Context for "Wandering in the Wilderness" (WitW):
I returned to Bethany and Hopeville to walk with the congregations through Lent. I often say Lent and Advent are my favorite times of the liturgical year, so I felt incredibly blessed to experience these two seasons with the congregations. I based the series around Jesus's trial in the wilderness Luke 4:1-12 to really dig into what Lent means in our lives. Since the two congregations were still without a pastor, I tied these themes to their present circumstances. However, partway through the series, the war in Ukraine kicked off with Russia's invasion. I was tempted to scrap the series and preach directly about the atrocities Russia was committing. However, when I looked back at the texts I had chosen, Luke 4:5-8 already had a good word prepared. Sometimes a Pastor needs a reminder to trust in God's word, and this was one of those moments.
Good morning! It is wonderful to see you all again. If you were not here last week, I am glad you are here for the second installment of our Lenten series. If you were here last week, you might be surprised how short today’s passage was. I assure you; this is not a mark of lack of imagination. Since Lent revolves around the beginning of Luke 4, I believed it would be best to dive deep into the text, rather than to give it just one week, as is suggested by the liturgical calendar. It is a good thing too, because today’s passage is especially relevant.
Although I planned this series and divided the passages before the invasion of Ukraine, this has become one of those strange coincidences where the gospel rises from the page to trumpet truth to our circumstances. Although Putin is far from the first tyrant to value power and conquest over human life and liberty, his rewriting of Russian history and utter disregard for the example of Jesus stand as testimonies to the violence and worship of power Christ resisted in the wilderness and rebuked in his ministry. Today, we explore the question, how do we follow Christ in a world that abuses the meek, scorns the free, and rewards the false?
When you live in the aftermath of an extraordinary event or legacy, it is easy to lose the plot. Today, I do not just speak to you as Christians, but as Americans, two identities that bear baggage or pride, depending on whom you ask. As Christians, we have inherited a legacy of discipleship over two thousand years old. In those two thousand years, a movement of Jewish outliers has become so enmeshed with power, empire, colonialism, and oppression, it is difficult to discern Christ from Constantine, the will of God from the will of the rich and powerful.
We who bear the title “disciple” are forced to reckon with a holy text that has been altered and abused for the sake of justifying slavery, sidelining women, promoting homophobia and transphobia, and greenlighting genocide and conquest. Sure, we can argue individual and group culpability all day long, making distinctions between “good” and “bad” Christians, but at the end of the day, the common title “Christian” bears all the sins and blessings that sinners and saints alike have added to the legacy of God’s son. But I am getting ahead of myself. After all, today’s reading focuses on that rare window when the Christian movement was just Jesus. If we look at this moment, we can emerge from the weeds of arguments, and find some truth in the example of our savior.
If Christ’s greatest miracle was his resurrection, I believe his second greatest miracle was overcoming the temptation of power. Have you ever stopped to consider the significance of what Jesus overcame? This man, born to a colonized people, was endowed with God’s favor and had the ability to outshine any mortal. If you look at the history of the world, other than a few exceptions, people are rarely worshiped if they do not conquer or accrue great wealth. Unlike Caesar, Alexander the Great, Ghengis Khan, Augustus, Cyrus the great, or the masses of “god kings” Christ uplifted the poor and the meek, rather than crushing them. That is where the significance of Christ begins. Christ is the undefinable variable that astounds and confuses. Although history seems to be dominated by dictators and bullies, the example of a humble peasant has reached more ears and lifted more hearts than any god king could hope for.
However, I do not want to make the mistake of conveying this as a game of numbers or “winning/losing.” That is the vocabulary of rulers, one that forces us into harsh relationships where our neighbors, and even other religions and cultures, must be viewed as something to overcome or blot out, rather than parts of a communal experience that invites us all to be more open and humbler. When we look to Christ for guidance, we can be reaffirmed by the steadfastness with which our Savior resisted the ruling patterns of history. As the son of God, Christ could have changed the world more actively. Maybe he could have retaken Jerusalem and freed it from Roman rule, or gathered a force and taken the fight to Rome. That was the anticipated Messiah was supposed to do, after all. Free the people of Israel, restore the line of David, free the priests and God’s people from the oversight of Gentile aggressors. But that did not happen.
In today’s reading, we witness the moment when Christ veered away from expectations, from the norms of rulers. This movement, our Christian faith, would not be possible without that decision. We, the followers of Christ, follow one who always did the unexpected, who showed a glimpse of God’s world, so that we might achieve something greater than the strife, hatred, and pain guaranteed by cycles of empires rising and falling from power.
Jesus cannot be understood by any who value power and control more than love of neighbor. If you have been watching the news for the past two weeks, you can witness the major differences between the man we are following in Lent, and the insecure tyrant who is dominating headlines. Putin is nothing special. It does not take much to be a dictator. In fact, you could almost consider it the default of ruling. That is because it is the easiest way to manage a community.
Dictators make all the decisions for themselves and only help a select few. Although they keep almost everyone else from having opportunities, the whole charade is held together by fear and intimidation. Yet, dictators always fail in the end. They are almost so predictable it is almost a cliché. See, no matter how much power or wealth a person has, they cannot stop people from getting fed up of being left out, from being run over. And that is when they fall, either from within or from without. If you look at Jesus, our savior knew this truth thousands of years ago, and that is why this movement has always been so radical. There is something powerful about having enormous power in your hands, and choosing to let it go. While Christ’s humility has been the inspiration for Christianity, similar examples have been responsible for democracy and the republic we live in today.
Nearly four hundred years before Christ was born, a Roman farmer set an example for what a Republic should be. That farmer was Cincinnatus. Although Christ lived during the time of the Roman Empire, in the fresh aftermath of Caesar destroying the public and becoming dictator for life, the oppressor he knew, a vast empire that spanned the Mediterranean and kept Jerusalem under its thumb, had not always been that way. There are many reasons Rome and America are held side by side as similar. Both started small and made the extraordinary move of forsaking kings for the model of a republic.
While Roman and early American representative governments were far from perfect, and deliberately chose only to empower land owning men, they had early examples of leadership that would serve as moral compasses once they got bigger. America had George Washington and Rome had Cincinnatus. But what made these men significant? Like Christ, these men made the rare choice to forsake power and glory to ensure the betterment of those they served.
Before Caesar became emperor and future emperors sacked the world to fill the coffers of the rich and enslave the masses, Cincinnatus left power to go back to his farm. Although, like the story of George Washington, the story of Cincinnatus has been embellished to make it better, it is still awe inspiring that one man would be elected temporary dictator of Rome (a position of emergency power to save the people) and then gave it up immediately after Rome had been saved. That decision helped the Republic survive. Four centuries later, another made a vastly different choice when elected dictator, and the Republic died. I often find myself wondering when that moment will happen in America.
For all its faults, our difficult experiment with democracy was launched when one man declined an offer of presidency for life and then went back to his farm. That is something to consider. Movements can start out with great gestures and examples, but it is up to those who come after to ensure we live up to those examples in the present. Today stands as an opportunity to make our journey through Lent one where we face all of Christ’s temptations and choose to make the hard, rather than the easy decision.
As Americans we are part of a rare experiment where there is a real potential for human rights, equity, universal representation, and dignified life to become realities, rather than dreams. As we look to Ukraine and pray for the brave men and women defending their home, and their dreams for those same opportunities, we face the sobering reality of how easily this experiment can come to an end.
If we let ourselves become caught up in quests for power, or ignore the cries of the oppressed, we risk becoming the Rome that Jesus knew, rather than the Rome that our country was based on. If we ignore the command to love our neighbors and treat them as we want to be treated, we risk becoming Christians only in name. This journey through Lent and tumultuous moments in history are both opportunities to reflect on the example of Christ and then act to continue the legacy of that man who died so we may truly live. Amen.
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