Beloved is Where We Begin[1]

Luke 4:1-13

March 6, 2022

Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley

Image: Christ in the Wilderness - Ivan Kramskoy, 1872

Note: A recording of the worship service in which this sermon was preached may be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x778wnuY79U

Sometimes I hang out with other pastors on social media. We can sustain lengthy conversations on seemingly minor topics. That probably comes as no surprise to you. Last week, I saw at least three different threads on the question of the words Protestant pastors were going to say while imposing ashes on Ash Wednesday. Sounds riveting, doesn’t it?

The tradition of Ash Wednesday is only about 1000 years old. Many Protestant churches abandoned it altogether believing it to belong too much to the Roman Catholic Church. However, in the conversations I was seeing this week, for some Protestant pastors, if you are leading an Ash Wednesday service, you had better well stick with the traditional language. The traditional words “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return” are a reminder of our mortality. Being reminded that we have just one precious life to live on earth is a way of encouraging us to live well every day of that life. That is a good reminder and I often use those words.

The minor kerfuffle I saw on social media happened because people wanted to keep the tradition of Ash Wednesday, with its focus on sin and mortality, and they also wanted to speak about the love and grace of God. A number of folks found other words to say, but some could not bring themselves to offer anything other than “you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

If you were present on Ash Wednesday at Emmanuel, you heard “Remember that you are beloved and to love you shall return.” I started saying that the year that Ash Wednesday fell on Valentine’s Day. Sometimes I say something else, but when I speak about being loved, it is not to shy away from thinking about our mortality. I offer them because of a Biblical precedent.

Every year, on the first Sunday in Lent, the gospel reading assigned by the lectionary is the story of Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are the gospel writers that tell us about this time in the wilderness. They also tell us about the event that came right before, which was Jesus’ baptism. And you remember that when Jesus was baptized, there was a voice from heaven which said, “You are my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

Those words are ringing in Jesus’ ears, settling into his soul, as the Spirit leads him into the wilderness. If Lent is in some sense, our own wilderness journey, then it seems appropriate to me that we are launched with a similar affirmation. “Know that you are Beloved and to love you shall return.”

In the wilderness, Jesus prays and fasts for 40 days. Then, hungry, and alone, in the glare of the sun by day and the desert cold at night, he considers his options: how will he accomplish the most good in his one precious life. He could turn stones into bread and feed scores of hungry people. He could accumulate political influence and rule with justice. He could demonstrate his super-spirituality, his intimate connection with God by throwing himself from the top of the Temple, because he and God are so tight that God will save him. Any or all of those things could be good, because they would bring more people to God.

And so, the voice in his ear says “Since you are the Son of God, why not? That voice from heaven just said it. You are the Son of God. Why not act like it?”

Jesus is tempted to do good things, but at a cost. The cost is taking the shortcut, the easy path, aligning himself with the devil or with conventional power.

Jesus is tempted to do good on his own terms. So are we. There is so much goodness and beauty in life. The world is full to the brim, as our theme says, with possibilities. We want to experience all that life has to offer. We don’t intentionally choose the most difficult path, but we know that the best, most abundant life often results when we make the harder choice. Reaching for the shortcut, the quick fix often requires us to abandon a more profound, deeper value.

The deepest temptation that Jesus faces is to compromise his baptismal identity, to be who he was not called to be, to be something less than, other than, God’s Beloved Child.

This is our temptation as well. Genesis tells us that it has been so from the beginning. Adam and Eve were made in God’s image, but the serpent told them they could be like God if they ate the forbidden fruit. So they reached for the shortcut, the easy fix, instead of trusting God and tending the garden as they were created to. To be like God is tempting only when we forget that we already bear God’s image.

Sometimes we sin by thinking too highly of ourselves, making it all about ourselves, our wants and needs and goals. But when we don’t think highly enough of ourselves, that is also sin. If we devalue ourselves and let others define our roles, then we are not trusting the God who created us in God’s own image.

Jesus is already like God. God has claimed him as Beloved.

The temptation is to be something other than that, something less than that. The temptation is to prove it. Jesus refuses. Matt Fitzgerald, a pastor in Chicago, says that “by refusing to practice human power, Jesus made himself vulnerable to human power.”[2] Jesus’ vulnerability is paradoxically his strength.

Jesus refuses to practice human power. He won’t turn stones into bread. He won’t form an alliance that puts him at the top of a political ladder. He won’t market himself with sensationalism by throwing himself off tall buildings. He refuses to practice human power, refuses to be cowed or silenced by human power, and in the process makes himself vulnerable to human power.

If that isn’t clear, let me offer a very contemporary example. Elena Kovalskaya was the director of a State Theatre and Cultural Center in Moscow. She resigned her position in protest against the invasion of Ukraine. She did this after the governmental Department of Culture warned that any negative comments would be considered treason. She did not go quietly. On international social media, she said that she would not work for Putin, whom she called a murderer and be on his payroll.[3] If she were playing by the rules of human power, she would have kept her mouth shut and kept her job security. She would have betrayed her principles in order to save her own life. By quitting her job and broadcasting the reasons for it, she refused to be controlled and left herself very vulnerable to severe punishment or even death. You have probably heard stories of many others exercising the same choice in Russia or Ukraine just now. Elena is far from the only one. She was just one of the first I heard about. Jesus’ temptations are very human temptations, and his ultimate choice is one available to all of us.

Jesus rejects the short-cuts, the quick fixes offered in the desert, but those opportunities to do good come to him again in due time. He refuses to turn stones into bread, but he does feed many, many hungry people. He refuses political power on the Tester’s terms, but he will speak truth to power proclaiming God’s reign of justice and peace over and over again. He refuses to jump off the temple to demonstrate faith, but he will go to the cross confident in God. [4]

After forty days, the Tester departs, to return again at an opportune time. Jesus refuses to practice human power. It is an exercise of radical freedom, but it leaves him vulnerable to human power. We know this story leads to a cross. And there, when Jesus is most diminished, most depleted, most vulnerable, the temptation comes again.

As he is being executed between two men, one of them says “Since you are the Son of God, save yourself and us.” (Throw yourself down from here, Jesus. What good is it to be the Son of God if you don’t use the power?)

The man on the other side says, essentially, “do not put God to the test.”

The second one also says “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” While he is most diminished, most depleted, most vulnerable, Jesus refuses to grasp for human power, but confidently replies “Today you will be with me in Paradise.”

It begins with Beloved. The journey to the cross begins with Jesus’ baptism, with the pronouncement “This is my Beloved.” The overflowing love of God, the knowledge deep within him that he is profoundly loved, that nothing, not scorn, not rejection, not violence, not even death, nothing can separate him from that love, sustains him and enlivens him with courage and power that will endure forever.

Beloved ones, do you hear it? We are created in the image of God and claimed in baptism as God’s very own. We are profoundly loved and empowered to live life to the brim, full of freedom, courage, and power. May it be so for you and for me. Amen.

[1] The sermon title was taken from a blessing of the same name by Jan Richardson, which was used as the benediction at the end of worship. https://paintedprayerbook.com/2016/02/11/lent-1-beloved-is-where-we-begin/

[2] Matt Fitzgerald in Feasting on the Gospels, Luke, Volume1, Cynthia Jarvis and E. Elizabeth Johnson, editors, (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2014), p. 97.

[3] https://northeastbylines.co.uk/russian-theatre-says-no-to-war/

[4] Sharon Ringe, in Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 2 David Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, general editors, (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2009), p. 49.