First Sunday of Lent The Cracks in all things Matthew 4:1-11 March 9, 2014 Thank the Worship Team for running with this idea of the mantle of Brigid a physical representation of God s presence with us and combining that with the visual image of that mantle having holes in it holes that in our conversations represent the holes or the cracks in all of us and the ways in which the light of Christ finds a way to shine through those cracks and holes, comes to us in our places of vulnerability to show us the Way of love, humility, and vulnerability. Last summer I did Brad and Julie s wedding. Brad is the brother of a friend of mine, which is how I got the privilege of meeting this couple and walking with them into marriage. The first time Brad, Julie and I met to begin talking about their wedding ceremony they told me one of the most amazing stories of love and vulnerability I have ever heard. Brad and Julie met online in a professional chat group. After a while they moved their chatting from the public group to a private forum where their friendship grew. Finally, they decided they d like to meet one another and discovered that Brad lived in Boston and Julie traveled almost weekly to Boston from New York City for work. They met and quickly became a couple. After a year or so of dating they decided that Julie would leave her job and move to Boston and they d get an apartment together. On the day they were moving Julie s things from NYC to Boston they also got the news that Julie was pregnant. Despite the shock, they knew their relationship was heading toward marriage and family and so they quickly incorporated this pregnancy into their relationship. A few weeks into the pregnancy they got the news that the fetus had a genetic defect related to dwarfism that would prevent the child from being able to survive outside the womb. His lungs would not develop appropriately and after birth he would slowly die. The advice was to terminate the pregnancy immediately.
Brad and Julie decided not to terminate the pregnancy. They felt strongly that the child in Julie s womb was their son and they were going to give him the best possible life they could for as long as they were able. They took their son all over Boston, showed him all the sights they loved. They played their favorite music and talked to the baby telling him how much he was loved. The Drs. And medical staff remained skeptical and continued to recommend termination but Brad and Julie were steadfast in their commitment to the path they had chosen. As long as the baby was not suffering, they wanted to care for him in the only ways they could. Julie said she became a fanatic about her health as a way of caring for her son and ate better and exercised more faithfully than ever before in her life. When the time came for their son, Sammy, to be born, they called their closest friends and family together and welcomed their son into the world. He lived for about 45 minutes after birth while they held him and talked to him, telling him how deeply he was loved and how grateful they were for his life and then they let him go. When Brad and Julie finished relating this story, all three of us were sniffling and wiping our eyes. I sat in stunned silence for a little while taking in all that I had just heard and feeling the spirit of fierce love in the room love between Brad and Julie and the love they had for their son. When I spoke I simply affirmed the incredible gift they had given to one another, to their son and to everyone who knew them the gift of choosing the much harder but in the end much more rewarding for them path of sacrificial love and extreme vulnerability. Brad and Julie chose to fall head over heels in love with their son even though they KNEW he would die the same day he was born. This is the kind of love God shows us in the story of Jesus the kind of love that knows the depths of pain and suffering and sorrow and yet still chooses to shine, to be love, to affirm that no sacrifice can hamper the power of love when we risk letting go and trusting. The temptation for Brad and Julie in this situation was to terminate a pregnancy that was not going to result in a healthy baby. Very few would have questioned this decision and yet like Jesus in the wilderness they said no. We will not change this stone
into bread, we will not make this pregnancy be something that it is not. We will receive this pregnancy and this child on his own terms. We will receive this gift as it is and trust that all we need to walk this path will be available to us along the way. We will view this pregnancy and our son as perfect in every way and will behave accordingly with deep love, gratitude and humility. We all experience temptations similar to this temptation faced by Brad and Julie. Who doesn t occasionally desire to manipulate the world, other people and the situations we find ourselves in to benefit ourselves or to alleviate or deny our suffering? But Jesus lifts up for us the wisdom of allowing stones to be stones and bread to be bread. When tempted to satisfy his hunger by changing a stone to bread Jesus replies one does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. With these words he resists the temptation to control the world around him to satisfy his needs alone and affirms that the world as it is functions on its own terms. When we struggle to accept our aging selves, when we wish we were more beautiful or agile, when we look around us at the world and see only problems that need to be fixed, when we seek to manipulate or control others or the situations of our lives we face the temptation to value our ideas about the way things should be or our desire to escape troubles more highly than the affirmation from God that Creation is good, we are not alone in our suffering and we are valuable and beloved regardless of appearance, ability or age. The second temptation Jesus faces is the invitation to throw himself from the pinnacle of the temple in an attempt to manipulate God into saving him. Do not put the Lord your God to the test. Jesus replies. We face this temptation in our own lives as we strive for security and comfort or seek success, notoriety, and recognition. We also succumb to this temptation when we assume that our success, notoriety, comfort or recognition is a sign of God s blessing, an indication that God loves and cares for us. Through this kind of thinking, we seek to manipulate God by bolstering our own egos. We believe we succeed because we are favored by God God saves us from dashing our feet against the stones because we are somehow special. But Jesus says no,
do not put God to the test in this way. Do not assume you are special because of your successes, your notoriety. No, you are special in the eyes of God because you are. Period. That s it. God loves us because we are and God loves everyone else because they are. We are not better or more secure or more successful because of God. We succeed for all kinds of reasons racial privilege, gender privilege, educational access and opportunity etc. and we fail for all kinds of reasons too none of which have anything to do with our value, worth or identity in the eyes of God. Therefore, when we resist this temptation we are free to be ourselves and to trust God s love and care no matter what. The third and final temptation Jesus faces is the temptation to political power the devil tells Jesus You can rule all the kingdoms of the world if only you will bow down and worship me. And Jesus replies, Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him. We face this temptation in our own lives through the systems of domination and control that we seek to align ourselves with as individuals and within society as a whole. As white people, we buy into the idea that racism is dead because we marched on Washington 50 years ago and then are shocked when we learn that indeed racism and racial prejudice are not dead, they ve just shifted shape and form and while we were patting ourselves on the back for how progressive and evolved we are. Meanwhile, large numbers of our sisters and brothers of color in Madison and throughout the country were being incarcerated at staggeringly high rates, not valued in our educational system and held in cycles of poverty and abuse through our own ignorance, neglect and apathy. We face this temptation to rule the world, to align ourselves with worldly power structures when as middle class people we allow concern for our own economic status to derail us from focusing on the truth that everything we have is fleeting our wealth is fleeting, our possessions are fleeting, our health is fleeting, our very lives are fleeting. To the extent that we cling to these things worship them we fail to worship God, to trust in God who loves and cares for us beyond our wildest imagination. Of course we need to be responsible stewards of the resources available to us but the rub comes when we shift
from being faithful stewards to being subjects of our wealth, our possessions, our health and even our very lives. Starting today we venture into the wilderness that is the season of Lent. Our own 40 days in the desert begins with a reminder of the temptations we face all the time the temptation to define the world and its events on our own terms rather than letting the world, ourselves and others be as they are; the temptation to strive for security, success, notoriety, and recognition rather than accepting ourselves and our lives as God accepts us completely and fully without condition no matter what; the temptation to align ourselves with the powers of the world in our attempt to secure our lives, our power and status and to worship our wealth, health and possessions instead of worshipping and trusting in God and in the community to provide us with what we need. In what ways are you facing these temptations today? Are you struggling with declining health or the letting go that comes with age? Are you struggling with not being recognized for your contributions or abilities? Are you struggling with fears related to your economic reality? Are you struggling with health-related fears for yourselves or others? Are you attempting to define the world, a situation or another person on your own terms rather than seeing them or it through the eyes of God? Are you seeing only scarcity and lack in the face of the abundance of God? Wherever it is that you are facing temptations, take a moment to write a word or two on the denture tablets I will pass around something you want to face during Lent, something you want God to help you resist, something you want to release/confess and hand over to God. When you re done, place your tablet in the bowl on the altar. This bowl of our temptations will remain with us throughout Lent and on Easter morning we will dissolve them as a way of reminding ourselves of the power of God to transform, heal, provide, love and care for us no matter what. Remember, as we do this exercise and throughout the season of Lent these wise words from Leonard Cohen Ring the bells that still can ring; forget your perfect offering; there is a crack in everything; that s how the light gets in and remember that through your temptations, through your limitations, through your vulnerability, through
your hurt and sorrow and fear the light of God s love shines and all is well and all manner of things will be well. Thanks be to God. Amen. Prayers of the community More than we can ask Beloved Holy One, open our eyes, ears and hearts to your presence with us as we embark on the journey of Lent and into the spiritual wilderness to which Jesus beckons. Guide us as we search ourselves for the places of temptation that we are facing and seek the courage to resist those temptations. When we are tempted to change stones into bread to define the world on our own terms so as to meet our own needs fill us with humility to accept life as it comes. When we are tempted to seek recognition and status as a way of ensuring our own security and our own blessedness by God remind us of your acceptance, love and care for all your people all the time no matter what. When we are tempted to align ourselves with the powers that be remind us of the power of self sacrifice and of your invitation to place our hope, our trust and our faith in you and not in the systems of domination and control that rule our world. Hear oh hear our prayer Beloved Holy One, we pray now for the places in our where it is hard to see your presence and ask for your wisdom to soften the hearts of leaders, to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, to motivate us for action toward peace and justice in whatever way fits with our gifts and abilities We name now in our hearts the places of our world in which we long to see your love at work Beloved Holy One we pray now for the people and situations that we are bringing with us this morning Donna Fisker; Margaret Helming, Sef VanKan, grieving losses And let us name now those things for which we are grateful this day Hear oh hear our prayer Amen. Lord s prayer