Matthew 4:1-17
1Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. 3The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” 4But he answered, “It is written,
‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
5Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, 6saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written,
‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’”
7Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
8Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; 9and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” 10Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written,
‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’”
11Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.
12Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. 13He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, 14so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:
15“Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles—
16the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light,
and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.”
17From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
Jesus went to the wilderness to figure things out
He went away from the cities and villages, off the roads into the wild areas where there were no people to distract him
He went without a lot of supplies…
probably didn’t need rain gear for it was desert
Seems he took little or no food, for he got hungry
And he sat down and pondered what he was to do with his life.
And in the midst of that profound concentration, he met with some of the classic temptations of career choice
Now you might ask yourself…why is the preacher this morning, on the fourth Sunday of Advent, avoiding the stories that we usually hear about as we approach Christmas
There is no reference to Gabriel and his disturbing announcements
No reaction from Mary, Joseph, Elizabeth or Zachariah…
We are not reading the shepherds or wise men, not a word about the Star that hung above the cradle…No chorus of angels this morning
Not even shepherds or sheep…
The answer is pretty simple: I wanted to go “outside” the usual, to step exstatically into something that at first seems to have no connection with Xmas
Especially Christmas as we Anglo’s celebrate it with greenery, exchange of gifts, feasting and Yule Logs, department stores and TV specials about snowmen and flying reindeer and Walmarts price cuts…
There are no lights in the sermon this morning (although that is certainly a fine reference for Advent as we have read in the lesson this morning)
I wanted to emphasize by their absence all these things and ask the question again Who is this Jesus fellow…and why do we celebrate his birth?
For there is great temptation in our celebrations to leave ourselves comfortably with the familiar
We have grown up with the birth Narratives:
Matthew and his story about Gabriel, the manger, the wise men, the escape to Egypt
Luke and backstory about John, his account of Glorious choirs of angels and shepherds scurrying about to tell the glad news.
But we have also grown up with the absence of any birth story in Mark, or John, or Paul
Paul’s writings are the earliest that have become authoritative
Mark was the first written Gospel…
And John the Last.
We are tempted to let Matthew and Luke create the whole of our understanding of Jesus advent and birth…
So in attempting to avoid the temptation, I went 2 chapters forward to a time when Jesus Ministry was about to begin
Who was this Jesus and why do we celebrate his birth?
First of all, he was a profound person…a man of depth and spiritual substance
He did not just follow in his father’s footsteps, learning to be a carpenter, growing up to please his Mom with a family of his own…bringing his wife and children to dinner on the high holidays…
He decided, to follow the Heavenly Father’s path, a path offered to many, but taken by only one
He left the normal behind and struggled with the great issues of the human condition
Should I make a lot of money? No…I’ll live by God’s word
Should I risk my own safety, life and limb for adventure? No…I’ll not test God’s intentions for me
Should I seek political power, aspire to wealth and influence? No.I’ll just serve God as best I can, with my whole being and let Godspirit flow through me into the world
Today, as Xns have for centuries, we celebrate Jesus advent and birth because he surmounted the temptations to which most of us succumb
To live normal lives
To seek to earn our bread
and assume what ever secular authority and influence we can
And while those who encountered Jesus knew there was something extraordinary about him, it really wasn’t clear, perfectly clear, until after his death
We celebrate his birth because of his resurrection!
We celebrate his birth, not like a Kings birth or a presidents birth with a day off, but we celebrate his birth with a struggle of our own
Preparing to celebrate Jesus birth, we review the prophets messages
Repentence, re thinking, reclaiming justice and radical obedience
Relighting the light of witness to others, to show Godspirit to the entirety of the world’s populations
Struggling to understand how God want’s to use us now in this modern wilderness of competing voices and the barrage of pleasant techno-virtual- realities
If we are to be joy, if we are to be light, if we are to be Good News, if we are to truly celebrate Jesus the Christs entrance into our hearts, minds, wills…, we have understand his temptations, his struggle, his profound spiritual depth
So…it seems to me…we have to go to the wilderness…or at least someplace where we are not distracted by the hustle of commercialism, or the hubbub of social engagements
and work on what we are tempted by
We might begin by asking: how deep is our Christmas?
What are the issues and concerns that God wants us to address…to respond to?
People in Haiti dying of Cholera?
People in Pakistan whose homes have been washed away?
Wars in Afganistan and Iraq that linger maliciously?
The lack of adequate food, shelter or health care for a large segement of American People?
Immigration?
Abuse in homes, random shootings…
The list of ugly issues that streams to us through the media could be pretty depressing…
And we are tempted…tempted…to put them off, to assign the responsibility for them to others.
Jesus didn’t…
Because he wrestled with the tempter…and avoided evil
He took up his ministry and called for repentence…and entry into God’s inbreaking kingdom…
Then he went about healing, teaching, confronting, changing the human condition with love and kindness, compassion and right relationship
And the world has never been the same since
We are tempted by the familiarity of Xmas
…to be lifted by the joyful singing
…to be delighted by the gift giving
…to enjoy the look of children’s faces…
…to be lost in the whirl of activities
…to avoid going into the wilderness and the awful confrontations with the tempter
We can look about our world today
…and see that yet so many sit in darkness, sit in the shadow of death (from plague, natural disaster or political oppression)
but can we hear Jesus message: “Repent!”?
Repentence is a process that begins in the wilderness confrontations with our temptations…
Repentence is a process of learning that we are a part of the Creator’s creation, a web of life in which we must be responsible to our neighbors, across the street or across the planet…doing God’s redemptive kingdom work
Repentence is a part of the Advent/Christmas preparations…that moves prophet message and Godspirit into our minds anew…allowing the whole of the Jesus event, all of the holy story, to be a part of our motivating consciousness
When temptation is overcome, repentence begins and the light dawns and becomes a great light…Jesus light
Are we ready…to own the baby…to make his lifelight our celebration?
Dec. 24 Christmas Eve "In the Wilderness: Fed"
John 6:31-42
31Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” 32Then Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” 34They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”
35Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. 36But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. 37Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away; 38for I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. 39And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. 40This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day.”
41Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 42They were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”
Other than the giving of gifts, there is no activity more associated with Christmas than eating!
When I was first married, we lived on a budget that was sooooo tight, that eating at McDonalds was a real treat…(when burgers were still $.15!)
…which we allowed ourselves just once a week.
We justified it by saying: “Well we have to eat anyway!”
So we turned a basic necessity into a celebration!
Eating is a basic necessity for sustaining human life! (no arguments)
Truly it can be said we eat to live (though some of us live to eat!)
And yet every good moment of life can be celebrated with a good meal!
Within our faith tradition, meals have become more than a necessity
They have become first, a symbol of our communion with God (the Lord’s Supper!)
…and the feast that celebrates our faith in God
Throughout Xn history, there has been a feast associated with the high moments of ritual: from Passover, to the Eucharist, to the feasts on Saint’s days.
But at the root of our most ancient of traditions lies a memory: that God liberated his chosen people from the slavery in Egypt, led them across the desert wilderness…and fed them.
He fed them with quails and with manna
Even when they doubted God’s ability to sustain them,
even when they complained about the food and the conditions…God fed them.
Our scripture reading this evening, taken from John’s gospel is probably not used as much during Xmas as the birth narratives in Luke and Matthew.
But it is just as appropriate for it tells the same story
God sends into the hungry world, his spiritual nourishment, the sustenance of salvation
Proof of the promises made by the prophets, Jesus is himself, the bread of life, the sustaining word, the presence of God in the midst of the craziness, the wilderness of human life
But Jesus is not just talking about bread, (like wonder bread or rye bread or pita bread or sour dough)…he is talking about a much more profound bread.
It is the bread that comes from God’s logos, his “word” his ordering principle that makes life more than biological survival,
It is the way of living, an ordering of life, that brings meaning into the lives of every human, everywhere.
It is the word about right relationship, it is the logic about justice and peace, it is the reason for compassion, healing and learning the way and how to live with each other.
This word is what the world, the crazy wild world is still hungry for
It is a bread which satisfies at the most profound, existential level, a spiritual hunger which when eaten allows us to travel through whatever wilderness we inhabit.
This hunger, this spiritual craving, is what people seek to satisfy in the trying to acquire lots of earthly goods, or in their claims to be spiritual even if not religious,
it is a driving hunger that too often ends in addictions,
it is a gnawing emptiness that promotes one person’s welfare over another’s
But real spiritual hunger can only be satisfied when we focus on the transcendent: trusting in God to sustain us and lead us
The church, the gathering of the those who live to the transcendent, who name Jesus as savior, who learn his words and ways…
is the place where where people can be both in the wilderness (the image which we have followed this Advent) and fed…
I want to share some images now with you…notice please, how many times there is food involved…in the city, in the wilderness in our village…
Slide Show!
What do you think…?
If a picture is worth a thousand words, we don’t have to say a thousand things about the people we have just seen!
They feed each other with a spirit that embraces unconditionally
They feed strangers in the city and their children on tops of wild mountains,
They feed each other spiritually with a sense of mutual love and compassion
They celebrate the old stories to proclaim that God is still, still with them, feeding them, leading them with more than manna in the wilderness, with the very bread of life, the life of the baby whose birth we remember tonight!
If we accept that
we who once were sent “further into the wilderness” and have now survived 348 years through the wildness of wars and depressions, of changes of government and recessions, of 46 pastors and uncountable members…
…still live in a wild, wild world of blinding complex change and ferocious need…
…then we still need to be about feeding each other,
and feeding those who seek the child whose birth we celebrate,
this child who grew known as Mary and Joseph’s son, who becomes for us all: the bread of life
For our journey is not over, our spiritual hunger still motivates us, and there are those who need to be fed in the post-modern wilderness of now becoming the future, those whom we can still invite to be fed at this our Christmas feast!
Sermon Dialogue: "Where is the Child?"
Dec. 26
Background:
Context:: Matthew, writing to a Jewish-Christian audience ties the birth of Jesus to the prophecies with which his audience is familiar.
The “wisemen” are magi, Persian astrologers. They watched for “signs” in the heavens which they believed influenced events on earth.
Herod the Great died about 4 B.C. His anxiety was that his children would be denied opportunity to rule.
The flight to Egypt is colored by a quote fro Hosea 11 which refers to Israel’s sojourn in Egypt. Rachel, Jacob’s wife, died in childbirth (Jer. 31).
The text: Matthew 2:1-20 (NRSV)
1In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, 2asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.” 3When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; 4and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. 5They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet:
6‘And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.’”
7Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. 8Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.” 9When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. 11On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 12And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.
13Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” 14Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, 15and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, “Out of Egypt I have called my son.”
16When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men. 17Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:
18“A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”
19When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, 20“Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead.” 21Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. 22But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee. 23There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, “He will be called a Nazorean.”
Evocative words, ideas, images, feelings? With whom do we identify
Seeking
Would this part of the Jesus story make a good movie?
What part of this story do we find the most meaningful?
How does this story encourage our seeking God?
“Wise men still seek him” just a bumper sticker?
Why is it wise to seek Jesus? What does that look like? Who does?
How do we seek the child? Where is the child these days? (meaning?)
How do we use historic data or prophecy to seek Jesus?
What signs of influence do we see in our own time that cause us to anticipate what God will do? (Are there “stars” for us to follow?)
How do those who are jealous or skeptical of Jesus still react to him?
Does Jesus or his followers seek political influence?
How do we integrate the images of baby, shepherd and ruler today?
Gifting
What gifts are ours to give? Which gifts last the longest?
To whom do we give them if we can’t present them at the manger?
Does our Christmas cultural obsession with “gifts” obscure the original meaning?
Worship
Where is the child today? (locus in culture?) Removed from influence?
What happens to this story from January => November?
How does this story help us worship (give worth to) Jesus?