The Spirit wants to lead you into the wilderness, away from distractions, so God can speak clearly to you and strengthen you for your ministry and life as Christ.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The First Sunday in Lent, year C
Text: Luke 4:1-13

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

If God wanted to speak to you, how would God get through?

Today Jesus walks away from the Jordan, wet from baptism, and the Holy Spirit leads him into the Judean wilderness, a harsh landscape. There he fasts for forty days, faces temptation, and at the end of his time in the desert, steps back into the world and begins his ministry.

If this story we hear every first Sunday in Lent is to be more than just an historical curiosity, if it’s supposed to mean anything to your life, then let’s be clear: Jesus intentionally enters the wilderness.

This isn’t a story about how life is sometimes a wilderness, how we can face threats, struggles, difficulties, and survive. This wilderness was completely avoidable. Jesus could’ve left his baptism and immediately begun teaching, walking his way back north to Galilee. But the Spirit led him another way.

Because the Son of God, needed to listen, needed to be connected into the life of the Triune God. The crowds, the noise, the world were all awaiting him. But first he needed to get away.

This was a critical time for Jesus.

We have no idea what it meant for the divine inner relationship of the Trinity to have the Son in human flesh. But we do know Jesus prayed. He spoke to the One he called Father and was filled with the One he called Spirit. Being in the wilderness, focused, listening, helped Jesus know clearly who he was, what he was meant to be, and what path he would be walking as he left the wilderness.

Every temptation, every challenge he faced in the wilderness, returned in his ministry, and most clearly in Gethsemane that night before his death. Would he take advantage of his divine power to help himself? Would he try to win the world over by force? Would he trust the Father and the Spirit to be with him even if he were threatened with death? This isn’t the last time he’d face these questions, nor the last time he’d get away to pray and listen. But from here, Jesus knew how he would answer them.

If God wanted to speak to you, how would God get through?

If Jesus, the very Son of God, needed to get away from distractions and noise to focus, listen, and be prepared and strengthened by the voice of God for the life he would live, don’t you also need that? But how will God get through the distractions?

What’s the last thing you see at night – is it the light of your phone screen? Is it the television, putting you to sleep? How quickly after you rise in the morning do you reconnect with news, music, social media? How often is your house or office or car quiet of any noise – radio, music, television?

Certainly some here don’t live by the light of a smartphone, that’s a generational thing. For some, rather than the noise of small children or the bustle of getting ready for work, the tiredness of coming home late and crashing on the couch for something mindless, for some perhaps the day is filled with too many empty hours, with too little to do. But what do you do with those hours? Do you fill them with distractions?

In our chaotic world we’ve lost any sense of still places, of going aside from the day even a few minutes, simply to listen. We don’t often speak to each other of seeking wilderness, places to listen to God’s voice for the day, or find time for it.

This isn’t meant to be a guilt trip. But ask this again, “If God wanted to speak to you, how would God get through?” Would God be able to get you to put aside the latest news, turn off your favorite program, stop your rushing or sleep-walking through the day and get your attention?

And if God can’t get through, then ask this: “Whose voice am I listening to every day? Who really leads me?”

It’s complicated, because everyone might need a different wilderness.

I’ve learned more of my need as I’ve gotten older. I’ve always struggled with the traditional fifteen or thirty minute “devotions” in the morning. It’s hard for me to remember it, and I often fall asleep. But I’ve learned silence in the morning as I walk around and prepare is deeply helpful. I also read and contemplate on a daily email devotion. But I’ve recently realized how often the last minutes of my day are spent with a lighted screen in my face, and I need to consider if that’s how I want to end each day.

A number of years ago I discovered that I loved walking as an exercise. But it has also become my best wilderness. For nearly an hour almost every day I can walk in silence – no music or podcasts – and listen to the world, listen to God. The walking becomes prayer, give and take with God, listening and speaking. It’s harder to find silence walking in winter – due to the weather I do it inside, and the gym is noisy – but it’s still a wilderness walk for me.

I don’t have a prescription for each of you. But consider Jesus’ experience and look at your day with new eyes. And pray – the Holy Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness and longs to lead you as well. How might the Spirit help? Are there places you can set aside time from distractions and other things? Can you start with five minutes of simply being open to God’s voice – perhaps beginning with reading Scripture or a devotion? Two of the classic Lenten disciplines – fasting and prayer – could be especially helpful. And whatever discipline you find, seek something you’ll continue after Easter comes, not just something for these forty days.

But we don’t have to overthink this, either.

The wonderful poet Mary Oliver, who died recently, had this wisdom to share:

It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak. [1]

“A silence in which another voice may speak.” That’s what Jesus was looking for as the Spirit led him into the desert. Where can you find such a silence? As the poet says, it doesn’t have to be elaborate or complicated. Just pay attention – even to weeds or small stones or piles of snow – find a space in your day where you are able to notice what is around you and learn to focus, a space where you aren’t filling it with any outside noise or internal anxiety. And listen.

We could help each other, starting with this Lent.

We could share, “here’s how I listen to God; here’s where my spirit is fed and I’m strengthened.” Certainly our worship here each week is a shared time apart, a wilderness to seek and listen for God. But the more of us that share our wisdom with each other about our daily walk, the more chances there are you’ll hear of possible paths into the wilderness that could help you hear God’s voice.

So if you have ways you’d like to share, talk to me. We could put these in the Olive Branch, either written by you for the community, or given to me to write up. And if you wonder about other people’s practices of seeking wilderness, ask them. Trust each other that we’re all desiring a faithful path, and we’re all struggling to find it. Trust that God has already planted a lot of wisdom in this community. Let’s take advantage of that to help each other in this path.

Because here’s the Good News, the great news of this story of Jesus’ temptation for you: God most definitely wants to speak to you and draw you into God’s life.

The Holy Spirit desires to take you into a wilderness, to connect with the Triune God who loves you and knows you and dreams for you. The Spirit says, “Come, find a place of silence where another voice may speak to you.”

You know you are sent into the world as Christ. But what you need, what I need, is to be as prepared as Jesus was for that sending. To be so joined into the life of the Triune God that when setbacks or temptations or suffering or frustration or boredom come, you are strong because God is in you and you can hear God, speak God into what assails you. You are clear about your purpose, and Who sent you and Who still walks with you.

So, come. Let’s help each other find wilderness. Let the Spirit lead you into a place where you can hear God’s voice and be strengthened to re-enter your life’s mission as Christ.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

[1] Mary Oliver, “Praying,” from Thirst, Beacon Press, 2006, p. 37.

Whether you’re a life-long church member or hearing for the first time, God’s trying to get your attention and call you to follow, trusting you’ll be guided and directed.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, Lectionary 5 C
Texts: Luke 5:1-11; Isaiah 6:1-8

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

Fifty-six years ago today my parents carried me, twenty-two days old, to the baptismal font at St. Matthew’s in Worthington.

My truth is that from my earliest memories I have been part of a Lutheran congregation. I have worshipped very nearly every Sunday for these 56 years. I have heard the Gospel read and preached my whole life, I have sung the hymns of the Lutheran Church my whole life, I have prayed and walked with Christians my whole life. I can’t imagine what it would be like outside the Christian faith.

I have absolutely no idea what Simon Peter is going through. Meeting God’s Son for the first time as an adult and being called to follow could never happen to me. I expect many of you are the same. Some of us here came to faith later in life, but in the established church, most congregations are full of people with no other experience than being a member of a congregation.

Today Jesus grabbed Peter’s attention, and set a clear choice before him: follow me with everything you have, or don’t.

Have you ever known such an experience? Has God ever grabbed your attention, and showed a clear crossroads in front of you, a path to take one way or the other? The challenge of being an established congregation in an established church is that rarely do any of us have this moment of sensing something new from God and knowing we’re being asked to decide what to do.

Now, Isaiah is more like us than Peter.

Isaiah is a regular practitioner of the Jewish faith, like Peter, but he’s in the Temple, worshipping. It’s likely he has only ever known the worship of the One Who Is, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. Yet on this day, Isaiah had a vision: the presence of God filling the Temple, so large that God’s hem filled up the immense interior.

And then God called Isaiah. God grabbed Isaiah’s attention with this awe-inspiring, terrifying vision, and set a clear choice before him: go where I send you, or don’t.

In Isaiah we see that even if you’ve never known anything but the faith you’ve practiced, even if you’ve always walked with people who shared your faith, God can still get your attention and set a crossroads in front of you, a path to take one way or the other. Established church or not, God’s not interested in us sitting on our status quo.

Maybe the question is, what is God doing to get your attention?

Isaiah’s vision feels like the events of Pentecost. Worship becomes this massively charged moment that can’t be avoided or unseen, whether it’s God’s hem filling the Temple or the wind and fire of the Spirit blowing through the believers. We don’t usually expect such things in our worship.

Peter’s crisis is also rare. An experienced fisherman knows what happens fishing at certain times and places, and he’s knocked over by a catch that is threatening to sink two boats, a catch that just shouldn’t be. Like Isaiah and the believers at Pentecost, Peter’s just seen something that clearly says “God is now present, in front of you.”

What do you do if you’ve never seen such things? This is why we might sit idly by. We haven’t seen sights like these. So maybe we’re not called like these were.

But you have seen and heard wonders from God. You have heard God’s Word, and have been moved to joy and tears by it. You’ve felt pulled into God’s love for the creation. You’ve seen the pain of God’s children and the suffering of the world and heard God say, “whom can I send?” You’ve experienced God’s forgiveness calm your heart, you have had a sense of God’s Spirit in you. In this very place, you’ve experienced God’s presence in worshipping with these people. Maybe what you’ve seen and heard isn’t as cinematic as these stories, but it’s no less powerful or real. Maybe what you’ve seen and heard hasn’t happened every week, but neither did these spectacles.

God is trying to get your attention, and in those moments you are no different from Isaiah or Peter.

And like them, every day Christ is saying, “Follow me, I have things I need you to do.”

Tiny choices of how you will treat the stranger you meet at the store or the driver of the other car. Larger choices of what you will do next in your life, or whether you will make changes to your lifestyle to join Christ’s blessing for the world.

God’s Word is filled with such calls, once you realize that, while your experience isn’t like exactly like Peter’s or Isaiah’s it is just as real, and that such crossroads as God places before you today have much the same clarity and much the same finality.

Because when you choose to follow, you choose to turn away from other things. Likewise, if you choose not to take Christ’s path this afternoon, or tomorrow, you choose to turn toward other things.

The question is: are you paying attention, and if so, do you see the crossroads? Then the only thing left is your answer.

A couple things can trip you up. The first is a sense that you’re not worthy.

Both Isaiah and Peter felt this. Facing the unmistakable presence of God, they both fall down and say, “I’m a sinful person! I shouldn’t be in God’s presence.”

But Isaiah’s guilt and sin are burned away. Peter is told not to be afraid, that he’s just who Jesus needs.

When we consider the immense, undying love we know from God, and then hear calls such as Paul’s call we heard last week, to love as Christ loves, we can feel our own imperfection and sin and weakness. To consider that you might be God’s chosen person to bear God’s grace and love to others can seem ludicrous.

So we make excuses, covering for our fear: I’m too old, there’s nothing I can do. I’m too busy, I can’t add anything to my life. It’s too complicated, there’s nothing I can do to make a difference. I don’t know what to do.

These are dodges, not reasons to stand still at the crossroads. But like Isaiah and Peter, God has something to say to your fear. Hear God’s words of grace to Peter as yours: “Do not be afraid.” Taste in Christ’s Meal the wonder that you are forgiven, your life cleansed by Christ’s body and blood. These are for you. These are your truth. So you can, like Isaiah and Peter and millions before you, stand up. And hear the call: “Follow me. I have need of you.”

The second thing is fretting about the details.

I can’t tell each of you right now what your crossroads are today, or what they’ll be tomorrow, or exactly what you should do. It’s easy to get stuck worrying about all the things you don’t know about following and never decide to follow. To get lost in the weeds of what might happen or what exactly God needs.

Isaiah isn’t told anything about how his ministry will work, what risks there are. Peter has no idea what it will be to fish for people, what crises he’ll face, or even what he’s supposed to do that day.

That’s always the way it is with God’s call: you hear it and you decide to follow. Or not. And if you follow, you trust God’s promise to always lead and guide you in the Spirit. The details will come later, and that’s where we help each other. We talk about our paths, about our call, and we help each other figure out the details of what it will look like today, and tomorrow. We listen to each other’s questions.

Don’t let the lack of details make you sit back into the pew and do nothing. The only question that matters is “Will you follow?” If the answer is yes, the rest will become clear.

This disconnect we sometimes feel between our lives and those of the biblical people called to follow can be dangerous and lead us to do nothing.

We can hear Peter’s call and Isaiah’s vision and decide we’re just fine as we are, assume we aren’t called. Because we didn’t experience what they did.

But the Triune God is seeking your attention, and has a path for you to follow. You are being called, you have crossroads before you every day, and choices to make.

So how will you answer God?

In the name of Jesus.  Amen