Homily: Yr C Lent 1, Feb 17 2013,
St. Albans
Readings: Deut 26:1-11; Ps
91:1-2,9-16; Rom10:8b-13; Lk:4:1-13
Where do you place your
trust?
You who dwell in the shelter of the Lord, who abide in his
shadow for life,
Say to the Lord ‘my refuge, My God in whom I trust.’
Today’s readings are about trust. In whom, or in what, do you place your trust?
The psalmist urges us to place our trust in God. In the beautiful words of psalm 91, which we sang
in our opening hymn, we are given what is perhaps the greatest promise of our
Christian faith: that if we put our
trust in God, if we make God our stronghold and our refuge, we will be made
safe. If we trust in God, we will be
rescued from our troubles, raised up on eagle’s wings and protected from evil. We will, as it were, be held in the hands of
the angels, lest we dash our foot against a stone.
It is one of my favourite hymns. Often when I sing it, I feel a depth of
emotion well up within me, a feeling that seems to be a gut response to the
beauty of the promise that is on offer, a promise that resonates with our
deepest longings for assurance and well-being, for a solid place in which we
can put our trust.
That’s what my gut is telling me. But at the same time, my head tells me that
all is not well. Evil, and pain, and
sorrow are a part of our lives, sometimes the largest part. Those who trust in the Lord do dash their
feet against stones. It is easy to think
of examples. So how do we reconcile the
promises of the psalmist with the very present reality of pain and suffering in
our midst?
The psalmist knows the tension that exists between the
promises of God and our present reality.
In psalm 91 he speaks of the plagues and pestilence that threaten human
existence. He knows that there are times
of trouble, times of oppression when we call out for help. He knows that despite the promise that all will
be well, we live our lives in the wilderness.
And yet, he is able to put his trust in God.
Where do you put your trust?
When times are good, it is perhaps easy to say that we place our trust
in God. But what happens when you enter
the wilderness? When life gets rough,
when obstacles get in the way. Where
then do you put your trust?
Or let me put it another way.
Suppose there was an alien from another planet who arrived on this
planet earth, right here in Ottawa, and as part of her reconnaissance mission, she
was given the assignment of reporting back to her superiors on where we as human
beings place our trust, based on her observations of our behaviour. What do you think that report would say?
It might say that some of us humans trust in ourselves, in
our own power and abilities. That we
strive to be self-reliant people, people who put their energies into education
and self-development, finding ways to increase their power so that they can be
in control of their own lives.
It might say that some of us place our trust in our
possessions, in our houses and our bank accounts, in our good jobs and our
pensions.
It might say that some of us place our trust in our health,
in daily exercise and good nutrition, in our access to good medical care.
It might say that some of us place our trust in powerful
people or institutions that we can align ourselves with, trusting that in
return for that allegiance, they will look after us.
It might say that some of us place our trust in drugs or
alcohol, or in pleasure and distractions, allowing these things to comfort us
or to numb us as we make our way through the wilderness of human life.
That’s probably what the report would say.
But there is another way through the wilderness.
Our Gospel today tells us that Jesus was led by God’s Spirit
into the wilderness where he was tempted by the devil. In that wilderness, Jesus had no possessions. He had no companions. He had no power, no fame, no glory, no
food. The promise that he had received
at his baptism, that he was God’s son, his beloved must have started to seem a
bit ironic. Was this any way to treat a
beloved son? And so the devil, the
personification of the forces of evil and chaos and pain in this life, puts Jesus
to the test. He starts by sowing the seed
of doubt. “If you are the Son of God . .
.” Notice the “if”? The voice at Jesus baptism had said “you are my
Son”. Jesus had been given an identity. But the devil puts that identity in doubt. “If you are the Son of God . . .” Are you sure? And having sown the seeds of doubt,
now he puts Jesus to the test. Why trust
God? Why don’t you place your trust in
your own power? Change this stone to
bread, not only can you satisfy your own needs, but those of others too. Or align yourself with me, and you can
achieve political power and glory. Or if
you still insist on trusting God, then put God to the test, force his hand and
make him save you now in a display of power.
The journey into the wilderness is one of the central images
of our Christian faith. In our first
reading today from Deuteronomy, we are reminded that the foundational story of
the people of Israel is the story of the Exodus. This is the story that gave them their sense
of identity as the people of God. In the
story of the Exodus, God brings the people out of Egypt, ending their
oppression as slaves. He makes them pass through the waters of the sea,
declares that they are his people and leads them into the wilderness. The wilderness is meant to be the place where
the people come to know God and place their trust in him. But the temptation to place their trust
elsewhere is too strong. The people
complain about the lack of food, they put their trust in idols and false gods,
and they put the Lord their God to the test, telling Moses that they’ll head
back to oppression in Egypt unless God starts doing things their way. In the wilderness, there is a great temptation
to place one’s trust in the wrong things. Or to put it another way, when we fail
to trust in God, when we forget who we are and whose we are, that is when we’re
vulnerable to temptation.
The story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness that we read
in our gospel is a deliberate re-telling of the Exodus story. Jesus passes through the waters of baptism
and the voice of God declares him to be Son of God. He is led by the Spirit into the
wilderness. In the wilderness he
experiences the same hunger and the same temptations that the people of Israel
experienced. But in response to each
temptation, Jesus re-affirms his trust in God.
And ironically, he does so by quoting the words of Moses from the book
of Deuteronomy, the very words that the people of Israel failed to heed during
their time in the desert.
Jesus was led into the wilderness by the Spirit to show us
another way, to show us that there is a way of reconciling the tensions of this
world with the promises of God. It is
the way of faith, the way that puts its trust in God. Our human journey will take us to difficult
places. We pass through the waters of
baptism and we enter into the wilderness.
Our journey will take us to desert places where our experience of evil
and suffering will cause us to doubt the promises of God. It will cause us to question our identity as children
of God. There are times when we will
wonder whether there is indeed a happy ending to our story. And at those times we will remember the story
of Jesus’ own journey, the story of a man like us who fulfilled his purpose in
life not by avoiding pain and evil, but by confronting and overcoming them,
bringing compassion and healing to those who suffer, light to those in
darkness, and reassurance to those who place their trust in God.
Especially in this season of Lent, we too are called to
journey through the wilderness, bringing light into the darkness, experiencing
hunger and sorrow and temptation along the way, yet placing our trust in God,
knowing that in him we are safe. Jesus
trusted in God and came through his time in the wilderness, and so will we.
“You who dwell in the shelter of the Lord, who abide in his
shadow for life,
Say to the Lord ‘My refuge, my rock in whom I trust’
And he will bear you up on eagles’ wings, and hold you in the
palm of his hand.”
Amen.
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