Sermons

“What’s the Point?”

Matthew 4:1-11 – Rev. Rebecca Littlejohn

Vista La Mesa Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), La Mesa, California – March 5, 2017

Holy God, bless the speaking and the hearing of these words, that our feet might find the path of Christ and our hearts follow faithfully. We pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.

So, yes, in case you were not aware, Lent has arrived. And it will be here till Easter Sunday on April 16^th. And in case your strongest association with Lent is fish sandwiches in the school cafeteria on Fridays, let’s take a moment to update our understanding. It is true that Lent used to be a Catholic thing. And most Catholics followed the teachings of the church that said they shouldn’t eat meat during Lent, or at least not on Fridays. (Hence, those fish sandwiches!) But over the last 30 years or so, more and more Protestant churches have discovered the spiritual benefits of an annual season of reflection and penitence leading up to Easter and have adopted, while usually adapting, the practice of observing Lent. This year, in fact, I’ve even been getting emails from some local Baptist/Evangelical partnership that is promoting a joint venture they’re calling “40 Days of Hope”. Coincidentally, these 40 days started this past Wednesday and end with Easter, and yet there was no mention of the word “Lent” that I saw in my quick perusal of the mailings.

And it’s not just new branches of the church that are hopping on the Lent train. The wider culture sometimes tries to appropriate it too. So before we go any further, perhaps we should clarify what Lent is not. Lent is not a “40-Day Slim-Down.” Scripture does tell us that Jesus was in the wilderness for 40 days and that he neither ate nor drank, and it made him famished. He, undoubtedly, lost quite a bit of weight (though it’s unlikely his diet included any bacon cheeseburgers or powdered sugar donuts before that either). Despite this part of the story, the point of Lent is not to provide a liturgical second-chance for the diet you abandoned on January 4^th. Jesus wasn’t fasting in order to get fit. He was fasting to grow closer to God, in preparation for beginning his public ministry.

Lent is also not a self-help journey. It’s not about shutting out the noise of the world so you can achieve the peace and quiet you deserve. It’s not about paying yourself money every time you swear or getting up earlier every day to exercise. It’s not even about clearing the clutter out of your closets so your living space is less chaotic. It’s not that any of these activities are bad things; they’re just not Lenten disciplines. The Spirit didn’t lead Jesus into the wilderness because he needed a break from the demands of the people around him so he could “find himself.” He didn’t go out there to focus on himself; he went away so he could focus on God.

It turns out the second half of these sentences makes all the difference. It’s not what we do to observe Lent; it’s why we do it. If we’re fasting to lose weight, that’s fine, but it isn’t Lent. Lent is when we fast as a form of body prayer that reminds us, every time our stomachs grumble, of the presence of God and the involuntary hunger of so many of God’s people around the world. If we’re shutting out the noise of the world just to get some “me-time”, that isn’t Lent. Lent is when we make efforts to decrease the volume of the world’s demands so that we can hear God better. If we’re making space in our closets so that we will have more room for the things that truly bring us joy, that isn’t Lent either. Lent is when we’re giving away the excess we’ve accumulated, so that others of God’s children can have what they need. The destination of Lent is God, not a “better you.” It is not, with apologies to Mr. Osteen, about “Your Best Life Now,” or even your best life in 40 days. It’s about being called back into the awesome presence of God, remembering our human weakness and our need for Jesus, and opening our hearts so that we can adequately welcome the Risen Christ when he appears.

So if we’re clear on what Lent is not, perhaps we can look at our scripture reading some more for some hints about what Lent is. Despite the fact that we observe Lent together as a congregation, there is no doubt that a major aspect of the season is what we might call the “personal journey.” Jesus was led out into the wilderness alone. He was there alone, as far as we know, for the whole 40 days. And the first two temptations the devil offers him are fairly personal temptations, touching on two major sides of human vulnerability – physical needs and emotional needs. The first one is very basic. He hadn’t eaten for 40 days. He was famished. The devil reminds him that he could easily turn the surrounding rocks into loaves of bread and eat, if he wanted to. But in a bit of foreshadowing of the sacrifice he would make more fully later, Jesus refuses to do so, insisting that the nourishment he received from God’s word was more important than any physical discomfort.

This is, of course, a level of spiritual intensity that few of us will ever attempt. But replicating the 40-day fast is not the point. The point is that physical sacrifice can be a way of growing closer to God, becoming more aware of our dependence of God, or even a way of sharpening our focus on preparing for whatever God is asking of us. This has been an important spiritual discipline for many Christians throughout the ages, though it’s one that’s fairly counter-cultural in our indulgent contemporary society, which is probably why it’s been watered down into a diet regimen.

The second temptation, as Matthew tells the story, is a bit more complicated. What is the devil getting at, when he invites Jesus to show how special he is by throwing himself down from the tippy-top of the temple tower? Part of this probably goes back to the “famished” part. Have you heard of the relatively newly-invented word “hangry”? It’s a combination of the words hungry and angry, and it’s used to describe the heightened emotional state that needing to eat can induce. I can only imagine how many levels past hangry Jesus must have been by the time the devil showed up. He knew he was out there to prepare for the thing God had called him to do. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to do it without complete reliance on God. But where had God been these past 40 days when he was eating nothing and feeling so certain he was about to die of thirst? This whole wilderness journey was not making him feel all that special. Wasn’t it about time God did something dramatic to let him know he was on the right track? It might not have been until the devil put this temptation into words that Jesus realized how tempting it really was, nor how destructive and misleading. And how tricky the tempter was, to couch the whole thing in scriptural terms, as if somehow this must be the thing to do. That part may not have been foreshadowing for Jesus so much as hinting at all of the forthcoming contortions of scripture the rest of humanity would use to justify carrying out whatever foolishness we choose. The point here is that this second temptation reminds us that our emotional needs make us just as vulnerable as our physical needs, and that they, too, need to be put in perspective by remembering our relationship to God.

The third temptation, however, points us in a new direction. Power, says the devil, I’ll give you all the power, all the kingdoms and all their splendor, if you’ll just worship me. At this point, the temptation is not just about Jesus’ personal needs. This is where the journey begins to take on new levels of complexity. It’s not just about Jesus himself; it’s about Jesus in relation to the world. If he’d suddenly become the Ruler of the Whole World, couldn’t he have instituted effective programs for feeding the hungry and protecting the widows? Couldn’t he have forced people to share their worldly goods and love their neighbors – even the Samaritans – as themselves? Well, no, apparently not. It turns out the means are as important as the ends. And this is where we begin to see that Lent is not merely a personal journey, but a personal journey for the sake of the world.

It’s important to remember, at this point, what Jesus was doing out there in the wilderness. The context of this wandering in the desert matters. He was out there preparing to begin his public ministry. It wasn’t about growing closer to God for the sake of his own personal well-being. It was about deepening his dependence on God so that he could undertake a mission that could only be accomplished through complete reliance on God. If he had allowed his human needs dictate his future choices, he would not have followed through on the commitment he was still questioning in the Garden of Gethsemane. He had to learn how to do it God’s way, which is admittedly, slower and harder, though in the end more effective, than the devil’s way. He was out there in the wilderness to practice letting God’s will be done, rather than his own. And why? Because God so loved the world.

We may think of Lent as a time to work on our own spiritual growth. And it is. But it’s vitally important to remember why we should bother trying to grow spiritually. Because it’s not just for our own sake, but for the sake of others. As I was trying to figure out where our focus needed to be this year for Lent, it occurred to me that this year, of all years, we cannot afford to retreat individually into our own prayer closets even if we were all reading the same Lenten devotional booklet. We cannot afford to separate ourselves one from another; our world is too divided for that. So this year, we will be focusing on how this personal journey we’re each invited onto is about being part of the Body of Christ. It’s for the sake of all God’s people, for the sake of the world, that we humble ourselves in prayer and sacrifice what we can in order to make more room for God. That’s why Jesus went to the wilderness, and it’s why we, too, will wander through these 40 days seeking God. May our journey be blessed. Amen.