St. Andrew's Episcopal Church

PUTTING FAITH TO WORK  The Rev. Brian E. Backstrand   June 29, 2014

All of us know places in our lives when we come to a decision point.  Perhaps it is a tragedy,  perhaps it is a time of disappointment or a time of failure.   Perhaps it is after we have let others down.   Somewhere and sometime,  and not just once, mind you, we will come to a decision point.   We will have to decide whether or not we will put our faith to work.  We will have to decide whether we will actually use it or just pay lip service to it while it waits close by to be taken down from the shelf.

Two texts this morning deal with putting faith to work.  One of our texts this morning (I am speaking of our brief reading from the Gospel of Matthew) is comforting;  the other text (our reading from Genesis 22) is not.   But both texts—comforting or challenging—speak of putting our faith to work.

Our Gospel text  provides us with the image of putting our faith to work through one small action,  the cup of cold water.  Here we have an action that seem hardly worth mentioning in the context of following Jesus,  but yet is very powerful.   Small actions of compassion and concern net big results.

There is a famous story told by Loren Eisely entitled The Star Thrower that sums up small actions made in the face of great odds.  The scholar David Lohse reminds us of this story. Star fish are stranded on the beach and one person begins throwing them back into the sea.   Starfish after starfish are thrown back into the water and when asked why, the star thrower points out:  if they don’t get back into the water soon, they’ll dry out and die.   But there are thousands of star fish on the beach;  the beach is strewn with them.  Why are you doing this, one man asks?   You can’t hope to make any difference.  To this the star thrower stops, looks at the man and replies:  To the ones I throw back, it makes all the difference in the world. 

Cups of cold water.  Hugs in the midst of suffering and grief.   The capacity to listen,  to create emotional and personal space within one’s own life for the struggles and questioning of others,  tenderness,  the capacity to forgive genuinely from the heart.  Little things,  cups of cold water,  small actions of compassion and concern.  Even in the midst of times when the big questions are powerful and persist in the face of answers that seem so puny—even in the times of struggle and misgiving and doubt, little things net big results.

Waiting for Jesus to arrive with the big things, coming in glory to perfect and purify and save this worn out world,  let us understand that in our small corner of the world that we have work to do and that small cups of cold water can make a huge difference.  So much so that there really are no little things when it comes to love and compassion..

But there is another text that challenges us every time we hear it read or read it ourselves—the text this day from Genesis 22:  Abraham and his son Issac.  We will never have a satisfactory explanation that will quiet our hearts and reply to our misgivings as we see the stolid figures of Abraham and Issac toiling their way up the mountain with Issac carrying the wood for a sacrifice.

There is a Yiddish folktale that speaks to our troubled hearts.  It says,  why did God not send an angel to tell Abraham to sacrifice Issac, his beloved and promised son?  Because God knew that no angel would take on such a task.   Instead the angels said  If you want to command death, do it yourself.  (See xxxxxx’s commentary on Genesis 22).

Christians know this troubling tale as the sacrifice of Issac;  Jews speak of the same text as the binding of Issac.   It might be easy to think of this story as a story of an abusive and vindictive God, but if we do,  we should understand the other Biblical texts from  Leviticus (18:21),  Jeremiah (7: 30-34), and Ezekiel (20:31) that specifically forbid child sacrifice—even though the practice in the cultures surrounding Israel is known.

We should also consider the ram caught in the thicket that Abraham sees at the very end, having been stopped with his arm raised and the knife in his hand.   Issac is unbound and the ram is sacrificed and in that moment we have a foundational text for the practice of animal sacrifices in the Temple that will follow.

And then there is that little matter of the wood on Issac’s shoulders as the two toil towards Mount Moriah.   It reminds us of Jesus.   Jesus carrying his own wood on his journey towards Golgotha.   One first century Jewish rabbi, unaware of Jesus’ death on a cross, nevertheless understood the wood on Issac’s shoulders to be strangely like the wood of Roman crucifixion, so common was this practice.   But we understand something further.   Here in the agony of the patriarch, being asked to follow God into the dark place of suffering that seems unimaginable, we see what it takes for YHWH,  the Eternal,  to offer up his only Son for the misdeeds and pollution (spiritual and otherwise) of the world.

Sometimes our faith is tested.   And when we put it to work, it is in the face of long and difficult odds.   Starfish on the beach.   Sometimes it is in the face of difficult decisions or in the face of illness or suffering.   Sometimes we are asked to put faith to work when we feel powerless and when no action seems adequate.

Soren Kierkegaard,  the Danish philosopher, wrote in 1846 one whole book on this story entitled  Fear and Trembling.  One thought he presented was that Abraham was not blindly following a malefic God of evil, but rather was following a God of moral good who would provide,  who would provide a way out of the great dilemma.  It was this faith that God would provide rather than blind faith that led him up the mountain,  perhaps a small consideration as we look at the two journeying together, but nevertheless something to consider.     As they journey together,  Abraham would be listening for God’s voice.  In this primitive scene of a primitive time, he would be open and listening for God to call so that he could say,  even at the very end,  here I am.   So that he could hear God’s final injunction:  Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son from me. 

We are a long way from Mt Moriah.    A long way from unimaginable situations of a father and his son.   Yet there are times for us as well when the surface of our lives are stirred up by some sort of trouble.   Illness,  accidents,  misdeeds and their consequences,  intellectual questions that have no answers,  and all those starfish on the beach can stir and challenge.    And when we put our faith to work,  let us recognize that through these narrow gates,  these anxious places that stir us up inside, there nevertheless remains the Spirit of the God of Love to journey with us.

Let us recognize that there is no dark place that God does not know and that beyond them and past them God waits for us to comfort and strengthen and heal.  Amen

GATES, SHEEP AND VOICES            The Rev. Brian E. Backstrand             May 11, 2014

Today is the fourth Sunday in the Season of Easter.   It is traditionally known as Good Shepherd Sunday.   Each year on this date we encounter sheep.   But our reading this morning from the Gospel of John does not contain an explicit reference to Jesus as the Good Shepherd.   That comes in verse eleven where Jesus says I am the Good Shepherd and that reading is one that we will hear next year.    Instead, we are left with  gates, sheep and voices.

The scholar C.K. Barrett in his commentary on John, points out that John  can struggle a bit in his Gospel when it comes to providing us with one sustained image.  For John wanders.   He does not seem interested in providing one focused clear point like Luke and Matthew and Mark when they deliver a parable of Jesus.   If the disciples are at times confused and do not understand what Jesus is saying, we may join them in being confused.

As evidence,  Barrett points to our text for this morning—the one dealing with gates,  sheep and voices.  Here Jesus is at times a gate and Jesus is at times seems to be the shepherd.  He uses the term watchman and speaks of sheep listening to and recognizing voices.   He says that the man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep and speaks of  thieves and robbers who climb in by other ways.

So where is Jesus exactly?  The disciples wanted to know.   The text tells us that Jesus used this figure of speech but they did not understand what he was telling them.  So Jesus has to spell it out.  In verse seven he says I tell you the truth,  I am the gate for the sheep… I am the gate;  whoever enters through me will be saved.  He will come in and go out and find pasture.

***

Is herding calves like herding sheep?

Marilee and I got a taste of gates and animals on Friday around noon when our neighbor, Joe Nichols, called us with that wonderful message that all keepers of livestock and other animals dearly love.  Joe said  Did you know that one of your calves is out?

That one little question completely rearranged our day!   We in fact were sitting at the table at the time looking over a to do list and instead we ran out of our apartment and into our car and down the hill looking for calves.

The calf in question was standing quietly by a long stretch of fence on the western border between pasture and corn field.   We got out of the car and moved towards the calf who now was looking at us from a distance and getting excited.

Mother,  calvers and other cows all on the other side of the fence didn’t care.  Marilee stopped while I swung around the calf, giving it a wide berth to get ahead.  The calf at times looked relaxed and at other times looked like it would try to jump the fence. What to do…

Then I remember that we had a make-shift gate just ahead.  A sixteen foot opening made out of a hog panel.   It was wired up to be permanently closed and it had never been opened during our tenure on the farm, but it was a gate.   So,  while Marilee was on the north of the calf and the fence was on the east,  while the corn field was on the west of the calf and I was on the south, I worked on the rusted wires holding that sixteen foot gate together until finally it came loose.

Things began to look up.   I swung open the gate half-way and stepped back to the south to give the calf a nice opening while Marilee began to urge it forward.  May be we should name this calf  Jinx or Gottcha.   The calf came close, passing between a large bush and the fence and now close to the gate.   Then it got nervous.  It didn’t want to enter.  Great.   It started to try to go around me and out into the corn field but I stuck my arms out and extended my stock stick.  As I did this,  I sense trouble.    For here trotting up quickly was another calf that seemed to be saying Oh look,  the gate is open.  What fun!   The calf outside tried to move past me again but I stopped it and then it –somewhat reluctantly—walked calmly through the gate before the other one made it through and we were done.

And so –with gates and calves instead of sheep—I stumbled upon a parable of my own.   The calf knew where we wanted it to go.   It saw the gate open and the pasture beyond.   But then it got nervous.  It didn’t seem to want to be in and yet it didn’t really seem to want to be out.   Right at the gate and faced with a choice to be in or out it seemed to get really anxious.

Are we this way?   Are we this way when it comes to important choices and we know what to do?   Are we this way when it comes to relating to God?

***

Just two weeks ago now Marilee and I found ourselves up in Rice Lake at Grace Episcopal church for the baptism of Carssen, our granddaughter.    After the baptism I sat down for some post-worship treats at one of the tables and met Tyler.   He had heard of our little band of cows and calves and he innocently asked if we were planning to put them all out of pasture.

It turns out that Tyler is the conservationist for Barron County and we launched into a brief conversation about rotational grazing that eventually led to his telling me about an environmentalist with the very intriguing name of Alan Savory.  Savory has this idea that a lot of our problems with grassland management in the world stems from our misguided notion of keeping animals from wandering around on the land.  We pen them up.   We keep them from waterways.  In the West, we irrigate and grow corn instead of manage grass.  Armed with studies and considerable evidence,  Savory conducts seminars in Bolder Colorado and works world-wide.  Originally from Rhodesia, he is especially interested in Africa.

When cattle walk upon the land, they open the soil up.  This action along with grazing and manuring the land opens up channels that actually result in carbon dioxide being returned to the soil from the air.   It enters these channels where it is stored in the ground.  The sod is strengthened rather than weakened when animals wander in their seemingly aimless patterns on the land.

In Zimbabwe where Savory has long worked,  livestock farmers work with goats and with cattle.   They herd them during the day so that they slowly graze the land in comparative freedom.   Then at night they turn them into large protective pens known as kraals.   These are thick barriers made out of sticks and branches woven together.  On line, they appear to be about ten feet in height.   Zimbabwe has a lion population that is thriving—actually increasing.  To protect the livestock,  the cattle are herded into kraals at sunset and the gate is closed.   The lions cannot penetrate the kraals which are scattered about the grasslands of Zimbabwe.   This simple pattern has revived the ecology of the area.   The grasslands are coming back—even in drought years.   And the rivers and streams are increasing in flow because trees and brush that consume more water are removed by the grazing cattle.

Here we have a modern example of that ancient pattern of livestock management from Jesus day.   Animals go in and out and find pasture.   Animals are herded together in large enclosed structures.

In ancient times in Syria and Palestine, several shepherds would herd their sheep into one fold.  When morning came and it was time to head out,  they called their sheep and their sheep heard their distinctive voice and followed.  John says They will not follow a stranger but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.  So, at the beginning of another day of grazing,  one shepherd would call his sheep and lead them out.  Flock by flock they would pass through the open gate and leave the sheepfold.

When Jesus says  I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved we get this image of safety and security and protection at night.   To be left out is to be exposed.  In Africa, to be exposed to lions and jackals.   When Jesus says he will come in and go out and find pasture we get this other image, an image of freedom and nurture and guidance in coming out of the safety of the sheepfold and into a new day.

Today is Mother’s Day and our thoughts are traditionally a long way from cattle, sheep,  kraals,  lions and pasture.    We honor our mother’s and remember the countless ways in which they nurtured us.   Guided us.    Protected us.    Maybe at times we might of felt a little bit herded when we were kids and trying to be obstinate.   But our mothers were the ones who nurtured us.   We honor them today for giving up so much of their own lives for our sakes.  And by extension we think of others,  step moms,  aunts,  perhaps older adults in our lives,  women who were wise and who looked out for us.

This Gospel lesson paints a picture of safety, nurture and care.   It suggests that God is a loving presence and protective presence.  It suggests that we can find a peace and a security and a freedom in living in the presence of God.   God is present in this account as a gate to be sure,  opening and closing,  providing freedom and protection.  But God is also a presence as the voice that Jesus says the sheep know.

On this day of honoring those women in our lives who have nurtured us,  let us also think of the nurturing and feminine qualities of God as a nurturer.   Let us once again be reminded that as Spirit God is present to guide and lead,  to protect and encourage,  to bless and love and enable.

Amen.

A SERMON-STORY FOR EASTER         The Rev. Brian Backstrand     April 20, 14

It was last Sunday.   We had a wonderful gathering here at church and moved from the waving of palms to the dramatic reading of the passion narrative.   I pointed out that this day was always a difficult day for me because of the sudden movement from praise to suffering and death.   We had a nice coffee hour together.   We left the church, heading into the week ahead.

It was about three p.m. when Marilee and I went down to feed the cows.    By that time, the rain had started.   We put on our rain gear and boots and headed down the hill to the place where the cows would be waiting in the rain for their hay.   We were half way through the feeding when Marilee pointed out a cow across the creek.  She was not coming over to eat but was standing awkwardly and from time to time lying down.  She was having a calf and it was my job to go over the check things out.

Across the creek.   The wind was up by this time and the rain was beginning to pelt us and the creek was responding.    I remember feeling the strong current as I waded across the one place where Gene,  the previous owner, had put down gravel to create a ford.

This was the beginning of a six hour ordeal.   The cow was  341, called by both of us since August just “Forty-one”    She was very friendly and liked to be scratched, but now her labor was in full swing.   I made several calls to area farmers and was able to feel one, then both hooves of the unborn calf.  Reaching farther in, I would feel the tongue and the nose of the calf.   Virgil, our neighbor came over with a cord with which to pull the calf when it was time.   I tried to get the cord on both hooves, but was nervous and inexperienced and managed to put both loops on one foot.    The cow did not like Virgil’s presence and moved away.   She moved away closer to the creek and this presented a second problem—the fast flowing waters were dangerously close, we thought.

The rain increased.   The cow went down again and I got both loops in the right place and Virgil came over and together we pulled the calf.  It was a big calf and it took a lot of effort to help  41 with this birth, but we did.   I wiped the mucus and fluid away from mouth and nose and the calf breathed.   It was a big bull calf.

Then we waited for the young mother to react.  She began licking and did so repeatedly, but the rain kept the calf wet.   I began to worry about hypothermia and remembered a lot of stories about wet Spring weather being worse for newborns than cold Winter weathers—with some exceptions.   The calf tried to stand.    Finally I helped it to stand, with limited results.

It is important to half a dairy or beef calf nurse within approximately the first hour.   We were at the hour mark and then moved well past it.   The calf stood and we were encouraged.   But the cow refused to let the calf nurse.  Again and again it tried as I stood down by the creek to ward off any clumsy movements in that direction.   I called Marv, our breeder, who said that yes he thought it was now time to try to bottle feed the calf with colostrum that we had purchased in advance.   The calf was really wet and the wind was increasing .  Time was racing.   Darkness was falling.

Marilee had climbed over the fence a number of times offering assistance.  Now she went up to make up the bottle.   Up at the barn,  she made up the bottle and checked the weather.   The wind below was howling and I felt lost,  surrounded by darkness, and I began to think that the calf was going to die.   Marilee found that the weather conditions were in fact worsening and she came to the conclusion that we were going to have to move the calf into the shed if we were going to save her.   The mother cow seemed mildly interested in things, still licking from to time but no nursing.

I got the bottle and tried to feed the calf.   It was tough.  The mouth would not open.  The eyes were half shut.  The nose was cold.   The calf sucked a little and then quit.   On and on it went with perhaps only a pint consumed, if that.   The large bottle was mostly full.

I thought about trying to roll the calf under the barbed wire of the fence and knew that that would not work.   I thought about trying to carry the calf and knew that carrying the calf 200-300 yards was also not going to work.   I thought about the skid steer and putting the calf in the bucket, but we were across the creek and there was no way that we were going to make it through.   As the hours passed, the creek rose.   The tractor?  No.   The car, no.

Finally Marilee said We’ve got to get this calf into the shed or we are going to lose her.

I knew she was right.   Perhaps Virgil was still around.   We drove to Virgil’s but he was not available.  Then,  in a moment or clarity or a moment or grace or a moment of presence,  I thought about the wheel barrow.   It was a construction wheel barrow with deep sides.

Up at the barn, we loaded the wheelbarrow into the back of the Subaru and with the door up it worked.    We headed down the hill in the blackness.   All this started at 3:30 or so.   Now it was 9 p.m.,  the rain was brutal,  the wind gusting to 35,  the calf wet and slipping away.

I had tried rubbing the calf with towels, but it was no use in the rain.   And now those towels were wet.  But we had new towels and a blanket or two.  We parked near the creek, loaded our gear into the wheel barrow and took our first tentative steps with the barrow to force it across the creek.   The current almost swept it away,  our flash lights shining in the darkness, but we got it across.   The far bank was deep in mud and would have stalled any vehicle.    We headed south,   Marilee shining the light and me, often blinded by wind and rain, trying to push on through weeds and limbs and grass.

Was the calf still alive? It was.  I picked up the calf and together we dumped it in the barrow.  Marilee held it down when it tried to rise (not often) and we headed back.  I could not tell if the cow was following.    It was a long, impossible journey.   Finally we came close to the creek ford and knew that this was our hardest test.   The waters would be cold.    If we dumped the calf,  I felt certain that these waters would be the waters of oblivion,  the waters of death.

Marilee held the nose of the wheel barrow in the strong current, impressively so, while I pushed through.   My feet already were wet from previous crossisngs, but I felt the rocks beneath me.   We pulled the barrow up and headed towards the shed.   We were half way there.   The other cows and calves were in the corral.  We opened a side door and brought the calf into the straw covered, dry environment of the shed.

We unloaded.   I left to find the cow with my stock stick all that I had to drive her and Marilee stayed on to do her best.   She did.    She rubbed the calf and she lay on the calf to provide him with necessary body heat.     She rubbed and rubbed.    The calf lay with its head down but slowly she could feel it warming.

I crossed the creek again and worked my way down to Forty One who had not moved.   I began to encourage her and to move her along.  She balked at times, but mostly moved in the direction I wanted her to go.   I urged her forward and then got tangled up in some down branches and tree trunks.    Did the cow double back while I was working my way out of my jam?   My flashlight caught nothing behind me but up ahead I some some dim outline.    By the time I got to where that outline had been,  it was gone.  Across the ford of the creek, moving towards the shed, was my cow.   Faithfully moving in the right direction.     This is not something to be expected.    But there she was.  Way ahead of me.  I crossed the creek.

I called in the howling wind for Marilee to open the gate.   The cow went around the corral, but finally entered.

Inside, when the cow entered the shed, the calf’s head came up.   Marilee suddenly understood that we had done all that we could.   We had got both together in what had seemed truly to be an impossible task.   And now that they were together, we were done.  It was up to the two of them,  young mother and newborn calf, to find a way to get through the blackness of this night.

Trying to save a newborn Hereford bull calf on a rainy black Palm Sunday night might not seem much to you.   What is this struggle in comparison with the great tragedies that we encounter or learn of day by day?    But for me and for Marilee and for Fortyone and her calf, one week ago it was the world.    We had journeyed from the excitement of having calves in nice weather and with little complications to having one calf in the worst of conditions and we were tasting tragedy,  exhaustion,  loss and the unraveling of our world.

EARLY ON THE FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK WHILE IT WAS STILL DARK, MARY MAGDALENE CAME TO THE TOMB.

Think of the tragedy that they had tasted.   Think of the loss,  the disarray,  the gut-wrenching shock and agony of coming to see the body.   Coming to see what had happened to their Lord,  their teacher,  their Master.     While it was still dark  they came.  and they came to a tomb.

I wonder if they slept.   I wonder if they were able to eat.   To express shock or feelings.  To console one another.    They came early,  searching.

When we got up in the pre-dawn hours, neither one of us wanted to go down.   We knew that there were at best some long odds here.  Marilee was supposed to go to work in Beloit, but I knew that I didn’t want to face this alone.   What would we find?   Marilee agreed to stay on.

That shed—10×20 feet with a slant roof– was for us a tomb.   We were sure that it would be a tomb.   There were two other calves.  We were sure that they would be okay, but what about the third?

By now it was light enough to see.   The sky was clearing and the wind had gone down just a couple of hours before.   We dressed and jumped into the Subaru to head down.

Where do we look for resurrection,  for new life?   Our reading from Colossians this morning advises us  SET YOUR MINDS ON THINGS THAT ARE ABOVE NOT ON THINGS THAT ARE ON EARTH, FOR YOU HAVE DIED AND YOUR LIFE IS HIDDEN WITH CHRIST IN GOD.

I had mostly been setting my mind on the things of the earth.   I had been envisioning a lifeless body tucked into the far corner of the shed.   Buried.    But to set them on things that are above.     Perhaps we should remember that Mary stayed by the tomb.  She did not leave.  And she was rewarded by seeing a gardener who then revealed himself to her as the risen Lord.

Cynicism is easy.   And it is easy to be possessed of a flimsy kind of optimism that sees most if not all things through rose-colored glasses.    It is easy to be jaded.   It is easy to expect the worse.

We got out of the car.   The lane was wet and we would have to walk our way over to the shed and the corral to check things out.    The cows were up.  I walked ahead trying to look into the far recesses of the shed  when Marilee cried out  THERE ARE THREE.  ONE, TWO, …  THERE ARE THREE CALVES!!!  

And I looked and there, in the corral and not deep in the shed, was that bull calf, standing upright and firm,  standing by his young mother.   I ran back towards Marilee and we held one another in a long embrace.   He’s alive.   And I felt deep within me something profound let go.   I am not embarrassed to tell you that I cried in a most profound way,  tears flowing,  emotions surging.  It was the longest and most profound spasm of tears tht I have had in decades.  Tears washing me clean.  We stood there,  surrounded by an Easter miracle.

And so again,  where do we look for resurrection?    Surely we can begin looking by reading the accounts of resurrection and the appearance narratives in the Bible.   But we also need to look in our own lives.    We need to touch those places where hope touches us,  where God is providing us with important clues of God’s presence.

This experience surely is a small one.   But God uses small experiences to communicate and to touch our lives.    Today on Easter Sunday 2014  I call these kinds of things little resurrections.    Little renewals.  Little appearances.

Let us dare to wait —  even to wait by the somber places, by tombs like Mary Magdalene—when they appear in our lives,  that we also might discover the presence of the living Christ waiting for us there.

THE THEFT OF IDENTITY         The Rev. Brian E. Backstrand        3-9-14

For just as by the one man’s disobedience (that is Adam’s sin in the garden) the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.

As we take the first steps in our Lenten journey this year, our first Sunday reading begins at the beginning – all the way back to Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden or Paradise.  Adam comes from the word Adamah which connects this primeval human to arable land and especially to earth.  Eve carries with it the sense of life itself.   And they are in Paradise, a place of beauty and innocence to be sure, but also a place in which we sense a close proximity to YHWH,  the creator God who places the pair in the Garden and who later is described as walking in the Garden,  this perfect place that we have never known but nevertheless understand in so many ways.

We begin at the beginning.  And even here there arises the possibility—in the midst of perfection itself—of imperfection.   Paul in  Roman’s calls this imperfection one man’s disobedience and he tells us that through this eating of a forbidden fruit we have ultimately the story of the entrance of sin into the world, a polluting stain, a powerful force that perverts and undermines, and he sees a connection between the entrance of sin and the reality of death.   And so we have in the garden the famous trio of which Martin Luther spoke so often:  sin,  death and the devil.   The devil is a slight presence here.  Merely a serpent.  But a mere serpent is a dangerous presence.  It is dangerous, for this snake is an insinuator,  a foe,  a presence described in some translations as subtle.   This foe is therefore able to insinuate,  to slide with subtle grace into the most reasonable and acceptable reaches of life.

We have never known Paradise.   But we carry within ourselves a sense that the life that we do know is out of kilter—that it is not the way that it is supposed to be.   And so we carry within ourselves a sense of Paradise,  a sense of Shalom, the perfection and harmony of all the creation with the Creator.   But our Shalom has been vandalized,  stolen.   We are left with a sense of loss.  And theft.

Our Gospel reading for this first Sunday in Lent begins with another reality of our human experience:  temptation.   The temptation here is not that nice little innocent temptation of chocolate or sugar cookies.   It is not the temptation of more powerful allurements that can captivate and change our lives and cloud our thinking (here I am thinking especially of the vast array of recreational drugs that our society knows and indulges in).   No,  the temptation that we see in Matthew chapter four and in other Gospels is nothing less than a frontal assault on us personally as we see ourselves in the face of Jesus who goes out into the wilderness for those long days and nights in the burning heat and then in the silences and the cold as darkness falls.   It is a frontal assault.   For what Jesus encounters is an attempt to steal his identity.   I say it again,  An attempt to steal his very identity.

In one of his letters, Paul says for to me to live is Christ and to die is gain.  This is not idle talk even if it is elevated.   Paul is suggesting that he has found something in his faith that grounds him.   Shapes him.   Nurtures him.   He is speaking of an identity that he has found seemingly outside of himself but also marvelously deep within.   For if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away.  See, everything has become new.

This is talk of a paradise,  of a new way of living and being.  It is a suggestion that we have an opportunity to experience in some small way the newness of Paradise itself—within ourselves and our spirits.   We have a chance to drink of living water and to eat of the bread of life itself.   In Paul we hear the words of St Augustine later who says that we are restless until we find our rest in the ultimate Mystery, that is in the presence of God.  I submit that this restlessness is nothing less than a search for the deepest and best part of ourselves and that our purposes in life,  our role and calling,  our values and dreams are to be shaped by the presence of God if we are to find the best part of ourselves.  Identity and the temptation to replace it with something less.

This is what Jesus was facing during those searing days and cold nights in the desert.   For when the serpent described here as tempter and devil came to Jesus in his weakened state,  he came to separate him from his calling,  from his mission,  from the deep purposes of his life.     At his baptism, the voice from the cloud  (that is YHWH,  the LORD) proclaimed him to be my beloved Son.  But now,  alone and in the desert, he has to decide.   What does it mean to be the Son?   What shape is my mission to be?   Is the tempter,  the devil going to steal my real and true identity and replace it with something shallow and less satisfying?

We face similar questions.  There are times when we see ourselves in the face of Jesus in the midst of His journey and this is one of them.  What does it mean for me to be a follower of Jesus?   What does it mean to live a life of faith?   What does it mean for me to place my restless heart in the enveloping presence of God so that I can rest there?   What does it mean for me to have a mission?   What does it mean for me to live in terms of a new creation?   Is the tempter going to steal my real and true identity…?

Today via billboards,  radio messages,  the television and especially online all of us in this room or who read this sermon will be told in one way or another that we can have it all.  All of us will be told that we deserve the very best.  All of us will be told that our lives will be so much better if we merely latch on to this or that product,  this or that lifestyle,  this or that dream.   Sound familiar?

Again the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; and he said to him “All these I will give you if you will fall down and worship me” 

Settle,  the tempter says.  And do we remember the response?  Do we remember what needs to be said? Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan!”

This is the challenge of Lent.   It is a spiritual reset,  a way of saying to the tempter in our lives—AWAY.  It is this tempter who offers us—with subtle and unassuming style—all the blandishments of life if we but worship them and him.  It is the tempter that would captivate us and lead us down false pathways into dead ends and box canyons.  AWAY.   It is the insinuator that comes to us in our minds and spirits and also by way of our culture:  AWAY.

Is this tempter stealing our identity?   Our most deep and satisfying reason for being formed out of the dust of the ground,  our most deep and satisfying reason for being created in the image of YHWH,  our most deep and satisfying reason for living on the planet?    Is the tempter stealing that part of us that is new creation?  James tells us: Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.

This Lenten season,  this forty day journey,  it is time for us to join our Master in examining the temptations of our life,  to face all of the things that urge us to worship them or to grasp on to them as though they are all important.  It is time for us to summon up courage and fortitude—even if we feel that we are living in the desert just now—and to say to all of the negative thoughts,  all of the temptations,  all of the subtle and powerful suggestions  AWAY,  AWAY,  AWAY.

In the name of God,  Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Amen.