. First, the young woman that came to stay the night is now in an independent living program provided by the Sasha Bruce House.
Secondly, I have challenge this Lenten season…and maybe it can be yours, too. My challenge is to recover the spiritual dimension of hospitality so
present in the early church and so lost now. In fact, it is so lost, today we talk about “radical hospitality.” But in the early church hospitality
was the norm. Edward Wimberly, a minister and pastoral counselor writes:
Welcoming strangers to the…community regardless of race or gender was very important to the early church…Brotherly and sisterly love extended beyond
cultural and racial lines. Participation in God’s salvation history was viewed as a family affair, and all were invited to be members of this
family.[1]
To start our recovery process we can willingly go to the Wilderness recognizing that it is any place where God provides just enough… “Dayenu”—
sung by the Jews at the Seder meal— “Just enough.” It is the perfect place to declutter our hearts out from under all the false idols and golden calves
we’ve thrown on it all year, stripping away the layers of power and control which so derail our spiritual life. Once we find the Spirit of God that
rests in each of us, we can have the faith to chose to follow that Spirit. Soon we will come our central altar to share the ritual meal of the Lord’s
Supper. I love what Christine Pohl writes in her book, Making Room,
The Eucharist most fundamentally connects hospitality with God …A shared meal is the activity most closely tied to the reality of God’s
Kingdom.[2]
When we end today’s part of our Lenten journey we will go forth from the walls of this historic old church rejoicing in the power of the Spirit,
and, like Jesus, we hope be led by angels to a patch of Paradise where can sit down and feast with all our brothers and sisters.
What is the Kingdom of God?
A world where all are welcome and no one is despised.
A world where the broken are made whole and the marginalized brought to the center of life.
A world where Jesus dwells among us, calling us to be a new creation.
Amen
[1] Pohl, Christine D. Making Room. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1999.
[2] Wimberly, Edward P. Counseling African American Marriages and Families. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1997.
