Lost and Found

 Rev. Debbie Cato
Joshua 5:9-12 and Luke 15:1-3; 11b-32
Fairfield Community Church
March 27, 2022

Let us Pray:  God of open doors, we often long to come home to you, to love you , and to love ourselves, but we aren’t always sure how to get there. We know that we need you, but the road back to you is heavy with distractions. So, if we can dare to be so forward, we pray— reach into the cacophony of our hearts and minds and make yourself known. Quiet everything but your Word for us today. Leave us awestruck. Drown out the distractions. Come as thunder or come as a still, small voice; we don't care which, we just pray that you will come. Turn on the light. Speak through these words. Find the parts of us that are lost. With hope we pray. Amen.  ( Rev. Sara Speed santifiedart.org)

Lost and Found

 

You may wonder why I read the first three verses of Luke and didn’t just start with the parable.  These first verses set the narrative scene by contrasting Jesus audience into two distinct and opposing groups - degenerate sinners and dutifully self-righteous religious leaders.   The sinners “listen” to Jesus; the religious officials “were grumbling.”  

These few introductory verses make the parables that follow – there are two other parables about being lost and found before the one we are focusing on today – a response to the complaints of the Pharisees and scribes that Jesus welcomes sinners and eats with them.  Both stories  - one about the lost sheep and one about the lost coin; speak of the costly love on the part of God who is willing to expend any effort to bring back the precious lost one as well as the outrageous joy of finding what had been lost.  As the third parable in the series, our story has the same point.  God’s boundless efforts to seek out the lost can be likened to those of a father who pays a great price to get back his lost sons. 

Jesus tells these three particular parables because he was making a habit of having celebration parties with all the ‘wrong’ people, and some people were ticked off.  Throughout his teachings, and certainly in these parables, Jesus is NOT saying that such people were simply to be accepted as they stand.  Sinners must repent.  But Jesus has a different idea than his critics of what “repentance” really means.  For the religious leaders; repentance is nothing short of adopting their standards of purity and law-observance. For Jesus, true repentance is when people follow him and his way.  Big difference.

So let’s look at today’s parable.  When the father divides the property between the two sons, and the younger son turns his share into cash, this would have meant that the land the father owned had been split, with the younger boy selling off his share to someone else.  Someone else now owns a piece of the family land.  The shame this brings on the family is added to the shame the son has already brought on the father by asking for his share before the father’s death – it’s the equivalent of saying ‘I wish you were dead.’  Yet the father bears these two blows without recrimination.  The father agrees! 

Now fathers just don’t behave like that!  Already, before the son even leaves home, there is a clue built into the story - a mystery around the father’s behavior.  Although in our culture, our children routinely leave home to pursue their future, in Jesus’ culture this would be seen as shameful -  the younger son abandons his obligation to care for his father in his old age. 

Regardless, the younger son takes his money and sets off for some distant land.  His father’s greatest fears are realized as he squanders all he has on self-indulgent living.  The situation of the younger son is exacerbated by a severe famine that breaks out.  Having little recourse, he seeks out a farmer, who sends him to his fields to feed the pigs.   To Jewish ears, this adds insult to injury.  The son now debases himself further by living with Gentiles who keep unclean animals.  But the son’s plight worsens still more.  As his hunger mounts he would be happy even to fill up on the pigs’ fodder.  But no one offers him even this.

Now initially, there is no repentance on the part of this young man.  He isn’t necessarily sorry – he’s desperate.  But being resourceful, the son devises a plan to save himself.  There is no need for him to die of hunger.  He remembers how well paid is father’s workers are.  They always have more than enough food to eat.  He knows he has lost his rights as “son” and so he creates a way in which he can become a hired servant to his father.  I can picture him rehearsing his strategy as he walks toward home. 

Now here is the startling twist.  This father, who has been insulted and shamed beyond our understanding, is watching and waiting for his delinquent son’s return.  For all we know, he stood and watched and waited every day that his son was gone.  And when he catches sight of him trudging down the road, the father is filled with compassion.  This is extremely unexpected behavior on the part of a patriarch who has been so grievously shamed by his son.  A more expected reaction would have been for the father to slash his garments and declare the son disowned. Instead… he is longing for his son’s return and at the first sight of him, he runs to meet him.  This father tosses any remaining dignity out the window when he takes to his heels as soon as he sees his son dragging himself home.  And when he reaches his son, he grabs him, puts his arms around the boy, and kisses him. 

Just as the son begins his rehearsed speech, the father silences him, not even permitting him to propose his plan to work for food.  Instead, the father calls for the best robe, an expensive ring, and sandals to be put on him - symbols of distinction and authority.  Not only that, the fatted calf is killed for a great feast.  The feast is not only for the sake of the son, but is a gesture of reconciliation with the villagers.  By accepting the invitation to the party, they signal their willingness to forgive the boy’s offenses and agree to reintegrate him into their community.

What brings about the possibility of reconciliation is not the determination of the younger son to turn his life around.  The son’s hope was to be allowed to return as a hired hand, as a strategy for survival.  Rather, it is the watchfulness of the father and his running to meet his son that brings him back into the family fold.  The father is the one who absorbs the shame and hurt; the one who bears the cost of the ruptured relations with family and villagers, and the one who pays the great price to get his son back.  It is his initiative and his doing that makes it possible for the young man to return to the family as a son, not as a servant.  According to this parable, reconciliation does not come from a determination of the lost one to return and make amends, but only depends on his willingness to accept the costly love of the father who has spared nothing to win him back.  The father’s joy is expressed in extravagant terms:  “this son of mine was dead, and has come to life again!”  This son of mine was dead but has come to life again. And he holds a party!

But this happy ending is not the conclusion of the story.  There is more. 

From the start of the story, we are told that the father has two sons.  So, what about the elder son?  He too is lost, but in an entirely different way than his brother.  When he hears all the noise of the celebration, he becomes enraged and refuses to go into the house. He is not happy that his brother is back. Again, the father does something completely unexpected.  He leaves the party; he leaves his guests; and he goes out to the elder son – who should have been helping him host the celebration – and pleads with him to join in.

The jealously and resentment that fester in this son are evident in his insulting explosion, “Look, all these years I served you and not once did I disobey your orders.  Yet you never gave me even a young goat to feast on with my friends.  But when your son returns who swallowed up your property with prostitutes, for him you slaughter the fattened calf.

His outburst reveals that, like his younger brother, who concocts a plan to become the father’s hired hand, the older brother too thinks of himself as a slave to his father – “all these years I have been working like a slave for you….  He dissociates himself from his brother by calling him “that son of yours.”  In his inability to accept and celebrate his father’s graciousness, he is as lost as his younger brother.  Just in a different way.

Now let me just admit that I can relate to this older brother.   I can understand feeling like I’ve followed all the rules, I’ve done everything I was supposed to, and I deserve redemption more than someone who hasn’t.  I deserve the recognition; the celebration.   It’s that “earning mentality” we have.  And that’s exactly the mentality of the Pharisees and the scribes whom Jesus is gearing these parables toward.  The Pharisees and the scribes followed all the laws, they worshipped in the temple; they maintained very strict purity in every aspect of their life.  They were appalled that Jesus would welcome and celebrate with sinners and degenerates.  They didn’t deserve it.

 In his parable, Jesus points out that the father has not only been shamed by the younger son with his untimely demand for his inheritance and its subsequent loss; but the elder son is behaving in a disgraceful manner to his father as well.  He did not act appropriately in helping to host the banquet and welcome the guests.  He kept himself outside the embrace of his father with his joyless resentment and his attitude of slavish service.  The father absorbs the shame from his elder son just as he has with the younger.  As with the younger son, the father goes out to the elder and meets him in his lost-ness.  He pleads with him, a most shameful scene from the perspective of a patriarchal world, where a father rules over his sons and commands their obedience. 

 In this parable, the emphasis is on the father’s costly love.  From the moment he generously gives the younger son what he wants, through to the wonderful homecoming welcome, we have as vivid a picture as anywhere in Jesus’ teaching of what God’s love is like and of what Jesus himself took as the model for his own ministry of welcome to the outcast and the sinner.  With the older son we see the father doing the seeking and taking on of all the shame just as Jesus does when he hangs on the cross like a common criminal in order to free us from our sin. 

Sinners and outcasts were finding themselves welcomed into fellowship with Jesus, and so with God, in a way they would have thought impossible.  But whenever a work of God goes powerfully forward, there is always someone muttering in the background that things aren’t that easy, that God’s got no right to be generous, that people who’ve done nothing wrong are being overlooked.  But through the generosity of the father toward his self-righteous older son, we sense that Jesus is not content simply to tell the grumblers that they’re out of line.  He wants them to know that though God’s generosity is indeed reaching out to people they didn’t expect, this doesn’t mean there isn’t any left for them.  If they insist on staying out of the party because it isn’t the sort of thing they like, that’s up to them; but it won’t be because God doesn’t love them as well. 

The story is of course, unfinished. How will the younger brother behave from now on?  Will the two sons be reconciled?  We naturally want to know what happens next.  Sometimes when a storyteller leaves us on the edge of our seats, it’s because we are supposed to think it through, to ask ourselves where we fit within the story, and to learn more about ourselves and our church as a result. 

Where are you sitting in this story?  Is it beside Jesus, as though joining Jesus in addressing these parables to critics, or is it among those being addressed by Jesus?  Are you sitting among the tax collectors and sinners, wanting to be welcomed and forgiven in his presence; straining to hear about the outrageous love and overwhelming grace of God the Father?   If you feel lost or alienated, or have hit rock bottom, it is the younger son who might draw your attention.  For you, this parable offers an image of God as one who is watching, waiting, and always willing to run to meet you.  When we’ve turned away from God’s family; when we’ve been self-indulgent and made grave mistakes, he will enfold us once again in his divine embrace.  Not even the worst imaginable offense is an irrevocable obstacle to the constant and accessible love of God.

Maybe you are sitting among the Pharisees and the scribes – the church people, who are scandalized by the company Jesus keeps and the people we are called to welcome just like Jesus did?  Perhaps you feel more like the elder son, trying to do what is right, week after week.   For you, this parable invites us to consider whether our discipleship has deteriorated into an obligation that is marked by joyless resentment, especially toward those who seem to be benefiting undeservedly from all that God offers.  The parable invites us to recognize the free offer of God to all; a lavish generosity continually offered by the one who is willing to pay the high cost to gather in all his children; none of whom have earned the right to this inheritance.  To accept the love of a God who acts like this is not only to restore a right relation with God, but also to bring us into a reconciled love with all people as brothers and sisters in God’s family.

For anyone in authority – whether a parent, a boss, a council member or a pastor, (see I’m preaching to myself as well!) this parable speaks of the necessity of being willing to expend great effort, even being willing to endure humiliation in order to bring back those who are alienated.  It asks a parent who has been deeply hurt by a son or daughter to relinquish their own pain and extend an offer of forgiving love.  If you are a leader, Jesus’ parable asks us to put aside our own agendas, our own egos, our own needs and reach out to others – particularly those that are not a part of our favored group.  In this parable we learn that restoring a right relationship depends on the godly person’s willingness to reach out.

Find yourself in this story and then listen to what Jesus is teaching you about the free, undeserved, gratuity of God’s love and how we are to love others. 

 

Let us pray:   “Holy God, help me remember that when it comes to the story of the prodigal son, I play all three roles. I can make the same mistakes, but I can also make the same gracious choices. Therefore, help me be like the prodigal son who was quick to apologize. Help me be like the older brother who aimed for righteousness, and help me be like the father who celebrated love at every turn. I can be all three. Amen.”   Prayer written by Rev. Sarah A. Speed. santifiedart.org

Unrecognized Worthiness

Rev. Debbie Cato
Isaiah 55:1-9 and Luke 13:1-9
Fairfield Community Church
March 20, 2022

Let us Pray:  God of fig trees and foxes, of today and tomorrow, we would like to ask that you scoop us up. Pick us up like a great gust of wind. Startle us awake like a first love. Light a fire in us like tomorrow depends on today. Do all of this to get our attention and then turn us toward you. We are a scattered people, God. The world is moving faster than we can keep up. So we pray—scoop us up. Catch our eye. Open our ears. Capture our attention. We are here. We long to be close to you. Amen.   ( Rev. Sara Speed santifiedart.org)

Unrecognized Worthiness

 

I love to garden and at this time of year, I get the itch to start planting SO I have this mantra I repeat to myself over and over again.  It’s too early to plant.  It’s too early to plant. It’s too early to plant.

My rheumatoid arthritis has put a real damper on my gardening.  I can’t kneel anymore or bend over very easily so my gardening has been relegated to gardening in pots and raised beds.  My health has changed how I can garden but it has not stopped me.  Gardening is therapeutic for me.  It puts me in touch with God.  Something about my hands in dirt.

Before I moved here, I lived in a mother-in-law apartment at my daughter’s house.  They had raised beds waist high in their backyard.  There  were 4 very large raised beds, and I could garden without having to bend over.  I planted strawberries, tomatoes, onions, carrots, herbs, peas, and lots of flowers. 

The first year, Clara was 1 ½ and she would pick and eat the strawberries as fast as she could!  The rest of us barely got any berries!  She loved them.  She did the same thing with the cherry tomatoes.  She would pop those things in her mouth so fast, it would crack us up.  It left only the larger tomatoes for our salads and eating.  The cherry tomatoes were Clara’s! 

So last spring, Clara was 2 ½ and I decided she could help me plant.  We planted more strawberries in the hopes the grown-ups would get some too.  She helped me plant the strawberry plants and she said, “Grammy, when can I eat them?”  She wasn’t real pleased when I explained that we had to wait for them to grow and it would take quite a long time.  She wanted them now.

She helped me plant 8 tomato plants.  We dug the holes, carefully took the plants out of the pots, loosened the roots, placed them in the holes, covered them up with dirt, and watered them.  “When can I pick the tomatoes and eat them, Grammy?” she asked.  I told her it would take a long time for the tomatoes to grow and get ripe so that we could pick them and eat them.  “I want tomatoes now, Grammy.” she said.

We planted peas and carrots and onions, and we had similar conversations.  Clara did not like the idea of waiting.

I don’t like waiting either!  So, I can understand the landowner who after 3 years, is tired of waiting for his fig tree to bear fruit.  Cut it down!  It’s worthless!  It is wasting good soil.

The landowner is not the one who cares for the garden.  He doesn’t seem to spend any time in his vineyard.  He has a gardener for that.  Someone who gets down on his hands and knees and tends the soil.  Pulls the weeds.  Someone who cares about the tree.  “Sir!” He cries out.  “Let it alone for one more year.  Let me dig around it.  Loosen the soil.  Put manure around it.  Give it a chance to bear fruit one more year.”  Give it one more year, the gardener begs.  I will nurse it and do everything I can so that it will bear fruit. 

The gardener sees the tree with different eyes than the landowner does.  The landowner is only interested in production.  The tree is wasting soil.  Valuable land.  It is rather odd that in the midst of a vineyard, there is a fig tree.  You wouldn’t expect to find a fig tree in the middle of a vineyard.  Perhaps the landowner just wants to plant more vines.  Produce more wine.  Make more money.  Regardless, he doesn’t care about a fig tree.  Certainly not one that doesn’t bear figs.

But the gardener sees the fig tree with different eyes.    It has value.  It’s worth goes beyond what it produces. It doesn’t deserve to be dug up and thrown away. Let me save it, he says .  The gardener has a heart for gardening.  He cares about the plants.  He knows what they need to grow.  He knows the worth of the tree, even though it has yet to produce.  Don’t give up on it.  It needs more care.  It needs fertilizer.  It needs to have the dirt around its roots softened.  Give it time.  It needs another year. 

The season of Lent offers us yet another chance to repent and return to God.  God’s mercy in our lives is like the gardener who never gives up on his garden.  God tends to us.  He continually pours his mercy on his, nurturing us and feeding us his love and forgiveness and mercy and giving us every opportunity to return to him.  Unlike the landowner, God never gives up.  God’s love is unconditional.  It  is not based on what we produce, who the world says we are, or should be, what we do, or think we should do.  God loves us because we are.  It’s that simple.

Like the fig tree, you are worthy. You are not a lost cause. You are not a waste of resources. You deserve audacious hope. You deserve to be nurtured. Your fruit will come. Whatever that may be; whatever that may look like.  God knows that.  He continually pursues you.  His mercy never ends.[1]

And like the gardener, you are invited to see others with audacious hope and budding potential. In fact, we must see others with audacious hope and budding potential because that’s how God sees us and that’s how God sees others.  We owe it to each other. 

God sees the worth of everyone.  The powerful, successful leaders of countries and large corporations and the homeless person living on the street and those of us in between.  Perhaps we ought to as well.  Perhaps we ought to learn to look beyond the obvious, look beyond our judgments and see the worthiness of the humanity of the individual.  See the child of God.  See the beauty of the soul.  See what God sees.  I’m sure thankful that’s what God sees in me.  

Rev. Larissa Kwong  Abazia says, “The story of the fig tree reminds us that the world’s expectations do not need to be ours. The gardener puts their faith in that which they have no control. Digging a bigger hole and filling it with manure, they tend to the tree with everything it needs to grow into its purpose. Perhaps this means bearing figs. Or maybe it provides shade for the laborers during the harvest, an opportunity for the gardener to tend to the fields in a new way, or transformation of the owner’s ability to see beyond the commodification of the land.”

 Those of us living a fig tree existence are invited to be nourished and tended to so that, in time, we grow into our purpose. People with power are reminded to disrupt their knowledge of how the world works and their complicity in earthly systems and measurements so that everyone has an opportunity to thrive. And still others provide nurture in solidarity, trusting that intentional care will lead to new life.”[2]

The lesson of the fig tree invites us to unpack the source of our worth in a system and society that often measures worthiness by production, output, success, status, achievement, ethnicity, and/or gender identity.[3] That is  not how God measures us.  It is not how God sees us.  Samuel 16:7 says, ^{7 ”}People judge others by what they look like, but I judge people by what is in their hearts.”  God sees our worthiness even when it is unrecognized by others.  Each one of  you is worthy, simply because you are a beloved child of God.

I saw something once that said, “You will never look into any face that is not a face of someone that is not loved by God.”  You will never look into a face that is not a face of someone that is not loved by God.  A face of someone that God does not see as worthy of his love and mercy and forgiveness.  That is a powerful statement.  Powerful because it includes people that we do not like.  People that we strongly disagree with.  People that we find disgusting.  

Powerful because it includes us.  You and me who continue to sin and disappoint God and yet God continues to pursue us and forgive us and love us.  That my friends, is good news.  You are worthy because you are a beloved child of God.  Loved beyond measure.  Pursued without end.  Worthy just because.  Live into this good news.  Amen.

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[1] Sanctified Art.org.  Full to the Brim.  Third Sunday of Lent..  Theme Connections
[2] Sanctified Art.org.  Full to the Brim.  Third Sunday of Lent..  Rev. Larissa Kwong Abazia.
[3] Sanctified Art.org.  Full to the Brim.  Third Sunday of Lent..  Theme Connections.

Lamenting

 Rev. Debbie Cato
 Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18 and Luke 13;31-35
Fairfield Community Church
March 13, 2022

Let us Pray:  Holy God, this life of ours is full to the brim. Our days are overflowing with emails and to-do lists, schedules and notifications, assignments and deadlines. We wake up feeling behind, we go to sleep worrying about tomorrow, and we know—there has to be more than this.

So we pray: bend down and show us the way. Leave breadcrumbs in the street. Point us toward awe and wonder. Guide us to intimacy and trust. Gift us with laughter that will make us cry and hope that will make us feel alive. We want a new kind of full to the brim. Show us the way. We are listening for your cues. Gratefully we pray, amen.    ( Rev. Sara Speed santifiedart.org)

Lamenting

 

Today is the second Sunday of Lent, the 12^th day of our 40 days of journeying with Jesus to the cross.  If you were here for Ash Wednesday, you received the imposition of ashes, a symbol that you belong to God in recognition that you are dust and you will return to dust.  You were reminded that you are invited to come fully as you are.  Nothing  more, nothing less.

Last Sunday, we talked about temptation, and I challenged you to look for the things that tempt you and get in the way of your relationship with God.  A fuller life awaits us if we have the courage to get rid of the things that keep us trapped and separate from God.

Today, Luke gives us this rather strange passage.  What are we to do with it? My Bible has the heading, “The Lament over Jerusalem.”    To lament is to feel or express sorry or regret for; or to mourn over.   In today’s passage, Jesus is lamenting over Jerusalem. “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!  How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were not willing.”

I can’t remember if I’ve told you, but I grew up in a small town in Minnesota.  Springfield – I guess it was bigger than Fairfield because it had 2,000 people!  We lived in town but I had a friend who lived on a farm.  I loved to spend the night with Dawn because I got to ride the school bus with her. The one thing I didn’t like was before school in the morning, we had to go get the eggs for breakfast.

I was afraid of the chickens because they would peck at me, and they were loud.  I thought they were mean and frankly, ugly.  Dawn always laughed at me because I never got any eggs. She just shooed the hens away and pushed them and grabbed the eggs.  But the pecking and cackling stopped me.

I remember one spring, Dawn surprised me with a bunch of chicks in an incubator.  The mother hens were fussing about and protecting their chicks, but Dawn reached right in and a grabbed a chick for me to hold.  Oh, the hen got loud when that happened!  She didn’t like that one bit!

On this second Sunday in Lent, Luke invites us to think of Jesus as a mother hen whose chicks don’t want her. Even though she stands with her wings wide open, offering welcome, belonging, and shelter, her children refuse to come home to her.  Her wings — her arms — are empty.  This is a mother in mourning.  A mother struggling with failure and helplessness.[1]  It’s a sad picture, isn’t it?

 A group of Pharisees have warned Jesus to leave the area where he’s teaching

and healing because Herod wants to kill him.  Jesus knows how dangerous

Herod is because he ordered the arrest and beheading of John the Baptist.  But Jesus tells the Pharisees that he’s not afraid of “that fox.”  He has work left to do and nothing will stop him, even Herod.

 

Jesus has already set his course for Jerusalem, the city that rejects God’s messengers and kills its prophets.  Jesus knows exactly what his fate is in Jerusalem, but he won’t change direction. Not for Herod, not for anyone.  And yet, even as he stands up to a "fox," Jesus is lamenting over Jerusalem like a grieving mother hen.[2] 

Jerusalem has not always treated Jesus particularly well, and yet it is clear that he still loves it very deeply. All he wants is to protect it, like a mother hen protects her brood. Jerusalem’s actions can’t and don’t change that, for that is what true, unconditional love actually looks like.[3]

 

What does this stunning image offer to us for our own Lenten journeys?

 

Debi Thomas says that at Lent, we are called to embrace our vulnerability.  “Yes, Jesus mocks Herod by calling him a fox,” she says. “But Jesus never argues that the fox isn’t dangerous. He never promises his children immunity from harm.  I mean, let’s face it — if a determined fox wants to kill a brood of downy chicks, he will find a way to do so.  What Jesus the mother hen offers is not the absence of danger, but the fullness of his unguarded, open-hearted, wholly vulnerable self in the face of all that threatens and scares us.  What he gives is his own body, his own life. Wings spread open, heart exposed, shade and warmth and shelter at the ready.  What he promises — at great risk to himself — is the making of his very being into a place of refuge and return for his children.  For all of his children — even the ones who want to stone and kill him.”[4]

Being vulnerable is hard.  What would it take for us to embrace Jesus'  vulnerability as our strength this Lent?  What would it take to trade in our images of a conquering, triumphant God, for the mother hen God of this lectionary passage?

Can you picture a mother hen gathering her chicks under her wings when a predator approaches?  Her wings swelling with indignation, fear, and courage.  Can you picture her standing her ground?  Preparing to die if she has to, her children tucked securely beneath her soft, vulnerable bodies? What a profound, radical picture of our God. 

And then, we are called to lament.  To feel or express regret; to mourn. All of us — regardless of our circumstances — we know what it’s like to feel rejected.  We know what it looks like to fail in our best efforts to protect, to help, to advise, or to save.  We know the grief we experience when we watch someone we care about self-destruct before our eyes.  All of us who live in this broken world, carry painful memories of love that wasn’t returned, of unmet desires, of unfulfilled dreams.  We know what it is to long for something and find no fulfillment for that longing.  As a church we can lament over what we used to be, the pews that used to be full, the people we’ve lost, the people we’ve hurt, the people we’ve failed to reach, the opportunities to reach out we’ve missed, the people we’ve failed to love.

In our Gospel passage, Jesus longs, too.  In her blog, Debi Thomas says, “Jesus longs and grieves for his lost and wandering children.  For the little ones who will not come home.  For the city that will not welcome its savior.  For the endangered multitudes who refuse to recognize the peril that awaits them.  His is the lamentation of long, thwarted, and helpless yearning — “How often have I desired to gather you.”  It is a lamentation for all that could have been in this chaotic, clueless world.  It is a lamentation for the real limits we live with as human beings.  The lasting wounds.  The hopes that come to nothing.  Sometimes, like Jesus the mother hen, we can’t do what we most desire to do.  We can’t give what we deeply long to give. We can’t save the loved ones we ache to save.”[5]

And finally, during Lent, we are called to return.  “You were not willing,” Jesus tells his wandering children.  You would not come back.  You would not relinquish your right to yourself — not even when your life depended on it.  The image of chicks snuggling under a mother hen’s wings is an image of gathering, of community, of intentional oneness.  It requires a return.  A surrender.

What in us is “not willing” to be gathered this Lent?  Not willing to surrender to community?  To the body which is the Church?  To the people God has placed in our lives for our own growth?  Where in our lives do we go it alone, rejecting messy human connection because it feels too risky, too time-consuming?[6] 

This is our challenge this second Sunday of Lent.  To be vulnerable and see it as a strength.  To lament what was, what never came to be, what is that has fallen short.  And to return to the body.  To accept our need for community.  To welcome in the people God has placed in our lives.  

May the longing of Jesus become our longing too.  May the image of the mother hen remind us that Jesus will never stop calling us home.[7] 

As Rev. Ashley DeTar Birt puts it, “We can be frustrating, we can be challenging, we can be difficult. We might even, intentionally or unintentionally, try to push God away. Yet God will remain with us, still loving us because God’s love never ends. Know that you are loved, no matter what you do.”[8]

Hear that again.  Know that you are loved, no matter what you do.  Amen.

 

 

 

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[1] https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay?id=3341.  Debi Thomas. I Have Longed.  March 13, 2022
[2] https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay?id=3341.  Debi Thomas. I Have Longed.  March 13, 2022. 
[3] Sanctified art.org.  Full to the Brim.  Sermon notes by Rev. Ashley DeTar Birt
[4] Ibid.
[5] https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay?id=3341.  Debi Thomas. I Have Longed.  March 13, 2022.
[6] Ibid
[7] Ihttps://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay?id=3341.  Debi Thomas. I Have Longed.  March 13, 2022.
[8] Sanctified art.org.  Full to the Brim.  Sermon notes by Rev. Ashley DeTar Birt
 

Temptation

 

Rev. Debbie Cato
Deut. 26:1-11 and Luke 4:1-13
Fairfield Community Church
March 6, 2022

Let us Pray:  God of the wilderness places in our lives, it can be hard to hear you in the desert. It can be hard to hear you, so we ask: make everything quiet. Pause the chaos. Still the rushing. Ease our racing thoughts. Give us ears to hear your Word for us today which promises that even in the desert you are full to the brim. We are listening. We ache for your good news. Gratefully we pray, amen.

Temptation

 

Today is the first Sunday of Lent and the lectionary has us starting with the temptation of Jesus – at the very start of his ministry.  John just baptized Jesus in the Jordan River.  Luke tells us that , “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned
from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, ² where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.” Forty days is a long time to be tempted!

Forty is an important number in the Bible.   It’s mentioned 146 times in Scripture!  The number 40 symbolizes a period of testing or trial.  During Moses life, he lived forty years in Egypt and forty years in the desert before God chose him to lead his people out of slavery into the Promised Land.

 

Moses spent forty days and nights on Mt. Sinai – twice, receiving God’s laws. 

And of course, he spent 40 years leading the Israelites out of slavery and into the Promised Land.

The prophet Jonah warned the Ninevites for forty days that they would be destroyed because of their sins, and they repented, and God saved them. 

Elijah went 40 days without food or water at Mount Horeb.

Jesus appeared to his disciples and others for 40 days after his resurrection from the dead and before his ascension.  Forty days.

There are forty days of Lent, starting with Ash Wednesday.  Forty days of testing and trial.  Forty days of repentance and drawing closer to God.  Forty days of understanding what our faith means to us.  Forty days of letting go of things that stand in the way of our relationship with Christ.  Forty days of getting closer to God.  Forty days of walking to the cross with Jesus so that we can truly understand the grace and hope of the resurrection.  Forty days to help us understand the joy behind the Hallelujah on Easter morning when we shout together, “He is Risen!  He is Risen, indeed!”

We can learn important things about temptation from Jesus’ forty days of temptation.  First, Luke says, “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, ² where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.”  Did you hear that?  Jesus was both full of the Holy Spirit and led by the Holy Spirit.  Whoa!  What’s up with that?!  No one could be more full of the Holy Spirit that Jesus, right?!  This is so incredible to me.

We believe in the Triune God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – three God’s in One.  So, Jesus and the Holy Spirit have a pretty close relationship!  But this very Spirit, a very part of him, leads Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil!  This is amazing to me. 

Jesus is the very way of God, He is God, but he is about to enter his ministry and he has to be bullet proof.  He has to be ready because he will be tested at every point in his ministry. 

Why should we think that being committed to the way of God in the world exempts us from this same struggle?  In fact, it is those who are most engaged in the way of God who experience most intensely the opposition of evil.  If Jesus struggled, why should we think we are exempt?[1]

Jesus’ temptations teach us that real temptation summons us to do something that 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.  Real temptation is an offer not to fall, but to rise.[2]  That’s why it is so tempting.  It can sound like such a good thing to do.

When Satan tempted Eve in the garden, he didn’t ask her if she wanted to be like the devil.  He asked her if she wanted to be like God.   ⁴”But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; ⁵ for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God,^[a] knowing good and evil.”

Temptation is an indication of strength, not weakness.  We are not tempted to do what we cannot do, but what is within our power.  The greater the strength, the greater the temptation. 

But I think Jesus’ temptations; his forty days of fasting and time in the desert teaches us even more.  Even in the desert, Jesus expands our definitions of a full life. It’s not the life the Tempter presents: a life defined by excess power, control, or reign. Jesus sees beyond this facade and says, even in the midst of fasting, “One does not live by bread alone” (Luke 4:4). Excess is not abundance, but there is more. There is a fuller life we are called to live.[3]

Even in the midst of struggle, oppressive forces, hardship, and grief—God’s promises spill over, like the bounty of the first fruits from the ground. Even in the desert, we are called to the riverside to be washed by grace.  Even in the desert—in spaces cracked dry of life and flourishing—and even when we have felt deserted— abandoned and alone—God promises to be with us.[4]

 Images are coming out of Ukraine of Christians gathered in train stations and bus stations worshiping God and praising God in the midst of warring attacks from Russia.  Images of courageous Russian citizens protesting the attacks on Ukraine in the streets of Russian.  Images of the fullness of a life in Christ standing up to oppressive forces, believing in the promises of God even though they are living in their own desert; their own desolation.  These are images of God’s grace washing over people under siege.

Lent invites us into our own wilderness journey. It’s a patient walk of exploration which we inevitably escape on Easter morning.  Rev. Larissa Kwong Abazia, a presbyterian pastor and vice moderator of General Assembly, says:   “But if I were really honest with myself (and with all of you), I would say that we are never leaving this desolation. These doubts are rooted in the limitations of who we are as human beings, falling short of transformation over and over again. But what if it isn’t about getting out of the desert? What if we are called to dwell in our doubts, fears, anxieties, and brokenness? What if we are meant to stand in solidarity with those trapped in their own wilderness experiences? I wonder if we can imagine making a home right here, a place existing in the tension between desolation and burgeoning possibility. In the desert, we cast aside the temptations of this world and actively engage in the promise that abundant love will always have the final say. The desert may very well be right where we belong.”[5]

In the desert, we cast aside the temptations of this world and actively engage in the promise that abundant love will always have the final say.  The desert may very well be right where we belong.  What do you think about that?

 Last week we talked about mountaintop experiences and how we can’t wait for those to happen.  God moments happen in the ordinariness of life.  Life on the plain, the valley, perhaps the desert, the wilderness.  In my experience, much of life takes place in desert places.  Places where I’m most unsure, most uncomfortable, most insecure.  Where I need God the most.  I think that’s the way it’s supposed to be.  Dependence.  That’s my star word.  We are  meant to be dependent on God.

Not high on the temptation of living life on our own.  Doing what we think is best.  Living “the good life” because we have the resources, the ability, the wherewithal.  That’s the temptation.

 Lent is here to help us see the temptations in our life and let them go. To be comfortable in the desert.  Dependent on God and reminded of His promises and his unconditional love for us. 

 What do you need to let go of that is in the way of your relationship with God in the next 36 days?  For me it’s my independence.  My quick thinking and decision making.  My “I know best.”  “I know what God wants.”  I need to spend more time in prayer each day rather than jumping into everything I need to get done.  That’s my biggest temptation – everything that needs to get done.  My Lent commitment is spending time with God. Just being with God rather than doing for God.  It’s called Centering Prayer.  Just sitting and listening.  It’s hard.  But I’m committed to trying every day.  And then time in scripture. Not working on a sermon or a Bible study but just listening for God. Every morning before I jump into work.  It’s a commitment.  It takes a chunk out of my day.  But it’s something I should be doing and you know, it brings me tremendous peace.  A peace that lasts all day.  I feel God’s presence stronger all day.

What is it for you?  Will you do something during this season to let God in and see how your faith might grow?  It’s all between you and God.  A fuller life awaits us all.  Do we have the courage to open ourselves up to what He offers?  Do we have the patience to sit in the desert?  Amen.

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[1] Luke.  Interpretation:  A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching.  Fred Craddock.  P55.
[2] Ibid. P56
[3] Full to the Brim.  Sanctified Art.org  First Sunday of Lent.
[4] Full to the Brim.  Sanctified Art.org  First Sunday of Lent.by Rev. Larissa Kwong Abazia
[5] Full to the Brim.  Sanctified Art.org  First Sunday of Lent.by Rev. Larissa Kwong Abazia