Don’t take the easy way

Please pray with me. God of all these things, of blessings, of bounty, of beauty, lead us all into rejoicing and thanks as each day we rely on you. Amen.

Some of you have been around here long enough to have remembered when I passed through my thinest stage. I was a patient at the Methodist weight-loss clinic down in the medical center where they put you on a strict liquid fasting diet of just 800 calories per day. As they were describing the process to me I was so conflicted about it. I asked if they would give me anything to help with the appetite issues and they told me flatly no. I needed to decide if I was ready to go through the process. Cold turkey. And I eventually did, but the process of deciding that I wasn’t going to eat anymore was pretty intense.

I would eventually lose 155 lbs in 9 months. I bought clothes at The Buckle and Walmart. I mostly felt great, and kept it off for a couple of years. It was quite an achievement. But oh my gosh was it hard. I remember on the third day, which was the hardest. I was hungry and headachy and just plain miserable and I was driving up HWY 59 with Jorge back from New Hope to the apartment we used to have south of the Galleria which the real estate folks call “Galleria Southwest” but there aren’t any fancy street signs there. Anyway I was driving and Jorge was regaling me enthusiastically some story in which he took great delight and in mid sentence I snapped my head in his direction furiously and shouted, “Can’t talk. Suffering!”

And that was only three days in and at least I could drink water, tea, coffee, or diet soda and have my 800 calories of diet shakes. But Jesus manages to have a philosophical discourse with the devil during his ordeal. I’m obviously coming up short by that measure. I could barely get out three desperate words.

And that was just 3 days! Imagine longer. 40 days. Truthfully we don’t know if it was really 40 days, that’s a long long time. But you hear 40 a lot in the bible: 40 days and 40 nights, 40 years. In Hebraic numerology of 40 stands for the right or appropriate amount of time. The amount of time it took to achieve the intended outcome, however long that was. In Jesus case, however long it took to be properly tempted.

So, Jesus is freshly baptized just before this and, in the Lukan account, is “lead by the spirit” into the desert, into the wilderness, surrounded by all the scary things; all the pokey, cracky, crunchy, hurty, ouchy stuff out there. It wasn’t comfortable, not only no food and water, but no comfort either. All the luxuries of civilization completely removed. Just, Jesus, the animals, the ouchy terrain and Diabolo, it says in the greek, the devil, The tempter.

Jesus trusted the Spirit to take him out there. That’s pretty brave. All of this civilization and comfort is all over here and yet God says, better yet, leave all of that and sit in suffering. Sounds like a fun time. The scratches and and the numb limbs and pins and needles, the hunger pains, head aches, getting into ketosis is never fun. (remember atkins?) He had to have been tempted a million times during that process of separation to just get up and go home. And it would have been easier than you think.

Let’s try something. Let’s test your muppets knowledge (Near-Far Performance).

So here in Houston, if you want to get to the desert you have to drive 8 hours West into my home country of West Texas which is the northeastern edge of the Chihuahua desert. The land gradually changes and gets more arid and craggy until you look around and realize you aren’ t in Kansas anymore. But since you drove all day you might as well make a trip out of it because it’s a long way back. But in the Holy Land, which is only a 100 miles long and 35 miles wide, traveling west to east you go from sea level to 2000 feet in no time and then back to below sea level in an equally short distance. There are mountain ridges that run along the length of the country and these produce a weather phenomenon called a rain shadow. The warm moist air from the coast gets blown up to the mountains where it cools and the rain falls out BEFORE it goes over the mountain. So, on one side of the mountain there is green and abundance; sheeps and goats, grapes and grass, bunnys and bulls and on the other side of the mountain is NOTHIN’: rocks, brambles, dirt, and danger. It’s brutal and, when you are at the top of the ridge, It’s no further away to get to the the good stuff than it is to get to the grizzly stuff. It’s about as far as the near/far thing we just did. Jesus did not have to go far far away to experience his deprivation. He could have walked to the other side of the ridge anytime and he could have enjoyed that milk and honey. But the Spirit lead him there with purpose and he stayed in the grim part and listened. And the devil takes him to task.

He says, “You look hungry. Okay big guy, Turn the rocks to bread. And Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 8:3 to him. “People won’t live only by bread.”

Then the devil leads him up to the top of that ridge (where Jesus can see the green stuff) and says, “Hey, look at all that stuff. I can give all that to you, right now. You don’t even have to wait. And Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6:13 “You will worship the Lord your God and serve only him.” In other words, “I’m doing this God’s way. I’m trusting in God. I’m not going to take the short cut. I will stay here and learn what God will have me learn.”

Then the Devil takes Jesus to the temple and quotes another smooth line of scripture at Jesus, as if to show that he knows scripture too, but Jesus comes right back with, “It also says don’t test the Lord Your God,” Deuteronomy 6:16. Often, people that don’t have your best interests in mind will come at you with, “The bible says, this.” and like Jesus, we can often point to another scripture and say, “It also says this.”

We have to read scripture deeply and look at the dialogue that happens within and see the thrust of the whole narrative. It’s a complicated document that was written over thousands of years and in just as many realities. You can’t reduce it to soundbites and Jesus doesn’t take the bate.

So what does all this mean. And why do we hear about it now. This is the first Sunday in Lent, right? What do many of us do for Lent? Anyone? Give something up. Why? Is it penance? Is it punishment. Is it purification? Jesus didn’t need purification, or penance, so why was he doing it? And if you do it, what should your motivation be?

In Deuteronomy, we heard this morning that GOD gave Israel a place to call home and warned them to remember the outsider because they were once outsiders. So what do you do with this land that God hands you? Make sure you include the homeless and the wandering, because you came from there. Don’t forsake your roots. Now that you have power, don’t use your power to put others down, like you were put down. Rely instead on God’s power and remember that it is God that is your provider.

The Psalm which you might recognize from the beloved hymn “On Eagle’s Wings.” Verses 14-16: “I will deliver those who cling to me; I will them up, because they know my, name. They will call me, and I will answer them: “I will be with them in trouble; I will rescue and honor them. With long life will I satisfy them and show them my salvation.”

Those who rely on God will be delivered.

**Because — they relied on God.**

In the Second Reading in Romans Paul is wrangling with who is in and who is out. Who get’s to be in the Kingdom of God, Jews or Gentiles, this group or that group. And Paul says, Those that ask get in. Those that lean on God, those that trust in God get in. No matter what group you belong to. Just ask to come in and you are a citizen on God’s Good Kingdom. That’s it. It’s the most merciful, charitable, egalitarian construction imaginable.

So back to the question of why give something up for Lent. It’s not a sacrifice. It’s not penance. It’s an opportunity. An opportunity to remind ourselves that our strength, our deliverance, the sustenance of life is God. It’s a reminder that when we are uncomfortable, when we are worried, when we are weighed down with life, rather than trusting in our own delights and powers, our own wealth and wisdom, we trust in God and God’s wisdom. We remember that all good things come from God our creator. That is what Jesus was reinforcing and leaning on his trek into in the wilderness. It wasn’t a test of loyalty but a time to rejoice in and appreciate all the things that God gives us. The diabolo, try as it might, could not pull Jesus’s focus from the will and bounty of God. And Jesus would continue that trajectory right through Holy Week where Jesus did the hardest thing of all to elevate each of us beyond our deserving. Those temptaions would doubtless pop up again and again up to the moment of death as Jesus lived out his ministry. And in this version of the story, Luke makes clear that the devil retreated but would be back to tempt Jesus at the next opportunity. But Jesus stayed the course for You and I. Jesus thought more of God’s will and more for each of us, all of us, in all of time, than he did for his own interests.

What does life look like for each of us? Our time on this earth is short. What would our lives be like if, instead of hiding from the rough stuff, instead of taking the easy way out of things and cheating, instead of dwelling on what we don’t have, we fixed our gaze on God and gave thanks for all thing abundance that God gives us, all of the things that God empowers us to share with us others, all the love that we can show to the neighbor, all of the concern we can have for the other, all the Wanderers and outsiders. Even in his fasting misery, Jesus cared enough about diabolo, to engage in a heartfelt discussion with him. What if we rely on the bounty of God’s great generosity and welcome the most obvious AND the most unlikely into the plenty of the wondrous and bountiul Kingdom of God.

Amen.