Temptation

Deuteronomy 26:1-11, Luke 4:1-13

Before I say anything about this week's texts, I want to put in a plug for a film the kids and I saw this past weekend. Bridge to Terabithia, by Katherine Paterson, is one of the finest children's books ever written, and this film, with screenplay by her son, is absolutely faithful and fabulous. Don't be fooled by the marketing campaign; the computer generated fantasy effects take up a very small part of the film. The main story is relationships, being an outsider, imagination and friendship. You don't need a child to go see this film, but if you take children who have not read the book, be aware that there is a death involving a main character (offscreen) that is very sad.

Now, onto a bit about these texts.

The Deuteronomy text is a description of a ritual of worship for the harvest Festival of Weeks where the first fruits (literally baskets of the very first crop harvested, considered the best quality) were brought to be given at the temple, dedicated to God. So is it a stewardship text?
Well, it wouldn't hurt to hear that message in it (first fruits of my resources to God's work, hmmmm).

The ritual also includes the recitation of the heilsgeschichte (my favorite German word), or "salvation history." Now that the people are in the land and it is producing some of that fabled "milk and honey," worship is the occasion for remembering that it was not always so for the people of Israel. It is the occasion for remembering that it was not by their own wit or power or might or wealth that they got to the promised land, but by the grace of God. The story is identity forming and identity-reminding.

And note that when the worship leader speaks of what happened in the past, the term used is not "them," but "us." We are connected organically with this past, he/she is saying. It is not about us, it is us.

On to Luke and Jesus' temptation. I had a seminary professor who wanted to make sure we understood that Jesus' temptation was in so many ways different from ours that we should not make this an occasion for a sermon on "Jesus as a template for how to avoid succumbing to temptation."

So I won't do that.

But I will ask us to think about who the devil is here. The devil here is not a power co-equal with God, though he (and scripture is free with the male pronouns here, as it is for God, so perhaps we should acknowledge up front that gender attached to the devil is no more valid than gender attached to God) would like Jesus to believe he is.

Jesus' responses to the devil help us see what this evil is. The devil brings the temptation to forget what the worshipper in Deuteronomy remembered: who Jesus is and how he got where go was. The wilderness is often a place where people forget that, as the wanderers did in Exodus when they made the golden calf. Jesus actually counters the devil by quoting from Deuteronomy! The formational story not only forms, but grounds Jesus here. The devil is amnesia, spiritual Alzheimers, if you will.

So both texts are occasions for thinking about what we forget and what we remember and how those things form and ground us. What are the stories for us that do that?

Lifting the Veil

Exodus 34:9-35, Luke 9:28-36

In the Spiderman comics, we meet Peter Parker, a rather ordinary, nice guy who is accidentally given super powers in which he has some attributes of a spider, and thus becomes Spiderman. He remains Peter Parker, student, friend, lover, but he is also Spiderman and can decide to use those powers whenever he desires or the need calls.

It may seem trite to compare Jesus to Spiderman, but this passage from Luke shows us a side of Jesus that has been hinted at but not fully revealed until now. We've seen the some manifestation of the divine part of Jesus as he has healed people and spoken with authority and fed thousands. But here on the mountain with Peter, James and John, Jesus' divinity is fully experienced by them and it fills them with wonder and ecstacy, so much so that Peter doesn't want to come down. Jesus is still Jesus, fully human, but now they can see more clearly than ever that Jesus is also God, fully divine.

In both the Luke reading and the story in Exodus where Moses returns from being in the presence of God with the tablets of the 10 commandments bearing enough hints of glory in his face to be seen by the people, the experience of God's glory is frightening. The people in the wilderness ask Moses to put a veil over his face because they can't bear the "shine" leftover from the presence of God.

(footnote: an early mistranslation in the Vulgate or Latin Bible of that Hebrew word for "shine" was "horns," so that readers thought Moses came down the mountain having sprouted horns. Thus the representation of Moses in some famous statues with horns -- see Michaelangelo--is a result of this mistranslation)

In the Luke, Peter, James and John are dazzled, but still engaged enough to talk (at least Peter is) until the cloud of God's presence (often in the Bible God's presence is described as a cloud. Curious) overshadows them and they hear the actual voice of God. Then they are "terrified." The whole experience left them so awestruck that, at least according to Luke, they couldn't even talk about it, at least until after the resurrection (hey, somebody talked to Luke!).

As at Jesus' baptism, where the voice of God says almost the same thing, the deeper, hidden identity of Jesus is revealed, and the response (as the response to the God-spangled Moses had been) is fear. Like Adam and Eve in the garden after they had eaten that apple, we tend to fear the unfiltered presence of God rather than welcoming it. Why? What do you think?

Roots and Wings, Feb. 11, 2007

Jeremiah 17:5-10, Psalm 1, and Luke 6:17-26

Jeremiah speaks again of impending doom and then rescue and return for the people of Judah. This time we get the contrast between shrubs and trees, preceded and followed by a reflection on the untrustworthiness of people and our hearts.

Shrubs: low to the ground, surviving, barely, on what water is nearby, whether or not it is of good quality, not bearing any fruit.

Trees: planted near water, sending roots down deep into the earth, always seeking and finding good, nurturing, pure water, looking up, bearing fruit. Trees are not afraid of hard times because of their deep roots.

Shrubs pop up quickly, like human beings, but in this metaphor (let's leave aside a long discussion of biblical flora), they cannot be relied upon because they do not last when they are tested by drought (difficulty). They may be beautiful, and our hearts may respond to them, but our emotions and our thinking (in the Bible, heart was not just the seat of emotions, but of intellect and will) are not trustworthy as guides without the guidance of God. So, Jeremiah's ultimate counsel here is to trust God to guide decisions, thought, emotion, will and you will, as the Psalmist says, be like a tree, planted by the water, and therefore, "you shall not be moved" by every wind and whim and defeated by difficulty.

Jesus also presents us with contrasts in Luke's telling of the Beatitudes, in this case, not on the Mount, but on the Plain. Notice some differences here from the version in Matthew 5, including the identity of the listeners. Within his religious tradition, divisions were often presented between Jews and Gentiles, but notice both Jews and Gentiles are present when he teaches the disciples. So this time, the division is between Blessed and Cursed (Matthew does not include this part), regardless of religious affiliation.

Blessed: poor, hungry, weeping, persecuted for what you believe.

Cursed: rich, full, laughing, spoken "well" of.

Notice he doesn't talk about what should be, but what is. Jesus doesn't say we should become poor or hungry or weepy or persecuted, nor does he say we should avoid being rich or full or laughing or praised. He is saying that things may not be as they seem; what you see may not be what you get. Perhaps even more clearly, in the words of William Willimon, Jesus is saying that God takes sides.

Blessings will go to those who need them most: poor, hungry, sad, persecuted, while those who already have what they need and are well-esteemed by all are so filled up that they have no need of, nor could they receive God's blessings. More than "cursed," the literal translation of the word the NRSV calls "woe" would be "there's trouble ahead." Perhaps like those bushes, when the difficult times come, those who do not know their need of God will fall apart; they are without roots.

This, of course, begs the question for all of us who are rich (a relative term which defines many North Americans), full, happy and respected in our communities: can a bush become a tree?