Footsteps of Jesus in the Wilderness: Tempted and Tried (Luke 4:1-13)

Jesus returned from the Jordan River full of the Holy Spirit, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. ² There he was tempted for forty days by the devil. He ate nothing during those days and afterward Jesus was starving. ³ The devil said to him, “Since you are God’s Son, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.”

⁴ Jesus replied, “It’s written, People won’t live only by bread.”

⁵ Next the devil led him to a high place and showed him in a single instant all the kingdoms of the world. ⁶ The devil said, “I will give you this whole domain and the glory of all these kingdoms. It’s been entrusted to me and I can give it to anyone I want. ⁷ Therefore, if you will worship me, it will all be yours.”

⁸ Jesus answered, “It’s written, You will worship the Lord your God and serve only him.”

⁹ The devil brought him into Jerusalem and stood him at the highest point of the temple. He said to him, “Since you are God’s Son, throw yourself down from here; ¹⁰ for it’s written: He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you ¹¹ and they will take you up in their hands so that you won’t hit your foot on a stone.”

¹² Jesus answered, “It’s been said, Don’t test the Lord your God.” ¹³ After finishing every temptation, the devil departed from him until the next opportunity.

Exactly a year ago, I was in the Holy Land.  Harry and Betty Jo Chandler were there with me, along with their friend, Mike, and Sandy, from Stokesdale UMC.  We joined with our bishop and about 150 other spiritual pilgrims in walking in the footsteps of Jesus.

There is something about being there – seeing the geography, walking the paths, reading the stories in the places they happened, praying in those holy sites.  In the Bible, the four Gospel books – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John – each tell the story of Jesus in their own way.  A pilgrimage to the Holy Land has been described as “The Fifth Gospel.”  Having visited the Holy Land twice now, reading that fifth Gospel has informed the way I read and understand the other four.

Last year, I took a few of you to the Holy Land.  This year, I’m taking all of you.  Through the season of Lent, we are going to take a spiritual journey, walking in the footsteps of Jesus.  I’ll be hitting the highlights of some of the significant places of his ministry, places I have also visited, bringing some of the insight and experience of those places to you.  As you come to worship over the next several weeks, come expecting to walk in the footsteps of Jesus.  If you’ll do that, I guarantee this will be one of the most meaningful Lenten seasons you’ll have ever had.

Today, we’re beginning the series by re-tracing the footsteps of Jesus in the wilderness. The first Sunday in Lent always recalls the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness.  This is for a number of reasons.  First, Jesus was tempted and fasted in the wilderness for how many days?  40.  And how many days, not counting Sundays, does Lent last?  40.

The number 40 is significant in the Bible.  It represents a period of testing, trial, and waiting.  When Noah boarded the ark, it rained for 40 days.  Moses was on Mount Sinai for 40 days before God gave the Ten Commandments.  The Hebrew people wandered in the desert for 40 years after leaving Egypt, before entering the Promised Land.  Elijah fasted 40 days before hearing God’s still, small voice.

We think of Jesus being in the tomb for 3 days, but if you add up the actual number of hours he was dead – about 3pm on Good Friday to 7am Easter Sunday, guess how many hours that is?  40.  And after Jesus was raised from the dead, he appeared to his disciples over the course of 40 days before he ascended into heaven.

All told, the number 40 is mentioned in the Bible 146 times.  Each time, it represents a period of testing and trial, but also the preparation and waiting for something better that is yet to come.

That’s what the season of Lent is.  A time of testing and trial, sacrifice and confession, but also preparation and waiting for something better.  It’s 40 days of preparing for the joy of new life at Easter.  In the church, it’s historically been a time when new converts to the faith were instructed and prepared for baptism, which often took place early Easter Sunday morning.  It’s a time when those who had committed serious sins were in a state of repentance, preparing to be restored to the community.

Lent begins in the wilderness.  The Judean wilderness, the setting for today’s Scripture reading, is just west of the Jordan River, where Jesus was baptized.  Immediately after his baptism, he went into the wilderness for 40 days, where he fasted and prayed, and was tempted and tried.

When you go to the Holy Land, one thing you will come to quickly appreciate is that, though it’s a relatively small area, the geography is not all the same.  The Judean wilderness is a place of rugged hills and mountains, sharp cliffs, deep canyons, and the whole place is rocky.  It receives little to no rain, and so there’s no grass, no trees, no bushes - nothing green - just fold upon fold of brown and tan as far as you can see.

The first time I went to the Holy Land, we hiked, just about half a mile, through the wilderness.  We arrived at a rocky cliff overlooking St. George’s Monastery, built in the middle of nowhere, and the thing that overwhelmed me in that place was the silence. 

Have you ever been someplace that was so quiet the silence itself was deafening?  Where even the wind rushing past your ears sounds like it’s miles away?  You could yell at the top of your lungs, but the silence would smother your voice?  Now, double that intensity, and that’s what sticks in my mind most – the silence of the wilderness.

We were only about two miles from a major highway, but you heard no road noise.  There were no trees, so no birds chirping.  Just the “crunch-crunch” of footsteps on a rocky path, and I imagined Jesus in that place, sleeping in caves, alone with his own thoughts, the perfect sort of place for temptation.

When culture talks about temptation, it's usually describing the urge to do something we already know will destroy us, “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” kind of stuff.

Christians who observe Lent certainly wrestle with those obvious forms of self-destruction, but the goal of the season is to help us recognize the more potent tools of the tempter—the temptations that don't look like temptation until we see them in the rearview mirror.  The temptations offered to Jesus don’t sound all that harmful:

·        “Take care of yourself.”

·        “Increase your reach.”

·        Prove your faith.”

On the face of it, it all sounds like good advice.  It all sounds like the three points in a good graduation speech.  The devil even starts quoting Scripture to justify each of these temptations, and I’m struck here by the realization of how well the devil knows the Bible.  In my life, I’ve known plenty of devils who knew the Bible.  Can quote it, chapter and verse – know it well enough to misuse it to get us to do all sorts of things that are against the will of God.  Just knowing a lot of Bible verses doesn’t make someone godly any more than sitting in a garage makes them a car.

It’s tempting to construct a God and a faith that’s centered around ourselves.  Our consumer culture spills over into our faith, we end up with expectations of a God who serves us and caters to our desires.  The church can run more like a country club, rather than doing the hard—but faithful—work of redeeming, restoring, and reconciling.

The temptations that are the most dangerous are the ones that sound most like good, the ones that sound the most like God.  They bend and twist God into ways that are self-serving.  Tim Keller says, If your God never disagrees with you, you might just be worshiping an idealized version of yourself.”

The biggest temptation Jesus faced in all of this was identity theft.  The devil wanted him to forget who he was and to whom he belonged, to pledge his allegiance to anything other than God.  To settle short of what God wanted for him and to be content only with what he wanted for himself.

And to do that when he was tired?  Hungry?  Lonely?  Brilliant.  The folks over at Snickers aren’t the only ones who know we’re not ourselves when we’re hungry.  Get him when he’s already vulnerable.  Already down.

But Jesus, though weakened, isn’t distracted.  He keeps his eye on the prize.  He wasn’t out there in the wilderness completely on his own; the Holy Spirit was leading him.  Tested, tempted, and tried, Jesus emerges from the wilderness resolute in a mission and purpose that serves God’s will rather than his own.

The Spirit of God gets hold of him, guides him, directs him, fortifies and strengthens him, and Jesus chooses God. Jesus chooses his mission and call. Jesus chooses to give himself to offer life and love.

The same choice confronts individual people of faith and every church itself.  Will we choose our mission, our call, our purpose to restore, renew and reconcile – or will we become distracted by other things? Yes, there is a lot that can draw God's people away from primary call and purpose. Distraction is all around us as we fall prey to the temptation to fight over disagreements or interpretations or perceptions.  Minor things become major things.  Opportunities become obstacles which become obstructions.  Preference takes priority over purpose.  And the driving mission of the church – to restore, renew, and reconcile, to make disciples, to make all things and all people new in Christ – gets lost in the shuffle.

The purpose of God's church is mission; we are the ones called to proclaim good news, manifest release, and show forth the saving, restoring, redeeming love of God to all people everywhere. That is the mission of God's people.

It’s tempting to settle for less.  Personally, I'm glad to follow a Savior who was tempted and overcame it.  It reminds me when I’m tempted to take the easy way out, or to settle for less than what God wants for me, that with the Spirit’s help, I can choose God’s way over my own.  That means setting my own preferences aside, which can be uncomfortable, but always turns out to be the most faithful option.

I don’t wish for those wilderness times.  But in hindsight, I’m grateful for them.  Those dry places can help focus us around who we are, to whom we belong, and what we’re about.  And when we’re led by the Spirit of God, overcoming temptation prepares us for something better that’s yet-to-come.

Don’t be distracted.  Don’t turn away.  Choose God.  Choose God’s love.  Choose God’s mission and call for your life, and for this church.

Confession is Good for the Soul (Matthew 6:1-6,16-21, Ash Wednesday)

Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.

“So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others.  Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.  But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

“And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others.  Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.  But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

“And whenever you fast, do not look dismal like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting.  Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.  But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart shall be also.”

On Ash Wednesday, we commit to laying aside the things in our life that would stand between us and God, so we can grow deeper in our commitment as followers of Jesus Christ.

The use of ashes as both a sign of mortality and repentance has a long history in Jewish and Christian worship.  The Old Testament kings, during times of mourning, would remove their royal robes and wear sackcloth, and cover their head with ashes or sit in the dust.  They did this as a sign of humility, mourning, and devotion, and they did so for all the people to see and to follow.

Tonight, St. Matthew’s Gospel warns us against practicing our piety in order to be seen by others, about praying, and fasting and giving in the public eye.  It encourages us to seek a life of quiet devotion pleasing to God, a life that is hidden and secret from public scrutiny.

But, even Jesus sends mixed messages.  On the one hand, Jesus has said we are the light of the world, and we ought to shine it brightly.  But on the other hand, he wants us to be careful about showing off.

What gives?  The issue here is one of motivation.  Are our religious practices aimed at receiving the praise of others, or are they offered in heartfelt praise to God?

Lest there be confusion, Jesus is not saying:   "Don't take offerings at church,"  "Don't lead in public prayer," or, "Don't join in fast days."  He says,"Beware of practicing your piety in front of others..."   and adds this important phrase -- namely, "... in order to be seen by them."   In other words, don’t engage in religious activity for others.  Do it for God.

Don’t treasure applause or accolades.  Don’t find your worth in pats-on-the-back and others thinking highly of you.  Who you are in the eyes of God – that’s priceless treasure, that’s what matters most, that’s where we derive our worth.

During the season of Lent, many Christians practice “giving something up.”  The point of this is to clear our hearts of those things that we are tempted to treasure more than God.  When done properly, giving something up for Lent, fasting, is aimed at improving our spiritual life by focusing less time and energy and money on things that distract us from God, and spending them on things that help us grow in our love of God and neighbor.

But many times, our motivation does not reflect this intent.  Perhaps we give something up out of a sense of duty, or expectation, or because it looks good when we get together with our godly friends.  We can end up very much like the Pharisees: very religious in practice while completely bankrupt in our actual relationship with God and other people.  What good does it do for us to look good in the showroom, but have nothing under the hood?

Mark Twain said, “we’re all like the moon, we have a dark side we don’t want anyone to see.” And so, we cover it up.  We conceal it.  We fashion elaborate masks for ourselves, trying to hide that dark side of ourselves.  But, to borrow from Hawthorne, “no [person], for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitudes, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be true.”

We can fool others, and we can even get pretty good at fooling ourselves.  But we can’t fool God.  God sees behind our masks, our screens, and knows us for who we really are, not just who we want others to believe we are.  As the Psalmist rightly wrote, “Lord you have searched me and know me.” (Psalm 139).

From an earlier part of this sermon on the mount, Jesus taught “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”  The Bible speaks of the heart as the center of our judgment, intention, and motivation.  We are invited to consider whether what is happening in our heart – the very center and depth of our being – matches how we live, act, and speak on the outside.

Lent is the season for removing our masks and confessing our dependence upon God’s grace. I’ve often thought church services should be like AA meetings. An AA meeting avoids hypocrisy because upon attending you stand up and announce to all who are present, “I’m an alcoholic!” What if church services had a time where I could say, “Hi, my name is A.J., and I’m a sinner!”

There’s this cultural perception, often advanced by church folks ourselves, that church is a place for perfect people.  Not so.  I’ve talked to folks in airports and bars and waiting rooms and all sorts of places who say, “I’d like to go to church, but I’m pretty messed up, and I think it would shock the people there to have someone like me there.”

But here’s what we know – none of us comes to God because we’ve got it all together and figured out.  We come to God precisely because we don’t!  We don’t get ourselves cleaned up and put together first, we come to God because we can’t do it ourselves.

A friend of ours who is a Methodist pastor shared this story today.  She said, “The kids are out of school today and I have them with me at church for Ash Wednesday. I had to move some of Eliana’s Lincoln logs and the little house fell apart as I did. ‘I’m sorry about that,’ I muttered as I kept working.

“Later I heard her telling Brennan, ‘You can help me rebuild this. Mommy said she was sorry and that was good. But it’s still broken. It still needs to be rebuilt.’”

We are sorry, and that’s good, but we’re still broken.  We still need to be rebuilt.

I don’t come to church because I think I’m holy enough or good enough or smart enough or clever enough.  I need the church because I know I’m not, I’m a sinner in need of forgiveness, a child of God in need of God’s life-changing grace.  I need the church to help me confess the things I’m sorry for, to admit my brokenness, to seek, with God’s help, to be restored and rebuilt into the image of the God who first created me.

The church is not a museum for saints.  It is not a place for perfect people.  It’s where we take off our masks and are real and honest with God and with each other.  Tonight, when you receive the mark of the cross on your brow, we’re not doing that so people will whisper and point and say, “There goes a holy person.”  Those ashes are there to remind you to keep it real in front of God and yourself.  That you’re not a perfect person.  That you’ve got stuff – sin – you and God are still working through.  For, while it’s true that Christ died to save sinners, while it’s true that God loves us just exactly the way we are, God loves us too much to let us stay that way.

We are sorry, and that’s good, but we are still broken.  We still need to be rebuilt.

Friends, confession opens us to be what God intended all along: the living, breathing Body of Christ.  Not a museum of saints, not a perfect-peoples’ club – but the scarred, imperfect Body of Christ, reaching out with arms of love and forgiveness, building up those who are broken and bruised, because we know the depth of what we, ourselves, have been forgiven.

Confessing, confronting, and mourning our sin – symbolized by the ash you will soon wear on your forehead – is a way of setting our sin aside, resolute that sin and death will not have the last word for us.  Ash Wednesday is a time stop hiding behind a mask of having-it-all-together and lean more fully into God’s grace.  To stop concealing our sin and confront it, confess it, and move on.  To leave behind what we’ve done, and live more fully into who we are becoming.

We are sorry, we are broken, we are ready to be rebuilt.

Glory Runs Downhill (Luke 9:28-42)

²⁸ About eight days after Jesus said these things, he took Peter, John, and James, and went up on a mountain to pray. ²⁹ As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed and his clothes flashed white like lightning. ³⁰ Two men, Moses and Elijah, were talking with him. ³¹ They were clothed with heavenly splendor and spoke about Jesus’ departure, which he would achieve in Jerusalem. ³² Peter and those with him were almost overcome by sleep, but they managed to stay awake and saw his glory as well as the two men with him.

³³ As the two men were about to leave Jesus, Peter said to him, “Master, it’s good that we’re here. We should construct three shrines: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah”—but he didn’t know what he was saying. ³⁴ Peter was still speaking when a cloud overshadowed them. As they entered the cloud, they were overcome with awe.

³⁵ Then a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, my chosen one. Listen to him!” ³⁶ Even as the voice spoke, Jesus was found alone. They were speechless and at the time told no one what they had seen.

³⁷ The next day, when Jesus, Peter, John, and James had come down from the mountain, a large crowd met Jesus. ³⁸ A man from the crowd shouted, “Teacher, I beg you to take a look at my son, my only child. ³⁹ Look, a spirit seizes him and, without any warning, he screams. It shakes him and causes him to foam at the mouth. It tortures him and rarely leaves him alone. ⁴⁰ I begged your disciples to throw it out, but they couldn’t.”

⁴¹ Jesus answered, “You faithless and crooked generation, how long will I be with you and put up with you? Bring your son here.” ⁴² While he was coming, the demon threw him down and shook him violently. Jesus spoke harshly to the unclean spirit, healed the child, and gave him back to his father.

Beach or mountains?  How many of you would say beach?  How many of you would say mountains?  How many of you would say both?  The good news for you is that you live in central North Carolina – either one is just a few hours away, and you don’t have to choose!

Ashley and I are beach people.  That’s our soul place.  Something about the smell of salt air, the rhythm of the crashing waves, sand between our toes – we just breathe deeply and that’s a little piece of heaven for us.  That’s not to say that the mountains don’t have something special, either.  Ashley grew up in Cashiers, in North Carolina’s southern mountains, and my first church was in Boone.  The folks up there will tell you that God bent down and kissed the earth, and today, we call that spot, Boone, North Carolina.

The cross at Lake Junaluska at sunset.

Our Western North Carolina conference of the United Methodist Church continues to meet in Lake Junaluska year-after-year, despite the lack of parking, handicap access, a shortage on decent accommodations, or that the auditorium in which we meet is 1000 seats short of the number of people required to be there.  Why?  Well, one reason is a refrain commonly heard in churches – “Because we’ve always done it that way” – but another is because more-than-a-few folks are convinced that Jesus lives in the mountains.

There’s some Biblical basis to that belief.  Throughout Scripture, mountains play a specific role in being places of particular meetings with God.  How many stories of someone entering into God’s presence involve them climbing a mountain?  Mount Sinai, Horeb, Nebo, Carmel, to name a few, all feature prominently in the Hebrew Scriptures.  Even Jerusalem, the holy city itself, was built on a mountain, so that no matter from which direction you approached, you always went “up” to Jerusalem.  Going to the holy city was an uplifting experience, both spiritually and geographically.

Ask people, “Where is God?” or “where is heaven?” and we instinctively point “up.”  And so it makes sense, if God is “up there” somewhere, that we would climb mountains in an attempt to get closer to God, both physically, and spiritually.

Our youth are on a retreat in the mountains this weekend.  They’re up in Boone and Blowing Rock, getting closer to God, through a retreat called, “Summit.”  The mountains remain a place where people feel closer to God.  Going to the mountaintop is necessary for anyone who seeks spiritual renewal.

Mount Tabor

Even Jesus climbed mountains when he needed to think and pray and be refreshed.  In today’s Scripture reading, he has climbed a mountain, Mount Tabor, and he’s taken his inner circle – Peter, James, and John – up with him.  Jesus is praying, his three followers are fighting back sleep, and Jesus begins to glow.  First his face, then his clothes, glowing with a brilliant white radiance that is truly something from out of this world.

We call this glowing, “the Transfiguration,” meaning that Jesus’ form was changed.  He was transformed, changed from glory into glory.  In this moment of glory, Jesus is not alone – Moses and Elijah, who represent the totality of Hebrew scripture and tradition, Moses, representing “the Law;” Elijah, representing “the Prophets;” and right between the two, in all his radiant glory, is Jesus.

It’s a moment in time.  Peter knows all too well that moments come and moments go, and this is a special, unique moment.  Peter does what we all want to do in these moments – to extend the moment at far as possible, to capture the moment.  Peter offers to build three shelters – three shrines, three temples – to the moment, one for Jesus, one for Moses, one for Elijah.

“Was he trying to busy himself with lesser things so that he didn't have to deal with the extraordinary that was happening right in front of him? Was he trying to contain these visions, put them in a box? Protect them from the elements? Capture the moment in a medium that he could understand—symbolic bricks and mortar—maybe a building campaign?

“But friends, haven't we also undertaken these same avoidance techniques to escape things—even wonderful things—that we cannot understand?” (Rev. Robert Chase)

To be sure, Peter represents an impulse within the faith, an impulse against which we must constantly be on guard.  In offering to build a shrine, Peter is opting to reduce the movement of God to the building of monuments.  Generations later, people could visit that monument and say, “Once upon a time, God was here.”  And so, faith becomes a fairy tale, the nostalgic remembering of what God has done, once did, and used to do.

But here’s there good news: God is still alive!  Still at work!  Still up to something!  In the moment Peter is tempted to settle down and build a monument, while he is still speaking, a cloud overshadows them.  If you’ve spent any time in the mountains, you know this experience.  The cloud comes, and you are in it.  The cloud comes, and literally envelopes you.  It’s worth noting that, in Scripture, “the cloud” represents God’s presence.  And so, just when Peter wants to preserve this Kodak moment in faith, God’s presence comes along to move us out of what is comfortable toward what is faithful.It would have been simpler to have built three memorials and stayed there. Life was good. But no, along comes a dense, thick cloud. And out of the cloud, a voice:

Along the way many of us thought that if we loved God, if we followed Jesus, life would become calmer, simpler, easier. But through the experience of the journey we discovered instead that God confuses things, God complicates

It would have been simpler to have built three memorials and stayed there. Life was good. But no, along comes a dense, thick cloud. And out of the cloud, a voiceBishop Ken Carter says, "It would have been simpler to have built three memorials and stayed there.  Life was good.  But no.  Along comes a dense, thick cloud, and out of the cloud, a voice: ‘This is my Son.  My beloved.  My chosen.  Listen to him!”

What does Jesus say?  “Let’s get going.  Time to leave the mountain.”  They descend from this mountaintop high into the valley below, and there they encounter a boy possessed by an evil spirit.  They had caught a glimpse of glory, a ray of light up on that mountain, but down in the valley, there were people who desperately needed some of that light to shine into their darkness.

 

I love the way Scottish theologian Henry Drummond puts it: “It is not God’s desire that we live on the mountaintops. We only ascend to the heights to catch a broader vision of the earthly surroundings below. But we don’t live there. We don’t tarry there. The streams begin in the uplands, but descend quickly to gladden the valleys below.”

God’s light – or whatever else you want to call it – God’s grace, God’s love, God’s glory – is given to us in order to flow through us.

When we meet God upon the mountain, the point is not to find some way to stay on the mountain.  The point is that the mountain is a place of clarity – where we know God and know ourselves to be cherished by God, where we receive a clear vision of what God wants us to, and where we can get a good view of the terrain in front of us.

 Along the way many of us thought that if we loved God, if we followed Jesus, life would become calmer, simpler, easier. But through the experience of the journey we discovered instead that God confuses things, God complicates things.

It’s easy to find Jesus on top of the mountain, but while we’re up there, we need to pay attention to what God tells us.  God says, “Listen to Jesus.”  And what does Jesus say?  “Come on, let’s get off this mountain and take God’s glory down into the valley.”  And so, we pull away from our building of monuments and join the movement of God’s life-giving activity in the world.

We do so with the assurance that the Jesus who was revealed in dazzling splendor on the mountaintop is the same Jesus who walks with us through darkness, pain, and fear of the valley.

I’ll be honest – I don’t know where you are today.  Maybe you’re on top of the world, maybe everything is bright and clear, maybe God’s glory couldn’t be shining any brighter around you.  Or, maybe you’re down in a deep, dark place somewhere, where it seems no light could possibly reach you.

If you find yourself on top of the mountain today with the radiance of God’s glory clearly in view, listen to what Jesus says to do – to go down into the valley and share that light with someone else.  And if you’re down in the valley and it seems all is dark, hang on!  Someone with light is on their way.

Friends, whatever has been given to you – whatever insight, whatever experience, whatever skill, whatever resources, whatever love, whatever grace – whatever God has given to you, God is trying to give to others through you.  We have been blessed, and we are asked by God to bless others.

We follow Jesus from the top of the mountain down into the valley – into a world that desperately needs a bit of God’s love and light.

Come, thou fount of ev’ry blessing: Tune my heart to sing thy grace.

Streams of mercy never ceasing;  Call for songs of loudest praise.

Teach me some melodious sonnet sung by flaming tongues above.

Praise the mount  I’m fixed upon it,

Mount of thy redeeming love.

More Like Jesus: From Comfort to Compassion (Philippians 2:1-8, Matthew 9:35-38)

Therefore, if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort in love, any sharing in the Spirit, any sympathy, ² complete my joy by thinking the same way, having the same love, being united, and agreeing with each other. ³ Don’t do anything for selfish purposes, but with humility think of others as better than yourselves. ⁴ Instead of each person watching out for their own good, watch out for what is better for others. ⁵ Adopt the attitude that was in Christ Jesus:

⁶ Though he was in the form of God,
        he did not consider being equal with God something to exploit. ⁷ But he emptied himself
        by taking the form of a slave
        and by becoming like human beings.
When he found himself in the form of a human, ⁸ he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death,
        even death on a cross.

Jesus traveled among all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, announcing the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every sickness. ³⁶ Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were troubled and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. ³⁷ Then he said to his disciples, “The size of the harvest is bigger than you can imagine, but there are few workers. ³⁸ Therefore, plead with the Lord of the harvest to send out workers for his harvest.”

As the president of my college class, my most important executive action was to plan the senior class trip.  The senior class trip was an annual spring break tradition, and previous classes had gone to such exotic locations as Stowe Mountain, Vermont; New York City; Washington, DC; and one confectionary-filled week in Hershey, PA.  Our class had done considerably better in fundraising, thanks to yours truly, and so it was, that we left the snowy confines of Western New York and set sail on a Bahamas cruise.

Donald Trump might have called it, “the hugest, most fabulous, luxurious senior class trip ever.”  And it was.  Ever been pampered, where it seems like everyone was there to serve you, meet your every whim, whose sole reason for existence was to make you comfortable?  That cruise felt sort of like that.  As we arrived at dinner on the second night, and the drinks everyone had ordered the night before were already in place on the table, I distinctly remember thinking, “I could get used to this!”

To be sure, we all need a certain level of comfort in our lives.  If you live with chronic pain, you know the importance of having a comfortable place to sit.  Someone who is living paycheck-to-paycheck knows the importance of having enough money to be comfortable.  We go on vacations to comfortable places so we can recharge and renew from the stresses of every day life. We find comfort in relationships and foods and traditions and places, and again, we all need a certain level of comfort in our lives.

What we don’t need, however, is to become overly obsessed with our own comfort.  As followers of Jesus, as those who are trying, by God’s grace to live and love like him, we are often called to put aside our own comfort in order to show compassion. Following Jesus necessarily moves us from comfort to compassion.

The word, “compassion,” is rooted in two Latin words, com and passio.  Com means “with,” passio sounds like “passion,” but it literally means “suffer, like “The Passion of Christ,” which depicts the suffering of Christ. “Compassion” literally means “suffer with.”

Compassion is where we see someone’s need, and we feel it as acutely as our own, and we are moved to action with an unquenchable desire to alleviate the suffering.

Our first Scripture reading from Philippians tells us to

⁵ Adopt the attitude that was in Christ Jesus:

⁶ Though he was in the form of God,
        he did not consider being equal with God something to exploit. ⁷ But he emptied himself
        by taking the form of a slave
        and by becoming like human beings.
When he found himself in the form of a human, ⁸ he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death,
        even death on a cross.

Adopt the Attitude That Was in Christ Jesus.

Think of a swimming pool, with comfort at the shallow end, and compassion at the deep end.  Our default is to hang out at the shallow, comfortable end, but as we follow Jesus, who had all power, privilege, and position – equal with God, all the comfort and splendor of heaven, Jesus who left that, willingly gave it all up in order to come to us as one of us, to suffer with us, even to the point of his own suffering on the cross.  He did that, not because he had to, but because his love for us was just that deep.

Again, back to Philippians:

³ Don’t do anything for selfish purposes, but with humility think of others as better than yourselves. ⁴ Instead of each person watching out for their own good, watch out for what is better for others.

The self-centered life is a shallow life.  Jesus draws us from the selfish shallows to deep compassion.  The more closely we follow Jesus, the more compassionate we become, no longer splashing around in the shallow end, but saving lives and keeping people from drowning in the deep end.  Following Jesus plunges us from shallow comfort to deep compassion.

Compassion for the Crowds

Compassion for whom?  Matthew’s Gospel says, “Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were troubled and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” (9:36)

Jesus had compassion for the crowds.  Compassion – a desire to suffer with, and actively alleviate the suffering – for the crowds – a nameless, faceless rabble too numerous to count.

When you think of who Jesus spent most of his time with, who comes to mind?  His disciples – the 12 men he tapped on the shoulder and said, “Come, follow me.”

Imagine, if you would, three concentric circles.  The very center of the middle circle –that’s Jesus.  We will call the first, tightest circle around him “the core” – that’s his 12 disciples.  Now, we also know there were other people who followed Jesus, at different times in his ministry, it fluctuated somewhere between 100 and 150 people.  This group is represented by the second circle, and we’ll call this circle “the congregation.”

But what about that outer circle?  Well, you can call that outmost circle “the crowd.”

The crowd comes and goes.  It varies in size.  There are times in Jesus’ ministry when the crowd is heavy, and other times when it practically disappears.  The crowd doesn’t have direction, it’s aimless, and it’s vulnerable.  “Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were troubled and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”

Jesus has compassion for the crowd.  Being like Jesus means we have compassion for them, as well.  Following Jesus is signing on to a life that shows compassion for the crowd, for those beyond our own circle.  Jesus invested in his inner circle, his core, training them, equipping them, empowering them to invest in the congregation by empowering them and equipping them to invest in the crowd.  It is Jesus’ compassion for the crowd that drives the whole process, consumes all the organizational energy – like pebbles being continually dropped in a pond, with the movement of the ripples constantly spreading his love further and further and further.

But, when we start to prioritize comfort over compassion, that’s the beginning of spiritual death.  In the medical world, comfort care is what happens at the end of life. 

From Members to Disciples

Right now, 75% of churches in America are either plateaued or in decline.  One way to reverse the decline would be to talk less about church membership.  Our obsession with church membership is killing us. Membership isn’t Biblical.  Jesus didn’t tell us to go and make members, he told us to go and make disciples!  Clubs have members.  Institutions have members.  The Church has disciples!

Membership is a term that carries all sorts of baggage of privilege.  Catering to people’s preferences, and so comfort is given a higher priority than compassion.  The comfort of the inner circles gets to be more important than showing compassion to the outer circle.  We end up with something completely inverted to what Jesus intended.

Our obsession with membership has created a situation in which too many in the church have forgotten, or never really knew in the first place, to whom the church belongs.  It belongs to Jesus!  He is its owner!  He is its Lord!  He bought it with his own blood.  The church is Christ’s body, his representative to the world, a world he loves and for which he died.

A club has members.  The church has disciples.  Small change in language, huge change in culture – to stop referring to ourselves as members, and to start calling ourselves disciples.  Members are motivated by what they want.  Disciples are motivated by what Jesus wants.

What’s he want?  Compassion for the crowds.  Or maybe you prefer the way he said it in Luke 19:10 - seeking and saving the lost. Or Matthew 28, he told us to go into the world and make disciples of him.  So call it what you will: compassion for the crowd, seeking and saving the lost, or making disciples – however you slice it, this was his passion; it’s what the church, who belongs to Jesus, must always be about.

Compassion for the crowd – it drove Jesus; does it drive us?  Where would you put yourself, honestly, this morning – in the shallow end, or in the deep end?  Splashing around and making noise with your buddies, or diving deep in order to save others?  Member or disciple?  Your own comfort, or compassion for others?

Sometimes we in the church can forget who we are, to whom we belong, and what we’re about.  When the church starts to feel and act too much like a cruise ship, remember we’re really a fishing vessel – none of us are here as passengers, we’re all part of the crew.  Let’s follow and live like Jesus.  Let’s move from comfort to compassion.

More Like Jesus: From Self to Serve (John 13:3-5,12-17)

³ Jesus knew the Father had given everything into his hands and that he had come from God and was returning to God. ⁴ So he got up from the table and took off his robes. Picking up a linen towel, he tied it around his waist. ⁵ Then he poured water into a washbasin and began to wash the disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel he was wearing.

¹² After he washed the disciples’ feet, he put on his robes and returned to his place at the table. He said to them, “Do you know what I’ve done for you? ¹³ You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and you speak correctly, because I am. ¹⁴ If I, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you too must wash each other’s feet. ¹⁵ I have given you an example: Just as I have done, you also must do. ¹⁶ I assure you, servants aren’t greater than their master, nor are those who are sent greater than the one who sent them. ¹⁷ Since you know these things, you will be happy if you do them.

Several years ago, I was attending the funeral of one of my distant relatives.  I was sitting with two of my aunts who knew this particular great uncle better than I did, and I listened carefully as the pastor described him as a warm, caring, kind, person.  A model of virtue and generosity, the best of neighbors if ever there was one.  When the funeral was over, we were barely out of the church when one aunt looked at the other and said, “I had to check the front of the bulletin, because I thought we were in the wrong service for a minute.”  Then, to me, she said, “Your great uncle was one of the meanest, most miserable, selfish people to ever walk the planet.  I’m not sure who that pastor was describing, but it sure wasn’t him.”

When your life is said and done, when your story is told, does anybody here want to be remembered as a selfish person?  I would hope not.  I will say, if it’s your life’s ambition to be a selfish person, we won’t be much help to you, here.  We worship and follow Jesus, who served and sacrificed and gave himself for others, and told us to do the same.  That’s what we’re about here!

Today, we are continuing in a series of messages called “More Like Jesus.”  Simply put, we are embracing and living into our call to be more like Jesus. 

Last week, we remembered our baptism, celebrating that God claims as part of God’s family, and makes us “Christian.”  The very word, “Christian,” means “mini-Christ” or “Christ-like.”  We are called to become like Jesus!  While none of us will grow up to physically resemble him, as we live with him, follow him, and listen to his words, as we surrender our way to his way, we become like him in other ways. We are called to think the way Jesus thought, to love the way Jesus loved, to live the way Jesus lived.

In today’s Scripture reading from John’s Gospel, the disciples bounded into that upper room, scoping out positions of honor around the table.  They were bickering amongst themselves about who was the greatest among them, who should sit in the places of privilege closest to Jesus.

In those days, traveling meant walking.  Sweaty feet in leather sandals kicking up great clouds of dust.  Even a short distance could make your feet pretty nasty, and so feet were washed just inside the door.

A wealthy person might have servants who did that, sometimes you were left to wash your own feet, and sometimes, the socially lowest-ranking person present would be asked to wash the feet of everyone else.  Washing feet was the job of servants.  The disciples realized that if they stopped to wash their own feet, they might end up washing everyone else’s feet, too.  Peter, James, John, Andrew, Thomas, Judas - none of them wanted to get stuck doing that – they were all above that!

But as the supper progressed, Jesus got up from the table, and he walked back to the door, and he picked up that pitcher, basin, and towel – those tools of service everyone else had walked past and ignored.  As he tied the towel around his waist, the disciples were mortified.  “Oh no.  Jesus isn’t going to wash our feet, is he?” 

Jesus Christ – the son of God, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords – washed his disciples’ feet.  The master performed the work of a servant.

“You call me master, teacher, rabbi, Lord – and I am all these things.  But I’ve served you as an example.  As I have served you, you, likewise, shall go and serve.”

On the altar table is a carving made from olive wood.  I bought it in Bethlehem last year.  It’s a depiction of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet – I’m going to pass it around so you can get a good look at it.  If you’ve been in my office, you may have noticed it behind my desk.  It sits next to a picture of me and Ashley from our wedding day, and those two items together are there to remind me of who I am and what’s most important in my life – a follower of Jesus, and a husband to Ashley.  And every time I look at this carving, I’m reminded that being a follower of Jesus means being one who serves.

Serving is as essential to being a Christian as breathing is to living.  Breathing requires both a taking in and a giving out.  Breath comes in, breath goes out.  Breath comes in, breath goes out.  There’s a rhythm to is, isn’t there?  A balance, an exchange.

Maybe you’ve heard the story of the man who was afraid he would run out breath, and so in an attempt to hold onto as much breath as he could, he would only breathe in, but never breathe out.  And so he’d take a deep breath in, and then another, and then another, until he couldn’t breathe in any more.  Do you know what eventually happened?  He passed out is what happened, and when he woke up, his body was naturally, on its own, breathing in and breathing out, and he felt so much better than when he was only trying to breathe in.

Or, think of it this way.  What does a sponge do?  It soaks up.  Eventually, a sponge soaks up as much as it can, and once it does, can it soak up any more?  No, unless the sponge is wrung out a bit.  In fact, only if it is wrung out, can it soak up any more.  And the more times it is wrung out, the more it can soak up.

Sometimes, I think we try to do the same thing in our faith.  We want to have as much of God’s goodness and grace and love as we possibly can, and so we can just keep taking in and taking in and taking in and taking in without also giving back out.  But that’s an inhale without a corresponding exhale – a spiritual half breath.

That’s like a sponge sitting in an infinite pool of God’s grace that’s never been wrung out.  If that sponge wants to soak up more, it will have to learn – we will have to learn – that serving is more essential to our faith than serving.  Giving is more blessed than receiving.  Feeding is the outgrowth of having been fed.

It was a hot summer day at the beach. Two seagulls were trying to keep cool in the shade, when they saw two crabs scuttling by.  Each crab had an ice cream cone in both claws.  One seagull looked at the other and said, “Should I ask those crabs to share their ice cream?”  The other seagull said, “I wouldn’t bother; they’re two shellfish.”

By the grace of God, as we follow Jesus, we become like him.  We move away from a selfish life toward a serving life.  Being a Christian means learning to serve, sacrifice, and give ourselves as Christ gave himself.

Taking on a life of service is something we have to learn, and that’s what Jesus was teaching us when he washed his disciples’ feet.  We don’t have to learn to be selfish; we all come by that one naturally enough!

St. Augustine called this curvatas, meaning “curved inward on oneself.”  He used this phrase to describe the human condition without Christ – a life lived “inward” for oneself rather than “outward” for God and others.

That curve draws us down, down, down, further into ourselves.  Unchecked, it can curve us so far that we’re only looking at ourselves, staring into our own navel, as it were.  We’ve all been there, completely absorbed in ourselves, seeing only ourselves, thinking only about ourselves.  And from this position, it’s very difficult to talk to God or other people, or care about anything or anyone other than ourselves.  Our only interest in other people will be about what we can get out of them.

This curving in on ourselves is the basic nature of sin.  Sin, of course, separates us from God and from others.  Sin is a preoccupation with ourselves – all sin fundamentally ties back to living for self rather than living for God and others.  There’s a reason the word “sin” has an “i” right smack in the middle—and a big “I” at that! Sin is all about me. When my world revolves around me, with me at the center of everything, sin is bound to result.

Rick Warren says, “It’s the ‘I’ in words like sin, pride, and mine that causes the ‘I’ in other words – like strife, bitterness, and misery.”

But, in Christ, this bent toward ourselves gets straightened out.  Indeed, what Christ does is restore us to our original condition – the way God created us before sin entered the world.  The curve toward ourselves is straightened so we can see others eye-to-eye, and be in right relationship with them.

And, as always, we don’t do this straightening up by our own ability or cleverness.  It’s what Jesus, the Son of God, does in us.  And there’s something interesting about the word, “Son.”  “Sin” has the “I,” “Son” has the “O.”  I like to think of that “O” as standing for others.  Jesus wasn’t about the “I,” but he was all about the “O” of others.  Jesus Christ, the Son of God, gave himself for others, and gave us the example that we should do the same.

Every time we serve, we follow the example of our blessed Lord.  Every time we serve, we straighten up and work against that curve that would keep drawing us down and in on ourselves.  Serving keeps us from too much naval gazing.  We will always have that natural inclination to curve in on ourselves, but every time we serve, we’re pulled up out of ourselves.  That’s why it’s important to keep serving others for as long as we can – it keeps us from turning in ourselves, and keeps our eyes on who and what is really most important.

When Jesus washed his disciples’ feet, it was an example to serve.  It was an invitation to make our lives less about the “I,” and more about the “O.”  Less about me and more about others.  Less selfish and more serving. 

You know, more like Jesus.