Living Deliberately

This message was first delivered at Cove United Methodist Church in Coleman Falls, Virginia on March 9, 2014. It is based on the lectionary text Matthew 4:1-11.

Last week when I was teaching the senior high Sunday school class at Centenary, I asked the students where in the Bible they would find scripture about Lent. I got a variety of responses. “Luke, Acts, Hebrews...” and I was just about to let them off the hook and reveal that it was a trick question...when I got a different answer. “When Jesus was in the desert for 40 days and nights and was tempted by Satan.” And I had to stop and switch direction. I thought I had the answer – that the only lent in the Bible has a small “L” and refers to things that have been loaned (and a couple of references to lentils – a food that I will happily give up!). Turned out, I needed to examine this new answer.

Matthew 4:1-11 (The Message) describes the situation in this way:

"Next Jesus was taken into the wild by the Spirit for the Test. The Devil was ready to give it. Jesus prepared for the Test by fasting forty days and forty nights. That left him, of course, in a state of extreme hunger, which the Devil took advantage of in the first test: “Since you are God’s Son, speak the word that will turn these stones into loaves of bread.”

Jesus answered by quoting Deuteronomy: “It takes more than bread to stay alive. It takes a steady stream of words from God’s mouth.”

For the second test the Devil took him to the Holy City. He sat him on top of the Temple and said, “Since you are God’s Son, jump.” The Devil goaded him by quoting Psalm 91: “He has placed you in the care of angels. They will catch you so that you won’t so much as stub your toe on a stone.”

Jesus countered with another citation from Deuteronomy: “Don’t you dare test the Lord your God.”

For the third test, the Devil took him to the peak of a huge mountain. He gestured expansively, pointing out all the earth’s kingdoms, how glorious they all were. Then he said, “They’re yours—lock, stock, and barrel. Just go down on your knees and worship me, and they’re yours.”

Jesus’ refusal was curt: “Beat it, Satan!” He backed his rebuke with a third quotation from Deuteronomy: “Worship the Lord your God, and only him. Serve him with absolute single-heartedness.”

The Test was over. The Devil left. And in his place, angels! Angels came and took care of Jesus’ needs.

My student was right...this test is exactly like Lent. Jesus went into a time of preparation before he began his ministry. He has just been baptized by John in the Jordan River. And before he gets started, he takes time to get ready.

That would not have been my first thought – I would have been one who jumped out of the river and right into the work at hand. Hey, there's so much to be done, so many people who need to hear the Messiah is at hand and the life-changing message that would be to so many people...let's get to work! Let's start telling the good news. Jesus was smarter than me.

It is a wise thing to recognize the need to be prepared. I was never a Boy Scout (for obvious reasons) but I did a good bit of camping and hiking in my younger days. I know from experience what happens when you DON'T prepare. On one occasion I went hiking on the Apple Orchard Falls trail...it was late afternoon when we started. I don't know if you are familiar with this trail – but from the parking area, you start hiking DOWN. The climbing part comes on the return leg. We had a lovely time...until the sun began to set. And we realized that neither of us had a flashlight. And we were going to run out of light... We did. And where the falls trail crosses the Appalachian Trail, we were forced to crawl on hands and knees to locate the right path (in the dark, trail blazes are pretty useless). We were unprepared.

On another afternoon, years later (I'm older, but you'll see I am not much wiser) I decided to camp for the weekend at the Otter Creek campground. I loaded up my 65 VW ragtop with everything I needed for the weekend. Well, everything I had thought of...didn't check to see if the campground was open (it wasn't), didn't check the batteries in my car's flashlight (they were dead), didn't check to see if the lantern had fuel (it didn't)...so when my car lost a tire near Otter Lake (at least it didn't go IN the lake), I was stranded with no light, no lug wrench and since it was a 65 Volkswagen...it had a bum starter and had to be roll-started. I was seriously unprepared.

Preparation is pretty important.

The time of preparation that we are in right now is called Lent. Since the earliest times of the church, there is evidence of some kind of Lenten preparation for Easter. For instance, we learn in Eusebius' History of the Church that St. Irenaeus (who died in 203) wrote to Pope St. Victor I, commenting on the celebration of Easter and the differences between practices in the East and the West: "The dispute is not only about the day, but also about the actual character of the fast. Some think that they ought to fast for one day, some for two, others for still more; some make their 'day' last 40 hours on end. Such variation in the observance did not originate in our own day, but very much earlier, in the time of our forefathers." Lent became more regularized after the legalization of Christianity in 313, in fact the Council of Nicea in 325 noted in its disciplinary canons that there should be two provincial synods (formal meetings of the church leaders) including one before the 40 days of Lent.

Lent has been around for a very long time. Not all Christian churches observe Lent. Lent is mostly observed by the Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian and Anglican denominations, and also by Roman Catholics. I know that Lent has been practiced in my home all my life. My mom recalled to me that her grandmother gave up going to the movies every year...the problem with that is that the woman had never been to a movie in her entire life. That's kind of like me giving up lentils! Or hang gliding. Or heroin. Recently a friend of mine on Facebook mentioned what he was planning to do for Lent this year – several of the comments that he got were “I'm giving up giving stuff up.” or “I'm giving up my new year's resolutions.”

It seems that Lent has lost its place in the society. Maybe it is because so many just see it as a time of denial. If our God is awesome and amazing and desires abundant life for us – what is the point of all this “giving up?” I posed this question to my senior high youth, “what is the point of giving stuff up for Lent?” The answers were pretty solid, “to show ourselves that we can.” “to be more aware of the sacrifice that Jesus made” and “to share in the experience of Jesus – after all look at what he gave up! Who would give up heaven to come down here and be human?”

Who would give up heaven to come down here and be human? Really. That's the amazing-ness of God. Sometimes I don't even want to leave my house to go to the store...why would Jesus leave heaven to come down here and feel the pain of hunger, loneliness and rejection. Why would he cobble together this rag-tag team of disciples to carry on the message of his love? Those guys didn't even get what Jesus was talking about half the time! Why would you leave heaven to hang out with boneheads and sinners and the brood of vipers that was running things? Heaven sounds like a much nicer place – but he chose this pathway. Willingly.

Why? Because he loves us. And that is core of Christianity. You've got to fully accept and embrace God's love – that is the only way that you'll be able to understand why Jesus came down. Let's spend a couple of minutes talking about God's love...

I recently had the opportunity to deliver a message at Centenary – I based that message on the hymn “They'll Know We are Christians by Our Love.” In one part of that message I felt led to emphasize the unfathomable depth of God's love toward us. For many of us, we understand love from our own experiences...parent for child, child for parent, romantic relationships...let's try a little experiment...I want you to close your eyes and think back to the beginning of that love. Remember when your heart would beat a little faster when the phone rang because you knew it was your love on the other end? Remember times that you spent on the front porch because kisses were like potato chips, you couldn't stop until you ate the whole bag. Remember waking up and seeing your love asleep next to you and feeling the love so intensely that your breath caught in your throat and a tear came to your eye? Maybe it isn't a romantic love that you remember. Maybe it is the love for a child. Or a child for a parent. Just think right at this moment about an intense, heart-stopping love. Guess who loves you more than that?

Another example of love on earth: A man named Bill was taking care of his father as he died of cancer. His father had become frail and depended on Bill to do everything for him. Although he was physically not what he had been, his mind remained alert and lively. In the role reversal common to adult children who care for their dying parents, Bill would put his father to bed and read him to sleep, exactly as his father had done for him in childhood. Bill would read from some novel and his father would lie there, staring at his son, smiling. Bill was exhausted from the day's care and work and would plead with his Dad, “look, here's the idea. I read to you, you fall asleep.” Bill's father would impishly apologize and dutifully close his eyes. But this wouldn't last long. Soon Bill's father would pop one eye open and smile at his son. Bill would catch him and whine, “now come on.” The father would again, oblige, until he couldn't anymore, and the other eye would open to catch a glimpse of his son. Bill knew that this evening ritual was really a story of a father who just couldn't take his eyes off his kid. How much more so God?

Jesuit priest and therapist Anthony DeMello wrote, “Behold the One beholding you, and smiling.” Tony DeMello, before his death in 1987, recorded a conference that is aptly named “Wake Up to Life.” We all need to wake up, and realize that we worship a God who loves us more deeply than we can begin to grasp.

That is what Lent is for me – waking up. Letting the scales fall from my eyes. Too often we go through life just existing, just surviving. God wants so much more for us. Lent, whether I give something up (like McGriddles) or add something positive (like doing crunches to the Lord's Prayer) is about living more consciously. Being awake. Being aware. Experiencing, not just existing.

When I was having the discussion about Lent with the youth at Centenary, I had a list of “Weird things to do for Lent” from a Catholic youth website. A few of their suggestions: Don’t eat the last bite of your food; Give up texting and call whomever you need to talk to; Don’t use utensils; When you wake up, jump out of bed, kiss the floor, and learn humility; Leave a post-it with a positive message on it wherever you go; Send a different person from the church staff an affirmation email every day of Lent; Put a popcorn kernel in your shoe every day. Some of these suggestions sparked rousing debate among the youth. When I asked them if they could find a common theme among the list of weird things to do for Lent – they came up with one word. “Awareness”

They said it was about living life more deliberately. Whether it was the young man who decided to give up his computer and said when he ran into something he couldn't accomplish on his smart phone, he would be reminded. Or the teacher who decided to expand the affirmation email idea to sending a positive message every day to someone in his life letting them know what a difference that person makes in his life, he would be challenged. Or myself – who chose to give something up and add something good. No McGriddles...which are sometimes the reason I leave my house to go to work. And I'm trying to say the Lord's Prayer every day, doing an ab crunch for each word.

Lent is about stretching ourselves. It’s about doing something that’s uncomfortable in order to deny our “flesh” and make more room for God.

It is a good thing to make more room for God. He wants to be at the center of our lives. For us to live deliberately...to see the world around us and for us to be his voice to those who need to hear from him. Maybe it is the co-worker who needs encouragement, maybe it is the neighbor who needs a lift in their day, or perhaps it is the stranger that we smile at as we pass. Maybe it is giving a pair of shoes to one who needs them. You will find the opportunities when you look for them. You don't have to end homelessness or cure cancer to make a difference in the world. You make a difference in the world around you. Not because you HAVE to – but because you can't help yourselves! Once you pour the tremendous of love of God into yourselves, it will just start flooding out.

In this time of preparation, I encourage you to meditate on what God means in your life. And then you can start to accept how much you mean to God. He just can't get enough of you.

We'll know we are Christians by our love. Everyone needs to hear about this incredible. Unfathomable. Unconditional. Love. We need to hear this too. We need to come to the place of accepting this for ourselves. We need to know – we are wholly acceptable to God. And he loves us. Right here. Right now.

I recently read a book so life-changing that as soon as I finished it, I started reading it a second time. Tattoos on the Heart written by Gregory Boyle, a Jesuit priest who began Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles. The book is a collection of stories from the gang-intervention program that was started in the poorest parish in LA, center of the gang capital of the world. In the book, Pastor G (as the homies call him) relates a story about Willy. Willy has hit up G for a ride and 20 bucks. When Pastor G stops at the ATM to coax the 20 from his thin bank account Willy asks him for the keys so he can listen to the radio but G tells him to pray instead. When he returns to the car he finds Willy changed. Quiet and reflective and he knows that Willy has made a connection to God. Pastor G asks Willy how he sees God. Willy replies that “God is my dog.” (meaning his homie, good thing) Then he asks Willy how he thinks God sees him. After some thought Willy says, “He thinks I'm firme.” The Spanish word translates stable, solid, secure but Pastor G knows that in gang terms, it means “could not be one bit better.”)

God thinks that we are all Firme. He loves us completely. When we recognize how much God loves us.

Right now.

Not when we do better.

Not when we get our checklist done: read bible daily, fast weekly, tithe, stop speeding, never lose our temper...Lent is not about making us acceptable.

No, we are wholly acceptable. No conditions. Firme. Could not be one bit better.

When we dive into the depths of that unfathomable love, then we start to see the people around us differently. And this love thing starts to spread. And this just might catch on.