Jesus’ temptation mirrors and informs our own: it is how we grow to become who God means us to be, and we are always with God’s grace, strength, and presence throughout.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   The First Sunday in Lent, year A
   Texts: Matthew 4:1-11; Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7

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

We can’t avoid temptation in our lives. We really don’t want to.

Two stories of temptation shape our worship today. Hearing them, we wish we didn’t have to face such testing ourselves. But these stories teach us a different truth, that we can’t become who God means us to be without such trials.

The Hebrew story of human sin and our origins reveals a belief that temptation and testing are part of God’s original human design. Adam and Eve haven’t sinned yet, but already they face the suffering of being tempted to disobey. It’s not arbitrary of God. They’ll only become who they were created to be by facing and making hard choices.

And so the Holy Spirit leads Jesus into the wilderness after his baptism, not to give him temptation, but to encourage him to face the inevitable. This testing wasn’t arbitrary, either. Jesus will only become who he is meant to be if he faces and makes these hard choices.

These stories have much to say to us about our temptation and testing.

Here we note that, facing temptation, knowing who you are matters.

Adam and Eve, standing here for all humanity, are unsure of who they truly are. They live in God’s good creation, beloved children of God. They depend on God for all good, and are asked to trust that God knows good and evil, and obey.

But they are tempted to forget they are the creatures, and want to be God themselves, in control. They want to name things as good and evil, and do what they want, instead of obeying. They forget the joy of walking with God, and are tempted to choose a path where they put themselves above God.

They are us.

But Jesus walks into the wilderness wet from his baptism. He also knows he is the beloved Son of God, he just heard it. In his temptations that’s put to the test, too, but he remains dependent upon his Father’s grace and love and so withstands the trial. He chooses obedience over doing what he wants. His answer at Gethsemane, “not my will but yours,” begins in this desert.

The settings here are also important, a lush garden and a desert.

Remarkably, the one who faithfully resists was in the desert. The Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness, perhaps to remove him from distractions, from the world’s noise, from his cares and daily needs, to focus on listening to God, and facing what paths lay ahead. Not weakened by his forty days in the desert, spiritually Jesus was strengthened, ready to face Satan, ready to consider who he is to be, free of distraction.

Adam and Eve have a rich life of pleasure, but they didn’t make the right decision. Maybe they were too comfortable. We also struggle, maybe because we live in God’s lush creation, privileged with much of God’s riches, and have even more distractions. When do we deprive ourselves of any comforts or pleasures? When are we free of noise? When are we silent, and not listening to news or music, or checking social media, or watching television, or feasting richly?

Our puny idea of “giving up something” for Lent waters down the deep wisdom of our ancestors in faith who understood this wilderness. They realized that only by letting go of things that pull at us, demand of us, distract us, can we hear God. Only by going into the wilderness and getting away from the noise, can we hear God. If you’re giving anything up, let it be a true fasting for this time, so you can focus. Or even something you won’t pick up again at Easter, but leave forever at the edge of the wilderness as you walk toward your testing.

Third, these trials and temptations are core to being human, being faithful.

These stories aren’t about being tempted to run a stop-sign, or cheat in a card game. These trials deal with life and death. That helps us. Because here we see the challenges before us. The questions of who we are, and of whether we can focus on God. And then there are Jesus’ three great tests.

Jesus is asked to turn stone into bread, to use his power to save himself.

At Gethsemane he has the same decision: will the Messiah save himself? He can’t set aside his power and face the cross if he doesn’t first do it at the beginning of his ministry on this lesser thing.

How will we make the right choice ourselves, to sacrificially offer ourselves to another in all sorts of ways, if we don’t first face this core question? If we insist on using all our wealth and resources to take care of ourselves instead of sharing for our neighbor, we will find the greater sacrifices even harder.

Jesus is asked to jump off the Temple, to show he trusts his Father.

To test God is with him before he will obey. At the cross, Jesus will face the ultimate test of that trust. At one point there he cried his doubt and fear out loud, before finding that trust at the end. But this first trust in the desert helped him trust at the cross.

Likewise, we are tempted to test if God really loves us, supports us, before we risk obedience. We want proof that all will work out before we try to obey, and use our lack of such evidence as an excuse to do nothing. We must learn to step out in faith, trusting God, on everyday things, so we can have the courage for the much larger steps needed to really change the world.

Jesus is asked to give up his core identity, and he can rule the world.

Sent here to bring us all back into God’s rule, Jesus can short-cut that and take over the world with political power. Three years later in Jerusalem, he will have the same decision. Will he destroy Roman power, overthrow the leaders of his people? Will the Messiah will use power to get what he wants? This desert decision matters, because accepting arrest and what follows will be a much harder decision.

This is critical for us. Politically, do we support and encourage our leaders to use force and dominance to get what we think is good? Personally, will we manipulate others, try and get what we want however we can, even if it means we aren’t loving? Do the ends justify the means? Jesus helps us see that the wrong means always lead to bad ends. It’s the every day choices we face where we learn this hard path and prepare for the larger ones.

These are the tests we face. How we face them determines which turns we take and who we become.

As we face these choices, we remember today that we are God’s beloved. We, like Jesus, walk into our path wet from our baptism, and like Jesus, God is always with us on our path. Remember, the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness, and was always with him.

And we would do well to seek wilderness, get rid of competing voices and distractions, so we can hear God’s voice, and know God’s presence.

And last, we remember we are loved by God in Christ who has faced these same trials, died for them, and is risen to new life. Nothing can separate us from that love.

We can’t avoid testing or temptation. It’s how we are made to grow into the beautiful beings God intended us to be. When we remember what we see here, then we’ll find we have God’s strength to make these hard choices, and God’s grace to learn and grow from them.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

We are dust, but God breathes life into us; we know we sin, but hear the voice of God’s love calling to us constantly; this is the shape of our journey.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   Ash Wednesday
   Texts: Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21; Joel 2:1-2, 12-17; 2 Corinthians 5:20b – 6:10

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

“Return to me with all your heart,” says the Lord.

“Be reconciled to God,” says Paul on behalf of Christ.

“Return,” says the prophet Joel, because “God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.”

This is the voice that calls us here today. A voice using those words. It’s not a voice of rebuke, it’s the voice of the prodigal father in Jesus’ parable, longing for the return of a beloved child. It’s not a voice that crushes with fear. It’s a voice that calls hope of bringing us home.

This voice we hear today comes directly from the heart of the Triune God, who longs for us to be reconciled, restored. It’s a voice that, if we hear it, would lead us to drop everything, turn and come home. A voice that, the prophet says, would cause a wedding couple to leave their ceremony, an infant to leave the breast.

Jesus says our treasure is where our heart is. But the voice we hear today tells us that before we know where our heart is there is this truth: we are in God’s heart, beloved, desired. And we begin our journey of Lent with that wonder.

We’ve learned to face our sin and failure in shame, with heads down. That’s a problem.

The Scriptures certainly criticize our lack of love, our failure to bring justice and peace, our hurts that we lay on each other, on our neighbor, on this good creation. Some of that may feel like shame.

But that isn’t how God comes to us, or calls us home. In our flesh, bearing our humanity, Christ always offers welcome and hope, even to those who are doing wrong. “Neither do I condemn you,” Jesus says repeatedly, even while naming those sins we do that are not love as God has made us to love. Throughout the Scriptures the Triune God relentlessly calls us home, cries out in love. Even in God’s anger there is always the heart of God we hear in Hosea, “How can I give you up? You are my child, my beloved.”

We don’t doubt our sin, our failure. We confess them, and will today. We might feel shame, too, along with guilt and sadness and other powerful emotions.

But what the Triune God would have us know is that we are in the center of God’s heart, beloved. And God longs for us to come home, and when we come with our shame, or guilt, or sadness, we find ourselves embraced, given new clothes, and welcomed to a feast.

So what’s the point of the ashes? Aren’t we abasing ourselves there?

It’s actually the opposite. We don’t receive ashes to remember how awful we are, or to feel ashamed of ourselves, or to declare that we’re nothing, we’re worms. That’s not how God sees us. We are beloved to God.

In ancient times the faithful poured ashes over their heads to show their repentance, to claim they were nothing before God. But Jesus suggests those days are past. When we fast, when we confess, when we turn to God, Jesus says we don’t need to do public displays to show our repentance, our turning. God knows our heart, and we can trust in God’s love for us. So we wash our faces and stand firm in God’s love.

But listen to the words said over you today: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” We receive ashes to remember that we are mortal, we are dust, and we will return to dust. We realize that we have no strength on our own for life, or for becoming Christ, or anything. We are dust, and if there is going to be life in our dust, it will only come from God. These ashes are hope for us: the Triune God is the one who breathes life into dust and gives bone and sinew and flesh, who raises us up in strength to be God’s love in the world.

So we can’t walk our journey alone.

Our little journey of Lent is our practice for our greater journey of faith. It is a journey where we’re reconciling with God and each other, a journey where we’re returning to God for mercy and hope.

We cannot do this alone. Not without our God who calls us beloved and gives us life. The forgiveness we receive is our life and our hope, because it restores us to God. We don’t have to hide in the bushes of the garden ashamed to meet God, as Adam and Eve; we are forgiven and loved, and can walk with God again.

The grace we see at the cross, God’s love that took on all pain and sin and death to crack open our hearts, is the air, water, and food we need for the journey we make in this world. We are dust, and can’t do any of this without that grace, that love. We can’t confess, we can’t repent, we can’t love, unless we remain in the love of God that calls to us, longs for us.

And remaining in that love, everything looks different.

The joy that permeates today is that the loving voice of God never stops calling to us, the loving heart of God never stops longing for us, and the loving arms of God never stop reaching out to us. And that changes our lives.

Paul says that our lives in God transcend all circumstances. We may look like we have nothing, but we have everything. Our path might look like we’re dying, but we are truly alive. We are centered in the love of God, and that makes all things healed and holy, even if we or the world can’t see it inside us.

Now we understand what Jesus is saying.

Your heart will be where your treasure is, Jesus says.

If we’re already in the center of God’s heart, that’s our treasure, without question. So that’s where our heart is, too. That’s the home we seek.

This is our journey, then:

We are always returning to the God whose love cannot be taken from us. We walk this journey as dust, fully aware of our mortality, but confident in God’s mercy and love, and rejoicing that our dust is breathed into life and love by the God who creates all things.

We walk with each other, reminding, serving, supporting, encouraging, helping.

We walk into the world bearing this love of God, so others hear the same voice, and know that God’s love cannot be taken from them, too.

That is our treasure beyond description. That’s where our heart truly is. That’s where will will follow.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

The glimpses of the light of God we see in the beauty of worship and other revelations give us eyes to see that light inside us and inside all things, even in the darkest of places.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   The Transfiguration of Our Lord, year A
   Texts: Matthew 17:1-9; 2 Peter 1:16-21

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

Just because something is hidden doesn’t mean it’s not there.

That’s what Peter, James, and John needed to see on that mountain. They loved Jesus, trusted him with their lives. He’d taught them, amazed them. They left their livelihoods to follow him.

But two things weren’t as clear to them as they could be: that Jesus actually was the Son of God, and that his path was about to head into frightening, terrible places.

Jesus had warned them of his coming death. His miracles and wisdom clued them in that he was powerfully connected to God. But they would only begin to understand both of these mysteries after seeing the horror of his death and experiencing the joy of his return to life.

The Transfiguration strengthened and encouraged Jesus for the painful road ahead, but it was also a gift to these disciples. For a moment their eyes were opened and they saw the true reality of the Living Word of God, God’s uncreated Light that made the universe, in their beloved Teacher.

They had a vision of the real truth of Christ they could carry with them. Because once they left this mountain, the other truth, the truth of the cross, was rising up in front of them all.

“You will do well to be attentive to this,” we are told, “as to a lamp shining in a dark place.”

The disciples weren’t going to understand the cross or this heavenly light until after Easter. So Jesus told them not to proclaim it until then. It wouldn’t make sense to others.

But for them, and I hope these three were able to share this vision with the other women and men who also followed Jesus but weren’t there, for these disciples it was a gift to remember as they started the path of the cross with Jesus.

They had this holy light to hold within, to pay attention to, when things kept getting worse. When Jesus was arrested, when they fled in fear, when their beloved Master hung humiliated like a criminal on a cross, they could call to their minds and hearts this light, remember there was something hidden in Jesus they had seen and experienced. Whatever was happening, what was hidden was still truth.

And these witnesses give us the same wisdom in today’s second reading: we would also do well to be attentive to this light, this vision, as to a lamp shining in a dark place.

Here in this place we glimpse the same light, the same beauty.

Not the actual transformation they saw. But God’s light shines here as we worship and draws us back again and again. In our song, in our prayer, in our silence, in the Word, in the taste of bread and wine, in the rich smell of incense, the Holy and Triune God is revealed to us in light and beauty.

Such a glimpse of beauty is a grace we’ve learned to expect here. Here God’s hope for the world in Christ is spoken to us, here the Living Word of God comes to us, here the Spirit of God speaks to us, as to Christ on the mountain, “you are my beloved.”

We glimpse this transfiguring, divine light elsewhere, too. In the smile of a sister or brother, in a loving embrace when we are in pain, in the beauty of God’s creation, the light of the Trinity breaks into our everyday existence and we find hope.

But those moments can’t be predicted, and we often miss them. That’s why being attentive to the light of God we find here is so important. We carry it into the dark places of this world, like the disciples. It not only gives us hope that God is still with us, but, like with them, this light opens our eyes to see where else it is shining.

What we carry from here each week reveals all the world is holy, and God is hidden everywhere.

We are brought here to the beauty of worship partly so we learn to see God’s beauty everywhere, even where we see ugliness. Seeing God’s light shining in a dark place changes the dark place. We begin to see, and look for, the presence of God’s light and beauty everywhere we go, and in every face we see.

The disciples may not have been able to see that far on Good Friday. What they witnessed at the cross was so horrifying they might only have had the light as that inner, desperate hope that somehow God was still working in this.

But they grew into this deeper vision after the resurrection. They saw God’s grace for the whole world, not just their people. They looked at enemies without fear and offered loving response to threatening authorities. They walked in faith and courage, facing persecution and death, always seeing the light of God in Christ guiding them. Even Paul, the latecomer, found contentment and peace in all circumstances, knowing all things were in God, so all things were holy.

When we see with eyes shaped by what we see here, when we take our expectation of meeting God in this place and carry it out into the darkness of this world, everything is different. Everything is a potential meeting with God’s grace. Everyone is ours to love because everyone is embedded in God’s love. We see God’s light and beauty everywhere.

In these dark times, though, remember another thing about God’s light.

Jesus told us a few weeks ago that we, too, are the light of the world. That’s not only good news for others as we are sent to shine God’s light in the dark of the world.

Yes, we are so sent to shine. But today the encouragement from 2 Peter nudges us to look inward, too. If we are the light of the world, like Christ, God’s transcendent light is hidden inside us, too. Inside us, even when our hearts are in a dark place of fear and doubt about the future of our country and world. Inside us, even when we struggle with our own brokenness and failures.

You will do well to be attentive to this light, Peter says, as to a lamp in a dark place. Remember you are God’s light, too. Christ has said so. Remember it burns inside you even when you can’t see it. That’s God’s gift we carry into the dark.

So we focus on this light we find here, we carry it with us.

And we walk Christ’s path before us, which, as we know, will involve sacrifice and risk, pass through many dark places. The challenges of growing into Christ that Jesus and the prophets laid before us these last weeks at worship are great. The challenges our world faces will ask much of us. Our path is the path of the cross, where we die to what keeps us from becoming Christ, where we offer our lives for others.

So in this darkness we keep looking at God’s light. Until the day dawns and the morning star rises in our hearts, Peter says. That’s the promise. That the day is coming, and morning is on its way, and Christ is risen, so even physical death isn’t able to hurt us, much less anything else. The Spirit is giving birth to life in us, even if the birth process hurts, and we are never, ever, alone on this path.

Paul says in Colossians that our true life is hidden with Christ in God. But just because something is hidden doesn’t mean it’s not there. So we set our minds on our life that is in God and on God’s light that is in us, and even in this dark place we see. We love. We find peace. We find our life, and the world’s life.

We would do well to be attentive to this, wouldn’t we?

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

The path of healing into Christly love hurts, but leads to life; the path of not healing into Christly love also hurts, ourselves and others, and leads to death.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   The Sixth Sunday after Epiphany, year A
   Texts: Matthew 5:21-37; Deuteronomy 30:15-20

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

Healing hurts. There’s no way around it.

A good doctor will tell us this. If your heart has five blocked arteries, your sternum needs to be opened, veins from other parts of your body cut out and grafted onto your heart, bypassing the blockages. A good doctor will tell you this is going to hurt, a lot. A good doctor will tell you if you don’t do this, you won’t find healing.

Today Jesus gets to the heart of loving our neighbor as ourselves, the fulfilling of God’s law. But Jesus uses such a graphic metaphor for what this will take, we shudder at the words. Obviously he doesn’t want us to cut out parts of our body, but we wish he hadn’t said it at all.

But Jesus is saying the truth: the path to healing hurts. He’s being a good doctor. He’s saying we need to be prepared for what it will cost us to follow Christ’s path. Things as dear to us as our eyes and hands will need to be cut out of our lives to find the healing of loving God and loving neighbor. Healing hurts. There’s no way around it.

Jesus interprets God’s law as comprehensive.

He taught that God’s law means to change our hearts, make us new people. So we, and all the world, would find God’s planned wholeness and healing. Saying the whole law of God is fulfilled by love of God and love of neighbor, on the one hand made it very easy. It’s simple to remember: love God, love neighbor.

On the other hand, it made it very hard. Jesus describes a fulfilling that covers everything. “Love God with all you have” leaves no room for anything but God as the center of your being and attention and devotion. No self-idolatry, no wiggling around what you’d rather do instead of what God asks of you. “Love your neighbor as yourself” likewise is complete coverage. There are no circumstances where Jesus envisions an answer other than love for those who are our neighbor. And here and elsewhere, Jesus makes it clear this category covers everyone. No exceptions.

Jesus pits himself against the legalists, the defenders of God’s law.

“You have heard it said . . . but I say to you,” is his line.

He takes on the Fifth Commandment. “You shall not kill.” That should be easy to keep. Except from the beginning God’s people parsed this, distinguished between murder and killing, and said the commandment was against murder. The Church parsed it and said killing in war isn’t breaking the commandment, if the war is just. And spent centuries arguing about when war is God’s will.

Jesus destroys that argument by saying physical killing is the lowest bar. He assumes all killing is against God’s will, and goes deeper. Christ says even anger, and insulting, and mocking, break this commandment. If my making fun of someone breaks the Fifth Commandment, there’s no hope God supports any taking of human life.

He takes on the Sixth Commandment. “You shall not commit adultery.” That also seems easy. Except Jesus speaks a word millions today still don’t understand, that at the heart of the human problem with sexuality is our objectification of other people. Christ says if you lust after someone in your heart you’ve already broken this commandment.

Christ says to straight men, and men in general, “you’ve got a serious problem. You view women as objects, and as sexual objects, and that is destructive and leads to death.” He says how we view others and think about them is as powerful as how we actually treat them. Because it affects how we treat them.

Whenever you have a written law, you can find ways around it: What really does “kill” mean? Surely there’s no harm in a little fantasy?

But God’s law is intended to bring life. The only way it can is if it utterly changes our hearts: cracks open our sternum, replaces the way our hearts and minds work.

That’s going to hurt. No loopholes, no gaps, no excuses. This is major surgery, and makes his metaphor about eyes and hands seem tame.

Now do you see why Jesus says following him is like losing your life, it’s taking up a cross?

But why go through this pain, then? Well, have you seen the world?

A world that believes God wants us to kill others has given us endless destruction that flows across this earth. Anger pulses through our culture today, unfiltered, explosive, and endangers us all. Social media and public discourse are hamstrung by personal attacks and mockery, insults and name-calling. (And we’re no better if we indulge in the same things toward those we dislike.) Life has little value, respect and care for others is absent at the highest levels, and across the breadth of our nation.

Do you really want to tell Jesus he doesn’t understand the problem?

2,000 years after Jesus told men not to objectify women, that problem couldn’t be worse. Ask any woman about her experience in the world, at work, at school, whether she has experienced being demeaned, treated as an object, been leered at, experienced sexual harassment. Most will tell you they have. And statistics suggest that one in four women in this country have experienced sexual assault, including rape. Twenty-five percent.

Do you really want to tell Jesus he doesn’t understand the problem?

And these are just two problems Jesus points out. He applies the same prescription – full, unfiltered love – to every aspect of our lives. If it isn’t anger or lust, perhaps for you it’s pride, or greed, or self-centeredness, or apathy, or many other things. Anything that keeps us from fully loving our neighbor hurts others in this world. That’s the truth Jesus needs us to see.

Look, we want to follow Christ because, as Simon Peter said, he speaks words of eternal life to us.

We hear hope in his words, a promise of God’s love and grace, we see in his death and resurrection our future after we die. We want to be with him. But Jesus needs us to know that he could have forgiven us and brought us to heaven without dying on a cross.

He went to the cross because he lived the life of love of God and love of neighbor that God means for all of us, and we killed him for it. He walked a path of pain and suffering because he was showing healing and life.

If we don’t like the way the world is, and wish God would do something, let’s not pretend the Son of God ignored it. Jesus’ words today – and we’ve only looked at half of his examples – show Christ saw to the heart of the problems of the world and showed a path out of them.

It’s just a hard, painful path. That’s why we hesitate.

We hesitate because our culture tells us the only good life is a pain-free life.

The culture of consumer products is designed to offer results without pain, life without pain. We hear we deserve the best, and it will be easy to get. We’re told suffering of any kind should never happen, and for life to be good, we need to be free of any pain.

But that isn’t true. Any parent, anyone who’s cared for a dependent loved one, knows how hard that can be. There’s inconvenience, frustration, pain, suffering. Our own needs get set aside because love demands it.

Any person who’s gone through 12-step recovery will say the same. There is deep pain and suffering working through recovery from addiction, the pain of letting go of control, of admitting wrongs, of seeking to amend them, of living one day at a time.

But the end result for both is life. Pain and suffering aren’t in and of themselves to be avoided. Healing is painful. All healing. Anyone who’s found life and health can tell you that.

But not seeking healing is also painful. Consider those blocked arteries: surgery will be exceedingly painful, but a good life is possible afterward. Avoiding surgery will eventually kill the heart, while the pain of the illness continues. If we don’t face the pain of changing, then we’ll keep causing a different pain, hurting people in the world.

So which do you want? If we want a life where we never feel pain, where no one can hurt us, and we don’t have to change, the only way is if we become cruel, selfish people who inflict a great deal of pain on others. The only way to life and love involves vulnerability, and vulnerability involves pain. There’s no way around it.

Thank God Christ is a good doctor. He tells us the truth so we can decide.

We have seen the eternal love of the Triune God in Christ’s words, actions, death, resurrection. We have found hope in Christ’s assurance that we are beloved children of God, and have God’s Spirit within us bringing new life to birth.

Today Christ says this new life is going to hurt. There will be things we need to let go of, things that cannot stay in you or me, that will be painful to face. It will even feel like we’re losing our life, Christ says. But what a gift to know this ahead of time. I would much rather know the truth so I can make the right decision, than deceive myself that there will be an answer that won’t cost anything.

So our last word today is from Moses, who says, “Choose life, that you may live.” And from Jesus, who says, “Choose love, that you may be love.” This is the path we want to walk, in God’s love. Hard as it is. Because life and healing are on the other side. And, since Christ walks with us, they’re along the way, too.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen