March 13, 2011 - Lent 1

God's Word Gives Identity
Matthew 3:16-4:11
Lent 1 – March 13, 2011

Most of you know that my husband Andy is also a pastor. And his church is what they call a mission start congregation, a new church that is still trying to get off the ground. So periodically, they have these big outreach events – last summer it was a big cook-out; just recently it was a special afternoon worship & fellowship time. They really want to get the word out to their community that they're there & that everyone is welcome, so when these events are coming up, the members of the church not only invite their friends & family and classmates and co-workers who aren't a part of a church, but they will also go and hang out in the subway stations and hand out invitations to people, tell them a little bit about the church, & so on.

Well, while Andy was doing this one day, he encountered a woman who seemed a little confused. You see, she was convinced that Andy was Jewish. So she questioned him: “How can you be Christian if you're Jewish??” And of course, Andy said, “I'm not Jewish.” But she persisted. “Yes, you are. How can you be Christian if you're Jewish?” Well, Andy didn't try to argue with her; he just let her go on her way, but I tell you this story because this random woman, this stranger, seemed to think she knew who Andy was better than Andy knew himself. She called his identity into question.

That's what I see going on in today's gospel story. Every year, the first Sunday of Lent brings us this story of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness. The exact details are all a little different depending on which gospel you're reading, but they're basically the same. Matthew's version says that Jesus is led into the wilderness by the Spirit, and after he finishes fasting for 40 days and 40 nights, and he is famished, then the tempter shows up. And of course, there are the three temptations: “Turn these stones into loaves of bread. Throw yourself down from the temple & let God's angels catch you. Worship me, & I'll give you the world.” And these are all very real temptations – to fill his hunger supernaturally, to prove God's love, to take the easy road to glory and power instead of the road that leads to the cross.

But underneath the specific temptations themselves, there is a challenge to Jesus' very identity, to who he is. How can you be the Son of God if you're out here all by yourself starving in the desert? That's no way for the Son of God to live! If you are the Son of God... I don't think that the tempter, the devil, doubts that Jesus is the Son of God. It's more that he's trying to get Jesus to doubt himself, to doubt God, to begin to question just who he is and what he's supposed to be doing – and maybe, just maybe, to consider doing it his own way, going down his own path, instead of trusting God enough to do it God's way. Just like in the Genesis story - “Oh, God told you that, did he? Well, here's another option...”

Ah, and isn't that the way temptations usually come? Isn't that at the root of all of our temptations – to do it our way instead of trusting God enough to do it God's way? They're especially strong in those times when we feel isolated and alone, in the middle of the wilderness, empty, hungry for something to fill those empty spaces inside us. And in those wilderness times, it is all too easy to start to question ourselves, to wonder who we are, if we are capable of walking the road that seems to be laid out before us, and to wonder why it is we've ended up in the wilderness in the first place, why if God really loves us, God would allow us to spend this time in the wilderness. Even as people of faith, perhaps especially as people of faith, when we listen to the tempter's voice, telling us it knows us better than we know ourselves, we start to question our identity as children of God.

That's why we look to Jesus – it's why we always have this story of his temptation at the beginning of Lent as we start our own 40 day journey. Because we need to hear the story and be reminded he has been through the same kind of temptations we have been through, even this temptation to doubt God and to doubt himself. We need to see how he handled it. And Matthew tells us that in the face of that temptation, Jesus leaned on the word of God. For each temptation the devil brings, Jesus turns to the word of God: “It is written, 'One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'... Again it is written, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'...” and finally, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'” Jesus draws on the power of scripture to strengthen him in his temptation, but even more than that, in the face of this identity crisis, Jesus clings to the word of God spoken over him at the moment of his baptism: “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” No matter what Satan the tempter may say or do to try to convince Jesus he is something or someone else, Jesus knows who he is and who he is called to be, because he hear the very voice of God himself say it. The tempter says, “If you are the Son of God,” but even more powerfully, God says, “You are my Son.”

And God speaks those words to us too. Over and over again in scripture there is the reminder that no matter who the world tries to tell us we are, when we're in the wilderness, doubting ourselves, wondering if we'll measure up; when we've fallen into temptation or even run straight toward it at full speed knowing that it's wrong; when we wonder if we can be made whole, be made new – the word of God comes to remind us who God says we are. It's there in the very beginning, in the garden of Eden in Genesis, when God created humankind in God's image and called it very good. It repeats in the words of the prophet Isaiah when the people of Israel were in exile, living in a foreign land, wondering if God would ever lead them home again – and God says, “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine” (Isaiah 43:1). It's there in the words the apostle Paul wrote to the Roman Christians: “...you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption... we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:15-17). No matter what temptations you face, no matter who the tempter tries to convince you you are, cling to the word of God, for God says, “No matter what, whether you succeed or fail, whether you triumph or tank, you are my son. You are my daughter. You are my children, my beloved.” Cling to the Word of God, Jesus, for it is him that we find our identity. It is through him that God claims us as God's own. Wilderness experiences, wilderness doubts will eventually fade, but God's word, God's love, is forever. Thanks be to God.

Amen.