March 4, 2001
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| Love
on the Cross and Beyond:
The sermons during the season of Lent are based on the theme, "Love On The Cross And Beyond". We will explore together the offering of love Jesus made for the world including all of us. We begin today with "Love Shows The Way". Jesus, the Son of God and Savior of the world comes to us as a human being in intimate relationship with the God who sent him to us and is fully capable of relating to any who would be his disciples. As Savior who relates to us is one we can turn to in trust when we need help beyond what we and others can provide. Hebrews 4.15 tells us: "We do not have [in Jesus] a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are yet without sin." Eugene Patterson puts it this way: "We don’t have a priest [in Jesus] who is out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness and testing, experienced it all – all but the sin." In every way Jesus is like us, except we have been separated from God, and he has not. We have at times been so out of relation with God that we have not only disregarded God, but have disregarded ourselves and others, but he has not. His great love for us is such that he went to the cross and reached beyond the cross for us. It is that great love that shows us the way back when we are lost. To help us understand how love shows us the way, Luke tells a wilderness story to help us know that it is the love of God that will show us the way out of our difficult places and back into the full embrace of God. In this Lenten season of reflection and contemplation, the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness is always the gospel reading on the first Sunday in Lent. Fred Craddock reminds us that "it is important to keep in mind that a real temptation beckons us to do that about which much good can be said. Stones to bread – the hungry hope so; take political control – the oppressed hope so; leap from the temple – those longing for proof of God’s power among us hope so. All this is to say that a real temptation is an offer not to fall but to rise. The tempter in Eden did not ask, ‘do you want to be as the devil?’ but, ‘do you wish to be as God’? If anyone is having trouble believing that Jesus was really tempted, then he or she needs to keep in mind that temptation is an indication of strength, not of weakness. We are not tempted to do what we cannot do but what is within our power. The greater the strength, the greater the power." (Luke p. 56) Jesus’ power was on full display as he emerged from the wilderness. The wilderness can a harsh, terrible place, it is a desert with little shade, food, water, shelter and safety. The wilderness is death valley in California and the Australian outback (for you Survivor viewers), it is a dense jungle filled with all kinds of unfamiliar wildlife, or a wide expanse of frozen, snow-covered tundra. After a forty-day Holy Spirit led retreat and fast in during which he has been tested by Satan, Jesus comes out of the wilderness only now to have to deal with three more. First, Satan says, "if you are Son of God, turn these stones to bread." A hungry person would be tempted, and Luke says Jesus was not just hungry, he was stomach growling, light-headed, I’ll eat food I do not even like, famished. We can understand how great the temptation must have been because we know how we are when we are hungry. But Jesus knows that faithfulness to his call is as sustaining for his spirit as food is for his body. "We do not live by bread alone", Jesus says. Second, Satan says, "Well, if I cannot tempt you with bread, what about this? Look at what I have, you can have all this, all the power and authority in the world, all the glory and all the authority if you worship me." So many of us love what we think of as power – the ability to control people and events, a large entourage following us, winning all the time - that we would jump at the chance to have all the power in the world. On the other hand, seekers of power may also be people who feel powerless most of the time. When we feel powerless, when our self-esteem is low, we will reach for whatever power we can get. Often the one who is caught up in looking powerful, feels the most powerless. Satan thinking all the power in the world lay in those evil hands dangled his image of power in front of Jesus. But Jesus knew where the real power lay. "Only God is really worthy of worship", Jesus says calmly. Third, I imagine growing increasingly frustrated, Satan appeals to Jesus’ sense of safety and to a theatrical sense of the miraculous, and takes Jesus to the top of the temple in Jerusalem. He takes him to the highest point of the holiest place in his faith and says to him, "Jesus, if you are the Son of God, hurl yourself down from here. After all, your own scripture says, 'no harm will come to you, the angels will hold you up, your landing will be so gentle, so soft and easy that you will not even bruise your foot.'" Jesus says simply, "do not test God." Clearly, Jesus was not about testing God, but rather about testifying to the power of God in his life, he had no need to prove God’s ability to defy gravity by jumping off a building. Jesus knew who he was, he was secure in his identity as God’s own son. That is our identity too. We belong to God. In this Lenten season, let love show the way to what really matters. It is not bread but belief in the word of God; not worldly power but worship, not in defying gravity, but eternal gratitude to God for all of life that reminds us that we belong to God and not to Satan. Jesus knew that. He heard it when he was baptized and again on the mountain of transfiguration when he was seen in pre-resurrected glory talking with Moses and Elijah. God said, "this is my Son, the beloved, with him I am well pleased". The genealogy of Jesus tells us that he was the earthly son of Joseph, who was the son of Heli, and on for several generations until we come to these ancestors, "son of Enos, son of Adam, son of God. Satan is nowhere present in the heritage of Jesus, and is an intruder in our lives too. However, he is never far away. Love shows the way by showing us that evil, personified in Luke by Satan is a reality. There are forces in the world that are not like the cartoon images we have in our heads – no red suits, no horns, no pitchfork. There are just everyday forces that would cause us to forget that God loves us unconditionally, and that as God loves me or you, so God loves the whole world. We would forget that God loves us unconditionally, and so might be tempted to think that we are not accountable for what we do, but we are. Let love show us the way to what matters. When we act as if the love of God does not matter, we can be tempted to do anything, especially when we are in the vulnerable HALT mode. That is when we are Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired. Our judgment can become impaired, we do not make good decisions and we create the conditions that make for that opportune time for evil to creep in and seize the moment. The seizure can even come in ways familiar to us. Do not be fooled Satan’s way with scripture. Sure, Satan can quote scripture, but is the meaning clear? Look to Jesus who knew scripture not by rote memory, but as an internal compass for his life. It gave him purpose, and kept him faithful. Satan would take that knowledge and subvert it. We take that knowledge and proclaim it to the glory of God. Let love show the way by helping us hear how language is used. Keep aware of the "if" language that is used. If you are the Son of God, do this; I will give you the world, if you worship me. That is deal making quid pro quo, something for something language. It is the language of one who holds faith cheap. But what kept Jesus resistant, and what helps us to resist temptation is that we know that our faith is not about something for something; it is about everything for everything – Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe. In fact, some translations of these verses say, "since you are the Son of God", that even the devil knows that Jesus is indeed the Son of God. It seems to me that the temptations to the church come today as we forget that it belongs to God, and that it is named for the one who is with us always. We are too often too quick to promise only bread but no little Bible study; power but too little power and purpose, great style, but too little substance. Too many times, we yield to temptation when we say to people, just come, we will not challenge you, we will not teach, or serve, or help redeem and transform. Come on, we will not help you end your disenfranchisement, like the woman with the issue of blood who was restore to the community when she reached in and touched the edge of Jesus’ clothing. We will not tell you the strange story of the man left for dead and avoided by the religious leaders of the day, but was saved by the one we know as the Good Samaritan. We will not tell you the story of the disrespected man Zaccheus who was reclaimed when Jesus went to his house for dinner. Just come and feel good, we are tempted to say. Then we are reminded that this is Satan’s opportune time. Feeling good is good, but we are called to more than feeling good as an end to itself by the one who loved us all the way to the cross and beyond. Let love show the way by letting us see what kind of ministry Jesus will not have. It will not be a ministry obsessed with personal fulfillment (go ahead, feed yourself), but of about social and spiritual empowerment. Jesus is after all the bread of life and will not be bribed into ignoring human need because he knows that food is not a private concern, but an intensely social one. There is no adequate life without adequate food and we are called to resist the temptation to feed ourselves in the church while people around us starve for food for their bodies and for their spirit. We do not live just to take care of our bodies, but also to share what we hold dear with the world. We have the good news of Jesus Christ. Can we not share it with the world – without fear that we will lose it if we give it away? The contrary is true, the more we give it away, the more it comes back to us. The bread of life works that way. His will not be a ministry of purely political power. I know that in the secular world, political power is the way things get done. I also believe that the church needs to be wise in the ways of public policy and public advocacy. We do need to be active in the public square when doing so makes for a better society. It is right for religious organizations such as BREAD to advocate for safe, decent, and affordable housing for all people. But we do not do so for secular glory and greater authority, those things come and go – political winds blow hard and fast. We do it because we have heard a call to serve each other and to be in relation with each other. We do after all share this city, this state, this nation, and the world. We all have a stake in what happens here. Real power and authority come from God, and what we do is a response to God’s love moving us to do amazing things for ourselves and for others. Did you see the movie "Boycott" on HBO last week? It tells the true story of the time in the mid-1950’s when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus so that a white man could sit down. It is hard to believe now, but by staying in her seat, Rosa Parks committed a criminal act. Out of the boycott there emerged a young president of the Montgomery Improvement Association, the new kid in town, a twenty six year old young pastor named Martin Luther, King, Jr. Their actions along with those of many others were rooted in the idea that they were indeed made in the image of God, and so deserved respect and dignity. What they in their year- long boycott changed a city and a nation. Did they have political skills? Certainly they did. But they also had praying skills, and understood that when people who belong to Christ get active they are performing an act of worship, and not acts of political power. Finally, let love show the way by reminding us that Satan went away for awhile, until a better time. Later on when he is on trial, it will look like that time has come. Jesus will be mocked by a soldier, and taunted by one of the men being executed with him. He will know his own moment of despair. But in the end he will remember that he belongs to God and will commend to God his own spirit. He will remind us that the time has not yet come when Jesus is not the beloved Son of God. The truth is that Jesus faced down the temptations, and went on to be for us the bread of life who feeds our spirit. He will point us to God who alone is worthy of worship, and he will invite us to find our true identity in God. Ultimately, he teaches us to put our trust in him, whose love for us will always direct us back to God. We can come just as we are. We will not live temptation free, but rather we will be equipped with the tools we need to hold on in the wilderness. Love indeed will show us the way. Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dr.
LaTaunya M. Bynum |
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Broad
Street Christian Church
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