Following is a reprint -- not previously posted to this site -- of the sermon for 1 Lent 2007, based upon the same texts as 1 Lent 2010.
Lent 1: 25 February 2007
(Deuteronomy 26:1-11/Psalm 91/Romans 10:8b-13/Luke 4:1-13)
But By Every Word
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
On this first Sunday in Lent, the gospel lesson provides us with a host of obvious Lenten themes from which to choose. There is the forty-day temptation of Jesus, which provides the basis for our forty-day observance of Lent. We could talk about the significance of that number forty: Moses spending forty-days before Yahweh on Sinai receiving the first set of stone tablets and another forty days when receiving the second set, or the twelve spies scouting out the promised land forty days, or Israel wandering in the wilderness forty years. Then there is the issue of the wilderness itself. We could talk about the wilderness experiences of God’s people – not just the forty years following the failure to trust God, but the captivity and deportation to Assyria and Babylonia and the continued wilderness experience of pagan domination under Syria and Greece and Rome. There is also the theme of fasting and its companion, prayer. We could investigate the significance of fasting under both covenants and consider both Jewish and early Christian practices. There is the temptation itself. We could think about Lent as the time for struggling against those temptations that plague and often defeat us, as the time for strengthening ourselves with spiritual disciplines to overcome those temptations, and as the time for self-examination and sincere repentance over the times we have failed. Time, wilderness, fasting and prayer, self-examination, spiritual disciplines, repentance: all these Lenten themes are suggested by the gospel lesson.
But this event in Jesus’s life – the temptation experience – occurred long before Lent was an observance of the church. The writing of the Gospels occurred long before. So, while we may now look on this passage as a Lenten text, it certainly wasn’t that when it happened or when it was recorded. No, there’s something much deeper, much more significant in this event – and still something that captures important Lenten themes.
Imagine having tickets to a new Broadway play – a mystery in three acts. On the way to the theater your taxi gets caught in a hopelessly snarled traffic jam. You’re now late – very late. In fact you arrive just as the second act begins. You take your seat, and, while you might enjoy the wonderful acting and staging and just the excitement of the theater itself, you are lost in the story line, confused about the significance of certain events. You don’t have the background of the first act to make sense of the play. The temptation is just this – the second act of a three-act play. Unless we understand the first act we’ll be lost during the second, and the third act won’t have its intended impact on us either. So, we must put the temptation of Jesus in its proper context. How does it fit in the play?
The title of the play is Identity and the three acts are Baptism, Temptation, and Mission. I’ll give a synopsis of the play here and then we’ll flesh it out in more detail as we go.
Act I: Baptism
In Act I the identity of the protagonist – Jesus – is established.
Act II: Temptation
In Act II the identity of the protagonist is questioned and confirmed.
Act III: Mission
In Act III the identity of the protagonist is proclaimed and lived out in mission.
Now, in more detail.
Act I: Baptism
It is the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius. Pontius Pilate is governor of Judea, Herod the ruler of Galilee, and Annas and Caiaphas the Jewish high priests. The word of the Lord comes to John, son of Zechariah:
Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.
Fill every valley and level every mountain.
Straighten the crooked way and make the rough way smooth.
Point all flesh to the salvation of God.
In response, John emerges from the wilderness and comes to the Jordan preaching repentance and baptizing in acknowledgement of it. His cousin comes to him – Jesus from the town of Nazareth – comes to be baptized. By the power of the Holy Spirit John recognizes that there is more to Jesus than it seems – that he is the Holy One of Israel, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Reluctantly, John baptizes Jesus. And then it happens. The heavens are opened, the Holy Spirit descends in bodily form like a dove on this Jesus, and the voice of God from heaven shatters the noise of the crowds to proclaim, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” In Act I the identity of the protagonist is established – not created, just revealed to us and to the world. From before time, Jesus is the Son, the Beloved, and beyond time will remain the Son. But now we know it! And now Jesus has heard God verify and honor his identity before the watching world. God has spoken the word of identity over him. God has spoken and has established his identity.
Act II: Temptation
A moment passes, or a day – the time is unclear. But soon enough the Holy Spirit leads – throws – Jesus into the wilderness. There he dedicates himself to God and to his will with prayer and fasting as many have done before. Forty days he remains. Then comes the tempter: If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread. Surely, the Son of God does not go hungry. Surely, the Son of God has power to provide for his basic needs. Surely, it is a small thing for the Son of God to change a stone to bread. Do it. Change this stone to bread. Prove that you are the Son of God, the Beloved. In Act II the identity of the protagonist is questioned. And it is confirmed. Jesus answers the tempter: ‘It is written, “One does not live by bread alone”’ (Luke 4:4, NRSV). This is the Son’s response according to Luke; but, Matthew, in a more complete telling adds, “but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Mt 4:4b, NRSV).
“One does not live by bread alone,
but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Mt 4:4, NRSV).
And what is the most recent word that has come from the mouth of God, the word that sustains Jesus in the wilderness, the word by which he vanquishes the tempter? Both Luke and Matthew tell us: “You are my Son, the Beloved. With you I am well pleased.” It is that word of God spoken by God over Jesus at his baptism, that word which established Jesus’s identity. If you are the Son of God, the tempter hisses in the wilderness. You are my Son, the Beloved, God thunders from heaven. One does not live by bread alone, but by every word – by this word of identity – that comes from the mouth of God. In Act II the identity of the protagonist is questioned. And it is confirmed by the very word of God.
Act III: Mission
Then Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit returns to Galilee and begins to teach in their synagogues. Soon he comes to Nazareth, his hometown, where he is invited to speak on the Sabbath day. Standing before his family and friends, he takes the scroll – the scroll of the prophet Isaiah – finds the passage he wants, and reads.
‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour’ (Luke 4:18-19, NRSV).
He rolls up the scroll, hands it to the attendant, and sits down to teach: “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” Who could dare say this, who could dare claim the filling of the Spirit, who could dare pronounce himself the anointed, other than the one over whom God has spoken the word of identity? You are my Son, the Beloved. With you I am well pleased. In Act III the identity of the protagonist is proclaimed and lived out. The mission begins – and all on the basis of the word spoken over him, the word validated by him, the word of identity. All in all, a very good play.
But there’s a twist to the play analogy: we are not in the audience, we are on the stage – as many of us as have been baptized into Christ are actors. We are in our own three-act play, the same three acts: Baptism, Temptation, Mission. In Lent we may focus on Act II, Temptation, and, in our case, repentance. But this act only makes sense in context of Act I, Baptism, and it must lead to Act III, Mission.
Act I: Baptism
You come to the water, perhaps as an adult, perhaps carried as an infant. Little matter – what happens next is all gift, all grace anyway and eight days or eighty years you must receive it as gift and grace. You are immersed or sprinkled or in some other way washed in this water of regeneration and a word is spoken over you by the church: Servant of God – and here your name is called – you are baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. But the church is not the only one who speaks a word over you. God himself breaks the silence to proclaim: You are my child, my beloved. In you I am well pleased. And as difficult as that may be to understand, to embrace in heart and mind, it is nevertheless true, attested time and again in Scripture.
For in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus (Gal 3:26-28, NRSV).
For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ (Rom 8:14-17a, NRSV).
To all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God (John 1:12-13, NRSV).
In Act I God speaks and establishes your identity; by his very word – a word that has power to create what it speaks – you are created anew as his beloved child in whom he is well pleased. No matter who or what you were before, you are that no longer.
Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers – none of these will inherit the kingdom of God. And this is what some of you used to be. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God (1 Cor 6:9-11, NRSV).
You were washed, your were sanctified, you were justified as God spoke over you the word: You are my child, my beloved. In you I am well pleased. This is who you are. In baptism, through the washing and the word, God established your identity as his child – established it by the word that proceeds from his mouth.
But, there is an Act II: Temptation. In Act II your new identity is questioned, challenged by the tempter. If you are God’s child…these words are the leitmotif – the repeated refrain – of Act II. The tempter’s goal is clear: to get you to doubt your identity as a child of God. The next step is to doubt God himself.
If you are God’s child, the tempter hisses, why do you feel so ordinary?
If you are God’s child, why does God seem so distant?
If you are God’s child, why do you struggle so with sin and why does it so easily defeat you?
If you are God’s child why is your heart so downcast within you?
If you are God’s child why is your marriage not more blissful?
If you are God’s child why are your children so hard to manage?
If you are God’s child…
If you are God’s child…
It is an easy step – so hopes the tempter – from If you are God’s child, to You can’t be God’s child.
You can’t be God’s child when you’re so ordinary.
You can’t be God’s child when you struggle so with sin and when it so easily defeats you.
You can’t be God’s child when your marriage is troubled and your children are rebellious.
You can’t be God’s child…
You can’t be God’s child…
And so on, the voice whispers. It is then more than ever that we must remember the word spoken over us by God in our baptism. You are my child, my beloved. With you I am well pleased. We do not – we dare not – live by bread alone, by our feelings, our understanding, our circumstances, our failures alone. No. We live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God – the very word of truth, the very word with power to create what it speaks. We are the children of God because God has spoken his word over us. We are the children of God because God in his grace chose us and made us his own. We are the children of God because God has the power to make it so. Yes, our identity will be questioned in Act II. But it can also be confirmed by remembering the word spoken, by listening in the Spirit for the word continually spoken: You are my child, my beloved. With you I am well pleased. The Lenten experience is one of listening for this word in the midst of temptation.
In Act II the tempter challenges Jesus’s identity and offers him an agenda by which to prove it. If you are the Son of God change this stone to bread, jump from this pinnacle, bow down and worship me. It is no different with us. The tempter would like nothing better than to set the agenda for the church – for God’s children. Even better than destroying the church is making it inconsequential, making it simply one social club or civic group among many. Let it do its good deeds. Let it play at worship. Just never let it seize upon its true agenda, its true mission. That’s why there must be an Act III: Mission. It is not the tempter, it is not the world, it is not even the children of God who defines our mission. No. Our mission is spoken over us by God in our baptism, in our temptation: You are my child, my beloved. With you I am well pleased.
My Spirit is upon you.
I have anointed you to bring good news –Gospel! – to the poor.
I have sent you to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
We are the image bearers of Christ. We are the heralds of the kingdom. We are the firstfruits of his victory and we are his continuing presence in this world. Our mission is nothing more or less than to live into the reality of our identity as the children of God and to proclaim the glory of our Father, to whom be praise now and for ever. Amen.
So, rather than just the Lenten themes of prayer and fasting, almsgiving, scriptural reflection – as fitting and important as they are -- let’s seek even more fundamental themes: our identity as the beloved children of God through the power of God’s word spoken over us in our baptism; the power of that word to confirm our identity even in the midst of temptation; and the kingdom agenda that flows from our identity.
Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. But remember also that you are God’s child, his beloved, with whom God is well pleased.
Amen.
(Deuteronomy 26:1-11/Psalm 91/Romans 10:8b-13/Luke 4:1-13)
But By Every Word
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
On this first Sunday in Lent, the gospel lesson provides us with a host of obvious Lenten themes from which to choose. There is the forty-day temptation of Jesus, which provides the basis for our forty-day observance of Lent. We could talk about the significance of that number forty: Moses spending forty-days before Yahweh on Sinai receiving the first set of stone tablets and another forty days when receiving the second set, or the twelve spies scouting out the promised land forty days, or Israel wandering in the wilderness forty years. Then there is the issue of the wilderness itself. We could talk about the wilderness experiences of God’s people – not just the forty years following the failure to trust God, but the captivity and deportation to Assyria and Babylonia and the continued wilderness experience of pagan domination under Syria and Greece and Rome. There is also the theme of fasting and its companion, prayer. We could investigate the significance of fasting under both covenants and consider both Jewish and early Christian practices. There is the temptation itself. We could think about Lent as the time for struggling against those temptations that plague and often defeat us, as the time for strengthening ourselves with spiritual disciplines to overcome those temptations, and as the time for self-examination and sincere repentance over the times we have failed. Time, wilderness, fasting and prayer, self-examination, spiritual disciplines, repentance: all these Lenten themes are suggested by the gospel lesson.
But this event in Jesus’s life – the temptation experience – occurred long before Lent was an observance of the church. The writing of the Gospels occurred long before. So, while we may now look on this passage as a Lenten text, it certainly wasn’t that when it happened or when it was recorded. No, there’s something much deeper, much more significant in this event – and still something that captures important Lenten themes.
Imagine having tickets to a new Broadway play – a mystery in three acts. On the way to the theater your taxi gets caught in a hopelessly snarled traffic jam. You’re now late – very late. In fact you arrive just as the second act begins. You take your seat, and, while you might enjoy the wonderful acting and staging and just the excitement of the theater itself, you are lost in the story line, confused about the significance of certain events. You don’t have the background of the first act to make sense of the play. The temptation is just this – the second act of a three-act play. Unless we understand the first act we’ll be lost during the second, and the third act won’t have its intended impact on us either. So, we must put the temptation of Jesus in its proper context. How does it fit in the play?
The title of the play is Identity and the three acts are Baptism, Temptation, and Mission. I’ll give a synopsis of the play here and then we’ll flesh it out in more detail as we go.
Act I: Baptism
In Act I the identity of the protagonist – Jesus – is established.
Act II: Temptation
In Act II the identity of the protagonist is questioned and confirmed.
Act III: Mission
In Act III the identity of the protagonist is proclaimed and lived out in mission.
Now, in more detail.
Act I: Baptism
It is the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius. Pontius Pilate is governor of Judea, Herod the ruler of Galilee, and Annas and Caiaphas the Jewish high priests. The word of the Lord comes to John, son of Zechariah:
Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.
Fill every valley and level every mountain.
Straighten the crooked way and make the rough way smooth.
Point all flesh to the salvation of God.
In response, John emerges from the wilderness and comes to the Jordan preaching repentance and baptizing in acknowledgement of it. His cousin comes to him – Jesus from the town of Nazareth – comes to be baptized. By the power of the Holy Spirit John recognizes that there is more to Jesus than it seems – that he is the Holy One of Israel, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Reluctantly, John baptizes Jesus. And then it happens. The heavens are opened, the Holy Spirit descends in bodily form like a dove on this Jesus, and the voice of God from heaven shatters the noise of the crowds to proclaim, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” In Act I the identity of the protagonist is established – not created, just revealed to us and to the world. From before time, Jesus is the Son, the Beloved, and beyond time will remain the Son. But now we know it! And now Jesus has heard God verify and honor his identity before the watching world. God has spoken the word of identity over him. God has spoken and has established his identity.
Act II: Temptation
A moment passes, or a day – the time is unclear. But soon enough the Holy Spirit leads – throws – Jesus into the wilderness. There he dedicates himself to God and to his will with prayer and fasting as many have done before. Forty days he remains. Then comes the tempter: If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread. Surely, the Son of God does not go hungry. Surely, the Son of God has power to provide for his basic needs. Surely, it is a small thing for the Son of God to change a stone to bread. Do it. Change this stone to bread. Prove that you are the Son of God, the Beloved. In Act II the identity of the protagonist is questioned. And it is confirmed. Jesus answers the tempter: ‘It is written, “One does not live by bread alone”’ (Luke 4:4, NRSV). This is the Son’s response according to Luke; but, Matthew, in a more complete telling adds, “but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Mt 4:4b, NRSV).
“One does not live by bread alone,
but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Mt 4:4, NRSV).
And what is the most recent word that has come from the mouth of God, the word that sustains Jesus in the wilderness, the word by which he vanquishes the tempter? Both Luke and Matthew tell us: “You are my Son, the Beloved. With you I am well pleased.” It is that word of God spoken by God over Jesus at his baptism, that word which established Jesus’s identity. If you are the Son of God, the tempter hisses in the wilderness. You are my Son, the Beloved, God thunders from heaven. One does not live by bread alone, but by every word – by this word of identity – that comes from the mouth of God. In Act II the identity of the protagonist is questioned. And it is confirmed by the very word of God.
Act III: Mission
Then Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit returns to Galilee and begins to teach in their synagogues. Soon he comes to Nazareth, his hometown, where he is invited to speak on the Sabbath day. Standing before his family and friends, he takes the scroll – the scroll of the prophet Isaiah – finds the passage he wants, and reads.
‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour’ (Luke 4:18-19, NRSV).
He rolls up the scroll, hands it to the attendant, and sits down to teach: “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” Who could dare say this, who could dare claim the filling of the Spirit, who could dare pronounce himself the anointed, other than the one over whom God has spoken the word of identity? You are my Son, the Beloved. With you I am well pleased. In Act III the identity of the protagonist is proclaimed and lived out. The mission begins – and all on the basis of the word spoken over him, the word validated by him, the word of identity. All in all, a very good play.
But there’s a twist to the play analogy: we are not in the audience, we are on the stage – as many of us as have been baptized into Christ are actors. We are in our own three-act play, the same three acts: Baptism, Temptation, Mission. In Lent we may focus on Act II, Temptation, and, in our case, repentance. But this act only makes sense in context of Act I, Baptism, and it must lead to Act III, Mission.
Act I: Baptism
You come to the water, perhaps as an adult, perhaps carried as an infant. Little matter – what happens next is all gift, all grace anyway and eight days or eighty years you must receive it as gift and grace. You are immersed or sprinkled or in some other way washed in this water of regeneration and a word is spoken over you by the church: Servant of God – and here your name is called – you are baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. But the church is not the only one who speaks a word over you. God himself breaks the silence to proclaim: You are my child, my beloved. In you I am well pleased. And as difficult as that may be to understand, to embrace in heart and mind, it is nevertheless true, attested time and again in Scripture.
For in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus (Gal 3:26-28, NRSV).
For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ (Rom 8:14-17a, NRSV).
To all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God (John 1:12-13, NRSV).
In Act I God speaks and establishes your identity; by his very word – a word that has power to create what it speaks – you are created anew as his beloved child in whom he is well pleased. No matter who or what you were before, you are that no longer.
Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers – none of these will inherit the kingdom of God. And this is what some of you used to be. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God (1 Cor 6:9-11, NRSV).
You were washed, your were sanctified, you were justified as God spoke over you the word: You are my child, my beloved. In you I am well pleased. This is who you are. In baptism, through the washing and the word, God established your identity as his child – established it by the word that proceeds from his mouth.
But, there is an Act II: Temptation. In Act II your new identity is questioned, challenged by the tempter. If you are God’s child…these words are the leitmotif – the repeated refrain – of Act II. The tempter’s goal is clear: to get you to doubt your identity as a child of God. The next step is to doubt God himself.
If you are God’s child, the tempter hisses, why do you feel so ordinary?
If you are God’s child, why does God seem so distant?
If you are God’s child, why do you struggle so with sin and why does it so easily defeat you?
If you are God’s child why is your heart so downcast within you?
If you are God’s child why is your marriage not more blissful?
If you are God’s child why are your children so hard to manage?
If you are God’s child…
If you are God’s child…
It is an easy step – so hopes the tempter – from If you are God’s child, to You can’t be God’s child.
You can’t be God’s child when you’re so ordinary.
You can’t be God’s child when you struggle so with sin and when it so easily defeats you.
You can’t be God’s child when your marriage is troubled and your children are rebellious.
You can’t be God’s child…
You can’t be God’s child…
And so on, the voice whispers. It is then more than ever that we must remember the word spoken over us by God in our baptism. You are my child, my beloved. With you I am well pleased. We do not – we dare not – live by bread alone, by our feelings, our understanding, our circumstances, our failures alone. No. We live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God – the very word of truth, the very word with power to create what it speaks. We are the children of God because God has spoken his word over us. We are the children of God because God in his grace chose us and made us his own. We are the children of God because God has the power to make it so. Yes, our identity will be questioned in Act II. But it can also be confirmed by remembering the word spoken, by listening in the Spirit for the word continually spoken: You are my child, my beloved. With you I am well pleased. The Lenten experience is one of listening for this word in the midst of temptation.
In Act II the tempter challenges Jesus’s identity and offers him an agenda by which to prove it. If you are the Son of God change this stone to bread, jump from this pinnacle, bow down and worship me. It is no different with us. The tempter would like nothing better than to set the agenda for the church – for God’s children. Even better than destroying the church is making it inconsequential, making it simply one social club or civic group among many. Let it do its good deeds. Let it play at worship. Just never let it seize upon its true agenda, its true mission. That’s why there must be an Act III: Mission. It is not the tempter, it is not the world, it is not even the children of God who defines our mission. No. Our mission is spoken over us by God in our baptism, in our temptation: You are my child, my beloved. With you I am well pleased.
My Spirit is upon you.
I have anointed you to bring good news –Gospel! – to the poor.
I have sent you to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
We are the image bearers of Christ. We are the heralds of the kingdom. We are the firstfruits of his victory and we are his continuing presence in this world. Our mission is nothing more or less than to live into the reality of our identity as the children of God and to proclaim the glory of our Father, to whom be praise now and for ever. Amen.
So, rather than just the Lenten themes of prayer and fasting, almsgiving, scriptural reflection – as fitting and important as they are -- let’s seek even more fundamental themes: our identity as the beloved children of God through the power of God’s word spoken over us in our baptism; the power of that word to confirm our identity even in the midst of temptation; and the kingdom agenda that flows from our identity.
Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. But remember also that you are God’s child, his beloved, with whom God is well pleased.
Amen.
1 comment:
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