Engaging in a time of disengagement

I have lived a lot of places in my life throughout the US and even in Japan, and have friends and family scattered across the country and globe. I think it’s safe to say, based on what I’ve seen, that many people across social and political groups have found recent years and months to be a sort of desert experience: financial and personal hardship, health issues, and lots of fear and uncertainty about where things are headed.

And now, as each year, we have begun our own 40 day period of Lent, of preparation, of sharpening, of learning. Unlike Jesus, we have food during this time in the desert. But like Jesus, we are thrown into the midst of a world of rapid change and challenge.

Our translation does a bit of a disservice here, I think. Jesus didn’t just return from the Jordan like returning from a trip to the grocery store. He “turned back” (ὑπέστρεψεν) from one thing (the signs and wonders displayed at his Baptism that amazed the people and confirmed his special relationship with God the father) and toward another (the wilderness).

Jesus turns back, but his life can never be the same. Before, he could pass as just another Jew, the carpenter’s son, but now, even though he went to the Jordan to be baptized by John with “all the people”, Jesus is the only one whom God spoke to out of the clouds and said “You are my one dear son; in you I take great delight” (NET).

But it’s not yet time for Jesus to start his own ministry. Like Moses, who fasted on the mountain while the Israelites waited below, he is dragged into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit and tempted by the devil without food for 40 days.

The devil (hos diabolos) is used in the Greek Old Testament to translate Satan (the tempter). This is not the pitchfork guy with the pointy tail. No, this devil is more like the devil of Job, sent (maybe with God’s implicit permission or maybe not?) to test faith. This devil, much like in Job, has saved his best tricks for last, at the very end of 40 days of temptation without food in the wilderness.

First, he attempts to trick Jesus into using his powers to make something to eat. “If” you are the Son of God, (with heavy implication of “and lets assume you are”) command this stone to become a loaf of bread. Jesus isn’t against this kind of thing, making food from other things, in general. In Matthew, his first public miracle (immediately after his temptation) was turning water into wine. But Jesus resists this, as it is not yet time for him to be done with his fast, and he rebukes the devil with the words of scripture “one does not live by bread alone.”

Fasting is a discipline that, by and large, modern Protestant have lost. I used to fast during Lent, going one day a week without meals (just water), something I learned to value from my wife. It is a practice of depriving oneself of things beyond that which we truly need, to allow us to focus our routines more fully on the source of all good gifts, our God.

When Jesus says “one does not live by bread alone” this is the root of his point: he has fasted for 40 days and is at its very end, about to break the fast on his own but not until its purpose is fulfilled.

When we knowingly turn away from God in white lies or in trying to press fast forward to get to things we desire before their time (whether physical purchases, acclaims, or even intimacy with another), the refining work that takes place during the period of preparation is missed and the thing (good in itself) can become a source of trouble.

Having been rebuked, the Devil takes Jesus up to a high place. “High places” are often places of sacrifice, and the word ἀναγαγὼν (to bring up) is also used for bringing offerings or bringing a case to a judge. In this context, when the devil claims authority over the earth to apportion as he chooses, he is only partly lying. The devil, when he makes those claims, does not have such authority, but if Jesus were to worship him in the high place, it would be an admission that the devil was either the natural holder of such authority or its rightful delegate (e.g. priest).

If the first temptation is about rushing good things, the second is about how and to whom we make sacrifices. One of the most common Lenten “fasts” is to try and give up soda or chocolate for Lent. We reason that these are things that hurt our bodies and cost money and we should do without. Which is true. But Lent isn’t about giving things up but preparing ourselves for the greatest gifts of all, Jesus’ death and resurrection. It’s about making space in our lives.

I admit that I have a Cadbury Mini Egg problem. Not the big creme eggs but the little ones with the hard candy shells. When they come out on the shelves in February, I have to resist buying any, because I will keep eating and eating them. The crunch and milk chocolate are just right.

If I give those up for Lent, can that make space in my life? Maybe. For many of us, treats do serve in problematic ways - as a shortcut out of feeling stressed (emotional eating) OR an addiction that distracts us from higher thoughts.

Fasting is as much about changing our orientation as about making sacrifice. If we can’t afford a Diet Coke habit (another of my pet sins) and use Lent to help kick it, that’s maybe good, but not faithful in itself. But if we repurpose the time or money or mental energy we would have spent and turn it toward service of God and others, bringing our best and first to the Lord, then our fast has accomplished something truly faithful.

And finally, that gambit having also failed, the tempter takes Jesus up to the high point of Jerusalem on the Temple mount and taunts Jesus to prove his divinity, this time quoting scripture himself. Jesus replies with his own scripture that “you are not to put the Lord your God to the test”.

I studied systematic theology in seminary. A major branch of theology called “apologetics” is about the “defense” of faith through reason. It is true that our faith will be tested. It is true that talking to others about our faith (which we are certainly called to in the New Testament) often involves trying to explain using reason. But the proof of our faith (and the thing that will “win” others to welcome a relationship with Christ) is not in having the right answers, in displays of worldly success, or in acclaim, but in what we are gifted by God to be able to do for others. When Jesus says “no” to testing God’s provision for him, it’s because he knows this - that true power is not in what others do for us but what we do for others.

So what are we to take away, then? Lent, and fasting more generally, are times to practice discipline that sharpens us, to create space for devotion to God and acts of service toward others by setting aside parts of our lives that fill that space, and to build a faith that proves itself through giving, not receiving.

The struggles and the times we face may be novel and scary to us, but (as Ecclesiastes tells us) there is nothing new under the sun. We may be tempted to try and solve our problems (or even the world’s problems) faster and more efficiently, using shortcuts that compromise our commitments to what is most important. We may feel overwhelmed by everything going on in the world around us, to the point of wanting to give up and stop. But Lent calls us to slow our lives down and replace busyness with engagement (whether that takes the form of doing different things or taking space between the things or both), and it calls us to love from a place of assurance of who we are as beloved children of God.

When we do that, we follow the model of the Israelites in today’s passage from Deuteronomy, bringing our firstfruits to the Lord. And so we “together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among [us], shall celebrate with all the bounty that the Lord our God has given to us and to our house.”

Thanks be to God.