The Call to Serve

Today is the first Sunday of lent. It is the season on the Christian calendar when we mark a time of repentance and preparation. Lent has a long and complex tradition in the history of the church. It begins on Ash Wednesday, which occurred earlier this week, and it goes all the way into Holy Week when we observe Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday. Maybe there are some familiar associations you make with the season of lent. For instance, perhaps you have heard of people giving something up for lent. That practice is tied to the tradition of lent being a time of repentance and preparation. The habit of giving something up for lent has the purpose of creating a space for deeper connection to God. So I would tell you that things like giving up chocolate for lent carries very little significance unless it is replaced by something which brings deeper connection to God. However, if I were to give up something like social media for lent, and then instead of spending time online every day fill that time with spending time in scripture, that is the intent and purpose of lent sacrifice. I tend to joke that every year for lent I give up my New Year’s resolutions because it feels like about time to admit I let go of those things by now anyway.

Or maybe you are familiar with what is known as fat Tuesday. The day before lent begins on Ash Wednesday also has come familiarity if you ever wonder why there is this one day of the year when you can walk into a bakery and find these donuts called paczkis. It comes from Poland, and traditionally it was a pastry that could be filled with many different things and was meant to use up all the fattening ingredients you happened to have in the house before fasting from those fattening foods for the season of lent. Or maybe you associate fat Tuesday with the city of New Orleans and Mardi Gras, which also occurs right before lent.

Lent is meant to remind us that we are intricately connected to the story of Jesus

Going back a long time before any of that, lent was a season set up to observe of the Christian calendar for other reasons. It is a forty day period before Easter. Although if you took out a calendar and counted the days between Ash Wednesday and Easter, you would notice more than forty days. That is because the Sundays are taken out of that counting. The church considered Sundays to be days of celebration and worship rather than days of fasting and penitence. So, traditionally, whatever you gave up for lent you could have on Sundays because Sundays were meant to be a day of feasting and celebrating and worship. Why forty days? It is one of those significant numbers in the Bible in many places. Lent commemorates forty days because it has a very particular link to one of the passages we are going to read today. It is meant as a connection to the forty days that Jesus spent fasting in the wilderness after his baptism in the Jordan River. Just as Jesus spent forty days in the wilderness preparing himself for his earthy ministry, so we in the church spend forty days every year preparing ourselves to once again re-tell, re-live, and re-align with the story of Christ’s suffering, sacrifice, and resurrection. It is a time that is meant to remind us that we are intricately connected to the story of Jesus.

Jesus came as a servant

With that in mind, this year for lent I would like us to consider our connection to Jesus in light of his servant nature. At the last supper, the apostle John writes in his gospel about the way in which Jesus knelt down and washed the feet of his disciples. The apostle Paul writes in his letter the the Philippians that Jesus “made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant” (Phil 2:7). The way in which Jesus serves others demonstrates for us something about the way in which we have been redeemed by God and set free in order to serve as well. We start that today in the same place where the season of lent starts, by turning our attention towards Jesus in the wilderness.

Deuteronomy 26:1–11 (NIV)

Deuteronomy 26:1–11 NIV

1 When you have entered the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance and have taken possession of it and settled in it, 2 take some of the firstfruits of all that you produce from the soil of the land the Lord your God is giving you and put them in a basket. Then go to the place the Lord your God will choose as a dwelling for his Name 3 and say to the priest in office at the time, “I declare today to the Lord your God that I have come to the land the Lord swore to our ancestors to give us.” 4 The priest shall take the basket from your hands and set it down in front of the altar of the Lord your God. 5 Then you shall declare before the Lord your God: “My father was a wandering Aramean, and he went down into Egypt with a few people and lived there and became a great nation, powerful and numerous. 6 But the Egyptians mistreated us and made us suffer, subjecting us to harsh labor. 7 Then we cried out to the Lord, the God of our ancestors, and the Lord heard our voice and saw our misery, toil and oppression. 8 So the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror and with signs and wonders. 9 He brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey; 10 and now I bring the firstfruits of the soil that you, Lord, have given me.” Place the basket before the Lord your God and bow down before him. 11 Then you and the Levites and the foreigners residing among you shall rejoice in all the good things the Lord your God has given to you and your household.

Luke 4:1–13 (NIV)

Luke 4:1–13 NIV

1 Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, 2 where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry. 3 The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.” 4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’” 5 The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. 6 And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. 7 If you worship me, it will all be yours.” 8 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’” 9 The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down from here. 10 For it is written: “ ‘He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully; 11 they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’” 12 Jesus answered, “It is said: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” 13 When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.

servanthood is a calling

Service is a calling. Maybe we do not always think of it in that way. Maybe there are many different ways we think about service. Perhaps we sometimes see it as an obligation or expectation. Perhaps we see it as a confirmation—it is a visible evidence of our faith which takes shape in our actions. Perhaps we think of it as something others are better gifted and suited to do—that some people have the gift of service, and some don’t. But in Christ we see service as something apart from all these. It is a calling. It is something to which Jesus himself invites us to embrace as part of who we are. Let’s spend just a little time here today considering how that works.

the fisrtfruits offering is a reminder that without God’s provision we would be empty-handed

The first passage today from Deuteronomy is meant to be a reminder for the people of Israel. It was a reminder every year at harvest time that God has brought them through the wilderness to this place of abundance. It was a reminder that everything they have is a gift from God, and this one act of giving back from the very first of the harvest is an action which gives back to God as they have been blessed. It was a reminder that the people of Israel came into this promised land from the wilderness with absolutely nothing; they were empty handed. And now the abundant fruit of their efforts ought to remind them that this abundant fruit is really not primarily because of their efforts at all, because they walked in with nothing; rather it has been—and continues to be—God providing for them every step of the way.

the life of Jesus echos the story of Israel

Christ’s forty days in the wilderness connects to Israel’s forty years in the wilderness

wilderness is a place of preparation

The life and ministry of Jesus echos the entire story of Israel in this regard. When God called Israel out of Egypt, the very first step out of Egypt was a step down into the red sea, to come up again on the other side. For the nation of Israel, walking through the parted waters of the Red Sea was their moment of baptism. Jesus begins his earthly ministry by first going to see his cousin, John the Baptist. And there in the Jordan River Jesus is baptized by John. This marks the beginning of Christ’s ministry. From the Red Sea the people of Israel go into the wilderness of the Sinai desert. The wilderness was meant to be a place of preparation for God’s people. In the wilderness, the people of Israel had to learn what it means to be a nation of people who follow God and are dependent upon God. The wilderness becomes this place of preparation because in the scarcity of the wilderness, the people learn to survive in complete dependence upon God to sustain them. Likewise, Jesus goes into the wilderness immediately after his baptism. The Israelites were in the wilderness for forty years. Jesus symbolically takes that same journey upon himself by remaining in the wilderness for forty days.

temptation of Jesus: bread—instant gratification | kingdoms—selfishness | temple—power

In the wilderness Jesus is tempted. He is tempted to let go of his dependence upon the provision of the heavenly Father. Jesus is tempted to find instant gratification to ease his hunger instead of waiting upon the provision of God. Jesus is tempted to take the quick shortcut route to claiming his kingship—a route that would have come at a cost of losing everything else—instead of fulfilling the will of the heavenly father to be exalted as the servant king. Jesus is tempted to make a forceful show of his power as a statement to all the people for all the people to see instead of waiting in dependence upon the sustaining provision of the heavenly Father’s power. For both the people of Israel, and for Jesus himself, the wilderness is a time of preparation—a time to be reminded that God provides.

Jesus first emptied himself in order to serve and be a servant

the call to serve begins in our emptiness, not in our abundance

The call to serve begins with that reminder. Jesus did not come in all his power and strength and majesty as the creator and sustainer of the universe. Jesus emptied himself of all that and came as a servant who laid aside his majesty and glory. The wilderness is a reminder to us who read the story today that Jesus first emptied himself in order to serve and be a servant. Jesus does this in a way which has connection to the rest of God’s people. You and I today are part of that story as well. The lesson of the wilderness is our lesson too. The call to serve begins in emptiness. It does not begin by all the awesomeness that we may think we can bring before God. It does not begin with any sense of our own accomplishments or our own superpowers. Like Jesus, we too need to empty ourselves and let go of our own majesty and our own glory. The call to serve begins in our emptiness, not in our abundance.

the call to serve God is not about what you bring to Jesus, it is about what Jesus brings to you

It is there in that wilderness of emptiness that God meets us. It is there in the emptiness that God assures us that the call to serve is not about what we have amassed and accumulated. The call to serve is about complete dependence upon what God provides—even if that provision feels like just enough for today. This is good news because it allows God to meet us right now. The call to serve is not a call that sits on hold within a ‘someday’ future orientation. It takes away any thoughts or responses in our heads of, “maybe I will serve later after I am more ready, more prepared, better equipped.” It takes away any thoughts or responses in our heads of, “my days of service are over because I am past the prime of my life, too old, no longer as strong, no longer as able.”

Christ invites you, even if you come empty-handed—in fact, especially if you come empty-handed

For the people of Israel, service to God began with empty hands. In the wilderness they learned to approach God with nothing by empty hands. In the abundance of the promised land, they learned to carry this dependence forward by offering back to God the very first and the very best. In Christ—during the season of lent—we are reminded that we not only approach the heavenly Father in the same way, but we approach the heavenly Father accompanied by Jesus himself. Christ himself approaches the heavenly Father as this kind of servant. And Christ himself invites us to join him there as well. Not someday later when you have enough; not later on when you have it all figured out; not down the line when you feel more ready. Today. Right now. Christ invites you, even if you come empty-handed—in fact, especially if you come empty-handed. Christ invites you to receive from him and be served by him, that you may in turn serve one another.

Christ invites you to receive from him and be served by him, that you may in turn serve one another