First Sunday in Lent
Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7 • Psalm 32 • Romans 5:12-19 • Matthew 4:1-11
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. The tempter came and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread." But he answered, "It is written, 'One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'" Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, 'He will command his angels concerning you,' and 'On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'" Jesus said to him, "Again it is written, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'" 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." Jesus said to him, "Away with you, Satan! for it is written, 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'" Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.
If there is any world today that parallels the tests that Adam and Eve and Jesus faced, it is the world of advertising. Advertising has undergone a transformation since way before I was born. Back in the 50’s and 60’s advertising was all about selling a quality product. Then for a while marketing focused on the right celebrity to market products. Now, buying a product doesn’t just promise us the thing itself, or the fame of the celebrity selling it, it also promises a complete lifestyle that we will become a part of when we buy this product.
A recent marketing experiment shows us how much power the stories we believe in shape our lifestyle. Experimenters had two different sets of wine connoisseurs eat five course dinners with wine, and the only thing different for each of them was that they had different wine glasses. One group had a $200 pair of fine crystal wine glasses made by Ridel, a professional glass blowing company. According to wine experts, “the effect of [Ridel] glasses on fine wine is profound. I cannot emphasize enough what a difference they make.” The other group in the experiment had $5 wine glasses, say, from Target. No one in the experiment knew the value of the glass they were using.
We would think that the people who were served with the more expensive glasses would extol the virtues of the wine they drank to a much greater degree than those who were drinking with the cheap glasses. But…it made absolutely no difference. The reviewers gave the exact same feedback for the wine. It turns out that it wasn’t that the wine tasted better in the expensive Ridel glass; connoisseurs believed it tasted better because they believed the story behind the glass had an impact. That belief shaped their experience of the wine. (Seth Godin, All Marketers Are Liars)
It’s important to say that it’s not that the wine glass—or anything else that we buy—is bad in itself. But it’s that we expect too much from what we buy. We expect it to give us the sense of meaning and purpose that we are craving. We expect it to give us an identity, and that it will make us feel less alone, and less unfulfilled. Marketers know what we need—we need to fill that hole that lies inside all of us. It’s a hole that craves a life of meaning, of purpose, of relationships...and a life that has an identity. It’s a hole that we try desperately to fill with any identity besides the identity that God gives us in baptism. No marketing campaign, no celebrity, no product purchase—nothing—can rob us of our God-given identity as beloved children.
Why, do you ask? Because in his life, death and resurrection, Jesus has faced those temptations and overcome them on our behalf. Jesus has already won our identity as child of God. He knows what temptation in the wilderness is like. He knows what it’s like to be crucified just for being who we are. He goes to these places ahead of us, to take away the power of all the evil forces that try and defy God’s promise that claims us as beloved children forever.
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus claims his identity as child of God to the devil three times not by boasting about his powers that he chooses not to use. Jesus resists the Tempter by confessing. He confesses not who he is, but whose he is. Jesus has just been baptized by John when God broke through the clouds to name him as “My Son. I am very well pleased with him!” (Mt. 3:17) The Tempter, perhaps knowing what has just happened, challenges Jesus’ identity as he tempts him: “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread… If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down this cliff…” (Mt 4:3, 6) Each time, Jesus confesses who he belongs to. He belongs to God. He confesses, I live by what God provides for me; I do not pretend to worship myself when I am not god; I worship and serve God and no one else.
So as we celebrate Jesus’ supper, and drink his blood, the wine with his real presence, what do we confess to? Do we confess that when we drink from the cup, that we commune with God’s forgiveness of sins that was won for us by Jesus on the cross because of the kind of cup the wine is in? No, when we drink from this cup, we confess, regardless of what holds it, that Christ’s blood fills that God-shaped hole in us with heavenly mercy. That is the promise we believe we are drinking when we drink from that cup, and that promise shapes the identity and purpose of who we have been called to be as part of God’s church. We are people who are forgiven; we are people sent to forgive others; we are people joined by a belief that comes from outside ourselves—from God, whom we belong to.
Taking this practice of confession with us into the world is not easy. Confessing carries with it the naked reality of our brokenness. It’s not an easy thing to admit fault to our neighbor, partner, friend or to a stranger. It’s not easy when we’ve messed up, or need to mend a broken relationship. But when we confess we also admit that we are not God. In our speaking the truth we confess that it is only through the grace of God that we can forgive one another. We too can confess when we miss the mark and face temptations that want to rob us of our identity. At the same time, we trust in Jesus who seals our identity as God’s beloved with his precious life.
Lutherans take seriously that we make confession a part of worship. It is something we do together in public, and it shapes us into a confessing community. As a confessing community we are aware of our limitations, but aware that there is one source for our common life, and that is God’s embrace of the world on the cross of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Let us now put into practice that communal confession and promise of forgiveness that we take with us into the world today, by saying together the confession printed on our bulletins:
Congregation: God in whom alone we find rest, we confess that we often turn from the gifts of identity, purpose, and meaning that you would give us.
Instead of serving others, we serve ourselves.
Instead of being motivated by love, we are motivated by fear.
Instead of seeking wisdom, we seek possessions.
Instead of working for peace, we work for security.
Instead of seeking our good in you, we look to so many other places, trading your abundant and enduring love for the shiny things of this world.
Draw us back to you, O God, and remind us that all that we have and need we find in relationship with you and with each other. This we pray in the name of Jesus, who came as one of us, tempted as we are, yet without forsaking trust in you.
Presider: In the name of Jesus, who suffered temptation and prevailed, who was crucified on the cross and raised on the third day, hear the word of the Gospel: you are a beloved child of God, forgiven, redeemed, renewed, and called to lives of wholeness and life. Therefore depart this place in peace to serve your neighbor in love.
All: Thanks be to God. Amen.
(Confession Source: “Into Temptation”, http://www.workingpreacher.org/dear_wp.aspx?article_id=462)
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