You can listen to this reflection here.
This Lent, our gospel passages are from the Fourth Gospel, richly drawn encounters several people have with Jesus. The passages are lengthy and told elliptically in John’s sometimes tortured style, and can be hard to follow. They’re worth the work. I will do my best to highlight themes in them.
This week’s concerns a meeting between Jesus and an important Jewish leader named Nicodemus:
Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God." Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”
Some assume Nicodemus came by night because he wasn’t ready to be seen publicly with this controversial miracle-worker. Whatever his reason, Jesus’ miracles have gotten his attention: “For no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” That is why miracles are called “signs” in John’s Gospel; they are demonstrations of how things work in the Life of God, signs pointing beyond themselves to the power that animates them. Water into wine, sight to the blind – these transformations have a purpose beyond the immediate needs they address.
So does the church, meant to be the Body of Christ made visible in the world. What we are about is more than meeting needs. We are to be making known, showing forth the Life of God that is around us and in us. Our mission is to reveal the spiritual reality of God as we go about God’s mission of restoration and wholeness. So what we do always has a purpose beyond the short-term good.
In what ways do you make known the spiritual reality of God-Life in your own life and ministry? When have you last experienced that spiritual reality, even in ways that appear miraculous - maybe in timing that seems suspiciously God-driven, or with unexpected answers to prayer, or urges to reach out to another person in a way that bears fruit?
If you have answers to those questions, note them, give thanks, and explore why you may have been open to manifesting or discerning that God-Life. What are the optimal conditions for you?
If you found yourself unable to answer, there is something to explore – might you be more open to the mysterious, the movement of spirit? Might “religion” be getting in the way of “relationship” with the Holy, the transcendent?
Jesus answers Nicodemus’ opening statement with a comment that puzzles: “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” Whatever else “born from above” means, at the very least it is being able to discern a reality not immediately apparent to our physical sight. That is a good prayer for today, “Open our eyes, Lord, to see your hand at work in the world around us.” Tell me what you see.
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You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.
There’s nothing like getting to the finish line. Whether we’re running a race or finishing chemo or turning in a final paper – to suddenly have the pressure lifted, know we’ve survived, be able to let down our guard, rest, recharge – it’s a wonderful feeling. So Jesus comes to the end of his trial period, knowing he’s prevailed. Matthew says angels came and waited upon him.
The reference to angels reminds us of the level of cosmic entity we’re dealing with when we talk about the devil. The New Testament is unequivocal about the existence of the devil, as was the early church, as the church has been for most of its history – witness our baptismal rites. But Christian tradition has never considered the devil God’s equal – he is among a sub-order of angelic beings. The Hebrew Bible talks about the devil as a fallen angel who turned against God in pride and rebellion. He is described as a tempter always seeking to draw humans away from God; as the Accuser and the Father of Lies.
Early Christian thinkers held that evil is the absence of good – evil is what you get where God is not. And the source of evil, in the Christian worldview, is the devil, or Satan. C.S. Lewis once said, “There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them.” Martin Luther likewise had a strategy, “The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn.” (He also said, “The best thing you can do is rap the Devil on the nose at the very start. Act like that man who, whenever his wife began to nag and snap at him, drew out his flute from under his belt and played merrily until she was exhausted and let him alone.”)
Because our story tells us that Christ has overcome the devil, we don’t have to be afraid. We want to be alert and wary about one who seeks to corrupt and harm us, but not give him attention we’re better off directing to God. As with a poisonous spider, you want to avoid its bite, but also know how to deal with its venom. We have been given the antidote – the mercy and forgiveness of the Father; the comfort and advocacy of the Spirit; the power and love of Christ in us.
Today, let’s thank God for providing us protection from this ancient enemy. If you ever feel threatened, you can pray your way through Ephesians 6, putting on the full armor of God. It was always God’s fight, not ours, and Jesus has won it. As Luther wrote, in the great hymn A Mighty Fortress:
And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us.
We will not fear for God has willed his truth to triumph through us.
The Prince of Darkness grim, we tremble not for him;
His rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure; One little Word shall fell him.
That Word is Jesus, the name that frightened demons back to hell. It is the only defense we need, whenever we feel ourselves under spiritual attack: the name of Jesus, who lives in us. He's still winning.
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You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Who has more real power – the president or the chief of staff? The CEO or the COO? The don or the consiglieri? In the third temptation, the devil is willing to put Jesus in charge of all the kingdoms of the world – as long as he acknowledges him as the real power behind the scenes:
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’”
This strikes me as a really dumb temptation – didn’t the devil know that Jesus had no interest in temporal power? Of course, Jesus, who held more divine power than any other human being, was even less interested than most in world domination. He cared more about demonstrating the power to be gained in giving away your prerogatives and your life.
There are at least three ways to wield power. There's “power over,” when we have dominion over others, and use it to control them. There is “power under,” an indirect form of power taken by those who use their sacrifices and victimhood to try to control others. And then there's the kind of power Jesus wielded, what I would call “power with.” This comes from a true sense of who we are, joined with an awareness of the power of God alive in us, so that we can use power in a way that empowers others to do the same.
As we read the Gospels, we see Jesus constantly empowering people who had been robbed of power, whether by the Romans, by the religious authorities, by illness or prejudice or poverty. This was ultimately what made him such a threat to those who thought they had power over him. It’s what made him such a threat to the Evil One – because Jesus is still alive, still in the business of empowering us. And empowered, we can resist evil.
When you look at your life, what kind of power is most often at play in your relationships, in your work, in your health? Are there things and people you’d like to dominate?
Are there things and people whose thumb you feel you are under? Neither is a good position to be in.
Are there ways you employ “power with” in a way that allows you to be true to yourself, true to God, and empowers others to be the same?
This is part of what it means to participate in God’s mission to bring wholeness to the world – when everyone exercises “power with,” the power of Good overwhelms the power of evil. Poor devil really never had a chance.
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You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
On the face of it, this devil’s bargain is for the birds: Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’” Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
Who on earth would toss himself off a high tower and see if God will protect him? Nobody sane... And yet, don’t we take lesser risks with big consequences? “Sure, texting while driving is dangerous, but I can handle it…” “Sure, the doctor said if I keep on getting fries with everything I’m headed for quadruple bypass, but what I eat today is okay…” Or how about: “Sure, the ozone layer’s thinner and I need to wear sunscreen now, but it’ll be alright this once…”
Feeling safe and protected is important to most of us. Yet the further away dangerous consequences are, the more risks we seem to take. Is this one of the ways we fall prey to the temptations of the Enemy? After all, Christians claim that the devil desires to draw us away from the love of God. God is often the first one we blame when bad things happen, because we forget human complicity, and because we may believe we have an unspoken contract with God guaranteeing our protection. Dig yours out of the file and check it – God never signed it. God promises us presence and power and peace in all circumstances, not protection.
I understand how facile this might sound in light of people fleeing for their lives, or mourning a daughter shot dead at her school; I don’t undervalue the very real desire for life and safety. I share it. I just try to remember there’s a bigger story. When security becomes our objective, we often try to get it for ourselves, turning away from God’s provision. And why not, if God hasn’t promised to protect us!
Because there’s a deeper gift in the relationship we gain when we decide to trust God with all that we cannot control. This temptation to Jesus is really about trying to control our circumstances. What’s high on that list for you? Can you in prayer today entrust – to the extent you’re able – the people and things you value most to God’s care? Because we can’t keep them safe from everything, and because we trust in God’s love? See how far you can extend your trust today, and then come back another day and see if you can stretch a little further in yielding control.
As we live into the fullness of our identities as beloved of God and chosen in Christ and guided by the Holy Spirit, we can move past a focus on security and live from an eternal perspective. From that vantage point, though what happens in this life matters a great deal, and when others are hurt, we hurt, we also see that this life is not the end of all things. Rather, for Christ followers, it is the beginning, the training zone, the love lesson.
That perspective doesn’t change our circumstances; it can transform the way we live them. Not a bad reminder on a day when many of us will hear the words, "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."
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You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Here’s the understatement of the New Testament:
“He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished.”
After Jesus’ forty days and nights of fasting and prayer, and perhaps other temptations we don’t know about, the devil brings on the big guns. Logically, he begins with the most obvious area of need – physical hunger: “The tempter came and said to him, 'If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.' But he answered, 'It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
I don’t think Jesus refused because he wasn’t hungry, nor because his power didn’t extend to the physical world – at other times, he easily wields power over molecules, plants and animals. My guess is he was unwilling to use his spiritual power on a party trick, or to prove his identity. That power in him – which, by faith, is also in us, when we but trust it – is connected to the will of the Father. Maybe Jesus was unwilling to try to bend the will of God to this end for an audience and a purpose so unworthy of it.
Once again, the temptation begins with an attempt to undermine the target’s sense of self: “If you are the Son of God…” Jesus is too smart to fall for it. We aren’t always so confident. If we remembered who we are, and whose we are as beloved sons and daughters of the Living God, we might not be so prone to take matters into our own hands or fall into patterns destructive to ourselves and others.
Our appetites are an area in which we are most vulnerable to making choices that are not life-giving. Let’s take stock of how our perceived need for some things can become distorted and cause us to turn away from the Life of God and toward things we think will fill us. In "some things” I include food, alcohol, sex, work, screen time, relationships, affirmation, importance, power, accomplishment… even exercise can become excessive if our motives are unhealthy.
It’s not the “what,” or even the “how much,” so much as it is “why do I need this,” and “how much of my energy goes to craving this, securing it, consuming it?” If this is an area of distorted need in our lives, we'll tend to feel somewhat empty as soon as we've finished that cycle.
How do we interrupt the cycle when it hits us? We might use Jesus’ words – “One does not live by alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” We might ask the Holy Spirit to fill us with God’s presence so we don’t hunger for things that can’t fill us. (I will try this at the Shrove Tuesday pancake supper tonight when the abundance of delicious carbs and fats lures me to excess!) We might ask Jesus to sit with us and give us his peace.
We might even dare to sit with our hunger or desire or need and not rush to fill that empty place. Sometimes we need to feel the feelings that come from that emptiness. Certainly our Good News tells us that God shows up in pretty amazing ways in empty spaces.
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(You can listen to this reflection here.)
Every first Sunday in Lent our Gospel reading tells of Jesus being tempted by the devil in the wilderness. This year it’s Matthew’s version, which begins simply: "Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished."
This event comes right on the heels of Jesus’ baptism, a high point followed immediately by a trial. Couldn’t he have basked awhile in his anointing by the Spirit, in the Father’s affirmation of him as beloved? Or was this necessary to prepare Jesus for his mission to make known to the world the power and love of God, to reconcile humanity to the God from whom we had become estranged? Did he need toughening up? Did the Son of God have to prove his sinlessness? Did he need to get to know his adversary?
We’ll get into Jesus’ skirmishes with the tempter this week. Today, let’s talk about temptation. How does it work, and why are we vulnerable? We have a “root story” to explain it, the story of First Man and First Woman in the Garden of Eden. In this ancient mythic story woven to explain the disconnect between Creator and creation, we see some classic temptation tricks wielded to great effect:
- Divide and conquer. The tempter doesn’t approach both humans – he starts with the woman.
- Distort reality. The serpent asks the woman, “Did God say not to eat of any tree?,” when God had said they could eat of every tree, except one.
- Undermine your target’s sense of identity. When the serpent contradicts God’s instructions, he causes the woman to question God’s goodness and authority and her place in that relationship.
- Make disobedience appealing. They likely would not have flouted God’s instructions for a wormy, overripe piece of fruit.
- Get an accomplice. The woman is quick to invite the man to join her transgression, and he puts up no fight.
This is how temptation works, whether in life or in advertising. If we want to stay grounded in the goodness and love we are offered as children of God and followers of Christ, we’d do well to get hip to the wiles of the evil one and say, “No thanks,” when temptation comes our way. Of course, that's a little over-simplified, and sometimes the temptation seems to originate in our own hearts and minds. That’s a mystery for another day – and the rest of our lives.
Today, let’s think through the last time we yielded to temptation to do, say or think something not in our best interest or harmful to another, whether it was eating more than we needed or passing along a tidbit of gossip, or indulging in some judgment about someone (remember how broadly Jesus defined sin!). Break down the process; where might you tighten your defenses? And think of a time when you resisted and stayed true to yourself and your hopes.
The point of this exercise is not to feel bad about ourselves. We are vulnerable because we are alive and have been given the gift of free will, to choose, and choose, and choose again. As we become more aware of how temptation works on us, we are able to develop strategies for resisting it.
The most important strategy of all is to remember that we are beloved of God, and that God doesn’t turn away from us no matter how often we stumble. God’s forgiveness and mercy abound. That’s the best defense of all.
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This week we focus on the gospel for the 7th Sunday in Epiphany instead of Last Epiphany (here is a link to that Friday in 2017 if you want to follow that thread.) You can listen to this reflection here.
We end the week with the kicker: "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
Is Jesus is kidding or indulging in hyperbole? Or is he is gently nudging his followers both into aspiration and reality? He’s asked them (and us) to yield to people trying to control us, open ourselves to people trying to hurt us, give to people trying to take from us, and love people who hate us. And, in case we want to feel better about how we measure up by comparing ourselves to others, he says that’s too easy – even tax collectors and “gentiles” know how to love their own kind. No, he says, if you want to compare yourself to anyone, compare yourself to your Father in heaven – don’t stop till you’re perfect.
Our yardstick might be too short, but isn’t his a little … impossible? How on earth can we be perfect as God is perfect? Well, a raw egg doesn’t get soft-boiled in a moment, right? It takes minutes to achieve perfect consistency. We become perfect as God is perfect, one moment, one decision, one day at a time.
The throughline I discerned in these teachings of Jesus, all of which concern how we interact with other people, especially ones who cause us trouble, is to always look out for the humanity, the individuality of others. Seeds of Peace is an organization that began by bringing Israeli and Palestinian children together for summer camps. When campers came face to face with the “Other” and found they were children like themselves, barriers began to break down. As U2 sings in Invisible, “There is no them, there is no them, there’s only us… there’s only you, there’s only me.”
We can cultivate the spirit Jesus asks of his followers one person at a time. Jesus wouldn’t have asked it of us, were he not planning to equip us.
I have heard grace explained this way: Because of what Christ accomplished for us on the cross, and because we are united with Christ, when the Father looks at us it is Christ's righteousness he sees, projected onto us. In Christ, then, we are already perfect. We spend this life living into what that means, bringing that spiritual reality into the reality of the here and now.
In prayer today ask God to show you who it is God sees when s/he looks at you. Let’s try to catch a glimpse of the perfection that is already ours, even as we slowly realize it.
We can cultivate the spirit Jesus asks of his followers one person at a time. Jesus wouldn’t have asked it of us, were he not planning to equip us. Elsewhere Jesus remarks, “With humans it is impossible, but with God, all things are possible.” Even being perfect.
Especially being perfect. In the fullness of time and relationship, so our promise goes, all is being perfected. Even us. Imagine that.
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