When there was nothing but God

Wilderness is a potent symbol in the telling of God's story.

In the beginning, when God began creating, there was nothing; thus the primal wilderness.  In this space, God was - moving with power, calling into being, distinguishing and separating - a pure experience of divine power, imagination, and creativity.  It set the stage for what wilderness could be, a time and place where the Divine Creator was at work, shaping new paths, bringing light to new visions.

When the people of Israel landed in the Sinai wilderness, it would have been helpful if they had remembered this.  But it is hard.  It is hard to lean into the future when the world you have known disappears.  It is hard to trust that something life-giving will be revealed when your heart is weighted down with grief over what has been lost.  It is hard to put one foot in front of the other when there is no destination in sight and worry fills the wee hours of the morning. Faithfulness to God's calling and trusting in God's powerful presence frequently looks like foolishness and folly.

In those spaces, at those times, we need the God who brings life out of nothing more than some star dust and love.  Thank God that is exactly the God who has come to us and claimed us as 'beloved children' both in the garden and in the wilderness, in life and in death.

Please, not the wilderness!

Whatever counts as wilderness in your life, I'd bet you would prefer to avoid it.  It might be that time between test and diagnosis or those months after a romantic break-up.  It might be those long, painful days into weeks (please God not too many months) between jobs.  It can even be that horrid time when a loved one is lost, a lifetime of work is destroyed, or a dream is shattered.

The wilderness is that place where the wild things are - beyond civilization, beyond the familiar, outside the norms. Animals with names like uncertainty, fear, anxiety, insomnia....and the worst of emotions, insecurity roam free and flourish.  It is the place where whatever you considered absolutely essential (the very word means 'necessary for life') which might have been as mundane as a short line at the coffee shop, has now morphed into the most basic of human needs:  a kind word, a place to sit, a little comfort food.

And that's just the first stage of wilderness living.

In the wilderness, we are naked.  All of our status is stripped away.  Perhaps that is the first pain.  We no longer have a title, like 'teacher' or 'barista' or 'husband' or 'healthy.'  We no longer have an answer to that friendly question, "What do you do?"   or maybe "How's it going?" Routine is gone; expectations shift.

But, of course, it goes deeper.  We are unnerved by whatever has thrown us into this barren place without road markers, without GPS.  Who am I?  How did I get here?  Where am I going?  How will I make it?  Looking back on it, our teen years were probably the first time we were conscious of this unsettling wilderness space.  In a space without boundary lines to mark our edges, we fear flying off the face of the earth.  We think we will disintegrate; we will lose ourselves.

Oh Lord, how we hate the wilderness.  Please don't send us there.

It's a cry that our Lord might not truly understand, for if we spend some time in the God story we call the Bible, the wilderness is where God does some of her best work.  Sinai?  Elijah escaping Jezebel?  Jesus in the Judean desert?  Jonah? 

See you tomorrow.

40 years or 40 days, same old battle

"Trusting in God is hard work.  It requires that you lay down your point of view which is grounded in the past and assume God's point of view which is grounded in the future.  An unknown future.  No matter what is promised, there is no certainty about how the whole thing is going to play out.  So the only thing left is to trust in this God, God's love for you, God's good intentions, and God's ability to give what God has promised.  It's either that or whining.  Stuck in the wilderness, Israel whined their way to the promised land for all 40 of the years."

That was yesterday's meandering thoughts around the 40 years that Israel spent in the wilderness trying to find their way to the promised land.  Well, actually, they were trying to find their way to the place where they could trust God.  That place is the promised land for all of us.

But today we consider Jesus' 40 days in  the wilderness, sandwiched between his baptism and the temptations of the devil.  What kind of transition is at play here?  Are 'the temptations' not so much a destination but a playing out of the challenge of wilderness survival and trusting in God?

When you look at the whole scope of the story of Jesus, you can see that the baptism is the signal that Jesus is moving from whatever he was doing before (in Luke this includes the infancy narratives) and what he is being called to do as the Son of God.  He is anointed by the Holy Spirit - an ancient indicator of God's pleasure and calling, and simultaneously, an empowerment for the tasks ahead.  That same Spirit drives Jesus into the wilderness; apparently it is time for Jesus to prepare for what lies ahead.

What lies ahead is temptation by the devil.  Now the devil generally represents that which challenges our devotion to God.  Certainly this is often 'evil' but it often simply starts out as just a convenient choice or a self-serving decision not some gigantic evil done to another.  That is exactly  how it starts out in the Lucan account of this encounter.  'Heh, Jesus, you're hungry.  No one is going to fault you for turning these stones into bread.  Really, it's no big deal.'  That was the devil's first ploy.

It is often said that the devil is in the details and so it is here.  For Jesus there is no such thing as 'no big deal' when it comes to choosing satisfying his comfort versus listening/following God's call.  Everything is important because God is all in all.  There stands Jesus with one foot in the local Subway shop and the other in the temple.  So the first temptation is to count some things 'no big deal.'

The devil ups the ante.  Now the temptation is about showing off how smart/ powerful/ beautiful/ blessed you are.  Just a little demonstration for the folks.  It will make it so much easier for the masses to believe you are the Son of God, Jesus, if you give them a little show.  So possibly the second temptation is to prove to others just how 'good' you are, how faithful you are, how compassionate you are.  It will make it so much easier for them to see you as the good Christian you are (or at least call you a good person at your funeral).

So the devil lays it out before Jesus.  You don't know what God has in store for you; grab the power now and enjoy yourself while you can.  We know what God has in store for Jesus and grabbing power while it is offered certainly looks like a good idea.  Except it is not God's idea; it is not God's plan; it is not the way to which Jesus is called.

The temptation for Jesus is the same as the temptation for us: to choose our wisdom over God's which is, in the end, to turn away from God.  Jesus pulled an A on this exam.  We never will.  Perfection will never be ours.

Except through Jesus....which is why we are eternally grateful for God's mercy and Jesus' faithfulness.

40 days in the wilderness

If you pay attention to the stories of the Bible, you figure out fairly quickly that 40 is a significant number.  Most of us remember that the people of Israel were in the wilderness for 40 years.  Jesus goes out into the wilderness after his baptism for 40 days.  I'm fairly sure we are supposed to draw connections between those two events.  Let's start with Israel.

After their escape through the Red Sea, Israel wandered around in the wilderness for 40 years seeking the land that God had promised them.  It was a long time.  They tried worshipping other gods.  They complained about being thirsty.  They complained about starving.  Then they complained about the manna that God sent to feed them.  The children of Israel whined, complained,  murmured and told golden stories about how wonderful life was back in Egypt.  One scholar said that the 40 years (the approximate length of one generation of people) was not needed to get the people of Egypt; God needed the 40 years to get Egypt out of the people.

40 years.  It is an indicator of how difficult a transition it was for the people of Israel.  Life was terrible in Egypt but at least they knew what to expect.  Life in the so-called 'promised land' was unknown, and therefore scary.  'Better the Devil you know than the Devil you don't know' seemed to be Israel's motto.

Trusting in God is hard work.  It requires that you lay down your point of view which is grounded in the past and assume God's point of view which is grounded in the future.  An unknown future.  No matter what is promised, there is no certainty about how the whole thing is going to play out.  So the only thing left is to trust in this God, God's love for you, God's good intentions, and God's ability to give what God has promised.  It's either that or whining.  Stuck in the wilderness, Israel whined their way to the promised land for all 40 of the years.

Trusting God is no easier today.  It simply isn't.  We are smart people and we know that things don't always turn out the way you want them too.  We know that bad things happen to everybody at some time.  We know that there are a lot of untrustworthy people out there.  People we know; people we can google.  God is way bigger than all of that.  Trusting God is not easy.

Most days we can muddle along without giving all of this a great deal of thought....until one day we find ourselves in a wilderness - stuck between what was and what will be - and our anxiety skyrockets and our trusting plummets.  We stand knee deep in sand and feel the weight of the moment and the uncertainty of the future.  For people of faith, these are the moments which insistently raise the question How much do you trust this God?

These are wonderfully horrible moments. Trust God or Abandon God?  One is beyond difficult, and can easily leave you looking gullible.  The other will leave you in the wild places until you find your way back to the God who is calling out to you, with life draining out all along the way and hope a long forgotten wish.

How was Alexander to know that the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day was a gift, it was the day he and God could find each other yet again.    [one of my favorite children's books  Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Godd, Very Bad Day.  Worth a read.]

that pesky devil........

"The devil made me do it."
Flip Wilson introduced that long standing excuse for almost everything into the comedy scene loooong ago when I was young.  It is an excuse that comes in handy most days......even if it holds no water.  No one takes anyone seriously when they claim the devil made them do it.

Yet we get this story about Jesus and the devil and temptations in the wilderness and we have to figure out what the writer is trying to tell us.  Certainly Jesus can and does resist the temptations that the devil puts in front of him.

They are telling temptations: #1 to satisfy his own needs (since he was seriously hungry for bread) over and above whatever God the Father had in mind for him.
              #2 to satisfy his own ego needs by claiming all kinds of status with a little bit of showmanship as he throws himself off a high place and waits for the angels to catch him.  Who doesn't have some ego needs that seek a bit of status?
              #3 to satisfy himself with a grab for power, really big power.  The devil offers this world and all the power it holds if Jesus will throw over his loyalty to God the Creator and take up worship of the devil instead.  Wow!  Power!  Pretty enticing.

Why are we told this story?  What does the author of Luke want us to see here?  Is there something here that might help us as followers of Jesus to make our way in this world?

Those are good questions and I certainly don't have the definitive answers to them but let's explore.  Why are we told this story?  It could be to show that Jesus didn't just float through this world and this life.  The temptations that we face, Jesus faced as well.  Although we can talk about satisfying our lusts for food or power or status, I think there is a much larger temptation being thrown at Jesus.  It is a temptation we face as well, we just don't recognize it when it comes our way.

The big temptation here is for Jesus to give up what God the Father is calling him to do.....to mend and heal the world for the sake of the world which is loved by its creator....and instead to do what makes Jesus feel good, look good, and stand in a position of power.

God was setting Jesus out on a mission to the world where love, sacrifice and service were the foundation for power.  Jesus was not sent out to stand among the rulers of the world but among the oppressed.  Jesus was not sent to satisfy himself but to feed the hungry.  Jesus was not sent to pull off crazy stunts to get everyone's attention.  He was sent to be the source of all life, joined with the God Creator in unison bringing about a new thing.

As followers of Jesus, that is what we are called to do as well.  Therefore, we face the same temptation: to throw over our loyalty and trust in the Creator God and join the secular team of this world.

Makes giving up a little bread look a lot easier, right?

Thirst and fear.....a bad combination

Do you remember when Hurricane Katrina hit and thousands of people were housed in the local football stadium....and they ran out of water?  Folks were desperate.   Those of us looking on from afar couldn't imagine how the government didn't plan for this eventuality.

Thirst can kill you......and a whole lot quicker than starvation.  So it is no wonder that the Israelites are an anxious group when they arrive at Rephidim and can't see any water anywhere.  This is not the kind of problem you can allow to simmer for a couple of days.  A couple of days without water is torturous.  Exodus 17.

So they turn to Moses.....in fear.  Fear for their own lives; fear for the lives of their children.  I can imagine them looking at one another and, like we did with the federal government, wonder what Moses was thinking when he took this route.  It is easy for us to suppose they should have trusted in God to provide, for God had provided before.  But a lack of water is something you need to be on top of.

They were afraid, and fear will erode faith faster than doubt any day....and at its core is death.  It is death we fear more than anything else.  Little deaths, big deaths.  Financial setbacks make us fearful; a dying relationship makes us fearful; a trip to the doctor makes us fearful.  Add to the list.  Each fear points to the death of some part of our self-image, our self-sufficiency, our hope for tomorrow.  Each fear has the potential to pull us away from God.  You don't have to stop breathing to experience death.

What do we do with our fear? (because we will continue to fear; it's human)  Two things:  talk to God and talk with a trusted person of faith.

Talk to God:  we are a resurrection people.  Not just the BIG RESURRECTION on Easter with lilies and trumpets, but a thousand small resurrections every day.  Every time fear creeps into our lives and we can see the shadow of death in the wings, we are ripe for a little resurrection.  We turn to God, confess our fear and watch for God's abiding presence as we walk through this place of darkness.

Then we talk with a trusted person of faith.  Someone who can remind us of the stories of faith, of Israel's fear in the desert, of Peter's fear during Holy Week, of their cousin George's fear when cancer was diagnosed and then witness to God's constancy.  We ask someone to surround us with the stories of faith so our fear does not drag us down into a tomb but rather, we are strengthened for the journey.

What fear handicaps your trust in God?  Take a moment and name it to yourself and then talk to God about it....the same God who raised Jesus from the dead.  There is a resurrection waiting for you.