The Spirit asks you, “What kind of a person do you want to be?” and fills you and gives you power to be Christ, if that’s what you want, for the blessing of the world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The First Sunday in Lent, year C
Text: Luke 4:1-13 (plus v. 14)

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

What kind of a person do you want to be?

A friend of mine and his husband have a really nice, loving, fifth grader. At his recent teacher conference, though, his teacher reported that when he gets into competitive situations he can be a little aggressive with his peers. But she said, then she asks him, “Is this the kind of person you want to be?” And he’s able to step back from that behavior.

That’s an amazing teacher. It’s a brilliant and beautiful way to guide a young person on the challenging path of maturity.

So it’s kind of surprising the devil is the one who asks this brilliant question of Jesus today.

“What kind of person do you want to be?” is the heart of Jesus’ testing.

With hair dripping wet from his baptism in the Jordan, Jesus goes into the wilderness for forty days, to learn what it will mean for him to be God’s Anointed, God’s Messiah.

But the devil focuses that learning. If you are the Son of God, the devil says, what kind of Messiah do you want to be? Will Jesus use his divine power to help himself when he’s in need, like making bread to feed his famished body? Will he use his divine power to dominate and control the world? Will he test the Father and this mission to see if he really is loved and protected?

It turns out the devil is doing Jesus a huge favor. Jesus will face these same questions on that terrible Thursday night to come, in the garden on the Mount of Olives. This testing in the wilderness not only sets Jesus up for his earthly ministry. It prepares him for the torture and execution he will face, and the testing question of whether he will use his power to stop it.

But the devil is also doing you and me a huge favor.

What kind of person do you want to be? the evangelists ask you.

Jesus isn’t the only child of God, or the only anointed one of God asked that question. Matthew and Luke relate this story because it’s your testing, too. And mine.

What will you do with your blessings and wealth? Use them to remove your own pain and suffering, turn those stones into your bread? Will your priority be making sure you’re comfortable and cared for?

What will you do with whatever privilege and power you have? Maybe you’re not literally kneeling on someone’s neck until they die, but where is your knee and is anyone under it? That question haunts me. Maybe you’re not an autocratic despot brutally attacking a peaceful neighbor, but how do you manipulate your world? Is your comfort and your opinion and your security a higher goal than that of your neighbors?

And what will you do with God’s promise that you are beloved? Will you try to force the Triune God to prove that by giving you all you want, answering all your prayers as you demand?

This story says your sufferings and struggles aren’t the test, any more than Jesus’ were.

The test as God’s child, anointed in baptismal water, is what you do with your struggles, your suffering. And what you do with whatever wealth, power, privilege, or ability to care for yourself you have.

This story says one question is vital for me and for you: What kind of person do you want to be?

Do you want to be a faithful servant of God, living as Christ in the world? Do you want to serve as you were baptized to serve, as God’s Anointed?

If you do, Jesus’ path is the faithful path. A path that doesn’t turn stones into bread for yourself, but uses your gifts and blessings to feed and nurture and care for others. A path that doesn’t seek to dominate or manipulate so you get what you want, but sets aside power, becomes vulnerable for the sake of others. A path that doesn’t need constant proof of God’s blessing and care, but trusts God even when it’s not easy to see or sense.

But I haven’t told you the wonder you need to hear.

Listen to what Luke says once more: “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness,” Luke begins today. And then, at the end: “Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country.”

Jesus’ whole testing, answering what kind of a person he wanted to be, the fasting, the prayer, the discernment, all happens within one unbreakable reality: he is filled with the power of the Holy Spirit from beginning to end, Spirit-led throughout.

And if you say, “well, that’s Jesus, the Son of God, one with the Father and the Spirit in the Trinity, so of course the Spirit filled him and led him throughout,” you’re missing Luke’s point, and his joy.

In fact, Luke wrote an entirely separate book from this Gospel to tell you and all who are baptized into Christ this truth. In Acts, Luke repeatedly says that whatever Jesus was able to do filled with the Spirit, the followers of Jesus can do filled with the Spirit. That’s your promise. It cannot be taken from you.

You are God’s child, without question. You are God’s anointed one, without question.

If you want to be like Jesus, walk as Christ, be a part of God’s healing and love in the world, even if it’s hard, even if that means you’re vulnerable, or hurt by others, or it costs you in difficult ways, then good news, Luke says.

Because you are also filled with the Holy Spirit, without question. The Spirit leads you in whatever wilderness you serve, without question. And you will endure and thrive in every test with the power of the Spirit helping you mature and grow as Christ in your world, to be God’s blessing to whomever you meet. Without question.

Just know that the Spirit will also be the One periodically asking in your heart and mind, “Is this the kind of person you want to be?” Listen when you hear that, be ready to answer. It will change your life.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

The fruit of the life in Christ is produced by you when God makes you a good tree, a life that naturally bears God’s fruit of love for the healing of the creation.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Seventh Sunday after Epiphany, Lect. 7 C
Text: Luke 6:27-38 (plus 39-49 from Lect. 8 C, hardly ever used)

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

Fruit is a little miraculous to me.

We had a raspberry patch in the back yard of the first house we ever bought. Invariably infested with ravenous mosquitoes, those prickly bushes were intimidating. Until little red bundles of joy showed up. It always seemed a miracle that such beauty and grace would simply appear in that formidable thicket.

And Jesus is absolutely right today. The kind of fruit is completely determined by the plant that makes it. A thorn bush can’t grow figs, or grapes, he says. An apple tree won’t produce lemons. So if you’re looking for a particular kind of fruit – and botanists have known this for centuries, to our great delight and benefit – you need to be working with the plant.

That means there are at least two challenges in Jesus’ words today. First, what kind of fruit do you want to produce in your life? And second, how might you be nurtured, developed, to bear such fruit?

The kind of fruit Jesus calls those who follow to bear has never been a mystery.

The will of the Triune God for those who live in Christ is not hard to discern. Jesus is always crystal clear, including in today’s overview. Those who are in Christ bear this fruit, Jesus says today:

They are loving and kind to those who hate them, hurt them, abuse them. They pray for such people, do good for such people.

They are generous without any expectation of return – whatever anyone asks of them, they give. They even offer to give more.

They do not judge or condemn others.

They forgive freely and fully.

None of this fruit is a surprise to you, if you’ve ever listened to the words of the Son of God, read the Gospels. Those who are in Christ have always known this is the fruit God wants to see in the world from us, from you, the fruit that will bless the whole creation.

The problem has never been knowledge. It’s always been desire.

We don’t necessarily want to bear the kind of fruit Jesus describes today.

We live in a world that despises such fruit. A world that promises revenge and payback. A world that screams that your highest priority is that your rights are cared for, not the rights of others. A world that teaches you to suspect anyone who asks for help, for money. A world that values criticism of others, especially in social media, encouraging personal attacks and hatred. Literally everything Jesus asks of you here is something this world mocks and disdains. If you live as Jesus says, you’ll be seen as weak, cowardly, foolish. You’ll be mocked.

Of course, not everyone in our world thinks this way. Many of us were blessed to be raised or mentored or loved by people who valued what God values. But don’t underestimate the pernicious strength of pressure in this country on making your own needs the highest value, the greatest good, to the exclusion of anyone else you decide to disregard or disdain. Sacrificial, vulnerable love as Christ models and commands is a fool’s game to many in our world.

That pressure makes us reluctant to embrace Jesus’ teachings, even if in our hearts we want to.

That’s why Jesus asks the only relevant question after all these teachings.

Are you in or are you out? “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and don’t do what I tell you?” Jesus asks.

There’s a path of living that is of Christ. Jesus talks about it all the time. Jesus’ only question is: do you want to walk it? Do you want to be in Christ? Do you want to follow God’s Son, whose life, death, and resurrection bring life to you and the world?

Here’s a test. How much do you try to parse any one of Jesus’ teachings, trying to figure out if he really meant it? For example: “Give to everyone who begs from you.” That’s really clear. If you’re trying to explain why Jesus doesn’t understand the socioeconomic realities of 2022, or if you’re spending any time thinking how you won’t have to do this, you’re not ready to follow. Every single one of Jesus’ commands is clear, simple, and unambiguous. If you can’t see that, on any one of them, you’re probably on the fence about this “being Christ” thing.

But if you want to live in Christ, bear God’s fruit, God will make it happen.

Since a good tree can’t produce bad fruit, you just need God to work on your tree, on you, your life. So even if you are on the fence on any of Jesus’ teachings, even if you fail at any of them, the question that matters is “do you want to follow?” Do you want to bear all the fruit Jesus proclaims throughout his teachings? If you do, good news: God will make it happen.

That’s the beauty of Jesus’ imagery. Apple trees bear apples simply because they’re grown to do it. If the Spirit begins to transform your heart and your mind and your body and your strength to bear the fruit of God’s love and grace in the world, you will bear that fruit. It’s as simple as that.

And if you ever doubt whether God is working in you, don’t look at your failures. Look for any time such fruit as Jesus calls for today came from you. If it did, God was there, and you can trust God will still be there to help you grow into a Christ tree bearing God’s healing for all things.

And, please don’t ignore Jesus’ clear warning today about your neighbors.

The only tree you and I need to worry about is our own. Don’t start looking at your neighbor’s fruit, or lack thereof. Jesus says you’ll be looking at a speck and thinking it’s a log, while ignoring the 2×4 sticking out of your eye. Don’t get distracted by how anyone else is doing, Jesus says. You’ve got enough on your plate as it is. Stay in your lane.

The life God pours into the world in the Spirit will produce the fruit God needs to heal and bless all things.

That’s what Jesus promised. That’s what the prophets of Israel promised. That’s what the first disciples filled with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost promised. God’s life will do what God needs it to do.

You can be a good tree. A blessed tree. A tree bearing God’s fruit of love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and generosity and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control. If you want this, God will grow it in you.

And do look at your life. You’ll see God has already been at work. Fruit has been borne from you as a blessing to many. Let that joy sink into your heart even as you ask God to keep gardening you.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

All are broken, including you, and all need to be healed: when you see this is true about yourself you will be opened to be healing to others.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Sixth Sunday after Epiphany, Lect. 6 C
Text: Luke 6:17-26

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

Everyone in the crowd today was trying to touch Jesus to be healed. Everyone.

The large crowd of maybe fifty disciples. The twelve of that group who were just named leaders. And the rest of the multitude there who came to see Jesus. Luke says everyone in the vast crowd needed to touch Jesus.

And Jesus said to those multitudes that they were fortunate people. Happy people. Blessed people, as our translation puts it.

You folks who don’t know where you’re going to find food – you are happy, he said. You’ll be filled. You who have nothing to your name – you’re fortunate. You’ll receive God’s whole reign. And you who are weeping, Jesus said, you are blessed. You’ll be able to laugh.

Now, Jesus never deliberately hurt or misled people.

When he says to hundreds, maybe thousands, that their suffering, their pain, their need, is a blessing, is fortunate, it wasn’t to mock them, or patronize them. He promised they would receive what they needed. These are real poor people, and starving people. People in grief. And they are promised relief. Filling. Abundance. Even laughter in their tears.

The reason many came to Jesus, Luke says, is they sought healing from diseases and unclean spirits. Because people saw that God was in this Jesus, and he had power to heal physical and spiritual illness.

But in these blessings Jesus says that God has also come in person to address more universal suffering and pain – poverty, hunger, grief – and offer the same promise. You will receive what you need. In the verses that follow today’s Gospel – which we’ll hear next week – Jesus tells those who wish to follow him that they are part of God’s plan to end people’s hunger, to lift up the poor and lowly, to comfort and help anyone in pain. God embodied in the followers of Christ will directly work on all the suffering Jesus promises to address, will be the blessing to those Jesus blesses with his words.

But go back to the beginning: everyone there that day needed to touch Jesus.

Even beyond the obvious ones with diseases and possessions. They or their family and friends would have made sure they got close to Jesus.

But as far as we know, most of the disciples, the women and men who’d been following Jesus for weeks now – not just the twelve set aside as leaders, but the whole group – didn’t need that kind of healing from Jesus. Mary Magdalene was possessed of demons, but we don’t know of others. Yet these followers also needed Jesus, needed his touch, his kindness, his words. His healing.

Can you see yourself in that same camp? Or do you have a hard time admitting to God or to others that you also need to touch God in Christ for healing and life?

It can be hard to admit.

Many of us want to give the impression that we’ve got it together, that we’re doing just fine. But the secret is, not everyone here is doing as well as you might imagine. We all can hide our own pain or doubt or struggles from others, especially if they’re not physical ones. (Most of us are OK to have physical needs put on the prayer list.) Maybe we’re ashamed of our weakness, afraid no one will understand our inner pain. Maybe someone told us we were supposed to have a strong faith and how can we say that we don’t?

And many of us who live with a privileged status in our society, whether due to the color of our skin or the gender we identify with, or our lack of economic insecurity, or whatever, struggle with naming our own pain. How can someone who doesn’t face what so many of our neighbors face every day, someone for whom this society works and makes sense, how can they complain? How can someone who doesn’t fear the police, someone who’s never been denied housing or help because of who they are, ever say they hurt? If there’s always another who’s worse off, we can feel we shouldn’t name our pain, or doubt, or fear, or struggles with our lives.

But everyone needed to touch Jesus that day, and he blessed them.

He said to those in pain of any kind, you are blessed, happy, fortunate, because God is with you and will help you, heal you. The point of the Incarnation, Jesus showed us, was for the Triune God to be with all God’s children, reach out to all God’s children, love all God’s children, bring healing to all God’s children. Everyone. Whatever their pain.

Everyone means you, too. Pain is pain, no matter who feels it. Anxiety is anxiety to everyone. There’s no need to hide yours because you want to put a good face on your life and not let anyone know you struggle. There’s no need to compare yours to another’s and diminish it or dismiss it because you know that your neighbor is struggling more than you.

If God has come to be with us in Christ, and to bring each of God’s children back into a healing relationship with God, you’re in, too. And that’s a huge promise you don’t want to ignore.

Maybe that’s what Jesus is doing with these woes.

The life in Christ Jesus calls those who follow him to walk is one where those who follow share a life together for the sake of each other and the world. All have enough. All weep when one weeps, all rejoice when one rejoices. No one is hungry or has unmet needs because God’s abundance is shared. That’s the blessing of God in Christ for the whole world. So if you’re laughing while others suffer, or delighting in your wealth while others starve, woe to you, Jesus says. You’re not living in the life of Christ.

But Christ’s healing begins when each of us honors both our own pain and suffering and the pain and suffering of our neighbor. When we don’t neglect our own suffering, because that can harden us to be uncaring and cruel people. And when we also don’t neglect the suffering of our neighbors. When we become Christ ourselves, ready to respond to whatever need God puts in front of us, whatever hand reaches out for help, as Jesus will say next week.

Everyone needs the healing touch of God’s in their lives. You, included.

Let yourself admit your need to God. And maybe to one or two others. Learn to say, “I can’t handle this. I don’t know where to turn. I don’t know what to do. Please help.” Those who reached out to touch Jesus didn’t hold back out of fear. They trusted in this One from God and put their lives in his hands.

When you do that, you will know what it is to be blessed, fortunate, happy. And in your healing you’ll never be able to look at the pain and suffering of another – your family, your neighbors, your world – and not care. You’ll be healed by God’s love and also given the heart of God to be a part of God’s healing touch in Christ that belongs to the whole creation. Blessed are you, indeed.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen