"Cultivating Resilience. Letting Go of Distraction" - Luke 4:1-13 (March 10, 2019)
/Luke 4:1-13
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished. The devil said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.’ Jesus answered him, ‘It is written, “One does not live by bread alone.” ’
Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said to him, ‘To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.’ Jesus answered him, ‘It is written,
“Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.” ’
Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written,
“He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you”, and “On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.” ’
Jesus answered him, ‘It is said, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” ’ When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.
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Our Lenten theme this year is “Cultivating & Letting Go.” It comes to us from our friends at A Sanctified Art, a non-profit that provides affordable liturgical resources to congregations such as this one.
On their website, they offer up the following definitions of the words:
Cultivate (verb): to prepare and use for the raising of crops; to foster the growth of; to improve by labor, care, or study; to refine; to further; to encourage.
Let go (verb): relinquish one's grip on someone or something.
And they go on to define this season of Lent as follows: “Lent is a season of spiritual gardening, of inviting God to unearth in us what lies fallow, what needs to be tended, and what needs to die for new life to emerge.”
So together, you and I are gathered in this season of Lent to go about the holy work of cultivating and letting go, of spiritual gardening that prepares us to receive the good news of the empty tomb come Easter morning.
Therefore, each sermon between now and Easter Sunday will be about cultivating something and letting go of something. It assumes the following truth: that in order to foster the spiritual growth that God intends for us, we must also relinquish our grip on that which tears us apart and diminishes that holy cultivation.
Our first stop in this journey of cultivating and letting go is Luke’s harrowing account of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness, preparing him for the challenges of the ministry that lies before him. In Luke’s account, the temptation narrative comes almost immediately after Jesus’ baptism. It’s an odd procession of events when you think about it. One moment, God is telling Jesus: “You are my child, my beloved, in you I find happiness” and then the next minute that same God is sending that beloved child into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. In Luke’s account, Jesus is “led” into the wilderness. In Mark’s account of this same story, however, Jesus is “driven” into the wilderness by the Spirit. No, not like the Spirit called an Uber to drive him there. But rather, the Spirit forced Jesus to do this. Mark’s account is quite a bit more aggressive than Luke’s account.
But however he got there, Jesus begins his 40 days of torment with the devil. 40 days in the wilderness that mirror the forty years the Israelites spent in the wilderness after being saved from Egypt. Scripture tells us that Jesus was tempted for 40 days, therefore we can pretty safely assume that there were more than the three temptations that Luke’s passage lifts up for us. However, these three highlight how Jesus reacted to all the temptations before him.
First, the devil takes advantage of the fact that Jesus was quite hungry. He presents him a stone and tells him to make it into a yummy, warm loaf of bread. Jesus quotes a passage in Deuteronomy that says: “humans do not live by bread alone.”
Secondly, the devil places a carrot in front of Jesus’ face, telling him upon that high perch that whatever he sees will belong to him, all the lands, all the kingdoms, if only he commit idolatry and worship him. Again, quoting scripture, Jesus lifts up the first commandment and says that he must worship God and God alone.
Now by this time, the devil is getting incensed. He is now 0 for 2. He needs a win. So he decides to take a page out of Jesus’ playbook and use scripture to his advantage. He quotes the very psalm you and I read and sang together just a few minutes ago, Psalm 91. He encourages Jesus to throw himself off the pinnacle upon which they find themselves. Instead, relentlessly and predictably, Jesus responds with scripture - Deuteronomy 6 this time - and says that it is not his job, nor anyone’s, to test God.
And with that, the devil gives up…for now. He retreats until “an opportune time” - a rather ominous ending to this dark story.
So, what might this story call us to cultivate? What might this story call us to let go of?
It seems clear to me that Jesus came to this fight prepared. He had done his homework. He efficiently and faithfully resisted the devil’s fraud. Therefore, this passage from Luke’s Gospel compels us to cultivate, among other things, resistance. Or, perhaps in the context of today’s passage, a better word might be resilience. We are called to cultivate resilience as creatures in a world that provides many voices that tell us we are anything other than what God tells us we are.
Nadia Bolz-Weber says the following on this topic: “Identity. It’s always God’s first move. Before we do anything wrong and before we do anything right, God has named and claimed us as God’s own. But almost immediately, other things try to tell us who we are and to whom we belong: capitalism, the weight-loss industrial complex, our parents, kids at school - they all have a go at telling us who we are. But only God can do that. Everything else is temptation. Maybe demons are defined as anything other than God that tries to tell us who we are.”
Therefore, God has called us many things. First of all, God calls us good. God also calls us holy. God calls us beloved. God calls us cherished. But that voice often gets drowned out by others. The facebook ads call us fat. The bully calls you stupid. The boy calls you a slut. If you’re gay, many in the Church have called you broken and sinful. If you’re poor, then many people think that you’re lazy. The list can, and does, go on and on.
Part of the work of the Church is to push back on all of that BS. The work of the Church is building people up and reminding them of who they are, first and foremost: a beloved Child of God. Period.
And scripture is such a beautiful gift to remind us of that. Remember, in each of the three examples, when the devil tried to tell Jesus who he “should” be, Jesus referred to scripture to remind the devil, and perhaps himself, of who God was and was not calling him to be. Now, please don’t get me wrong: I do not believe that the Bible is some magical textbook that gives us clear-cut answers to every situation we could possibly find ourselves in. It is, however, a narrative of the people of God. It is a narrative of the people of God constantly forgetting who they are and God relentlessly reminding us of what we’ve forgotten. And those stories matter. Those stories, when read, preached, explored, and soaked in, cultivate resilience.
What if the young girl who is encouraged to do something sexual she doesn’t want to do remembers the story of Queen Vashti in the Book of Esther when she refused to parade herself around naked in front of her drunk husband and his friends?
What if the young pastor who tries to be everything for everybody all by herself remembers the story of Moses in Exodus when his father-in-law, Jethro, tells him to delegate tasks and invite others into the leadership of the community because the task is too heavy for any one person?
What if the single parent, feeling totally inadequate and unprepared for fatherhood, remembers the stories of Peter who messes up time and time and time again but goes on to be a great leader in the early Church?
The Bible is filled with stories that build resilience when the “other voices” rear their ugly heads.
And in order to hear the life-giving, live-saving narrative of the truth of God we find in scripture, we have to let go of distractions, distractions that seek to rid us of our focus on God’s truth. Those distractions come in many forms. As Nadia Bolz-Weber said, “maybe demons are defined as anything other than God that tries to tell us who we are.”
So, y’all have some homework to do this week. A little distraction assessment, if you will. If you find yourself forgetting a spiritual truth that you know deep in your heart, pause a moment to discern the distractions that have led you to that place.
For example, you will often hear the following words here at Beaumont Presbyterian Church: you are loved ferociously just as you are! If you find yourself this week feeling the exact opposite, if you feel unloved, or unworthy, or alone, or just simply not enough, STOP. Take a breath. Practice the pause. Fight the impulse to go down the rabbit hole of self-loathing. Instead, redirect your thoughts to explore the distractions that led you to feel that way. Because, I assure you, that’s what led you to that place. What was the distraction that led you to believe you are not worthy of love?
And, then, focus your efforts on letting go of that distraction. And remember, you don’t have to do this alone. Letting go can be both an individual and a community effort! Together, let us work to remind ourselves of that which distracts us from the identities God has given us. And let us address the distractions.
And, if you do that enough, if you let go of the distractions and turn that into a spiritual practice, that, my friends, builds up resilience!
Remember, this Lent we are talking about spiritual gardening. About cultivating and letting go. Fertilizing and planting, as well as weeding and pruning. I’m reminded of the words that were spoken to the prophet Jeremiah at the beginning of his ministry: “I have called you to pluck up and pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”
So, friends, when the demons come knocking, in whichever of the many forms they take, remember that their voices are not the voice that calls and claims you as a beloved child. Cultivate resilience. Let go of the distraction. And you might just find the freedom that you seek in order to follow Christ on this Lenten journey.
In the name of the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. Amen.