1 Lent Yr A

Well here it is the first Sunday of lent, and we have readings full of temptation and evil and sin. I don’t know how we can even get a good start on Lent when we have those three hanging over our heads already. But, it is a very good beginning place, the wilderness. It is a good place for us to begin Lent.

In the gospel of Matthew, this story of Jesus and Satan takes place at the very beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. This story happens just after Jesus is baptized, and the spirit of God descended like a dove, and all the witnesses heard the voice from heaven say, “This is my Son, chosen and marked by my love, delight of my life.” Just after that Jesus is led into the wilderness by that same spirit, fasts for 40 days and 40 nights, and along comes that devil.

What is it that happens here? I think an important key to understanding this wilderness experience of Jesus’ is in the words of the tempter. First, the tempter twice calls into question Jesus’ relationship to God his father. “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread and, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down.” And then the tempter demands Jesus’ worship, the tempter says, “fall down and worship me.”

What is happening in the text is that Jesus has been identified as a holy man, in fact as God’s son. The devil, Satan, the tempter, has challenged Jesus’ honor as the Son of God. Thus, the tempter says if you are the Son of God. The tempter really is offering a test, and the test is the test of kinship. And, by appealing to the words of his father, Jesus successfully defends the claim to sonship, and the devil is forced to await a new opportunity.

But what does this story really mean to you and to me? It was important to the first hearers of the story of Jesus to know that Jesus was in fact the Son of God. That was why this story was first told. It may be important for you and I to know that Jesus is the Son of God, but I think for reasons that are very different than the first century Christian. Jesus’ sonship is not about power and authority, but instead, Jesus’ sonship is about relationship. Jesus’ sonship brings you and I into that same relationship with God.

That relationship is about grace and love, not about power and authority. That relationship is about wandering in the wilderness and knowing that God is right there with us. The wilderness is a place in which we all spend quite a bit of time, if we are truthful with ourselves. And it is in the wilderness that our loyalty is tested, if you will. I am not suggesting that this is a game to be won or lost, but a place and a time in our lives where we have the opportunity to live fully the life we have been given, to use completely the gifts we have been given, to experience fully the relationships that we have been given.

Wilderness is a time and a place that we do not choose for ourselves; wilderness is a time and a place in which the circumstances of our lives put us. But when we are in the wilderness, we do have a choice to live it gracefully, or to live it disgracefully.

Wilderness may be a time of uncertainty, or of doubt. Wilderness may be a time of pain or loneliness. Wilderness may be a time of wandering without purpose. Wilderness is a place we find ourselves without really knowing how we got there, or how and when we will get home.

I have seen people wandering in the wilderness of no purpose. One of the signs that someone is wandering in the wilderness of no purpose is that they gaze upon themselves for the way out. They say things like “if only I were a better person, I would feel so much more loved, and then I would be happy.” Or, “if only I had a bigger house, or a bigger car, I would be much more loved and then I would be happy.” Or, “if only I could win the big prize, people would respect me more.” Or, “if I had the perfect job, the perfect husband, and the perfect kids by the time I am 30, I will be successful.” Gazing upon oneself only leads to more wandering in the wilderness, and the wilderness becomes so familiar, it seems like home.

I have seen people wandering in the wilderness of doubt and uncertainty. Questions have no place in the wilderness of doubt and uncertainty. Only answers. The pursuit of the answer is all that matters, the pursuit of the one way, the right way is all that matters, the pursuit of the right over the good, is all that matters. This is endless wandering.

You see, when we accept wilderness wandering as a time and place of intimate relationship with God, when we see that wilderness wandering is a time of deep relationship building with God, then wilderness wandering becomes a place of newness, a place of intimacy, a place of growth, not a place of desolation.

I remember a friend, many years ago, telling me he had grown up in the desert in Arizona. He said that most people think of the desert as an arid, desolate place, a place where nothing grows. He said that when you live in the desert over many seasons, you begin to see it as a place where amazing and beautiful things come to bloom. It seems like there is no water, but the water is just stored differently than it is in the forest or the plains. When Rick and Tom and Willie and I camped in Big Bend National Park, way in the south of Texas, we were able to see that beauty that only is born out of the desert.

In the wilderness, God is not absent, it is not desolate and without nourishment, God is present in ways that are like water in the cactus, ways that give life but may look and feel so very unusual. God is not absent in the wilderness, God is about being with you in ways that are way more intimate than we can imagine. God is about nourishing a relationship that will bear love and grace in you in ways that are absolutely new and different. God is about strengthening a relationship with you that will enable you to face the tempter and claim God as your father, and claim that you are chosen and marked by God’s love, delight of God’s life.

You have heard me say that I must be brought kicking and screaming into the wilderness of Lent. The wilderness journey is nothing I would ever choose for myself on my own. Loneliness is not for me. Thank God for Lent. Because it is in the loneliness and the pain, it is in the repentance and turning, that we find God again, and we learn that God has never left us, that God has been there all along, we just couldn’t see God for all the junk and stuff that had been cluttering our lives. The junk and the stuff that includes the pursuit of happiness, the junk and the stuff that includes needing the right answers, instead of living with the questions. The wilderness of Lent helps us to unclutter, the wilderness of Lent helps us to focus on what is truly important. And what is truly important is the relationship that God calls us into. The relationship that brings life out of death.

In the midst of the wilderness we are able to listen more deeply to God’s love for us. In the midst of the wilderness, we are to be patient. In the midst of the wilderness we finally can be filled with grace. Don’t go trying to find wilderness, but when wilderness finds you, remember who and whose you are. You are chosen and marked by God’s love, delight of God’s life.

The Lord is full of compassion and mercy: Come let us adore him. Amen