A Silly Question
A couple of days ago I was sitting in my office being interviewed for a podcast. The premise of the podcast is to provide preacher-types with entry points to aid them in their weekly sermon preparations. Believe it or not, preaching every week, having the most public part of your job also being the most difficult part of your job (at times) can be quite stressful week after week. To prove my credibility to the listeners the interviewer asked me to tell the listeners “who I am.”
Who am I?
Three words that stumped me.
For the purposes of the interview, I knew I was supposed to rattle off my professional and educational accolades. “I’m more, aren’t I, than my LinkedIn profile or latest sermon or blog post,” I began to think.
“The interviewer knows who I am,” I thought to myself. After all, we have known one another for nearly a decade and been friends for at least five years.
“This is a silly question,” I thought.
In my anxiety-induced, existential moment of crisis I stumbled through describing my family, the congregation I am privileged to serve, and that in our home Allison and I have three methods by which we can brew coffee.
As the words left my mouth I cringed.
“Really, Teer, that’s the best you could come up with,” I mumbled.
“Excuse me,” the interviewer said, clearly I had not mumbled under my breath enough to hide my growing discomfort.
The only thing sillier then the question was my three methods for brewing coffee response. Not to diminish my wife, kids, or all of you, I am more, way more than three ways to brew coffee. I would have been better off mentioning my great head of hair, my obsessions with Weber grills, or a knack for finding parking spaces near and around Nationals Park - I hope I didn’t just jinx myself for the coming baseball season.
The waters of his baptism barely had time to dry before Jesus was led by the Spirit of God into the wilderness for 40 days of testing. The gospel writers of Mark and Luke also give an account of the temptation of Christ in the wilderness but Matthew goes a step farther, reminding the reader that in addition to 40 days in the wilderness Jesus spent 40 nights in the wilderness as well.
These 40 days Jesus spent in the desert echo Israel’s time in the wilderness. When Israel was hungry, God provided mana from heaven and the devil, knowing who Jesus is, invites him to end his fast, ending his discomfort by turning the rocks around him into bread. Quoting Moses, the one called by God to lead Israel during their wilderness experience, Jesus rebuked his tempter saying, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”[1]
The devil invited Jesus to prove God, to prove his own divinity and again quoting Moses, Jesus responded saying, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”[2]
Finally having been invited to claim worldly success and prestige from himself Jesus said, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’”[3]
Three times, Jesus was tempted and each time he chose not to use his own power and authority to dismiss his tempter. Instead, Jesus leaned into the word of God, the same word that was given to Moses in the desert. The same word that had sustained Israel during its time in the wilderness. Jesus refused to be who the devil invited him to be in the same way we tempt or petition God to prove God’s self to us so that then and only then we might believe and follow Jesus.
Temptation and sin are part of life. There is a longstanding history in the church of withholding certain things during this season as we approach Easter. Many of us will withhold intentionally from a sin or sins we’ve been participants in while others will choose to remove temptation or distraction from their lives and refocus, reorient themselves towards God. Even the best of us, at the best of times, has fallen to the temptation of sin. Maryetta Schultz, Founder of The Episcopal School of Los Angeles and the former Associate Dean of Berkeley Divinity School at Yale, put it like this:
“Temptation comes to us in moments when we look at others and feel insecure about not having enough. Temptation comes in judgments we make about strangers or friends who make choices we do not understand. Temptation rules us, making us able to look away from those in need and to live our lives unaffected by poverty, hunger, and disease. Temptation rages in moments when we allow our temper to define our lives or when addiction to wealth, power, influence over others, vanity, or an inordinate need for control defines who we are. Temptation wins when we engage in the justification of little lies, small sins: a racist joke, a questionable business practice for the greater good, a criticism of a spouse or partner when he or she is not around. Temptation wins when we get so caught up in the trappings of life that we lose sight of life itself. These are the faceless moments of evil that, while mundane, lurk in the recesses of our lives and our souls.”[4]
Instead of being spiritual fire for our own temptation to sin, Jesus’ time in the wilderness begins a “Gospel-long process of revealing the person of Jesus.”[5] This is just the beginning of revealing the fullness of God, in Christ, to us. These temptations faced by Christ reveal more to us about Christ than they do us. These temptations face by Jesus are just that, his temptations, not ours. This is a scene about what Christ has done and continues to do for us.
It is in learning who Jesus is, revealed to us through his life, death, and resurrection, that we are able to heed the words of Saint Paul and “adopt the attitude that was in Christ.”[6]
We cannot adopt the self-emptying obedience of Christ until we first see that his obedience to the will of God was unwavering. His obedience to the will of God fills in the gaps created by our disobedience.
Obedience to the will of God is not forced upon us. Every day when we respond to the question of “who am I?” we have the option to turn away from God and towards ourselves. The season of Lent is a time when we intentionally deny ourselves the temptations of this world and turn towards the faithfulness of Christ. We are crazy to think that this season of fasting will make us better people. A pastor once said, “The Church is not about learning how to become good (though you might become good in the process). We’re not here because we need to learn how to be good; we’re here, as Paul’s Letter to the Galatians puts it, to hear that we’ve been rescued from our inability to be good.”[7]
God is willing to risk our disobedience in hopes that we will freely turn towards God and proclaim that we are followers of Jesus Christ, that we have adopted the attitude of Christ.”[8]
Not followers up to a certain point.
Not followers with prerequisites - God must first prove something in hopes that we might repent and follow Christ.
Throughout our Lenten journey, we will turn towards Christ, turning away from the temptation of sin, and consider the question “Who am I?”
It can often feel as though we are people, who when presented with the discomfort of temptation will lean into the comforts of this world, through our own devices and means. But our Lenten journey is an invitation to lean into the faithfulness of Christ. Our faithfulness to our Lenten fasts will wane. We will be tempted to break our fast or to test God’s faithfulness as a way to ignore the suffering around us or to accept the trappings of this life. This journey we find ourselves on, a journey that will ultimately lead us to the cross, is an invitation to lean into the faithfulness of Christ when our own faithfulness wanes.
Photo by Kamil Szumotalski on Unsplash
The Good News is that the proclamation that echoed as Jesus exited his baptismal waters and began his journey in the wilderness - “This is my Son, the beloved, with whom I am well- pleased”[9] - is the same proclamation made by God to you at your baptism. Because by water and the Spirit, you are in Christ. His belovedness is yours.
So, back to the silly question I was asked by that interviewer, “Who am I?” I am a sinner. When push comes to shove I have fallen and will fall again to the temptation of sin. But more importantly, it’s not up to me or my ability to hold a fast during Lent or overcome my own sin. Regardless of what I have or have not given up for Lent, regardless of how well I hold that fast, I am God’s beloved, in whom, for Christ’s sake, God is well pleased.
[1] Matthew 4:4
[2] Matthew 4:7
[3] Matthew 4:10
[4] Bartlett, David Lyon, and Barbara Brown. Taylor. Feasting on the Word. Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary. Westminster John Knox Pr., 2010. Pg 48.
[5] Matthew, by Stanley Hauerwas, Brazos Baker, 2015
[6] Philippians 2:5
[7] https://jasonmicheli.org/dont-sound-like-the-devil-this-lent/
[8] Ibid.
[9] Matthew 3:17