First Sunday in Lent Year A Feb 26 2023

First Sunday in Lent Year A Feb 26 2023

Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7, Romans 5:12-19, Matthew 4:1-11, Psalm 32

 

The truth of the gospel is that it tells us who we are and whose we are. We are God’s beloved, marked and claimed as God’s own. God’s deepest desire is to be in relationship with us. And yet, we don’t believe it. We let all sorts of voices convince us that we are not good enough, not smart enough, not pretty enough, not wealthy enough… so why would God, the creator of all that is seen and unseen, want to be in relationship with me. 

 

Our sacred story shows us over and over that God’s heart’s desire is to love us into wholeness, love us into compassion, love us into mercy and justice, every one of us. And God shows us that desire by being born into our world, living and loving and suffering and dying. Jesus lives this life, just like you and me. God’s heart’s desire is to be in relationship with us. We are included in God’s web of love, we belong in God’s web of love, our identity is God’s beloved.

 

That’s why this story from Matthew is so very important for us to hear. Jesus has just been baptized by John, the Spirt of God descends like a dove, and a voice from heaven says, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” This is Jesus’ identity, and this is our identity. We are God’s beloveds, with no caveats, no conditions, and no quid pro quos. 

 

This story that takes place in the wilderness, this story of Jesus and the devil, is the second great quid pro quo Satan offers, the first was in the garden of Eden. In the garden, the devil said to the people, God’s first creations, “if you eat from this tree, the one God told you not to eat from, then I (the devil) will make you like God.” The devil says, “if you do what I ask you to do, then you will have everything you think you want, power, beauty, knowledge, control, riches.” 

 

You know all of these things seem good, but really are illusory. A little like catching fireflies, they are brilliant to watch, but as soon as you try to keep them in a jar as your own, they die and all you have is dead bugs. 

 

Well, the devil was fairly successful in that garden of Eden story, and humans have been grappling with the seduction of the devil ever since. You and I know this voice of transaction very well. If you just have this one drink, I promise you will feel so much better. If you tell this one lie, you’ll get that job you want. If you cheat on this test, you’ll get that better grade and then everyone will get off your back. We are seduced by what we think we want, what we think will make us happy. And the rub is that whatever it is, in the moment seems so good, so right.

 

That is exactly what is happening with Jesus. THE quid pro quo, If you do this Jesus, then I will give you power and glory, and you will have command of all that bows down before you. 

 

I’m reminded of Edmund, in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, one of the books in C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia. Edmund is the third child in a family of four children. He is overshadowed by his older brother Peter, and Edmund suffers from a lack of confidence that contributes to a rather unfortunate series of decisions. When the children enter the land of Narnia through the wardrobe, they encounter eternal winter, brought on by the despicable Queen. The Queen approaches Edmund and tempts him with the sugary concoction, Turkish delight, and some warm and wonderful hot cocoa as well. Thus begins Edmund’s turn toward the despicable Queen, and away from the Lion Aslan, his brother and sisters, and all that represents. 

 

You see, just about without an exception, temptation looks and feels delicious. It is part of our very humanity to seek out that which we believe is positive, pleasurable, and good. We always embark on the road to perdition with the belief that it is in fact a good. That is the nature of seduction. It begins with a beautiful face, it begins with a ripe red apple, it begins with mouthwatering tastiness, it begins with the promise of relief, escape, pleasure, it begins in wonder and amazement, but many times it does not end well. And yet, often we are powerless to know it or to see it. 

 

The great seducer in our gospel today shows Jesus three wonderful and amazing things. First, stones that may become bread. It may be hard to imagine yourself as Jesus, or not, but try for a moment. You are concerned about poverty and starvation all over the known world. Your instructions to those who follow you are to feed the hungry; over and over you ask your friends and followers to feed the hungry. And here you are presented with a solution to world hunger. Command these stones to become bread. That’s it, that’s all it takes. There are enough stones in the world if they all became bread there would be no child going to bed hungry at night. Who wouldn’t say yes? Feeding people is good, isn’t it? The devil tries to seduce Jesus into thinking that God is not capable of providing. But Jesus knows differently, you and I know differently. We already read the story of the loaves and fishes. 

 

Second, ultimate safety. If you were unable to be hurt, you would be able to continue to relieve world hunger forever and for always? If you were unable to be hurt, you would be able to love everyone all the time? If you are unable to be hurt, you would not have to go to the cross to die? Sounds like a good, doesn’t it? 

 

Third, authority. Everyone and everything answering to you. With ultimate authority, everyone would follow your rules and your rules are good rules. Love your neighbor, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick and imprisoned. The world would be perfect if you were in charge. 

 

What’s so wrong with this scene? Nothing at all. Nothing at all. That is the nature of seduction. It looks so good. It tastes so good. It feels so good. It must be right. We are human after all. What makes this story so powerful is that we have been there. Each and every one of us has been there; we may even be there yet today. This is about Jesus, and it is about each of us. You see, decisions aren’t usually black and white, right or wrong, obvious or clear, and don’t let anyone seduce you into thinking that it is. This journey of life is full of choices, which is God’s gift to us, choice, and a pile of love to go with it, because we know that God's love wins. Even Jesus had the choice, the choice to follow the seducer, the choice to give in to the pain and suffering of his journey, the choice to walk away from the cross. 

 

This is a story about Jesus’ identity, about our identity. And like Jesus, we belong to the God who loves us. God gives us the choice, and with the choice is unconditional love. Not transactional love, not a quid pro quo, but a relationship of love, of mercy, of compassion, of hope. Because even when we are seduced by the power, the riches, the control, God loves us. And God says to us, lay it down, it’s killing you, you are forgiven, you are my beloved. 

 

Thanks be to God. 

1 Lent Yr C March 6 2022

1 Lent Yr C March 6 2022

Deuteronomy 26:1-11, Romans 10:8b-13, Luke 4:1-13, Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16

 

So he stands by the refrigerator, with the door open, looking inside, and says, I'm starving, there's nothing to eat. Then he goes to the kitchen cupboard, opens the door, and declares again, I'm starving, there's nothing to eat. I go to the grocery store, stock up on everything I think he likes to eat, get it all home, and there's still nothing to eat. He eats a delicious meal of meatloaf, mashed potatoes and gravy, and an hour later says, I'm starving, what is there to eat. Some of you have been there done that, for others, if you don't know what that's like yet, you will. 

 

And then there's that late afternoon grumbling in your tummy, and if you go too long you get a little light headed and maybe even ornery. These days we call it hangry. What luxury we live in, most of us is pretty sure we won't go for more than a few hours before our next meal. What a bunch of first world problems.

 

In this story, Jesus has been in the wilderness for a very long time, and I would imagine he is hungry, tired, stinky, and snarky. Forty days is significant as it is a signal to us of the forty years that the Israelites wandered in the wilderness. Remember that story? Moses led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, and in the wilderness they began to distrust Moses, they began to distrust God, they began to whine about the food, the living conditions, the weather. But who wouldn't, right? After forty years and another generation, who wouldn't lose hope? After years of oppression, who wouldn't lose hope? After years of being mistreated, who wouldn't lose hope? 

 

That's what The Devil is counting on in this story from Luke. The Devil is counting on Jesus having lost hope and trust in God. The Devil is counting on Jesus believing that God just does not care. Each one of the suggestions The Devil has for Jesus names the temptation to give up on God, to come to believe that God is not sufficient to meet one's needs. It's not really about right and wrong, Jesus' decisions are not really black and white. So while Jesus is incredibly hungry, even if he had some survival skills, eating bugs for forty days, one would think he's ready to deal. The Devil says to Jesus, just have something to eat, you know how hungry you are. Which one of us wouldn't want a good loaf of bread? Then The Devil says to Jesus, you can have all the power and authority in the world, just think what you could do with that. This could all be yours. Just think what good you could do with it. And lastly, after The Devil may be getting somewhat frustrated, he says to Jesus, just test that God of yours now, just see if he'll whisk you out of death if you throw yourself off this cliff. 

 

You see, The Devil's proposals are just like the promises of the world, and they look so attractive. You will be filled and fulfilled, you will have power and prestige, you will have immensity and immortality. It is so seductive. It is so tempting. We don't even know it's happening. But when the pills, or the promiscuity, or the power, don't deliver the goods, we tend to continue to look further for fulfillment by increasing the frenetic pace of finding something that will make us happy. It is that inferno into which our hopes, our happiness, our joy, get sucked. Thus, the expression, it sucks. The Devil counts on us giving up too, the Devil counts on us losing hope, and we may be so caught in the cycle of trying to make ourselves happy, that we give up on hope and joy without ever knowing we've given up.

 

But, even when we give up hope, even when we give up on God, even when we give in to the glitter and glitz the world offers us, God never gives up on us. Love does indeed win. That's what so amazing about God. No matter what, God does not give up on us. That is what this story is about, that is what this story we hear all the way through Lent tells us. It's not an easy story to hear, there's heartbreak and death on the way to the cross, and on the cross, but there's also forgiveness, healing, and new life. 

 

We already know that Jesus is a good Jew, he knows his bible well, and in those scriptures, Jesus hears God's love, he hears hope and healing and health. You see, this thing we do with God is not transactional. Though we do want it to be that way. God, if you pull me out of this mess I've gotten myself into, I will be a better person, I will go to church every Sunday. But isn't that the very same thing The Devil is doing? 

 

This thing God does with creation is not transactional, it is relational. The Devil wants us to think it's transactional, that it's about bargaining with God. That's where those temptations from The Devil come from. The Devil says to Jesus, if you turn these stones into bread, if you take this power and authority, if you jump off this cliff, then I will give this all to you. With The Devil it is transactional, with God it is relational, and at the center of that relationship is the Love that wins. 

  

The relationship calls us to turn away from or set aside or leave behind all that is killing us and turn back to God. As we hear that call, and as we set aside the stuff that gets in our way, as we lay down our own heartbreak, and as we fall to our knees, we realize we are already forgiven. We realize Love and Hope and Joy have never been absent from us, we've just had our backs turned, we've had our hearts hardened. We realize that we are washed in the reality and love of God.

 

And as we begin to live the new life that is given, it dawns on us that we must respond to God's love. It dawns on us that there is pain and suffering and injustice in our world, and the new life that is God's gift really isn't about any one of us anyway. 

 

God’s intention for us is to be in relationship, in love, with Jesus. How can you be intentional in following the way of Love this Lent? We can respond to God's love with prayer, we listen to God and God's movement in our lives. That's what relationship is all about. We can respond to God's love by fasting from that which keeps the relationship from flourishing. We can respond to God's love by giving our love, our wealth, our time. Prayer, fasting, almsgiving are ancient practices that give life to our relationship with God. Prayer, fasting, almsgiving are ancient practices that enact God's love, God's justice, in our world. Prayer, fasting, almsgiving are ancient practices that remind us that God always has hope and faith in us. 

 

The good news is that Jesus has already walked this way, through the wilderness and to the cross. The good news is that Jesus does not succumb to the seduction of power. Instead, Jesus puts himself in between the powers of hate and shows makes love real. Amen.

 

Second Sunday in Lent Yr B Feb 28 2021

 

YouTube recording

Second Sunday in Lent Yr B Feb 28 2021

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16, Romans 4:13-25, Mark 8:31-38, Psalm 22:22-30

 

Jesus says, follow me. But if you do, there will be consequences. You will lose your life. Not much of a party invitation is it? What would that look like on a save the date card. That card for me would read, Kathleen Ann Monson, on August 21^st, 1957, you are invited to lose your life. Details to follow. You see, that’s the day I was baptized. How do I even know that you ask? I have my baptismal certificate framed on my wall, my ordination certificate is there as well, but the baptismal certificate is the most important to me, to us. That is the day I lost my life, to be reborn into the life of Jesus. And it is with this identity, a follower of Jesus in the way of love, that I live my life. All the rest is the details. 

 

In this story from Mark, there are some very important questions that are part of the details, that inform the way of love. Who do you say I am? Can you turn from all that demands your attention and follow me? Can you put aside your own selfish ambition? Can you lay down your life? As we wonder about the answers to these questions, we may find that Jesus calls us to some uncomfortable places, some borders and barriers that must be broken. 

 

We begin, as we began last time in Mark, with location. Location, location, location. We need to look at the physical location of the story, and where the story is in the larger narrative, it makes a difference. So Jesus and the disciples are in Caesarea Philippi, and that is way far away from Jerusalem, about 110 miles away, and remember, anyplace they go they go on foot. Jesus and the disciples were walking all over the place and they were nowhere near home. In this place, so far from home, Jesus asks, who do you say I am. Peter declares, you are the Messiah. Peter says, you are the one for whom we have been waiting, you are the one given to us by God. 

 

This declaration of who Jesus is, is made way out in the villages, a beautiful area and a center of Pagan activity.  Caesarea Philippi is home to the Temple of Pan. This is not a judgement about good and bad, only an illustration about how the location of this declaration that Peter, the Rock, makes, about who Jesus is, becomes an important part of the story. They are way out of their territory, deep in pagan lands, in the places they are not comfortable. What does it mean to confess Jesus as the messiah in this wilderness, in foreign lands? Jesus and his followers are the aliens here. Talk about losing your life! In this setting Peter affirms Jesus’ identity, you are the one for whom we have been waiting, you are the one given to us by God. 

 

So what does this all mean for us, in our setting, in our lives? Who do we say Jesus is when we are in the wilderness, when we are in front of the temple of pan? Who do we say Jesus is when we are with those who claim a Jesus who takes power rather than the one we know, the Jesus who empowers us in the way of Love. And, how do we respond to the demand to deny ourselves and take up our cross. You see, these two claims have everything to do with each other. 

 

I’ll tell you why. Peter’s claim that Jesus is the one for whom they have been waiting, becomes our reality that Jesus is God in the flesh, Jesus is God in the midst of humanity. Jesus, the one who travels to the wilderness, Jesus, the one who feeds thousands of people in the wilderness, Jesus the one who gives sight to the blind, this is the Jesus we follow in the way of love. Not a god who demands power and glory, but Jesus, who goes to the edges of the earth to bring those who are on the margins into the community of the beloved. Not a god who demands the sacrifice of a son, but God in Jesus, who asks the sacrifice of self. 

 

That is what Jesus is asking of us here. Jesus says, put aside your selfish ambition, give up your busy is better life, give up your need to be successful, your need to be liked, your need to please, your need to be perfect, put aside all that is killing you for the sake of love. Because love changes everything. 

 

And it is so hard. It is hard because it demands that we love ourselves. It is hard because once we love ourselves, and put aside all that is killing us, our eyes and hearts are opened to our own brokenness and vulnerability, and our eyes and hearts are opened to the brokenness we see around us. It is hard because it is scary. Fear is at the root of most of our inability to love. It is hard because we also must say, like Peter says, Jesus, you are the Love of God, and we must say it in difficult places, in uncomfortable places and conversations. We too must go to the margins, and break down the barriers that keep people from the love of God. We also must speak out loud, on behalf of ourselves and those whose voices are silenced, Jesus is the Love that wins.

 

What are the wild places that you go to speak the love of God? For some of us that may be hard family conversations. For me it’s when one of the people I love says something, or posts something on facebook that supports or defends an attitude that is not loving, but judging, racist, or misogynistic; it’s a wild place that I need to enter, not to take sides or to judge, but to have conversation about why that comment or that piece they post is not loving. 

 

Just remember, in the waters of baptism you have been set free to bear God’s love into all the wild places of your life. By your baptism you have been marked with oil and retraced with ashes as Christ’s own forever. You carry the light of Christ to illuminate all of the dark and wild places. You carry the cross of love in your pocket. You are created in God’s image. You are equipped, by your baptism in the community of saints and the cloud of witnesses, with Peter and all the others, to proclaim the love that wins. Thanks be to God. 

1 Lent Yr B Feb 21 2021

YouTube video

1 Lent Yr B Feb 21 2021

Genesis 9:8-17, 1 Peter 3:18-22, Mark 1:9-15, Psalm 25:1-9

 

And the walls come a tumblin down. That’s what’s happening here, God’s tumblin the walls. God’s removing any barriers between God and creation, God and humanity, God and us. This is Good News isn’t it? It also means that God is loose in our world. That may be a bit stickier. Because if God is loose in our world, it means that something is afoot, and that something may very well call us into something new, something wild, something not quite as orderly as we are used to.

 

How do we know God is loose in the world? Let’s take a look at what Mark has to say. When Jesus, who is God in our midst, was coming up out of the water after being baptized by John, the heavens were torn apart – that is something to pay attention to, and the Spirit descended into him, and a voice from the heavens said, “You are my son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

 

There’s a lot going on here, but in this short piece we get the point. God is on the move. Once the heavens are torn apart, you can’t undo that. God is loose. There’s another place that we hear the heavens are torn apart. Can you remember when? I’ll help you. At the crucifixion, in Mark that is chapter 15 verse 38 “and the curtain of the temple was torn in two.” This is not just dramatic staging or an opportunity for wondrous computer generated imagery. This means that God is loose. And this is a huge change for those who always understood that God was contained in the ark of the covenant and later in the holy of holies. When history gets to the story of Jesus, it had been a long, long time that anyone had heard from God.  The Jewish people believed that prophecy had ceased with the last prophets but that it would be restored at the end-times (Malachi 4:5-6). The heavens had “closed,” as it were, and there was no direct communication from God to humankind anymore. That Mark says that the heavens were torn apart is a daring affirmation. That the Spirit descended and entered into Jesus is even more so. Here we have an absolutely revolutionary claim: the God of Israel is speaking again and has chosen to do it through a humble peasant from Galilee! So God showing up changes everything. God descending into Jesus changes everything. God is on the loose. You and I may not be hearing God’s voice, but rest assured, something is afoot, God is moving about, and there is no putting God back in the box.

 

For whom is God on the move? For whom is God loosed? That question can be answered with location, location, location. This is the beginning of Mark’s gospel, John is not in the power center, in the city or even in the village, John is out in the countryside, in the wilderness, on the margins, baptizing people. And after a long time of no God sightings, God is present. This is remarkable. It is remarkable that God shows up, and that God shows up outside of the city center, outside of the seat of power. You see, the messiah for whom the Hebrew people wait was a messiah who would sit on the throne and make everything right. But that’s not the messiah this story shows us. Jesus is out in the wilderness with John. John who eats locusts and wild honey, John who is an oddly likable character. Jesus doesn’t show up to solidify power, Jesus shows up to enfranchise those who have been tossed out, to restore those, women particularly, who have been tossed to the side because they are unattached to a man, and to heal those who have been tossed out like trash. 

 

Jesus goes from being baptized in the river to being tempted in the wilderness. 

 

Why is all this curtain tearing, Spirit entering, wilderness living, so important for us? God is tearing down walls, boundaries are being breached, borders are being crossed. That is who God is. It challenges our want and desire to define God, to determine what God can and cannot do, who God can and cannot love. God is the God of outrageous, uncontainable love. 

 

But this God who bursts into our lives, this God who is on the loose, this God who breaks boundaries and borders, calls us to see the rupture and hear the voice that is in our midst, maybe even calls us to wonder about the rupture we have experienced in our own lives. And God invites us to see the world from the margins of society. God invites us to see the world through and around the barriers we have built and that must come a tumblin down. 

 

Dear friends, God is still at work, still proclaiming the good news. God is still calling us to follow Jesus. Are we willing to drop so much of what passes for normal and expected in order to follow in the way of Jesus? God sees us as God saw Jesus on his baptismal day, beloved. 

 

Lent is a season of intention. This Lenten season is not the same ol lent. This Lenten season comes to us as we continue to persevere in this time of pandemic. This Lenten season comes to us as the racial and socio-economic disparities in our country have been so clearly revealed. God sees us as worthy of God’s attention, as capable of great things, as called and equipped to be Jesus’ followers in this new and challenging year of our Lord, 2021.

 

We cannot go back, we cannot put God back in the box. We must follow Jesus to outrageous faith and possibility. We cannot put back together that which cannot be mended. We must meet Jesus on the margins, in the wilderness, and turn in a new direction, believing and trusting that, indeed, God is with us and for us. 

 

And let us be blessed by the angels, the angels that cared for Jesus in the wilderness, the angels that care for the lonely of our church and our community, the angels that tirelessly care for the sick, the angels that deliver food and water to those whose homes are torn apart in the cold, the angels that care nothing for boundaries and barriers but who carry the love that wins to the margins.

 

Amen.