What's it take?
Commentary
Object:
As we begin the season of Lent we might ask “What’s it take?” What does it take for us to navigate through a season of woe to a moment of unexpected yet inevitable joy? The three lections lead us through this question in three different ways.
The Deuteronomy passage challenges us to travel the route of remembrance -- if we don’t remember who we are and how we got here we might be tempted to take a lot more credit for ourselves than we ought. Moses walks the people through their shared history -- one of slavery, oppression, and deliverance.
The apostle Paul, no stranger to biblical nuance, sets a hedge against the temptation to think of our faith as one of achieving great things to win God’s favor! All who call on the name of the Lord will be saved. Great achievements may follow, but it all begins with God’s grace.
And speaking of temptation, Jesus is tempted to complete the course through a series of shortcuts, an alternate path than the will of God. The Adversary presents a picture of an alternate future, one in which Jesus embraces earthly power to achieve greatness.
Interestingly enough, not only is the first lection from Deuteronomy, but the next two will include quotations from the same book.
Deuteronomy 26:1-11
In this passage Moses, aware that his end is near, gives the generation who will enter the Promised Land their final instructions. He speaks of future festivals involving the first fruits of the harvest. Each person, after reciting a line that is a reminder that it is God who brought the people to the land, joins the larger group in a historical recitation that is an acknowledgement of Holy History. You might highlight the importance of our shared confessions of faith and Holy History. God’s people are not to think of their good fortune as something they achieved through their own merit. God is to be seen as the author of their liberation and resettlement. God is the one who removed the yoke of Egypt “by a mighty hand, by an outstretched arm and awesome power, and by signs and portents.” God heard their pleas and saved them.
The meaning of the key phrase translated as “My father was a wandering Aramean” is a little uncertain. Is it Jacob who is referred to, or Abraham, or Isaac, or all three, or a combination? “Aramean” may refer to Aram alongside the river (see Genesis 24:4,10 and 25:20). What is clear is that we do not come into our possession, whether land, or in our case as believers in Jesus Christ, into the Kingdom of God, because of our own merit, but because of God’s good will.
In this country one may truly say we all came from somewhere else. We are all the descendants of wanderers -- not only physically, as folks whose ancestors (or in some cases ourselves) traveled to this continent (even my ancestors who crossed the Bering Strait land bridge several thousand years ago), but as inheritors of congregational and denominational histories. It’s important that we humbly give God credit as the author of our redemption. Don’t forget this. Don’t get on your high horse.
Romans 10:8b-13
Sometimes we make things harder than we need to. Our weekly task, after all, is to mine the scriptures for new insights and delve for deeper meanings. It’s what we do. And it’s what the apostle Paul was good at. He loved scripture and scripture study. Conversation -- dialogue -- was an essential part of the Pharasaic school of Gamaliel that Paul was trained in. Insight into scripture was the result of study and speech and argument.
What’s the first thing Paul did when he came to a new city? Seek out the synagogue and dialogue about scripture. He was always ready for the give and take of controversy. We learn. We grow.
Having said that, let’s not forget that this is not brain surgery. We have Paul’s word on this. Believe with your heart. Confess with your lips. All the distinctions we prize mean nothing. Quoting Joel, Paul proclaims that anyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. No other litmus test. No hoops to jump through.
And this word is already written on our hearts. If there was ever a week to belabor the obvious, this is it!
Luke 4:1-13
In The Lord of the Rings, Pippin tells Frodo that shortcuts make long delays. The devil tempts Jesus to take shortcuts from the path set out by his heavenly Father, shortcuts to power and false glory as against a path through suffering and sorrow to true glory. In the Hebrew scriptures the Adversary appears as part of the paid staff in the heavenly court, one whose job it is to question everything (see Job 1-2 and Zechariah 3:1-2). However, the devil who appears here is more than a “devil’s advocate” (pardon the expression); he’s an out-and-out opponent of God’s will.
This testing comes between the baptism of Jesus and his appearance at his hometown synagogue where he will unroll the Isaiah scroll and pronounce his mission to proclaim the Jubilee. It follows fasting and deprivation in the wilderness, with clear parallels to Moses and the people of God in the desert, and finds Jesus in a weakened, vulnerable state.
Whereas Jesus will later multiply bread and fish to make more bread and fish, accelerating the natural process in order to feed the multitudes, the devil tempts Jesus to prove his status as the son of God, the one revealed in the seventh chapter of Daniel as worthy to stand by the throne of the Ancient of Days, by turning stones to bread (an unnatural progression, more on the order of a magic trick or dog and pony show) to slake his appetites for his own benefit. Jesus counters by quoting Deuteronomy 8:3, a reminder from Moses about the tribulations of the people in the desert. You may consider how important it is today for the people of God to seek to serve others, feeding their needs, rather than focusing on ourselves and playing the preservation of our churches as the main goal of our ministry, rather than seeking out the least of these.
Whereas in Deuteronomy God takes Moses on the mountaintop and tells him this is the promised land for your descendants, the devil takes Jesus to the mountaintop and offers Jesus the kingdoms of the world if he will bow down and worship him. Jesus responds with another scripture from Deuteronomy, 6:13, a continuation of the great Shema (Hear, O Israel!). This quotation parallels today’s passage from Deuteronomy. In this case Moses reminds the people that all they have comes directly from God, and they are not to forget it! Therefore we will worship God and God solely, and not the gods of this world, the gods of racism, nationalism, hatred, and greed.
In the final temptation the devil takes Jesus up to a ledge high up a tower in the temple, a giddy place from which one might say anything to escape the feeling of imminent doom. What makes it trickier is that the devil quotes scripture. How often are people willing to follow a non-Christian path, or nurture non-Christian attitudes of hatred and exclusion, because someone has a handy verse to quote?
The devil misquotes a verse from Psalm 91, to suggest that Jesus can prove he is the Son of God by leaping down and forcing God’s hand. Certainly as the church we should avoid making promises that faithfulness will result in earthly prosperity and insurance against suffering and death. The history of Christian martyrs, in the past and the present, ought to remind us that many are called to walk in Jesus’ steps, all the way to the cross.
Jesus responds with a quotation from Deuteronomy 6:16 -- we shall not put the Lord our God to the test!
Let it not be forgotten that now, as two thousand years ago, the devil is a liar who offers a false sense of security and power rather than the substance of reality.
The Deuteronomy passage challenges us to travel the route of remembrance -- if we don’t remember who we are and how we got here we might be tempted to take a lot more credit for ourselves than we ought. Moses walks the people through their shared history -- one of slavery, oppression, and deliverance.
The apostle Paul, no stranger to biblical nuance, sets a hedge against the temptation to think of our faith as one of achieving great things to win God’s favor! All who call on the name of the Lord will be saved. Great achievements may follow, but it all begins with God’s grace.
And speaking of temptation, Jesus is tempted to complete the course through a series of shortcuts, an alternate path than the will of God. The Adversary presents a picture of an alternate future, one in which Jesus embraces earthly power to achieve greatness.
Interestingly enough, not only is the first lection from Deuteronomy, but the next two will include quotations from the same book.
Deuteronomy 26:1-11
In this passage Moses, aware that his end is near, gives the generation who will enter the Promised Land their final instructions. He speaks of future festivals involving the first fruits of the harvest. Each person, after reciting a line that is a reminder that it is God who brought the people to the land, joins the larger group in a historical recitation that is an acknowledgement of Holy History. You might highlight the importance of our shared confessions of faith and Holy History. God’s people are not to think of their good fortune as something they achieved through their own merit. God is to be seen as the author of their liberation and resettlement. God is the one who removed the yoke of Egypt “by a mighty hand, by an outstretched arm and awesome power, and by signs and portents.” God heard their pleas and saved them.
The meaning of the key phrase translated as “My father was a wandering Aramean” is a little uncertain. Is it Jacob who is referred to, or Abraham, or Isaac, or all three, or a combination? “Aramean” may refer to Aram alongside the river (see Genesis 24:4,10 and 25:20). What is clear is that we do not come into our possession, whether land, or in our case as believers in Jesus Christ, into the Kingdom of God, because of our own merit, but because of God’s good will.
In this country one may truly say we all came from somewhere else. We are all the descendants of wanderers -- not only physically, as folks whose ancestors (or in some cases ourselves) traveled to this continent (even my ancestors who crossed the Bering Strait land bridge several thousand years ago), but as inheritors of congregational and denominational histories. It’s important that we humbly give God credit as the author of our redemption. Don’t forget this. Don’t get on your high horse.
Romans 10:8b-13
Sometimes we make things harder than we need to. Our weekly task, after all, is to mine the scriptures for new insights and delve for deeper meanings. It’s what we do. And it’s what the apostle Paul was good at. He loved scripture and scripture study. Conversation -- dialogue -- was an essential part of the Pharasaic school of Gamaliel that Paul was trained in. Insight into scripture was the result of study and speech and argument.
What’s the first thing Paul did when he came to a new city? Seek out the synagogue and dialogue about scripture. He was always ready for the give and take of controversy. We learn. We grow.
Having said that, let’s not forget that this is not brain surgery. We have Paul’s word on this. Believe with your heart. Confess with your lips. All the distinctions we prize mean nothing. Quoting Joel, Paul proclaims that anyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. No other litmus test. No hoops to jump through.
And this word is already written on our hearts. If there was ever a week to belabor the obvious, this is it!
Luke 4:1-13
In The Lord of the Rings, Pippin tells Frodo that shortcuts make long delays. The devil tempts Jesus to take shortcuts from the path set out by his heavenly Father, shortcuts to power and false glory as against a path through suffering and sorrow to true glory. In the Hebrew scriptures the Adversary appears as part of the paid staff in the heavenly court, one whose job it is to question everything (see Job 1-2 and Zechariah 3:1-2). However, the devil who appears here is more than a “devil’s advocate” (pardon the expression); he’s an out-and-out opponent of God’s will.
This testing comes between the baptism of Jesus and his appearance at his hometown synagogue where he will unroll the Isaiah scroll and pronounce his mission to proclaim the Jubilee. It follows fasting and deprivation in the wilderness, with clear parallels to Moses and the people of God in the desert, and finds Jesus in a weakened, vulnerable state.
Whereas Jesus will later multiply bread and fish to make more bread and fish, accelerating the natural process in order to feed the multitudes, the devil tempts Jesus to prove his status as the son of God, the one revealed in the seventh chapter of Daniel as worthy to stand by the throne of the Ancient of Days, by turning stones to bread (an unnatural progression, more on the order of a magic trick or dog and pony show) to slake his appetites for his own benefit. Jesus counters by quoting Deuteronomy 8:3, a reminder from Moses about the tribulations of the people in the desert. You may consider how important it is today for the people of God to seek to serve others, feeding their needs, rather than focusing on ourselves and playing the preservation of our churches as the main goal of our ministry, rather than seeking out the least of these.
Whereas in Deuteronomy God takes Moses on the mountaintop and tells him this is the promised land for your descendants, the devil takes Jesus to the mountaintop and offers Jesus the kingdoms of the world if he will bow down and worship him. Jesus responds with another scripture from Deuteronomy, 6:13, a continuation of the great Shema (Hear, O Israel!). This quotation parallels today’s passage from Deuteronomy. In this case Moses reminds the people that all they have comes directly from God, and they are not to forget it! Therefore we will worship God and God solely, and not the gods of this world, the gods of racism, nationalism, hatred, and greed.
In the final temptation the devil takes Jesus up to a ledge high up a tower in the temple, a giddy place from which one might say anything to escape the feeling of imminent doom. What makes it trickier is that the devil quotes scripture. How often are people willing to follow a non-Christian path, or nurture non-Christian attitudes of hatred and exclusion, because someone has a handy verse to quote?
The devil misquotes a verse from Psalm 91, to suggest that Jesus can prove he is the Son of God by leaping down and forcing God’s hand. Certainly as the church we should avoid making promises that faithfulness will result in earthly prosperity and insurance against suffering and death. The history of Christian martyrs, in the past and the present, ought to remind us that many are called to walk in Jesus’ steps, all the way to the cross.
Jesus responds with a quotation from Deuteronomy 6:16 -- we shall not put the Lord our God to the test!
Let it not be forgotten that now, as two thousand years ago, the devil is a liar who offers a false sense of security and power rather than the substance of reality.
