Galilean Idol!
Children's sermon
Illustration
Preaching
Sermon
Worship
Why is the American public so interested in what is happening with others -- especially the famous and infamous? How do we resist the temptations of money, sex, power, gossip, beauty, and the many other characteristics that Americans covet? We all need to begin our Lenten journey on the right foot so that we are ready for Easter. Paul Bresnahan is going to help us learn more this week. Thom Shuman is supplying Another View this week. The illustrations, worship resource, and children's sermon are also included.
Galilean Idol!
By Paul Bresnahan
The prayer we say goes "Lead us not into temptation" and so we certainly mean that, no doubt. But we are also children of a time that is fixated on the cult of celebrity. Whether it is all the publicity and attention around the tragic events of Anna Nicole Smith, O. J. Simpson, or an astronaut caught up in jealousy and capital crime, we are drawn as a moth is to a flame by the exploits of those on the "People" pages of our weekly tabloids. We live in a time when sex, money, and power are the driving engines of our culture. Even in our better moments we cannot help but be utterly charmed and drawn into the charm, beauty, and youth of our "American Idols." Compare that with the ancient virtues of our faith: poverty, chastity, and obedience and wonder with me, if you will, how far we've come.
We enter now into the season of Lent. And we, like Jesus, have a wilderness to endure. How shall we, like him, find the wherewithal to stare down our deepest temptations? Is Jesus a measure in any sense against which we could compare him against the "American Idol"?
THE WORLD
It amazed me, I confess, when I discovered that so many in my congregation adored the television show "American Idol." There must be a puritanical streak left in me from my New England ancestry because the very notion of idolatry still evokes an automatic sense of revulsion. But then I, too, watched several episodes of the show and found that the cult of personality has indeed an especially powerful tug to it. The beauty and talent of youth and the aspirations and hopes of fame and glory are so utterly alluring. Like pure sparkling gold, the dazzling glitz of the cult of personality cannot help but draw us in unthinkingly into its grasp. How can anything so sexy, young, beautiful, and talented be anything but pure and lovely, gracious, and effervescing?
But then something so often goes so horribly wrong. Marilyn Monroe and Anna Nicole Smith, while so voluptuously beautiful, are also so likely to die so young, and under the cloud of self-inflicted self-destructive behaviors. Pete Rose and "OJ" Simpson were so skillfully powerful on the field in their respective sports. But then it all slipped through their fingers in the former case because of gambling the latter under the cloud of a horrible capital crime. The hands that hold the wealth of the greatest multi-national corporations cannot escape the temptation to overreach the boundaries of ethical behavior. Even Ken Lay of Enron is gone now it seems, swept away with the excesses that left tens of thousands penniless and out of work.
And so the engines that drive our culture are Sex, Money, and Power. We are drawn into their pull like a vortex pulls all that comes within its grasp. Unless we are careful, vigilant, and sober, we can become drunk with self-indulgence, and succumb to the destructive tenacity of each.
It is no wonder the Bible warns us about idolatry. The golden calf is still very much with us dear friends. But its glitter and glitz is far subtler than we might at first suspect. We may not take it seriously. But when we take stock in the cold light of day what so often happens to our idols, we might have a better sense of what it means to plod the wilderness with those people of faith who have come before us. Thus now we enter upon our Lenten journey.
THE WORD
It must have been tempting when Jesus faced the evil one. He could have fed the hungry with a wave of his hand. It was tempting. He was God we're told. He could do anything. Why not feed the hungry? He was famished as the devil rightly observed. So are the poor by the millions around the world. Why not just change the stones to bread? It was so tempting. And yet he knew, as do we that man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God (Deuteronomy 8:3). How tempting it must have been to feed his beloved poor!
He could have made peace, too. He could have just taken all the power of the nations into his own hands and he could have imposed an arbitrary rule of peace as imposed by God. He was God, let's remember. Talk about tempting. Feed the poor and impose peace! That must have been so alluring. They all wanted someone to come down out of the clouds and usher in the new reign from above. We still do. But Jesus would not. All he had to do was worship the evil one. He could have taken the sword into his own hands and done what we've been doing all through history. Only he could have done it once and for all! Talk about tempting. But he will not take up the sword the nations of the earth.
And finally "Prove that you are God. Go ahead, jump off the pinnacle of the temple and do it where everyone can see it." The devil must have really tempted Jesus with that one. That's like doing it on CNN and Fox TV News live for everyone to see. We cannot help but wonder the same thing from time. For God sake just prove it once and for all! We cannot trust those who claim that they saw you rise from the dead. We want to see it live on television. Only then will we believe. That was tempting, too, I'm sure. So much so that Jesus said... don't tempt me!
So there he was tempted in the wilderness by those matters that most deeply trouble the heart of God. Feed the poor, bring peace, prove who you are so convincingly that we will finally submit to you.
If we are to believe in God it will have to be through the generosity of our own hearts that the poor will be fed. It will have to be through our own kindness and courage that we will find our way to peace with justice rather than rapacious greed. It will have to be through the discovery that the love of God and the love of our neighbors one at a time, and every group, race, orientation, and creed on the planet that God truly reigns in the human heart. There is no other way. "Everyone who calls on the name of God will be saved," Paul says in today's lesson from Romans. Notice that citation said "everyone." There were no exceptions. It appears that this is the only way. It is the way of Jesus.
CRAFTING THE SERMON
And so we find ourselves glued to our television sets to see who will win. What a voice that young man has. How handsome. That girl sings with such confidence and passion. Her eyes are so full of excitement and hope. How we love these young people. And how much we worship youth, with all its beauty and charm. To be sure they remind us of a time when we, too, were perhaps somewhat more alluring than we have now become. There is something of an ephemeral quality to this charismatic quality that we do indeed worship in our American Idols.
Too often they, like the rest of us, are found to have clay feet, and a fatal flaw that is exploited through notoriety and self-indulgence. And so for them and for us all our true vulnerability becomes more apparent. When Jesus entered the wilderness he was very vulnerable indeed.
In fact the Galilean Idol was vulnerable not just in the wilderness. He was vulnerable throughout his life. When he healed, he could feel power "go out" from him even when a woman would touch but the hem of his garment. He refused to send them all away but broke bread, said the blessing, and gave them as much as their hearts and souls desired until there were baskets of scraps gathered up that numbered as many as his disciples. He healed them. He taught them. He fed them with every word that comes from the mouth of God. And if they found themselves at wits end, or maimed, or leprous, or outcast from the temple because they were of ill repute, he found a way to bring them closer to God. Even the rich tax collector found repose in his company.
This Galilean Idol was no ordinary example of a cult of personality. He was the perfect image of God made flesh. He was unafraid of the wilderness. He entered the wilds of his own deepest doubts and despairs with courage and profound honesty. He wanted to feed the hungry. But taught us to share and to live by the word of God. He wanted to impose peace in the midst of warfare and could have dispersed the Roman Legions with a wave of his hand. But he taught us not to worship Caesar's way but God's. We're still awkwardly avoiding that lesson. He wanted us to know him as the living God, but he chose instead to die on the cross, alone and accused of a capital crime. The instrument then of a shameful death became the vehicle though which he forgave us our sins and gave us eternal life.
This Galilean Idol did not want us to worship him; he wanted us to worship God alone. He avoided attention, and went to lonely places where he could pray. But the multitudes sought him out because he satisfied the deepest longing of the human soul... not for sex, money, or power; but for love, forgiveness, and eternal life.
It is interesting to me that the old virtues that our faith traditions used to teach with authority were poverty, chastity, and obedience. They are still the ideal of the monastic communities of Francis, Benedict, and Ignatius.
We are now in our own wilderness and we are being called to face our own deepest doubts and despairs with God's own courage and profound honesty. It is an anxious time where depression is the modern epidemic. And yet we have everything we could ask for. We have ample supplies of sex, money, and power concentrated as never before in the Euro/American West. And yet we ache for something more; or is it something else?
The tragic figures of Anna Nicole Smith and all the others point out to us that something is very wrong with the modern psyche. Wouldn't it be interesting if something as old and as ordinary as Lent could put us back in touch with the truth about us?
Ash Wednesday in the liturgical churches calls us to mark the foreheads of the faithful the burned ash of last year's palms; not to make a "show of our religion" but as a reminder of our mortality. Somewhere between the polarities of sex, money, and power on the one hand and poverty, chastity, and obedience on the other, is Christian stewardship. We all have these superb gifts from God. Let's return them to God and share them with one another as God intended. Those of us who can walk the way of the cross will find it none other than the way of life and peace. Won't you look with me to the Galilean Idol who is no idol at all? Won't you look to the face of Jesus and gaze into the heart of the love of God and don't be afraid any more. He will walk with us, and be our companion along the way. He will guide us as surely as surely as day follows night unto the wellsprings of God's everlasting day.
ANOTHER VIEW
By Thom Shuman
Several times a year, I put myself in the "hot seat" with the youth group at church, allowing them to ask me anything they want. Invariably, the first time around the personal questions arise (why did you become a minister; where did you go to school; how did you and Mrs. Shuman meet; what size shoe to you wear [size 15]?). But about the second or third session, the kids begin to ask those questions they really want answers to: why should I read the Bible; what difference does Christianity make in my life in today's world; why are there so many differences between us and other religions? And, if I am wise enough to meet with the kids during Lent, I am always asked, "How in the world was Jesus able to go to Jerusalem, and be put to death?"
It's the same question I raised years and years ago, when I was their age. It's the same question I ask myself just about every Lent. And, I am pretty sure it is the same question that most adults would want answered, if they were as willing to ask as honestly as the youth do? How?
The rather canned answer I got when I was a youth was that being the Son of God/divine, Jesus had the ability to endure anything that was offered to him. I heard it, but that answer didn't satisfy me then, nor does it today. Another rather glib answer (I think) is that Jesus was in on the "secret" that God would not really let him die or suffer, and that the resurrection was a foregone conclusion. But I don't see that in the gospels, and I especially don't see it in the passion poured out in Gethsemane and on the cross. So again, How?
I think Psalm 91 provides some clues for us. It's a shame we don't read the whole thing in the RCL (though that is an option I would encourage) for it is clear that taken as a whole, this psalm speaks to us of a radical trust in God, a trust that at all times, but especially in the worst of times, God can be trusted! We are told this explicitly in verses 5-6, when it doesn't matter what time of day it is, God is there. In verses 3-13, there is no doubt that whatever comes our way -- surprise attack, sickness, war, even wild animals -- God is going to watch over us. According to this marvelous testimony by the psalmist, there is no time, no place, no situation, no person that can withstand God's ability to stand with us, and to strengthen us.
In short, this psalm tells us precisely HOW Jesus could go to Jerusalem and endure -- God's protection was in that place, in that time, in that horror, in that death, in that tomb. Jesus' radical trust in God's ability to protect enabled him to make the journey he was called to make. And when this psalm is misused in the gospel lesson for today, to tempt Jesus to go skydiving off the temple top, Jesus reminds the evil one that we are not called to test God, but to trust God in every moment, every time, every place. God's protection is not a magic amulet that guards against all troubles; it is the promise that God will not abandon us in such moments. Indeed, as Paul reminds us so eloquently in Romans, there is nothing (nothing!) that can separate us from the love of God!
I have been through years and years of struggle, heartache, and pain with our son, who is mentally retarded and suffers from a host of other disabilities, including explosive behavior. Inpatient treatment in psychiatric units, residential placements, medication after medication -- it has been a journey to Jerusalem and beyond. Last year, at this time, he was charged with murdering his roommate in a residential center. Though the charges were eventually dismissed, we experienced a month or so of incredible stress and unbearable pain. Folks often asked me during those days, as I went to work, and taught and preached and visited others, how I did it.
It wasn't until after all this was over, and I got away for a week of silent retreat at the Abbey of Gethsemane, that I learned the answer to that question. Every night, the brothers and the retreatants gather for Compline, the service sung just before retiring for the night. And each evening, as we sang Psalm 91, I realized what the psalmist learned (and taught) so many centuries ago. It is that relationship we have with God, it is that trust we have in God, it is that confidence that God is with us in every moment, in every place, in every time, in every situation which explains how the psalmist did it, how Jesus did it, and how you and I, by God's grace and love, can do it.
ILLUSTRATIONS
Pilots who are in training wear this special hood that prevents them from seeing outside of the cockpit. They can only see the instruments. It is to train them to trust the instruments and not their senses. Often, when the pilot loses his or her bearing in a cloudbank or a storm, they cannot tell if they are level, diving or climbing. This lost of bearing causes many to crash if they trust their senses. Instead, they must rely on their instruments to give them a proper sense of direction. In the same way, we are bombarded daily with sensory overload of who we are, where we are heading and what is our bearing. If we listen too intently to these outside voices, we can quickly become lost. But if we can somehow put on this spiritual hood, block out the other noises, turn a deaf ear to worldly temptations, then we can hear the promise of God spoken through the water and the word -- you are mine.
* * *
The temptations that the devil presents to Jesus all center on power -- turn these stones into bread, hurl yourself from this pinnacle, bow down to me and I will give you the world! There are many who have no power in this world and dream of what they might do with it. There are others with the power and are not sure how to use it. At Bel Aire Presbyterian Church, then governor Ronald Reagan and his wife, Nancy, always sat in the same pew 2/3rd down the aisle. One day they were running late and two college kids came to church for the first time and sat in the Reagan's pew. The usher came down and asked the kids to leave and promptly sat the Reagans. To his credit, Pastor Don Moomau got up from his place in the pulpit, walked down the aisle and caught up to the college kids in the narthex and said, "I am so sorry. As long as I am pastor of this church, that will never happen to you again here. You are welcome." What will you do with your power?
* * *
With all the troubles with airline delays these days, there was one man who was growing more and more impatient as he tried to get on the plane. He was on standby and desperately needed to get to a meeting. The attendant spoke into the microphone repeatedly, "Those of you who are waiting, please sit down and we will call you when it is your turn." However, this man was not one to take no for an answer. He was an executive in this airline. And he needed to get on this airplane. As he approach the counter, the attendant said again into the microphone, "If you are waiting, please take a seat and we will call you when it is your turn." Evidently, he did not think that this pertained to him and proceeded to talk to the attendant, telling her how important it is for him to be on that airplane. She told him to be seated and she will call him when it was his turn. And then he pulled the trump card. He said to her in a strong voice, "Do you know who I am?" With that the exasperated attendant paused, picked up the microphone again and said, "Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a man who does not know who he is. Please claim him, put him back in line, and I'll talk to him when it's his turn."
You do know, don't you, that we are not nearly as impressed with your credentials as you are?
* * *
They're calling it "guerrilla marketing" -- a risky, in-your-face technique of getting a company's name before the public, even if it means skirting the law. On February 9, Jim Samples, longtime president of the Cartoon Network cable-TV channel, resigned due to fallout from a guerrilla-marketing stunt that had paralyzed much of downtown Boston for several hours on January 31. A marketing firm hired by the Cartoon Network had placed electronic advertisements in various places around the city, including one on a highway overpass that was mistaken for a bomb. The battery-powered devices -- which looked like a child's Lite-Brite toy -- were harmless, but they appeared to security experts, at first, like they could have been part of a coordinated terrorist attack.
When the devil invites Jesus to leap from the pinnacle of the Temple, to be spectacularly rescued by angels, it's a sort of first-century guerrilla-marketing stunt. Jesus will have none of it, though. He doesn't need that kind of promotion, for he has come not to be served, but to serve.
***
Vice, in its true light, is so deformed, that it shocks us at first sight; and would hardly ever seduce us, if it did not at first wear the mask of some virtue.
-- Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield
***
The devil's temptation to turn stones into bread does not, at first, seem like a very serious matter. After all, what's wrong with having a little something to eat? Yet, this would violate the discipline of Jesus' self-imposed fast. One concession would quickly lead to another, more serious one.
In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis has written a fictional set of letters from a senior devil to an apprentice demon, giving him advice on how best to tempt human beings. The trainee, whose name is Wormwood, is growing concerned that his victim, a new convert to Christianity, has become a regular churchgoer. Screwtape, the more experienced devil, writes back: "I am almost glad to hear that he is still a churchgoer and a communicant. I know there are dangers in this; but anything is better than that he should realise the break he has made with the first months of his Christian life. As long as he retains externally the habits of a Christian he can still be made to think of himself as one who as adopted a few new friends and amusements but whose spiritual state is really much the same as it was six weeks ago.... You will say that these are very small sins; and doubtless, like all young tempters, you are anxious to be able to report spectacular wickedness. But do remember, the only thing that matters is the extent to which separate the man from the Enemy. It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one-the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts."
* * *
Kathleen Norris writes in Cloister Walk that when she was a teenager she stopped going to church because she knew that she couldn't be as good as she thought the church demanded. Good girls, she thought, didn't ever get angry, or feel resentment, or want revenge.
Later, as an adult, she began visiting a Benedictine convent and discovered psalms that expressed those very feelings, psalms full of anger and complaint and lament-even threats and demands. It was like coming home at last, she said, and she could move ahead to getting to know a Lord who understood her, and accepted her, and loved her.
* * *
Not everyone today lives for wealth and power and fame. After Jack McConnell, 81, a physician and medical researcher, retired to play golf in Hilton Head, South Carolina, he found that he was bored. He also found that many of his new neighbors lacked adequate health care. So he started a free clinic for them, and got other retired doctors and nurses to help.
Now the Volunteers in Medicine Institute, using his model, has established a network of more than 50 neighborhood clinics around the country. McConnell credits his parents for helping him be concerned about the needs of others. "They asked us, at the end of each day, what we had done for someone else that day."
-- AARP Bulletin, February 2007
* * *
While some teenage girls seem to care mostly about their hair and makeup and clothes, seventeen-year-old Dianna Mendoza, from a small town in Washington state, has had more important concerns. She's wanted to visit Africa ever since her Sunday school gathered coins to help provide clean water for a rural village in Africa. And she's wanted to go over and see what the conditions are and how she might help.
So she checked on the internet and found that a group of women from her denomination would be visiting Tanzania. When she told her congregation that she wanted to join the group, they set up a yard sale to help finance her trip, and she began doing custodial work at the church and babysitting. After she returns from Africa, she wants to go out speaking to help make Africa's needs "more real" to those in her area so that they, too, will want to help.
-- Lutheran World Relief Quarterly Newsletter, November 2006
WORSHIP RESOURCE
Call To Worship
Leader: Jesus began his ministry to the world,
led by the Spirit into the wilderness.
People: As we begin our Lenten journey,
let us be led by the Spirit,
even into the uncomfortable places.
Leader: In those forty days, and in that place,
Jesus was faced with hunger, doubt
and temptation.
People: As we seek to follow Jesus,
we would be led,
even into the uncomfortable choices.
Leader: Jesus left the wilderness,
faithful and obedient to God,
rejoicing in the One in whom he trusted.
People: As we continue on our path to faithfulness,
we will be led by our Christ,
rejoicing in the Lord our God.
Prayer Of The Day
Holy God,
Refuge of desert wanderers:
as the seeds of grace
you have planted within us
bear an abundant harvest,
we would offer the first fruits
in thanksgiving to you
and in service to others.
Jesus Christ,
Companion of Lenten pilgrims:
you understood
that God alone feeds us,
and so became the broken Bread;
you knew that the power
to transform our lives
comes from God alone,
and so became our Servant;
you did not ignore
the warning not to test God,
and so became our Hope.
Holy Spirit,
Leader of Christ's apprentices:
you fill the hungry
with the Bread of life;
you fill the arrogant
with the Servant's humility;
you fill the hopeless
with that trust which endures.
God in Community, Holy in One,
in our hearts and with our lips,
we pray as Jesus has taught us, saying,
Our Father...
Call To Reconciliation
God makes no distinction between us. We are all sinners, we are all children of God, we are all precious to God, and we are all saved by God. Because God makes no distinction, let us confess our common humanity to the One who is generous to all.
Unison Prayer Of Confession
God of our ancestors and God of our children, we come knowing we have preferred to test you, rather than to trust you. The famine in our souls makes us long to be filled with the empty promises of the world. We listen to the soothing words of the advertisers, rather than to the uncomfortable words of discipleship.
Forgive us, God of our lives. Bring us out of that dependence on ourselves, and bring us into the presence of the One we seek to follow, not only to Jerusalem, but beyond -- into life with you forever, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.
(Silence is observed.)
Assurance Of Pardon
Leader: God has listened to our prayers and to our
silence. God reaches out, with signs and
wonders, with grace and forgiveness, and
makes us whole.
People: On our lips and in our hearts, we give thanks
to the One who loves us and heals us. Amen.
CHILDREN'S SERMON
Sometimes it's hard to be strong!
Object: a plate of cookies, brownies, or other yummy treats
Hello! Today is the first Sunday in a new season for the Church. We are in the season of Lent. That's the time of the year when we prepare for Jesus' death on Good Friday and his resurrection on Easter Day. It's not time to hear those stories quite yet, so Lent is a time for us to get our hearts ready.
Do you know what being tempted is? It's when you really want to do something you know you shouldn't. Let's say that you see a big plate of cookies and brownies sitting on your kitchen table, but you've been told that you can't eat them until after dinner. You really want to eat a cookie, even though you've been told not to do it. You are tempted to break the rule and do it anyway.
It's hard to say, "No," when you're tempted, isn't it? It's easy just to do what we want to do -- no matter if it's wrong or harmful to us. In today's reading we learn that even Jesus was tempted, but he was able to stay strong and do the right thing. We can be strong by praying and asking God to help us. He has promised us that he will give us strength even when we don't think we have any. Ask Jesus how you can be strong too when you are tempted.
Prayer: Dear God, sometimes it is hard to do the right thing. It's hard to be strong and not give in to temptation. Please teach us how to be people who are brave and able to do what you ask us to do, even when it seems very hard. Thank you for loving us and teaching us how to live in a way that makes you proud. Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, February 25, 2007, issue.
Copyright 2007 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 517 South Main Street, Lima, Ohio 45804.
Galilean Idol!
By Paul Bresnahan
The prayer we say goes "Lead us not into temptation" and so we certainly mean that, no doubt. But we are also children of a time that is fixated on the cult of celebrity. Whether it is all the publicity and attention around the tragic events of Anna Nicole Smith, O. J. Simpson, or an astronaut caught up in jealousy and capital crime, we are drawn as a moth is to a flame by the exploits of those on the "People" pages of our weekly tabloids. We live in a time when sex, money, and power are the driving engines of our culture. Even in our better moments we cannot help but be utterly charmed and drawn into the charm, beauty, and youth of our "American Idols." Compare that with the ancient virtues of our faith: poverty, chastity, and obedience and wonder with me, if you will, how far we've come.
We enter now into the season of Lent. And we, like Jesus, have a wilderness to endure. How shall we, like him, find the wherewithal to stare down our deepest temptations? Is Jesus a measure in any sense against which we could compare him against the "American Idol"?
THE WORLD
It amazed me, I confess, when I discovered that so many in my congregation adored the television show "American Idol." There must be a puritanical streak left in me from my New England ancestry because the very notion of idolatry still evokes an automatic sense of revulsion. But then I, too, watched several episodes of the show and found that the cult of personality has indeed an especially powerful tug to it. The beauty and talent of youth and the aspirations and hopes of fame and glory are so utterly alluring. Like pure sparkling gold, the dazzling glitz of the cult of personality cannot help but draw us in unthinkingly into its grasp. How can anything so sexy, young, beautiful, and talented be anything but pure and lovely, gracious, and effervescing?
But then something so often goes so horribly wrong. Marilyn Monroe and Anna Nicole Smith, while so voluptuously beautiful, are also so likely to die so young, and under the cloud of self-inflicted self-destructive behaviors. Pete Rose and "OJ" Simpson were so skillfully powerful on the field in their respective sports. But then it all slipped through their fingers in the former case because of gambling the latter under the cloud of a horrible capital crime. The hands that hold the wealth of the greatest multi-national corporations cannot escape the temptation to overreach the boundaries of ethical behavior. Even Ken Lay of Enron is gone now it seems, swept away with the excesses that left tens of thousands penniless and out of work.
And so the engines that drive our culture are Sex, Money, and Power. We are drawn into their pull like a vortex pulls all that comes within its grasp. Unless we are careful, vigilant, and sober, we can become drunk with self-indulgence, and succumb to the destructive tenacity of each.
It is no wonder the Bible warns us about idolatry. The golden calf is still very much with us dear friends. But its glitter and glitz is far subtler than we might at first suspect. We may not take it seriously. But when we take stock in the cold light of day what so often happens to our idols, we might have a better sense of what it means to plod the wilderness with those people of faith who have come before us. Thus now we enter upon our Lenten journey.
THE WORD
It must have been tempting when Jesus faced the evil one. He could have fed the hungry with a wave of his hand. It was tempting. He was God we're told. He could do anything. Why not feed the hungry? He was famished as the devil rightly observed. So are the poor by the millions around the world. Why not just change the stones to bread? It was so tempting. And yet he knew, as do we that man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God (Deuteronomy 8:3). How tempting it must have been to feed his beloved poor!
He could have made peace, too. He could have just taken all the power of the nations into his own hands and he could have imposed an arbitrary rule of peace as imposed by God. He was God, let's remember. Talk about tempting. Feed the poor and impose peace! That must have been so alluring. They all wanted someone to come down out of the clouds and usher in the new reign from above. We still do. But Jesus would not. All he had to do was worship the evil one. He could have taken the sword into his own hands and done what we've been doing all through history. Only he could have done it once and for all! Talk about tempting. But he will not take up the sword the nations of the earth.
And finally "Prove that you are God. Go ahead, jump off the pinnacle of the temple and do it where everyone can see it." The devil must have really tempted Jesus with that one. That's like doing it on CNN and Fox TV News live for everyone to see. We cannot help but wonder the same thing from time. For God sake just prove it once and for all! We cannot trust those who claim that they saw you rise from the dead. We want to see it live on television. Only then will we believe. That was tempting, too, I'm sure. So much so that Jesus said... don't tempt me!
So there he was tempted in the wilderness by those matters that most deeply trouble the heart of God. Feed the poor, bring peace, prove who you are so convincingly that we will finally submit to you.
If we are to believe in God it will have to be through the generosity of our own hearts that the poor will be fed. It will have to be through our own kindness and courage that we will find our way to peace with justice rather than rapacious greed. It will have to be through the discovery that the love of God and the love of our neighbors one at a time, and every group, race, orientation, and creed on the planet that God truly reigns in the human heart. There is no other way. "Everyone who calls on the name of God will be saved," Paul says in today's lesson from Romans. Notice that citation said "everyone." There were no exceptions. It appears that this is the only way. It is the way of Jesus.
CRAFTING THE SERMON
And so we find ourselves glued to our television sets to see who will win. What a voice that young man has. How handsome. That girl sings with such confidence and passion. Her eyes are so full of excitement and hope. How we love these young people. And how much we worship youth, with all its beauty and charm. To be sure they remind us of a time when we, too, were perhaps somewhat more alluring than we have now become. There is something of an ephemeral quality to this charismatic quality that we do indeed worship in our American Idols.
Too often they, like the rest of us, are found to have clay feet, and a fatal flaw that is exploited through notoriety and self-indulgence. And so for them and for us all our true vulnerability becomes more apparent. When Jesus entered the wilderness he was very vulnerable indeed.
In fact the Galilean Idol was vulnerable not just in the wilderness. He was vulnerable throughout his life. When he healed, he could feel power "go out" from him even when a woman would touch but the hem of his garment. He refused to send them all away but broke bread, said the blessing, and gave them as much as their hearts and souls desired until there were baskets of scraps gathered up that numbered as many as his disciples. He healed them. He taught them. He fed them with every word that comes from the mouth of God. And if they found themselves at wits end, or maimed, or leprous, or outcast from the temple because they were of ill repute, he found a way to bring them closer to God. Even the rich tax collector found repose in his company.
This Galilean Idol was no ordinary example of a cult of personality. He was the perfect image of God made flesh. He was unafraid of the wilderness. He entered the wilds of his own deepest doubts and despairs with courage and profound honesty. He wanted to feed the hungry. But taught us to share and to live by the word of God. He wanted to impose peace in the midst of warfare and could have dispersed the Roman Legions with a wave of his hand. But he taught us not to worship Caesar's way but God's. We're still awkwardly avoiding that lesson. He wanted us to know him as the living God, but he chose instead to die on the cross, alone and accused of a capital crime. The instrument then of a shameful death became the vehicle though which he forgave us our sins and gave us eternal life.
This Galilean Idol did not want us to worship him; he wanted us to worship God alone. He avoided attention, and went to lonely places where he could pray. But the multitudes sought him out because he satisfied the deepest longing of the human soul... not for sex, money, or power; but for love, forgiveness, and eternal life.
It is interesting to me that the old virtues that our faith traditions used to teach with authority were poverty, chastity, and obedience. They are still the ideal of the monastic communities of Francis, Benedict, and Ignatius.
We are now in our own wilderness and we are being called to face our own deepest doubts and despairs with God's own courage and profound honesty. It is an anxious time where depression is the modern epidemic. And yet we have everything we could ask for. We have ample supplies of sex, money, and power concentrated as never before in the Euro/American West. And yet we ache for something more; or is it something else?
The tragic figures of Anna Nicole Smith and all the others point out to us that something is very wrong with the modern psyche. Wouldn't it be interesting if something as old and as ordinary as Lent could put us back in touch with the truth about us?
Ash Wednesday in the liturgical churches calls us to mark the foreheads of the faithful the burned ash of last year's palms; not to make a "show of our religion" but as a reminder of our mortality. Somewhere between the polarities of sex, money, and power on the one hand and poverty, chastity, and obedience on the other, is Christian stewardship. We all have these superb gifts from God. Let's return them to God and share them with one another as God intended. Those of us who can walk the way of the cross will find it none other than the way of life and peace. Won't you look with me to the Galilean Idol who is no idol at all? Won't you look to the face of Jesus and gaze into the heart of the love of God and don't be afraid any more. He will walk with us, and be our companion along the way. He will guide us as surely as surely as day follows night unto the wellsprings of God's everlasting day.
ANOTHER VIEW
By Thom Shuman
Several times a year, I put myself in the "hot seat" with the youth group at church, allowing them to ask me anything they want. Invariably, the first time around the personal questions arise (why did you become a minister; where did you go to school; how did you and Mrs. Shuman meet; what size shoe to you wear [size 15]?). But about the second or third session, the kids begin to ask those questions they really want answers to: why should I read the Bible; what difference does Christianity make in my life in today's world; why are there so many differences between us and other religions? And, if I am wise enough to meet with the kids during Lent, I am always asked, "How in the world was Jesus able to go to Jerusalem, and be put to death?"
It's the same question I raised years and years ago, when I was their age. It's the same question I ask myself just about every Lent. And, I am pretty sure it is the same question that most adults would want answered, if they were as willing to ask as honestly as the youth do? How?
The rather canned answer I got when I was a youth was that being the Son of God/divine, Jesus had the ability to endure anything that was offered to him. I heard it, but that answer didn't satisfy me then, nor does it today. Another rather glib answer (I think) is that Jesus was in on the "secret" that God would not really let him die or suffer, and that the resurrection was a foregone conclusion. But I don't see that in the gospels, and I especially don't see it in the passion poured out in Gethsemane and on the cross. So again, How?
I think Psalm 91 provides some clues for us. It's a shame we don't read the whole thing in the RCL (though that is an option I would encourage) for it is clear that taken as a whole, this psalm speaks to us of a radical trust in God, a trust that at all times, but especially in the worst of times, God can be trusted! We are told this explicitly in verses 5-6, when it doesn't matter what time of day it is, God is there. In verses 3-13, there is no doubt that whatever comes our way -- surprise attack, sickness, war, even wild animals -- God is going to watch over us. According to this marvelous testimony by the psalmist, there is no time, no place, no situation, no person that can withstand God's ability to stand with us, and to strengthen us.
In short, this psalm tells us precisely HOW Jesus could go to Jerusalem and endure -- God's protection was in that place, in that time, in that horror, in that death, in that tomb. Jesus' radical trust in God's ability to protect enabled him to make the journey he was called to make. And when this psalm is misused in the gospel lesson for today, to tempt Jesus to go skydiving off the temple top, Jesus reminds the evil one that we are not called to test God, but to trust God in every moment, every time, every place. God's protection is not a magic amulet that guards against all troubles; it is the promise that God will not abandon us in such moments. Indeed, as Paul reminds us so eloquently in Romans, there is nothing (nothing!) that can separate us from the love of God!
I have been through years and years of struggle, heartache, and pain with our son, who is mentally retarded and suffers from a host of other disabilities, including explosive behavior. Inpatient treatment in psychiatric units, residential placements, medication after medication -- it has been a journey to Jerusalem and beyond. Last year, at this time, he was charged with murdering his roommate in a residential center. Though the charges were eventually dismissed, we experienced a month or so of incredible stress and unbearable pain. Folks often asked me during those days, as I went to work, and taught and preached and visited others, how I did it.
It wasn't until after all this was over, and I got away for a week of silent retreat at the Abbey of Gethsemane, that I learned the answer to that question. Every night, the brothers and the retreatants gather for Compline, the service sung just before retiring for the night. And each evening, as we sang Psalm 91, I realized what the psalmist learned (and taught) so many centuries ago. It is that relationship we have with God, it is that trust we have in God, it is that confidence that God is with us in every moment, in every place, in every time, in every situation which explains how the psalmist did it, how Jesus did it, and how you and I, by God's grace and love, can do it.
ILLUSTRATIONS
Pilots who are in training wear this special hood that prevents them from seeing outside of the cockpit. They can only see the instruments. It is to train them to trust the instruments and not their senses. Often, when the pilot loses his or her bearing in a cloudbank or a storm, they cannot tell if they are level, diving or climbing. This lost of bearing causes many to crash if they trust their senses. Instead, they must rely on their instruments to give them a proper sense of direction. In the same way, we are bombarded daily with sensory overload of who we are, where we are heading and what is our bearing. If we listen too intently to these outside voices, we can quickly become lost. But if we can somehow put on this spiritual hood, block out the other noises, turn a deaf ear to worldly temptations, then we can hear the promise of God spoken through the water and the word -- you are mine.
* * *
The temptations that the devil presents to Jesus all center on power -- turn these stones into bread, hurl yourself from this pinnacle, bow down to me and I will give you the world! There are many who have no power in this world and dream of what they might do with it. There are others with the power and are not sure how to use it. At Bel Aire Presbyterian Church, then governor Ronald Reagan and his wife, Nancy, always sat in the same pew 2/3rd down the aisle. One day they were running late and two college kids came to church for the first time and sat in the Reagan's pew. The usher came down and asked the kids to leave and promptly sat the Reagans. To his credit, Pastor Don Moomau got up from his place in the pulpit, walked down the aisle and caught up to the college kids in the narthex and said, "I am so sorry. As long as I am pastor of this church, that will never happen to you again here. You are welcome." What will you do with your power?
* * *
With all the troubles with airline delays these days, there was one man who was growing more and more impatient as he tried to get on the plane. He was on standby and desperately needed to get to a meeting. The attendant spoke into the microphone repeatedly, "Those of you who are waiting, please sit down and we will call you when it is your turn." However, this man was not one to take no for an answer. He was an executive in this airline. And he needed to get on this airplane. As he approach the counter, the attendant said again into the microphone, "If you are waiting, please take a seat and we will call you when it is your turn." Evidently, he did not think that this pertained to him and proceeded to talk to the attendant, telling her how important it is for him to be on that airplane. She told him to be seated and she will call him when it was his turn. And then he pulled the trump card. He said to her in a strong voice, "Do you know who I am?" With that the exasperated attendant paused, picked up the microphone again and said, "Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a man who does not know who he is. Please claim him, put him back in line, and I'll talk to him when it's his turn."
You do know, don't you, that we are not nearly as impressed with your credentials as you are?
* * *
They're calling it "guerrilla marketing" -- a risky, in-your-face technique of getting a company's name before the public, even if it means skirting the law. On February 9, Jim Samples, longtime president of the Cartoon Network cable-TV channel, resigned due to fallout from a guerrilla-marketing stunt that had paralyzed much of downtown Boston for several hours on January 31. A marketing firm hired by the Cartoon Network had placed electronic advertisements in various places around the city, including one on a highway overpass that was mistaken for a bomb. The battery-powered devices -- which looked like a child's Lite-Brite toy -- were harmless, but they appeared to security experts, at first, like they could have been part of a coordinated terrorist attack.
When the devil invites Jesus to leap from the pinnacle of the Temple, to be spectacularly rescued by angels, it's a sort of first-century guerrilla-marketing stunt. Jesus will have none of it, though. He doesn't need that kind of promotion, for he has come not to be served, but to serve.
***
Vice, in its true light, is so deformed, that it shocks us at first sight; and would hardly ever seduce us, if it did not at first wear the mask of some virtue.
-- Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield
***
The devil's temptation to turn stones into bread does not, at first, seem like a very serious matter. After all, what's wrong with having a little something to eat? Yet, this would violate the discipline of Jesus' self-imposed fast. One concession would quickly lead to another, more serious one.
In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis has written a fictional set of letters from a senior devil to an apprentice demon, giving him advice on how best to tempt human beings. The trainee, whose name is Wormwood, is growing concerned that his victim, a new convert to Christianity, has become a regular churchgoer. Screwtape, the more experienced devil, writes back: "I am almost glad to hear that he is still a churchgoer and a communicant. I know there are dangers in this; but anything is better than that he should realise the break he has made with the first months of his Christian life. As long as he retains externally the habits of a Christian he can still be made to think of himself as one who as adopted a few new friends and amusements but whose spiritual state is really much the same as it was six weeks ago.... You will say that these are very small sins; and doubtless, like all young tempters, you are anxious to be able to report spectacular wickedness. But do remember, the only thing that matters is the extent to which separate the man from the Enemy. It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one-the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts."
* * *
Kathleen Norris writes in Cloister Walk that when she was a teenager she stopped going to church because she knew that she couldn't be as good as she thought the church demanded. Good girls, she thought, didn't ever get angry, or feel resentment, or want revenge.
Later, as an adult, she began visiting a Benedictine convent and discovered psalms that expressed those very feelings, psalms full of anger and complaint and lament-even threats and demands. It was like coming home at last, she said, and she could move ahead to getting to know a Lord who understood her, and accepted her, and loved her.
* * *
Not everyone today lives for wealth and power and fame. After Jack McConnell, 81, a physician and medical researcher, retired to play golf in Hilton Head, South Carolina, he found that he was bored. He also found that many of his new neighbors lacked adequate health care. So he started a free clinic for them, and got other retired doctors and nurses to help.
Now the Volunteers in Medicine Institute, using his model, has established a network of more than 50 neighborhood clinics around the country. McConnell credits his parents for helping him be concerned about the needs of others. "They asked us, at the end of each day, what we had done for someone else that day."
-- AARP Bulletin, February 2007
* * *
While some teenage girls seem to care mostly about their hair and makeup and clothes, seventeen-year-old Dianna Mendoza, from a small town in Washington state, has had more important concerns. She's wanted to visit Africa ever since her Sunday school gathered coins to help provide clean water for a rural village in Africa. And she's wanted to go over and see what the conditions are and how she might help.
So she checked on the internet and found that a group of women from her denomination would be visiting Tanzania. When she told her congregation that she wanted to join the group, they set up a yard sale to help finance her trip, and she began doing custodial work at the church and babysitting. After she returns from Africa, she wants to go out speaking to help make Africa's needs "more real" to those in her area so that they, too, will want to help.
-- Lutheran World Relief Quarterly Newsletter, November 2006
WORSHIP RESOURCE
Call To Worship
Leader: Jesus began his ministry to the world,
led by the Spirit into the wilderness.
People: As we begin our Lenten journey,
let us be led by the Spirit,
even into the uncomfortable places.
Leader: In those forty days, and in that place,
Jesus was faced with hunger, doubt
and temptation.
People: As we seek to follow Jesus,
we would be led,
even into the uncomfortable choices.
Leader: Jesus left the wilderness,
faithful and obedient to God,
rejoicing in the One in whom he trusted.
People: As we continue on our path to faithfulness,
we will be led by our Christ,
rejoicing in the Lord our God.
Prayer Of The Day
Holy God,
Refuge of desert wanderers:
as the seeds of grace
you have planted within us
bear an abundant harvest,
we would offer the first fruits
in thanksgiving to you
and in service to others.
Jesus Christ,
Companion of Lenten pilgrims:
you understood
that God alone feeds us,
and so became the broken Bread;
you knew that the power
to transform our lives
comes from God alone,
and so became our Servant;
you did not ignore
the warning not to test God,
and so became our Hope.
Holy Spirit,
Leader of Christ's apprentices:
you fill the hungry
with the Bread of life;
you fill the arrogant
with the Servant's humility;
you fill the hopeless
with that trust which endures.
God in Community, Holy in One,
in our hearts and with our lips,
we pray as Jesus has taught us, saying,
Our Father...
Call To Reconciliation
God makes no distinction between us. We are all sinners, we are all children of God, we are all precious to God, and we are all saved by God. Because God makes no distinction, let us confess our common humanity to the One who is generous to all.
Unison Prayer Of Confession
God of our ancestors and God of our children, we come knowing we have preferred to test you, rather than to trust you. The famine in our souls makes us long to be filled with the empty promises of the world. We listen to the soothing words of the advertisers, rather than to the uncomfortable words of discipleship.
Forgive us, God of our lives. Bring us out of that dependence on ourselves, and bring us into the presence of the One we seek to follow, not only to Jerusalem, but beyond -- into life with you forever, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.
(Silence is observed.)
Assurance Of Pardon
Leader: God has listened to our prayers and to our
silence. God reaches out, with signs and
wonders, with grace and forgiveness, and
makes us whole.
People: On our lips and in our hearts, we give thanks
to the One who loves us and heals us. Amen.
CHILDREN'S SERMON
Sometimes it's hard to be strong!
Object: a plate of cookies, brownies, or other yummy treats
Hello! Today is the first Sunday in a new season for the Church. We are in the season of Lent. That's the time of the year when we prepare for Jesus' death on Good Friday and his resurrection on Easter Day. It's not time to hear those stories quite yet, so Lent is a time for us to get our hearts ready.
Do you know what being tempted is? It's when you really want to do something you know you shouldn't. Let's say that you see a big plate of cookies and brownies sitting on your kitchen table, but you've been told that you can't eat them until after dinner. You really want to eat a cookie, even though you've been told not to do it. You are tempted to break the rule and do it anyway.
It's hard to say, "No," when you're tempted, isn't it? It's easy just to do what we want to do -- no matter if it's wrong or harmful to us. In today's reading we learn that even Jesus was tempted, but he was able to stay strong and do the right thing. We can be strong by praying and asking God to help us. He has promised us that he will give us strength even when we don't think we have any. Ask Jesus how you can be strong too when you are tempted.
Prayer: Dear God, sometimes it is hard to do the right thing. It's hard to be strong and not give in to temptation. Please teach us how to be people who are brave and able to do what you ask us to do, even when it seems very hard. Thank you for loving us and teaching us how to live in a way that makes you proud. Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, February 25, 2007, issue.
Copyright 2007 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 517 South Main Street, Lima, Ohio 45804.
