Give It Up – First Sunday in Lent (Luke 4: 1-13)
I had the opportunity to preach on this story from Luke, also on the first Sunday of Lent, back in 2019. At that time, I was a seminary student and serving and learning as student pastor at Linwood Christian Church in Indianapolis. However, I wasn’t supposed to preach that Sunday. I got a call Friday afternoon from the senior pastor, saying that she had gotten sick and was going to be out of commission for the weekend. So, she needed me to officiate at a funeral on Saturday and then preach on Sunday. Thankfully, most of the funeral service had been planned and prepared, so I could just work off what she had already written. The sermon for Sunday was a different story. I had given no thought to preaching that weekend and had nothing even close to prepared. I had to come up with that from scratch when I got home on Saturday night, tired from attending to the funeral during the day. I felt spent. So, I prayed for inspiration. I looked around my room and found some books written by Thomas Merton. At that time, I was taking a class on Merton, who was a prolific writer and monk who lived in the early-to-middle part of the 20th century. I began to draw parallels between Merton’s life and this story from Luke about Jesus going into the wilderness for 40 days.
As a young man Merton lived in New York City and attended Columbia University. He made the most out of being a college student in New York in the 20’s. Still, he was never totally satisfied with that life. Eventually, he desired to have a deeper relationship with God and to have God at the center of his life. This desire led him to become a priest and then to become a Trappist monk living in the Gethsemani monastery community in Kentucky. Once there he still continued to seek solitude so that he could be in deeper relationship with God. Eventually, he was granted permission to live in a cottage in the woods of the monastery grounds. He would live there as a hermit for several years until his untimely death in 1968 at the age of 53. In his writings Merton often discusses the nature of his calling to solitude. One of my favorite passages begins like this,
If everything centers on my obligation to respond to god’s call to solitude, this does not mean simply putting everything out of my mind and living as if only God and I existed…It means rather learning from what contacts and conflicts I still have how deep a solitude is required of me. This means now the difficult realization that I have relied too much on the support and approval of others, even from those with whom I disagree, even from those who do not understand my way of life…
He goes on to say,
But I cannot simply seek [answers] from others either. The problem is in learning to go for some time, perhaps for long periods – with no answer!
In this entry Merton is reflecting on some the reasons he chose to pursue a life of solitude. He talks about how in the past he sought answers in the thoughts and opinions of others, and how this has muddied the spiritual waters for him. All he desires is to know what it’s like to be in the presence of God, and to know the feeling of peace that comes with knowing your true self through relationship with God. This is the opportunity we are given during the Lenten season. To draw closer to God, not necessarily through solitude, but by giving up those things in our lives that muddy the spiritual waters and distract us from our experience of God and God’s call on our lives. For Merton, that meant seeking solitude. Giving up on his desires for the excitement and comforts of the things he could have had living in New York, giving up his need for approval from other people, and even giving up his need for answers. Similarly, in our Gospel reading from Luke, we find Jesus wrestling with his call from God. and the temptations that distract him from that.
This story comes in the middle of two stories we have heard recently. Before this, in Luke 3, it was the story of Jesus being baptized in the Jordan River by John the Baptist. The skies had opened, the holy spirit descended upon Jesus, and the voice of God spoke, saying Jesus was the Son of God in whom God was pleased. In this story we see that God is with Jesus and has a call on his life. So, the lectionary then took us right into Jesus’ ministry. Starting with his return to the synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth, where he declared that he was the fulfillment of the words of the prophet Isaiah, to which the people responded by chasing him out of town. From there he goes on to heal the sick and cast out demons and call disciples. We see in that story that Jesus believes and is committed to life path, but also that it will not be easy and not everyone will understand or support him.
This week, we back track a bit. We return to the story at the beginning of Luke 4, after the baptism of Jesus but before the start of his ministry. He goes into the desert, to be alone, and to fast. He does this for 40 days. It’s certainly not the way that I mark the big events in my life, whether it’s a baptism or a graduation or whatever, but this is what Jesus did. Jesus is preparing himself for the difficult road to come. He is preparing himself for his ministry. He goes there because he has been filled with the Spirit. Jesus fasts for forty days in the wilderness, and at the end of that time he is understandably weakened. It is at that moment that Satan comes into the story to confront and tempt Jesus. Times of temptation and trial often come at the end of something, when a big change is trying to happen. Its that one last piece of cake before the diet starts.
The first temptation offered to Jesus is when Satan tells him that since he is the son of God, and that he could easily turn stones to bread. Which would be tempting because Jesus was just coming out a time of fasting. However, Jesus replies, “It is written: man does not live on bread alone.” Here Jesus is quoting from Deuteronomy 8:3 when Moses is warning the Israelites -who are in the middle of their own 40-year journey in the wilderness- not to look to idols for fulfilment but to trust in God’s word. Indeed, Luke’s audience would know that the full quotation was “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word from the mouth of God.”
The second temptation Satan offers Jesus is the promise of power and authority, if only Jesus will worship Satan. He offers him the chance to rule over the dominions of the world, in this case rule the Roman Empire, the entity that was controlling and oppressing the people had come to help. Jesus replies, “Worship the Lord your God and serve God only.” Once again, Jesus is quoting Deuteronomy 6, this time chapter 13. Once again it is a warning to the Israelites to reject idols and worship God. Satan tempted Jesus with personal power and control, but Jesus reminds us that the nature of the deity we worship defines the religious community, and we worship a God that does not rule the world but who created, loves it, and always seeks to restore it.
Finally, Satan takes Jesus up to the highest point of the temple and tries to get him to jump off, because after all God will not let harm come to him, so surely the angels will save him. Jesus replies, “It says, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” Once more he quotes from Deuteronomy 6:16, which is a reminder that God is steadfast in caring for the people, even though they were beginning to feel doubts as they wandered and had no water. Here at the beginning of Lent we see Jesus being tempted to jump from a high place to make God save him. Jesus rejects this temptation and puts his faith in God. Near the end of Lent, we see the counterpoint to this when Jesus goes into the garden to pray to God in anticipation of his death on the cross. During Lent we are reminded that God is still at work in difficult times and times of suffering.
Jesus rejects Satan’s temptations by quoting from scripture. Three times he is offered a temptation and three times he responds with words from Deuteronomy. This reveals that he finds strength in the Lord. Jesus’ quoting of scripture shows us he is the fulfillment of that scripture. In his solitude Jesus is tempted three times. Tempted to seek power, salvation, and sustenance by putting his trust in Satan or his own powers. He resisted because he knew that God was with him. His religious and spiritual traditions and commitments provided him with this source of strength even in the face of temptations.
In the wilderness, Jesus was tested when Satan put pressure on different points, but each time Christ responded faithfully. How do we respond to pressure? What comes from our pressure points? When pressured, Jesus responded with scripture and faith, as opposed to selfishness, or anger, or fear.
In our lives, the pressure finds us in our busyness, our stress, our restlessness. So, when we are tempted by the easy path, tempted by our ego, by our pride, by self-indulgence it is important to remember that we are not tempted because we are bad people. No, I think temptation sneaks in when we forget that or lose faith in the fact that God is with us and loves us. Merton himself was often tempted, was often afflicted with pride, and felt he was failing in living the life God wanted him to live. When that happened, he would usually re-commit himself to his solitude and contemplation to bolster his relationship with God. So, on this first Sunday of Lent, I invite all of us to find times for solitude and prayer. When things get busy, stressful, or scary let’s try and find a moment in our day, whether it’s in the morning, before bed, or just in the car at a red light take a moment to enter the wilderness.
After all, the wilderness is where the Moses and the Israelites found themselves in that time between oppression in a foreign land and the promised land. The wilderness is where the Spirit led Jesus between his baptism and the beginning of his ministry. The wilderness of solitude is where Merton went when he sought to bring his life closer to God. So, during Lent, let’s take these moments to sit in solitude with God and remind ourselves that God is with us and walks with us in the face of any temptation, test, or trial. We make room for ourselves to remember that God provides, sustains, and creates. Nothing Satan offered Jesus could replace trust in God, so it is with us.
Perhaps, when we go to the wilderness and face being tempted, we can only respond with those resources left to us when everything else is stripped away. Things like our knowledge of our call from God. Things that remind us of God’s faithful presence in our lives. Through the process of giving things up for Lent we can learn to rely on these resources.
That night when I had to write a sermon from scratch -and keep in mind, I had not written a lot of sermons at that point- all I had to reach for was Biblical text for that Sunday and a book with the writings of Thomas Merton – a man who found himself and his connection to God in the solitude of a cabin in the wilderness. Let this Lenten season be a time when your experience of the wilderness, whether that is through a practice of self-denial and giving something up or committing to a new spiritual practice or an act of service- pray that it brings you close to God and reveals to you what resources you have in your life. Let the wilderness prepare us for times of change. Let us give things up to learn our true strength in God. Amen.