February 21, 2010

Get Lost!

Pastor Steve Hammer

Grace to you and peace from God who is Creator, Christ and Spirit, amen.

As is pretty typical for this time of year, we have had visits from a lot of our relatives from north of the border. This week, two of Cyndy's cousins who have both now retired, drove all the way down from Saskatchewan – and for those of you who don't quite know where that is, you head for Fargo North Dakota, and if your radiator hasn't frozen yet, you keep going north for about another 500 miles.

They came into town after a visit to Las Vegas, and arrived on the north side of Phoenix just in time for rush hour. They described rush hour in their home town as anytime you have more than two pick up trucks at one of the three traffic signals in town. As they made their way down from the Northside, they were completely at the mercy of the lady's voice coming from the GPS system on their car. The lady told them exactly where to turn, of course, but had no clue how one might avoid all of the traffic without getting hopelessly lost in a city that is just about three hundred times the size of their home.

The gospel this week is about getting lost. Still wet from his baptism, Jesus finds himself alone in the wilderness – no map, no GPS, not even any sense of direction for that matter. I don't know about you, but when I am trying to get somewhere in the car by myself, and I get lost – I tend to start talking to myself.

I wonder if out there all alone, Jesus began to talk to himself. I wonder if there was any creeping sense of anxiety; I wonder if his head began to fill with self doubt and insecurity. Part of what we have to understand about this lesson is that the word "wilderness" had a much different meaning when Luke wrote his gospel. In our generation, wilderness is something we are trying hard to preserve. It was President Teddy Roosevelt who over 100 years ago signed legislation that would preserve wilderness areas, and we formed National Parks so that people who live in the cities can come and visit and enjoy the splendor of our nation's wilderness in as close to an unspoiled condition as possible.

That was not so in Jesus time. Being in the wild did not mean taking a few days to backpack in a National Park. The wild was a place where one was quite likely to be lost; where one might go and never be heard from again. The wilderness was a dangerous place where one was likely to die, and there was no navigational help. The root of the word "bewildered" comes from the wild – and it is a description of the state of being mentally or emotionally lost.

Still wet from his baptism, Jesus was "led by the Spirit" into the wilderness. "Led by the Spirit." He did not simply wander off, or get distracted from the beaten path – he was led by the spirit. That should tell us something. That should tell us that there may be some meaning, some purpose, some value in getting lost – in being bewildered. For us, Lent begins in the wilderness; in bewilderment. And if that sounds a little bit frightening, I think we are exactly on the right track. I think we are on the right track because it is when we experience the anxiety that goes with feeling lost that we are most likely to give into temptation.

In Jesus wilderness wandering, he is not immune to temptation. In his lostness, he is tempted with perhaps the most seductive temptation of all: power. He has set his sights on Jerusalem, where he will surrender himself to the darkest forces, the worst the world has to offer. He will relinquish any illusion of control to accomplish something that is far greater than the powers of the world – and yet it is that very power that tempts him.

And isn't it power that tempts us? Especially when we feel lost, especially when we feel bewildered, especially when we feel that our lives are out of control, is that not when we are most likely to be seduced by power – is that not when we are most likely to say and do things that will temporarily ease our anxiety even if they are contrary to our true nature?

But let's be clear about the nature of temptation. Temptation is not coercion. Temptation is not forcing you to do something that you would never do. Temptation is about getting you to want to do something that you would not ordinarily do. Our problem with sin is not derived from our inability to know right from wrong – our problem has everything to do with what we choose; our problem has everything to do with our will.

The word here translated as "devil" is diabolos. It is where we get the  word "diabolical." The word means "slanderer," or when used as an adjective, "slanderous." What the slanderer does is attempt to change our will through lies, deceit, gossip, and manipulation of the truth. And there is great subtlety in play here. The devil does not tempt Jesus to commit heinous crimes against humanity. None of the things Jesus is offered are in themselves evil. Jesus is offered bread, authority and safety. Who among us does not seek these things in daily life?

The problem is not what Jesus is offered, the problem is that it is the wrong thing at the wrong time and for all the wrong reasons. What is important in this story is that each time Jesus is offered power, his refusal of it reveals the very thing that drives our desires for power, affirmation and security. And that is fear.

Herbert McCabe was a Dominican priest and theologian, and I would argue, a church reformer in the last half of the 20^th century. He frequently found himself in trouble with his superiors in the Catholic Church for rather vocally pointing out where he thought it was corrupt. McCabe wrote that the root of all sin is the very deep fear that we are nothing. He said that this is the reason why, particularly during Lent, but also at other times, we do external things that will make us "worthy" of the love that we are pretty sure we don't deserve. We do things that we think will improve us in the eyes of a God who seems to demand perfection, and to whose standards we can never measure up.

McCabe writes that confessing our shortcomings in Lent, or anytime for that matter, is not about asking for forgiveness. Instead it is thanking God for the forgiveness that has already been given.  That bears repeating: confessing is not to plead for forgiveness, but to thank God for it. McCabe writes, "When God forgives our sins, he is not changing his mind about us. He is changing our minds about him. He does not change; his mind is never anything but loving; he is love." Jesus is tempted by power, security and affirmation, but he also knows that real power – the power of God comes from worship, service and in the transformation of our own desires by love for others.

In her book, "Traveling Mercies" Anne Lamott writes with brutal frankness about a time in her life when she had literally hit bottom. Overwhelmed by unresolved grief related to the death of her father, and struggling with addiction, she had a transforming encounter with an Episcopal priest she came to know simply as Bill.

It took me forty-five minutes to walk there, but this skinny middle-aged guy was still in his office when I arrived. My first impression was that he was smart and profoundly tenderhearted. My next was that he was really listening, that he could hear what I was saying, and so I let it all tumble out — the X-rated motels, my father's death, a hint that maybe every so often I drank too much.

I don't remember much of his response, except that when I said I didn't think God could love me, he said, "God has to love you. That's God's job" . . .

. . . He was about the first Christian I ever met whom I could stand to be in the same room with. Most Christians seemed almost hostile in their belief that they were saved and you weren't. Bill said it bothered him too, but you had to listen to what was underneath their words. What did it mean to be saved, I asked, although I knew the word smacked of Elmer Gantry for both of us.

"You don't need to think about this," he said.

"Just tell me."

"I guess it's like discovering you're on the shelf of a pawnshop, dusty and forgotten and maybe not worth very much. But Jesus comes in and tells the pawnbroker, 'I'll take her place on the shelf. Let her go outside again.'"

In these bewildering times, the temptations of power and affirmation and security whisper to us in our moments of greatest anxiety. And the worst part of it is that we begin to entertain the idea that we can accomplish our own spiritual makeover; that the work of transformation is ours to figure out. And so we read this book, or subscribe to this program or explore some spiritual technique that will fix us.

The thing we would do best to give up this Lent, is the illusion that we are in control; that discipleship is a do-it-yourself project for the not-quite-good-enough.