The Rev. Neale L. Miller

Sermon for February 25, 2007

Texts: Deuteronomy 26:1-11/Luke 4:1-13

Title: “The Great Contractor”

            Read Luke 4:1  Let’s stop right there.  As Luke tells his story, there are things we need to know about this Jesus before we can intelligently proceed. The text says, “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness…”

            “Returned from the Jordan” refers back to an important event described in the verses I had duplicated for you.  Take a moment to look at the bulletin insert, chapter 3, verses  21-38.

The lesson before you describes an event that establishes the credentials Jesus will bring with him into a very important encounter, an encounter that is the subject of the lesson I will read in just a few moments.

              We read in Luke 3:21 and following that Jesus in the company of a group of people, Luke doesn’t tell us who the people were, or how many there were, [Jesus in the company of the group] was baptized. The “baptizer,” of course, was John, John the Baptist.

                Baptism in the traditions of the Jews of Jesus’ time was administered to cleanse those who, repenting of their sins, came seeking absolution.  John pointedly differentiated the baptism he was administering, a baptism with water to cleanse the repentant sinner, from a baptism that Israel’s Messiah would administer, a baptism with the Holy Spirit.

               The lesson you have before you reports that on the occasion described, Jesus being present, the Holy Spirit took events in hand. We are told that the “Holy Spirit descended on [Jesus] in bodily form like a dove.” An extraordinary event in its own right, it was an occasion made even more so when a voice from heaven was heard announcing, “You [referring to Jesus] are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

                Now, from the opening verses of his gospel, where Luke goes into elaborate detail to make the case that Jesus, born of Mary in a humble manger, was none other than the Savior, the Messiah, the Lord, his narrative builds to the climax where the newly baptized Jesus is publicly proclaimed to be God’s own Son, the Beloved.

                Jesus’ credentials established by God himself, Luke chooses to validate the claim by presenting a genealogical record that traces Jesus’ lineage, not merely to David, Israel’s most renowned and celebrated king, but he traces the lineage through David all the way back to Adam, God’s first son. (As you review that list of ancestors you may appreciate why this section is every liturgist’s nightmare.  How would you like to tackle a public reading of these verses?)

               Jesus’ credentials established, Luke tells us that Jesus, “about thirty years old” was ready to begin his work.  We know next to nothing about what Jesus did with his time up to that point, and neither Luke, nor the other gospels, chooses to make that their concern.  For his part Luke tells everything he thinks we should know, that being that Jesus began his ministry endowed with the Holy Spirit.

READ THE LESSON

                No sooner does Luke establish Jesus’ credentials as the very Son of God then, bam, he is cast into a situation where all the resources of mind and Spirit to which he might lay claim are needed.

                  The Lord’s temptation by the devil is for the church a frequently chosen launch point for this first Sunday in Lent. The church wants to say that Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, carries the banner of God into a pitched battle with everything that is not God, to demonstrate that the resources at his command, and by extension, at our command also, are more than adequate to keep the devil at bay.  That’s the good news, but the church also asserts that the devil is a determined foe, hence its decision centuries ago to set aside a forty day period each year, which it identified as Lent, for people like you and I to personally assess and take seriously the claims that the monster has made on our lives.

                 The church takes the devil seriously, but it doesn’t know its adversary, the devil who meets Jesus in the wilderness, well.  After all, the devil makes but a single appearance in each of the three gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and makes no appearance at all in John. No, the church doesn’t know this devil, the embodiment of evil well. Such is not the case with the strategies the devil employs.

                Consider the frontal assault the devil made on Jesus.  Luke tells us the assault came in the form of three challenges, challenges by which Jesus could prove to the world, perhaps even to himself, that he was the Son of God.

               “Command this stone to become a load of bread.” Declared the devil.   The famished Jesus, depleted by forty days spent in the desert, may have deeply craved a morsel of bread.  If, however, he wasn’t tempted to satisfy his personal hunger, Jim Somerville, a Baptist pastor, suggested that Jesus, for very laudable reasons, may have succumbed to the temptation as a strategy to [provide] bread for the multitudes of hungry. He didn’t succumb.

                The devil’s second challenge came in this form, “worship me and I will give you authority over all the kingdoms of the world.”  This temptation, according to Somerville, may well have found resonance in Jesus’ heart, for wasn’t he “trying to establish the kingdom of God on earth”? Jesus, in his weakened state, may well have concluded that the ends justify the means.  Why not cooperate with the devil, if by so doing he could establish the kingdom of God on earth? Jesus stood fast against the temptation.

                 The devil’s third and final challenge in Luke came in the form of a dare, “throw yourself from the pinnacle of the temple.” Somerville sees that temptation as a “once and for all time” opportunity for Jesus to reveal his true identity. No one could possibly deny his status as God’s son, not so long as God summoned his angels to catch his fall. Jesus might well have been tempted to reason that the best and most efficient way to announce to the world that he was God’s son was through a major death-defying breakthrough event, rather than making the announcement piecemeal while plodding along the dusty highways and byways. Jesus ignored such reasoning.

                  Jesus, “full of the Holy Spirit” experienced a frontal act from the devil.  Luke tells us that, rebuffed by Jesus, the devil “departed from [Jesus] until an opportune time.” Interestingly enough that happens to be the last reference to the devil in the entire book of Luke, yet that is not to say that the devil disappeared.

                  Yet, if he didn’t disappear, where did he go?  The question persists today.  Get a reading on where he is, and you can do something about him.  The focus of the church during this Lenten season is doing something about him; only our modern sensibilities prevent us from acknowledging that there is a “him,” embodied devil, out there.

                  The old devil with the pitchfork has become a parody, a costume to wear on fat Tuesday rather than a menace to be taken serious. Yet that old devil, however we may mock and discredit him as a creation of a pre-modern age; the devil is a wily cuss who deserves our respect.

                 Unfortunately many times we don’t respect him enough. We are often not clever enough to spot him, particularly when he is honing in on those areas where our vulnerability is most exposed. Think about it, wouldn’t it be better if the devil made his play out in the open where we could draw a bead on him?  That was an advantage Jesus enjoyed that is denied us.

                  I credit the devil with having learned a thing or two in his encounter with Jesus, lessons he applies in his dealing with us.  I would like you to consider that the devil may have discarded his former “in your face” methods, instead devising new schemes to accomplish his aims.

                 I see the devil as the great contractor, organizing an array of subcontractors to do the work he formerly did on his own. Contractors, at least the ones with whom I am familiar, aren’t expected to know everything pertaining to a specific job. Our contractor here at Lakeview, Carl E. Woodward, is paid to oversee our project, not to do the wiring, the plumbing, or the mill work.  Woodward organizes and oversees the individuals, or firms, who possess expertise in the various trades.

                 I liken the devil to a contractor. The devil subcontracts to agents who possess specific skills in specific areas. He merely directs those subcontractors to where he sees openings. No, the devil is clever, he delegates. If I present an opening, the devil calls on the subcontractor who has had most success with my issues, my weakness. For you he calls another sub.  For the third person still another.  The devil maintains a vast rolodex.

                The devil is a clever fellow.  He has subcontractors lined up and ready to go to work where any weakness in you or I presents itself, and here’s the best part, he doesn’t have to pay them a dime.  In fact, so committed are they to their various vocations that they pay him.

               What these workmen of the devil come up with is insidious. They get behind whatever defense we might erect before we know they are even in the neighborhood.  Tragedy is that many; many times we are not clever enough to see where the workmen are taking us until it’s too late.

                In one of the most open and honest self-appraisals to be found in Holy Scripture you hear the Apostle Paul come to grips with what the devil’s subcontractors have done with his life, “I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”

               I can identify with that, how about you?  We hear Paul conceding the power of the devil’s agents to capitalize on his weakness.  “I do not do what I want.”  “No, that’s not me, over there, that’s only a caricature of me, that’s the me that sin made of me.”

               To his credit, Paul knew that sin had scarred his life. Sometimes the scars accumulate in our lives so subtly----trust me, the devil’s subcontractors take pride in their workmanship----that our sin scarred lives become our new normal. Our appearance has changed, but we simply don’t perceive the change.

                 The devil’s workmen point us to possibilities unobtainable without their help, they would gratify our senses, but their offers are always conditional, conditional on us giving something of value in return.  Regrettably we seldom pay attention to the conditions, for what they offer can look so doggone appealing. No, Jesus wasn’t taken in, for he understood the conditions that came with the devil’s bag of goods.

                  Baptized, and filled with the spirit, there was no deceiving Jesus about who he was in the eyes of God.  He was God’s own precious son.

                  The chief tragedy of the human condition is that we embrace the sin-scarred caricature of ourselves as to being who we are. We allow sin to define us. Paul wasn’t buying it.  He recognized that his sin-scarred life was a caricature of the man God created him to be.  Reflecting on his life with God, He would write to the church at Ephesus, “For we are what [God] has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.”

                 Though we have lost a lot at the hands of the devil’s subcontractors, there is a lot of life that is retrievable. The question I invite you to pose on our journey to Easter is how much of your life do you want back, and what are you willing to do to get it back. Defer your answer until tomorrow, you can do that, but you and I are not given to know how many tomorrows exist for us.

We were baptized, and that means more in the eyes of God than any of us can fathom. The same Spirit that called down to Jesus out of heaven calls down to us, you are my son, my daughter, you are my beloved.  There is what God created us to be, and then there is the caricature that sin has made of us.  The caricature is a perversion that needs to be cast aside, and God, in Christ, has given us the power to do just that. Friends that power is waiting to be seized.  Seize it today.

PRAYER

               Living God, who has privileged us to live another day, scripture tells us that in six days you created all that is, and on the seventh day took your rest.  On this seventh day we mark as our Sabbath, we also take our rest, stepping away for a time from the work and daily routines that claim us.  Grateful for the freedom to use our Sabbath in worship and fellowship, we preserve an openness to your Spirit today as you meet us in the Word, in song, and prayer. You, O Lord, are prepared to offer much if we heed your Spirit’s voice, may our minds and hearts be receptive to that which you are prepared to give.

                The road to Jerusalem and the cross was a road strewn with many obstacles for Jesus our Savior.  Even those closest to him, those he chose to be his disciples, presented obstacles to his ministry, for their minds were seduced by visions of power and glory, while Jesus attempted to teach the meaning of servanthood. Those in the religious establishment, those anointed, O God, to conduct temple worship and teach the faith, stood in Jesus’ path. Jealous of the authority he commanded, and the popularity he achieved, they conspired to kill your Son.

                  The road to Jerusalem and the cross is a road strewn with obstacles as we pilgrims living in 2007 attempt to make our way down that road.  We would rather avoid obstacles; we would look away from the suffering that a Christian vocation entails.  We would like to live as we choose and be blessed for our choices.  We come to worship seeking affirmation, and feel cheated when the experience won’t deliver. The corporate confessions we make each Sunday strike us as too negative and severe. We resent accusation, and are offended by reproach.

                 Christ, in your mercy, forgive the obstacles we thrust in your path. Even as we identify ourselves as your disciples, our minds and hearts are too often occupied satisfying personal ego needs, to be the people, to be the church, you would have us to be.

                 We enter this solemn season of the church year faced with major challenges in our ministry and our community.  Disaffected by so much that is occurring around us, we struggle to maintain our energy.  So much needing to be done, and we hold little in reserve that has not already been committed. Stand with us in these challenging, and often discouraging times, that beyond the cross we may see the precious light of a new day.

                  Brace, O God, the depressed, the anxious, the lonely, and the distraught.  There are wounds, O Lord, that need healing in this very sanctuary.  Hear our prayers for relief. There are faithful members of our church who cannot be with us today, friends who need healing. Bring hope to the distressed, joy to the morose, and peace to the anxious.  Forgive, O God, the sins we have committed in the week now past, and brace us against the temptation to repeat them.

                   As we have for weeks on end, we pray for the women and men who serve our nation on foreign soil, particularly those who find themselves in harms way.  Even as we impatiently await the end of war and conflict, we pray, O God, that you will protect the innocent, and heal those who have experienced personal tragedy as a result of war. Abide with those who set our nation’s foreign and domestic policy that they may consult broadly, even with those with whom they disagree.

                   For this day, for the gift of friendship, the bond of peace in which we are privileged to gather, we give thee thanks, O God, even as we pray the prayer your Son taught us…