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February 10, 2008 sermon

re-Lenting Conversations
(Genesis 2: 15-17; 3: 1-7 and Matthew 4: 1-11)

Reverend Minister Sally Harris

O Holy One, come now to this place. Make your presence known.
Give to us eyes to see your mystery. Ears to hear your voice of life.
And a heart to follow you. Amen

We begin again our Lenten journey. I wonder if these lengthening days before Easter helps us to think differently about our faith? Do they cause us to reflect on what it is that draws us to this place week, after week; season after season? Someone once wrote that 'to engage Lent and to be engaged by it is to render oneself vulnerable to the reality of who we are as human beings. In some way Lent invites us to take the time to embody our faith; embody our humanity; our very selves. And so we start at the beginning when divine life was shared and God led the human creature into the garden. God was a trusted friend and there was no fear. In the beginning, in the garden we catch a glimpse of our intended life with God. We hear again the re-lenting conversation as we listen as God and A-dàm, the human creature converse. All is before us - everything is provided - the human creature cares for and respects the garden and the garden sustains the human creature. A-dàm is given a permit in the garden. All the trees are available for ease, joy, and well being. The accent here in the story is on freedom: freely eat. There is in the garden a 'tree of life' - it too is offered to humanity. Freely eat of every tree… but one - the other tree - the tree capable of death. This is a dangerous tree - it can disrupt the way of the garden. And then the peaceful scene, the foundational relation of creature and creator is broken into by the subtle, calculated, even manipulative voice of the wild creature called serpent. All this crafty creature does is speak twice - a mere 40 words. A simple question "Did God say…?" and a strong statement "You shall not die… you will be like God. This creature first questions what God said and then calls God a liar. What a strategy - take humanity out of the zone of God's faithful speech and out of the practice of trust. The serpent makes God's voice of life doubtful and negotiable. And the human creatures fall for it - hook, line and sinker. They want wisdom; they want power and they want it quick and easy - just eat the fruit. They ate and they saw their vulnerability. The gift of life forfeited through a false construct of reality. Innocence has been shattered. Joy has turned to fear. Yes fearfulness has entered the garden. A profound tension has entered the relationship of creature and creator. Interestingly this story does not mention sin - it is not about original sin as most of us have been taught. It is about the incongruity between our intended life with God and the life we choose, in and through other re-lenting conversations. In the beginning we listened to words not of God and acted on them - and the story went off kilter, careening out of control. And ever since the creator has had to be more imaginative and inventive in order to keep the story full of life, for now death has taken root in the story.

Yes Lent is a time to sort out the voice of life and the countervoices of death. Lent is an invitation back to a re-lenting conversation with God that speaks the lean truth for our future actions. And so we enter the wilderness to listen to another tempter - entering into yet another re-lenting conversation. Listening as Jesus sorts out the voice of life and the countervoices of death. The wilderness is like a portal, a doorway through which Jesus must pass to gain access to the way of right action. A crucible where Jesus is refined so as to undertake an active life that is life-giving. A busy life not careening out of control. Here Jesus sees through the destructive illusion that to lead active lives of any consequences we need what the devil is peddling. So what is the devil peddling to Jesus? First there is the temptation to prove oneself relevant. "Hey Jesus prove that you are the Chosen One by doing mighty magic. Bolster your ego and win more believers by giving us evidence of who you are." Had Jesus made stones into bread simply to show he could, that he was the Chosen One, Jesus would have acted mechanically, caught in the cogs of cultural expectations. It is a compelling temptation. Show some external confirmation (of my making) to prove that you are what you say are. Prove you are a Christian by… prove you are competent by… prove you love me by…, prove you are right by having all the answers. Yet Jesus holds onto his own sense of truth. He listens to the voice of God. He attunes himself to the voice of life not to the voices of death. This temptation to prove you are relevant is the temptation to "solve" some problem on a level that does not solve it at all. In fact it may make things worse. Teachers know that simply answering the question doesn't necessarily solve a problem. The real problem may be the person's ability to find answers for himself or herself. The temptation to be relevant is often the temptation to deal only with the external illusion of a problem and to ignore its internal truth. What you see, what you feel is not always what you need.

Then Jesus is tempted to be spectacular. It is the temptation to perform an act that has no rationale except to have your fifteen minutes of fame. And Jesus says, "Excuse me but we have no way to test God even if we wanted to, no way to alter the laws that apply to physical beings in a material universe." Now I don't think it would be morally wrong to test God by jumping off a high building to see if God would save me. It would simply be stupid. Jesus doesn't reason this out with ethical arguments or biblical scholarship but with common sense, a sense of what is real. A sense of listening to the voice of life. Then Jesus is taken to a very high mountain. Wait a minute, Jesus doesn't seem to be resisting very hard, does he? First the Spirit leads him to the wilderness, then the devil takes him to the holy city and now to a mountain. Jesus doesn't seem to be resisting at all. Perhaps resisting temptation is not about evading the quandaries of one's life. Perhaps the real work of this story, of our lives is to go where we are led, to see what is there, and to respond out of our own truth. And the truth for this third temptation, the temptation to be on top with endless power is the reality that it is not the devil who gives power and glory – it is God. Were Jesus to worship the devil in this case, it would be just plain foolish. The devil has the power, well for that matter, anyone has the power, only as we allow their pretenses. But once we strip those pretenses away, the devil becomes a pathetic figure, like those TV sales people who insist that you, too, can own three income-producing properties for only $29.95 plus postage.

These are the three temptations of Jesus but how often are we tempted to be relevant, spectacular and powerful. Maybe for us the more common temptation is the temptation to have little self-confidence - to think of ourselves as irrelevant, powerless, and utterly mundane. People whom Satan wouldn't have the slightest interest in tempting. But this temptation has the same consequence as Jesus' temptations. They all assume that effective action requires us to be relevant, spectacular and powerful. That only by being relevant, spectacular or powerful can we have a real impact on the world. This assumption is rooted in the destructive illusion that we need what the devil is peddling if we are to lead active lives - lives that are worth something. But Jesus saw through this illusion. He knew that right action does not require one to be relevant, spectacular or powerful. Right action requires only that we respond faithfully to the voice of life within us, to respond to our own inner truth and to the truth around us. Whether we lust after them or regard them out of our reach, these three devilish temptations are at once the most common norms for action and the most misleading guides to a life of right action. Right action demands that we find a deeper and truer source of energy and guidance than relevance, power, and spectacle can provide. And when we respond not in our fear of inadequacy or in our claim to superiority but in integrity to our truest selves - we find God there working through us in amazing ways. Jesus said no to being relevant on the devil's terms - making bread out of stones - later he was relevant in making bread for 5,000 out a few loaves. Jesus said no to doing something spectacular yet the gospels are full of his doing spectacular things. Jesus said no to power and glory yet he changed the course of history and his story is still being told 2,000 years later. Jesus knew that the re-lenting conversations are all getting out of the way so God can shine through us. Welcome to our Lenten journey of re-lenting conversations.

[resource: Parker Palmer's The Active Life]

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