Lent 1C
Grace Lutheran Church
Lakleand, FL
March 6, 2022
Deuteronomy 26:1-11
Psalms 91:1-2, 9-16
Romans 10:8b-13
Luke 3:21-22, 4:1-13
Grace to you and peace from God and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Please pray with me…
Life in Lakeland, FL. When people ask me where Lakeland is located, I tell them halfway between Tampa and Orlando, along I-4. And even if they aren’t from here, when I say I-4, many peoples’ brows furrow because they have heard –- they have heard some of the stories and horrors of driving on I-4. Driving to one of the airports, driving to Disney or another of the amusement parks. And then after you get to Tampa or Orlando or even here in Lakeland, to get from one side of town to the other, traffic can be a force to be reckoned with.
Traffic. Sigh. Traveling can be fraught with delays and hazards even as we go about the ordinariness of our daily lives. The travel can be hard.
Lent is often described as a “journey” or a “pilgrimage.” And so I ask you my friends, where is it that your journey or pilgrimage is starting? And where is it that you anticipate it ending? These 40 days are precious. Hold them lightly and take them seriously.
The gospel reading today speaks of a journey, a pilgrimage that Jesus experienced, a journey that took him from sand dunes to pinnacles to cliffs. And back down again.
This gospel account is one that we hear every year at this time and like many familiar stories, it is easy to miss the finer points, the nuances as we distill this story down to a simple – Jesus resisted temptation and quoted Scripture – go and do likewise.
Jesus has just come out of the baptismal waters of the Jordan. He was touched by his cousin John. He is dripping wet. He heard the words from heaven – YOU are my beloved Son. And from this safe place of familiarity, he goes into the wilderness…
For 40…. As long as it takes. As long as it takes, for what?, we may ask.
Jesus is tempted. Tempted. Perhaps a better word may be tested – tested to help him see where it was that his loyalties were found. Tested to challenge who he was. Tested – to prepare him for what was ahead.
This is our Lent too.
A Lent not built on resisting that which is not helpful to us. – not chocolate or coffee or alcohol. But rather a Lent in which we embrace more fully that to which we are called – love for self, for God and for others, love in action. Love based upon fasting, prayer and giving.
Walter Brueggemann describes Jesus’ time in the wilderness as a time in between two different voices—the first is the assuring voice of God that speaks words of identity and protection with God’s strong arm – and the second voice that seeks to beguile us into false allegiances. “This TOO shall be yours,” said Satan.
· Go ahead --put your Self first before the common good. It’s your right, after all.
· Go ahead, cut the corner, the quick fix will be good enough. Forget about the work needed to achieve systemic change. Someone else will do it. And is it really all that bad?
· Go ahead, fight for what is yours – wealth, security, position, power authority; this is where your security is found. Don’t let anyone else take it from you.
· Yes, all of your physical needs met, power over all that the world holds dear, control over how it is that you serve the Holy God of Israel.
Seductive talk this is. The voice of God and the voice of seduction. To which shall we listen. Which one shall we follow and give heed to? THIS was the test that Jesus faced. THIS is the test that we too face. We too stand in between these two voices. We too travel this road during Lent. Yet, let me be clear – the choice to make this journey these 40 days, is yours.
Do you hear these competing voices in your spirit? In the corners of your brain? We certainly hear it every day in the news. This tug of war is part of our daily life – our life individually and our life communally, our life in our families and our life in this country and world in which we live. The voice of God and God’s ways versus the voice of self-interest, “me first,” “you can’t make me,” “I have rights, you know.”
This tug of war is waged in our hearts and brains and spirits and it nips at our heels as we journey this pilgrimage, this journey of Lent.
Like Jesus, we too are dripping wet in the waters of our baptisms. We walk wet. We recall the cross of Christ imprinted on our foreheads, on our beings, when we were claimed and embraced as beloved children of God. This season of Lent calls us to hear these two voices – the assuring voice of God and the voice of Self. In Lent we are called to feel our dripping-ness, and to call upon God to be with us. To hearken back to our baptism when we were marked with the cross of Christ forever. On our Lenten pilgrimage, our journey, we are intentional about drawing closer to God and to each other as we live into the promises we made in our baptisms.
Today we are facing a world we never thought we would see. Our world is in the midst of war and crisis that many of us may have feared in decades past but we believed that the danger had waned. A crisis that is the result of one who, while hearing those two competing voices, listened to – indeed was seduced by -- the voice that promised power and ego and control. And the extent of the suffering resulting from this self-centered choice is untold yet we see it every time we watch a mother and a child waiting to board a train in Ukraine, every time we see a father kiss his family good-bye, every time we see an old woman carrying a bag of a few treasured possessions as she travels to a new and unknown place.
Hear these words about traveling
A traveler and his companion prepared to set out on a long journey. In preparation, the traveler paced a second coat.
His companion asked, “Why are you bringing a second coat?”
The traveler responded: I will need it.
The traveler then packed a second pair of shoes.
His companion asked, Why are you bringing a second pair of shoes?
The traveler responded: I will need them
The traveler then packed extra food into his bag. Two of every kind of food he would bring.
His companion asked: why are you bringing two of every kind of food?
The traveler responded: I will need it.
The traveler’s companion finally set his small bag down and said, “Look how heavy your load is. Mine is light. I have but one coat, one pair of shoes, and just enough food for the days we will be walking. Why do you need so much?”
[wait for it]
The traveler said, “Because your coat is old and thin, and your shoes are old and worn. Having walked with you I also know that you grow hungry often.”
The companion, confounded, said, “But when I asked you about these things, you told me that YOU would need them not that I would need them.”
The traveler said, “ You are my companion. So long as we walk together there is no difference between your needs and mine.”
Can you hear the voice that the traveler listened to – was it the voice of self-interest or the voice of the God who pronounces us “Beloved” in the waters of our baptisms.
We are each other’s sojourners, fellow journeyers. We who gather at the font, we who gather at the Table, we who gather together. We who travel together and say – you are my companion, as long as we walk together there is no difference between your needs and mine.
And in this journey, God’s caring and compassionate and strong right hand is with us and sustains us. And in this we rejoice.
May it be so.
