"Hillside Trust" (Matthew 4:1-11)

Watch here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2Bx0I5SXCU

Sunday, March 1, 2020 – Lent 1

            “Then the devil left him, and angels came and waited on him.”  That’s the end of the story.  Put yourself way out in the desert in Jesus’ shoes.  Instead of it being Jesus, it’s the same story, but you’re the one who’s out there. 

You’ve fasted to the point of being utterly famished, no food for 40 days.  The devil comes when you are at your weakest.  What’s God doing to help you through this impossibly hard trial?  You gut it out.  You stay faithful to God.  You stay true.  Finally,  the devil gives up for the time being and departs.  And then the angels come with assistance.  If it were me in Jesus’ place, I would have wanted help much earlier.

            Following Matthew’s story, we have just seen Jesus raised up out of the waters of the Jordan river.  Dripping wet from his baptism, he then saw the Heavens opened, the Holy Spirit came down, and a voice from Heaven, God the Father, said, “This is my son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased” (3:17). 

This did not happen when I got baptized.  Do you remember your baptism?  Mine came in summer of 1981, and in my memory, it has a mystical quality, but nothing like what we see in Matthew 3.  The Holy Spirit and the voice of God the Father combine to validate the arrival of God the son.  It’s a trinitarian moment and an incarnational moment all in one!

            But then, the Holy Spirit leads Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.  No navy SEAL training can compare with the ordeal Jesus had to endure in preparation for his ministry.  Forty days of fasting left him famished.  Add to that that he was way out in the wastelands.  Out there, you need sustenance so you have the energy to make the grueling hike back to civilization.  He didn’t soften the edges of his life to make the extreme fast more bearable.  He didn’t situate himself in comfortable surroundings.  He fasted to the point of collapse while desert walking.  At his weakest, that’s the point the devil showed up.

            The devil’s temptations of Jesus recall the serpent’s visit to Eve in Eden, found in Genesis chapter 3. 

            The serpent asked Eve, “Did God really say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’” (3:1)?  From that very minute she was in trouble because of what she didn’t do.  She did not say, “Hey, God, help me here.  I don’t know this serpent and He’s calling your promises into question. What do I do?”  She didn’t do that.  She looked at that serpent and she thought, “I got this.”

            She explained to the serpent that God gave plenty of fruit trees and that they were only to avoid the one in the center of the garden for if they ate from that one, they would die.  The serpent said, “You will not die.”  Again, Eve didn’t say, “Hey, God, help me.  This thing just told me something different than what you promised.”  She didn’t do that.  Instead, she started thinking about the serpent’s ideas.  “Your eyes will be opened.  You will be like God.  You will have knowledge of good and evil.” 

            On her own, apart from God, Eve decided to deal with the serpent’s temptation.  Before long, she was thinking the serpent’s thoughts.  She didn’t tell him how things were in the garden and in the world.  She saw how good that fruit looked and she took a bite.  As the juice ran down her chin, she discovered what people have discovered ever since.  In temptation, there’s some truth.  Her eyes and Adam’s eyes were opened, just as the serpent said they would be.  However, the man and the woman gained their new knowledge apart from God.  They immediately saw each other in new ways.  In communion with God, they saw one another as beautiful creations there to be loved.  Acting apart from God, they saw in each other a nakedness that needed to be covered up, hidden.  Then, they tried to hide from God.  They had never felt the need to do that before.

            That serpent didn’t do anything special.  He just told half-truths that lured the first humans away from God’s full truth.  Their own lack of trust in God did the rest.  Eve, didn’t trust God’s word enough to resist the lie embedded in the temptation.

            Adam and Eve were living in paradise, Eden, when they fell.  Jesus, ravaged by unbearable hunger, found himself in desert wastelands.  He would later on say these words to his disciples in Matthew 7, “Is there any among you who, if your child asks for bread will give a stone?  Or if the child asks for a fish will give a snake?  If then, you who are evil, know how to give good things to your children, how much more will the Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him” (v.9-11).  He trusted that God would provide him what he needed.

            The devil’s first temptation is “if you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread” (v.3).  We just heart at the baptism which happens right before this hungry desert sojourn that a voice from Heaven declared him to be God’s Son.  The devil calls that into question and then tells Jesus to do what Eve did: act apart from God.  He didn’t tell Jesus to ask God for food.  He told him to command the stones to become bread. Jesus trusted that his father would give good things.  He declares he needed the word of God for life as much as he needed food in his belly.

            Next, Jesus allows himself to be led.  The Holy Spirit had led him out to be tempted.  So, Jesus faces the temptation.  The devil leads him to the highest point in the Jerusalem, the hilltop where the temple sits.  Jesus is told to fling himself off the pinnacle of the temple, a suicide jump.  Quoting Psalm 91, the devil tells Jesus angels will save him.  It’s not a complete a lie.  As we already read, at the end of this story, angels do come to help him.  But not yet! 

            The devil is using scripture for his own means, something we do all the time.  In political arguments or in church conflicts, we see our opponents as God’s opponents.  It’s “them” vs. “us,” and we always cast our side as the side of scripture.  We totally ignore the fact that our opponent uses the same Bible to defend a position opposite ours.  We’re not supposed to use the Bible.  The devil did that with this second temptation.  We are to submit to the God we meet in the pages of the Bible.  The Bible is not here to support our positions.  The Bible is to be a way the Spirit forms us in the image of Christ.  Jesus knew he was in the desert to be tested.  He wasn’t there to test God.  He trusted God and resisted the devil.

            In his third effort, the nefarious tempter brought Jesus to the top of a high mountain and from there gave him a vision of all the great kingdoms of the earth.  If Jesus bowed in worship before the devil, all these kingdoms would be given to him.  Whether the devil could deliver on such an absurd offer is beside the point.  Jesus knew the first commandment: we shall have no other gods before the Lord our God.  We worship him alone.  There’s nothing the evil one could offer that would deter Jesus from his singular devotion to glorify God.  He trusted that worshiping God is better than possessing power.

            Note too, God had given Jesus a mission – to die for the sins of the world.  Jesus would eventually be recognized as king of kings and lord of lords.  But first, he had to save the world.  The devil had him skipping the cross and going straight to the throne.  Jesus rejected this deception trusting that God’s story is the better story.

            Finally, the devil left the scene, and then the angels came to take care of all Jesus’ needs.  As I said, were I in Jesus’ shoes, I would have been just as happy to have the angels show up at the very beginning.  Jesus modeled confidence and faith in God’s plan even when trust appeared to be difficult. 

            In baptism, we are adopted as sons and daughters of God, and the Holy Spirit takes up residence in us.  Do we believe this?  If we say we do, then do we also believe this is for the best?  Do we trust this story for our lives is true and do we trust that it is best life we can have?

            In the desert, on the hillside, Jesus put all his trust in the heavenly father.  We might think, ‘well he, he’s Jesus.  We’re not.’  That’s true.  But we have this advantage.  We know where the story leads.  He defeated the devil and resisted temptation.  Later on, the night that he knows he will be arrested, the devil tempts him again.  Jesus is the second person of the Trinity, God the Son, in human flesh.  Being fully human, the abandonment by his disciples broke his heart.  The coming trial and crucifixion scared him.  The devil played on this and in anguished prayer, Jesus asked for another way.  We know God did not offer another way, and so Jesus went to the cross to take our death on himself. 

            We also know a few days, later, resurrected, he walked out of tomb.  On the cross he defeated Satan and sin.  In resurrection, he defeated death.  Just as he took our death on himself, he shares his resurrection with us.  We can be strengthened by this promise when the devil comes to tempt us, if we believe the story and trust that the Holy Spirit is with us. 

            That’s where the trust Jesus demonstrated transfers to us.  In this crazy political season, Democrats and Republicans are trying to sell a number of different narratives to the American public.  Advertisers sell narratives which put the product or experience they’re selling at the center of the story.  All these peddlers of stories want you to believe that the story they tell is the one you need to be in.  You need to adjust your life to live out that story. 

            What I’m suggesting is that Jesus, even flattened by hunger as he was, rejected the devil because he rejected the devil’s narrative.   He did that because he trusted that God’s story is the better story.  As we close, I invite you to think about this. For your life, is God’s story the better story?  Do you believe your hope for a happy, blessed life will be found walking the pathway of Jesus?  One thing is clear.  It can’t be both.  We cannot walk the way of the politician or the way of the propagandist or the way of the advertiser and walk the way of Jesus?  We have to decide which narrative we’ll embody. 

Don’t come and say all the ways the way of Jesus is opposite of the politician you oppose.  Notice all the ways the way of Jesus opposes the politician you’re voting for.  Then you’ve really cast your lot with the Savior.  You can still vote for whomever.  As citizens, we should participate in our democracy.  We do it remembering our eternal destiny is to live as subjects in the eternal kingdom of God under the merciful, just rule of King Jesus.  That story defines us and determines how we live. 

Decide which narrative is yours, the story will you live into.  Take this time to pray, asking God to help you trust the story he has for you. 

AMEN

Filled and Hungry (Luke 4:1-13)

First Sunday of Lent, February 14, 2016

            Jesus fed 5000 people with just a few pieces of bread. Miraculously, he multiplies the food.  With one boy’s lunch, he feed the equivalent of a small town’s population.  How can he do this? 

Well, he can do it because he’s God in human flesh.

            With his disciples, he was out on a boat on the Sea of Galilee, water in all directions.  The winds beat against the men as the try to control their vessel in the face of angry waves.  As the boat is tossed to and fro, the men panic.  Jesus sleeps through it all until they wake him.  Then he commands the storm to be silent, and it obeys.  A raging storm at sea; how can he control it? 

He is God in human flesh.

            He had a good friend, Lazarus, and Lazarus died.  He was buried.  He was in the tomb for 4 days.  Jesus comes and calls him back to life.  It works!  Lazarus walks out of the grave. 

Jesus is God in human flesh.

            He gives blind people their site!  God in human flesh.

            So, we are not really expecting it when we see him tempted in Luke 4.  It’s not like you or me.  We are tempted by greed or anger or by hurt or by a thirst for revenge or by lust or by any of a 100 other things that lead us to destructive behavior.  Not Jesus. 

            In Luke, Jesus is born as all babies are.  In Luke, he is a teenager who worries his mother to death.  He is baptized and something happens to him when the Holy Spirit descends on him (3:22).  He experiences a change with the coming of the Spirit.  The Jesus we meet in Luke is very human. 

            Filled with the Holy Spirit, he is also led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness, without provision.  What fool would go on a 40-day camping trip without any supplies?  Jesus.  But he didn’t go of his own volition.  Forty days without eating is more than fasting.  That’s starvation.  Imagine how badly your body would feel.  Jesus’ body felt that weak.  He had hunger pains.  He experienced that as a human experiences things.

            All the while, the devil openly tempted him.  I don’t think the devil appeared as a hideous beast.  That would be scary, not tempting.  No, I think the devil was inviting – encouraging Jesus in ways that sounded sensible. 

The devil offers food; Jesus was starving.  The devil offers authority; Jesus’ mission was to announce the kingdom of God.  Maybe it would be easier to announce “mission accomplished,” from the position of ruler of the world.  The devil challenges Jesus’ faith.  If you are the son of God, his angels will protect.  Do you hear the echo of Eden?  You won’t die if eat the fruit of this tree.  I know God said you would, but you won’t.  You’ll become like God.

Eve ate the forbidden fruit.  And she did not die, not in that moment any way.  Just as the serpent promised, she had vision she did not previously possess.  However, the first thing she saw was that she had disobeyed the God who created her and loved her.  Naked means more than unclothed.  She sinned and then she could see what she had done.

Satan’s temptations are half-truths and appear attractive.  Why should Jesus starve out here?  It makes no sense.  Why not accept the devil’s offer to rule all the kingdoms of the world?  Think of the good you could do.  Why not show all of Jerusalem who you are as angels carry you safely from the pinnacle of the temple to the ground?  Then everyone will know who you are.  Why not?

Obviously, we the readers can say “why not.”  We sit in the comfort of our heated building on our cushioned chairs as we read this.  We worship in a nice place and as we do, we make plans for lunch in nice restaurants.  There is a certain ease and from this luxury we form our opinions and draw our conclusions.  I say without judgment on us.  This is merely an observation.  From where we are it is easy to gaze into a story and with hindsight declare how clear and simple the ethical and moral choices are. 

What if we read it in a place that’s not so nice? 

Starting right now, don’t eat again until Easter Sunday.  Not a bite.  Don’t go indoors.  From now until March 27, fast and pray.  Jesus was tempted.  The urge to turn those stones to bread was real and strong.  He had emptied himself of his divinity.  How did this human being resist?  It is surprising, when we think about it, to imagine that Jesus truly was as human as your or I are. 

Another surprising thing is the paradox displayed in Jesus in this story.  By paradox, I do not mean “fully God and fully human at the same time.”  But, I do mean two things were going on in Jesus.  Two very different dynamics were at work in him.  I think a similar paradox exists for us when we want to follow Jesus, but we do this in a world that is lost and is in the late stages of corruption because of sin.  Sin has built up over the generations and the world is on the verge collapse.  In this place, that is not so nice, we are witnesses and we are disciples.

The paradox.

Jesus ate nothing for 40 days and true to his habit of understatement, Luke grandiloquent method of portraying this is to write he was hungry.  No kidding. 

Jesus was starving.  At the same time, he was full.  Luke begins this passage about temptation in the desert by telling us Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit.  He begins the next passage where Jesus is back in Jerusalem, again declaring Jesus to be filled with the Holy Spirit.  Jesus was filled and hungry at the same time.

Why could he calm storms at sea, restore the sight of the blind, and miraculously feed multitudes with a few loaves and fish?  You know what I said a moment ago.  He could do it because he was God in human flesh.  But what if that’s not the answer?  What if incarnation means he really did step out of his divinity?  What if the miracles happened because he was Spirit-filled? 

He didn’t just flip a switch and turn on his godself whenever that was needed.  Jesus is God, but he related to God from the standpoint of being human.  He depended on the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit.  He moved at the prompting of the Holy Spirit.  He submitted to the authority of the Holy Spirit. 

It’s a paradox, Jesus (God) relating to God as a human relates to God.  And it leads to another paradox.  Jesus is starving and filled at the same time.  We get caught off guard by Jesus’ humanity.  This idea of starving and fulfillment together in the same person – and the two conditions, starvation and satisfaction relating directly to the other – also surprises us. 

Maybe the most surprising thing is that we can be filled as Jesus was.

The writer of this Gospel, Luke, is also the author of the book of Acts.  There we read about baptism in the Holy Spirit.   In Acts 2, the Holy Spirit takes hold of a few 1000 of Jesus’ followers who are in Jerusalem at the time of Pentecost.  Spirit-filled, they preach the Gospel, and that day 1000’s turn to faith in Jesus Christ. 

In both the Gospel and in Acts, Luke tells the story of Jesus and the early church, but he did not simply write this to show what happened.  He tells us that he shares this so that we, the readers, will know the truth (Luke 1:3).  And he ends his writing at the end Acts with Paul under house arrest in Rome.  Luke’s verse says, Paul live in Rome for two years “proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance” (28:31).

It’s an odd ending; not really an ending at all.  He doesn’t tell of Paul’s death.  He simply tells of Paul preaching.  Why could Paul, while arrested, preach without hindrance?  It is not because he was God in the flesh.  He wasn’t.  He could do it because he was filled with the Spirit.

We, like Paul and like Jesus, can be filled with the Spirit.  Does it mean we will feed 5000 with one child’s bag lunch or bring raging ocean storm to a quiet calm or raise the dead?  When we are Spirit-filled like Jesus, do we do those things?  I don’t know.  I won’t say, No, we do not.  I will say we can stand as Jesus stood: dependent on the Spirit, prompted by the Spirit, and submitted to the Spirit. 

At times this means, like Jesus, we will be hungry, starving even, while we are filled.  Each year during Lent, Christians focus on spiritual disciplines and that can include fasting or giving something up in order to focus on the Lord.  But the hunger is more than the desire for food that comes with a fast, even one as extreme as Jesus endured.  The hunger is for God’s Kingdom; they Kingdom come, they will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven.  We want it so badly, we pray for it over and over. 

This is what Jesus meant in the Sermon in the Mount when he said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” (Matthew 5:5).  The devil knew Jesus hungered for this and tried to persuade him with this.  The devil offered food – turn the stones to bread; and power – I will give you the glory of all the kingdoms of the earth; and spectacle – throw yourself down from the pinnacle of the temple so all Jerusalem will see the angels catch you.

Jesus wanted to multiply food to the hungry.  Power and would enable him to show the world the ways of God.  But, he knew to do these things on the devil’s timetable would amount exalting the devil as God.  He was able to resist because of the power of the Spirit in Him.

Let that settle on the mind.  The power in Christ during his ministry in his time on earth is available to us.  I won’t say it can be ours because they power is the presence of God and God is never ours to hold.  But, when we fully confess our sins and turn from them and when we open our hearts to God and when we hunger for his Kingdom and long for His presence, then we are ready to be filled the Spirit. 

No the Holy Spirit is not ours.  We belong to the Spirit.  We are prompted by the Spirit.  And in those seasons when we aren’t sure what to do the Spirit seems quiet and feels absent, then we go to prayer and other disciplines if needed.  We present ourselves fully before the Lord.

This is where we end on this first Sunday of Lent.  As we move into a time of singing, each of us invited to come without hesitation and holding nothing back.  Come before the Lord.  Come open, asking to be filled.  I end with prayer.

Holy Spirit of God, in this moment, we lay ourselves before you.  Remove all doubts, distractions, and obstacles.  Come to us, forgive us, fill us, and lead us.  This we pray in Jesus’ name.

AMEN

Jesus v. Me (a brief comparison)

Jesus v. Me

            I don’t know how healthy it is for my self-esteem to compare myself to others.  I can hit free throws much of the time but it would not be very smart to compare my basketball skills to LeBron James’.  I usually sing the right notes in a song, but I am not singer Josh Groban is.  I should be happy with who I am.  Everyone should have a healthy amount of self-love.  The second great commandment is ‘love your neighbor as yourself’ (Luke 10:27).  If all I have is self-loathing, my neighbor is in trouble.  I don’t need to compare myself to others.

            Still, sometimes a benchmark helps me see how I am doing (whatever it is that I may be doing).  Overall, what kind of human being am I?  As I pondered this I thought, why not aim high?  So, I am setting myself alongside Jesus as I read Ephesians 1 & 2.  Jesus need not be nervous.  I am a humble winner.  I know Moses is supposedly the most humble man ever, but that was written before I was born. 

            So, it’s Rob v. Jesus.  Good luck, son of Mary.

            Let’s see as I scan over Ephesians I come to chapter 2, verse 1.  “You were dead through trespasses and sins.”  Oh, that doesn’t sound so good.  I know this doesn’t stick to Jesus because, well, he has never sinned.  I have read enough that I can verify that.  I on the other hand have – a lot.  This is not the place for specific confessions, but anyone interested in my checkered record can interview the saint otherwise known as my wife.  The whole death through sins bit sticks to me like honey on a linoleum floor; hate stepping in that in my bare feet.  Yeah, I am dead in sin.

            What about him?  OK, Jesus hasn’t sinned.  Let’s not throw that party yet.  Maybe Ephesians can knock Mr. Sinless down a peg.  Let’s see … ah … here it is; chapter 1, verse 20.  God raised him from the dead.  I see.  Well, I can’t sugar coat it.  The check goes in Jesus’ column.  That’s one for him.  But I am still in this game. 

            Ephesian, help me out. 

            Or not.  Chapter 2, verse 2:  it says I (A) followed the course of the world, (B) follow the rule of the power of the air, and (C) it says he is the spirit that is at work among those who are disobedient.  Does it take a Bible scholar to see that Ephesians 2:2 is referring to Satan?  And I follow him?  I did not mean to.  I didn’t know.  No, that’s a load of something not fit to say or type.  When I follow the world down a path that leads away from God, I know it.  I acknowledged as much when I said I have sinned.  That’s not humility.  That is honesty.  But now here Ephesians is telling me exactly where I stand – in the footsteps of the devil.  Maybe we should just cut this whole comparison thing, just shut it down.  No?

            Ohhhkayyyy – how does Jesus fare?  Ephesians 1:22 says God has put all things under his feet and made him the head over all things.  He is not following the course of this world.  He’s determining it.  He is the head, the boss, the big fella, the top muckidy muck. 

            For those scoring at home, it is Jesus 2, Rob 0. 

            I won’t lie.  My confidence is not soaring right now.  What’s that?  You want more.  Alright, you sadist.  Let’s go to Ephesians 2:3.  It says all of us were by nature, children of wrath.  All of us follow the desires of the flesh (which we know is opposite of the fruit of the Spirit – see Galatians 5).  So, I hear you, smacking on Rob for his fleshly nature, his tumble into the fire of God’s wrath.  Go ahead, pile on me.  It doesn’t say Rob has messed this up.  Ephesians 2:3 says all of us.   That’s you too, baby.  You want to dump on me, well; you’re in the pit with me, my friend.

            Huh?  You’re saying I started all this as a comparison between me and Jesus not me and you?  Oh come on!  What fool would, for a second, try to compare himself to Jesus.  Comparisons are not really a good idea.  That’d be as daft as trying to play a game of one-on-one against LeBron James.  I … I… oh.  Oh, yeah.  I started this.  Didn’t I?

            I am, consumed by the flesh as I am, in the path of God’s wrath.  We already know Jesus is elevated as the King and Lord of all.  No comparisons remain.  Should feel like pond scum right now.  But I don’t know.  When I consider who I am – death-bound sinner that I am – why don’t I crumble in a pile of self-hate?  Why do I feel so good?

Ephesians 2:4-10

⁴ But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us ⁵ even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ^[a]—by grace you have been saved— ⁶ and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, ⁷ so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. ⁸ For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— ⁹ not the result of works, so that no one may boast. ¹⁰ For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

            You see, it is not Jesus v. me.  It is Jesus for me, creating me as His own, alive in Him, living for the purposes He sets before me.  The story is not me at all.  It is Christ.  I am grateful for all He gives. 

            What does Jesus have for you? 

Ask him.