Category: Theological Rant
Caring for people. Doing good in the world.
Not long ago, I revisited the stories of Jesus’ temptations while preparing some words for another topic. The specific temptations detailed in Matthew 4:1-11 and Luke 4:1-13 have been taught as “one off” experiences in the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth. They are tests that Jesus passes on his way to living as a meditation on what it means to have faith in God. Maybe they are not “one off.” Your moral compass. Your empire claims. Your use of power. Those are always going to be Jesus’ temptations. They are never “one off.” They keep coming back. That’s the lesson. They always return in different clothing, financial instruments, power structures, political parties, slogans, policies, empires, instruments of injustice, and in the name of the Divine. Jesus dealt with it. Those first generations of disciples dealt with it. Saul, transformed to Paul certainly had his issues as did those claiming apostleship and interpreting a backstory to mean dominate the known world for Jesus. History shows how badly that interpretation coupled with politics can be. The Crusades. The Holocaust. A new PRRI survey indicates it remains a struggle in the 21st century for those that claim Christian faith, be it faith in Jesus or the faith of Jesus.
One of the differences often noted between Matthew and Luke is the order of the temptations. That’s not what caught my attention. In Luke’s version, Jesus has been in the desert forty days being tempted by the Satan. The text says “He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished.” It is then that the Satan offers the big three detailed in Luke and Matthew. Famished. I think this is a way of understanding the rise of pop-Christian evangelicalism, the New Apostolic Reformation, Christian nationalism, and the religious fundamentalism that has returned in our Nation. Mainline Protestant Christianity and Catholicism became comfortably numb in its place in society having been popular post WW II and experienced righteousness during the Civil Rights era. A queasy tolerance of secularism and the expansion of rights for women, expanded gender roles, the sexual revolution, voting rights, interracial marriage, and changing cultural norms drove some to a wilderness. These emerged from the wilderness of the second half of the 20th century famished. Everyone was left behind at the turn of the millennium. Jesus didn’t return. For some the search for a purpose driven life has embraced an amoral capitalist turned political leader whose worldview is immoral. We’ve seen what being famished will do to a person, a people. We are seeing Captain Jack Sparrow’s pirate moto in realtime, “Take all you can. Give nothing back.” Two characters from central casting, President Trump and Musk, play their roles well. Savior and villain. It could be understandable had they been born into poverty fighting the man and the man’s systems for their fair share. But, they were born into wealth and privilege, and protected when they failed over and over again because of that wealth. Famished. Have we as a Nation learned nothing from world history and our own history with these temptations?
The good news according to Mark gives no details of the temptations. The text simply says Jesus was driven into the wilderness, tempted by Satan, was with wild beasts and angels waited on Jesus. (Mark 1:12-13). I don’t pretend to know what the wilderness is for people, nor the metaphorical wild beasts of other’s struggles. Everyone experiences both. I don’t believe in the existence of celestial beings called angels, but I think the idea of caring, watching out for people, treating people fairly and tending to our neighbor, is a description of what people are capable of. It might be what President Lincoln meant in his first inaugural address as, “the better angels of our nature.” Based on his behavior pattern this doesn’t interest the 47th President unless the transaction benefits him somehow. Famished.
It was with great surprise last Sunday that my congregation’s minister referenced the podcast, “Where Everybody Knows Your Name.” Ted Danson is interviewing his wife, Mary, who mentions how her childhood church was important to her growing up and still is today. It just happens to be part of the little frontier movement in which I serve. She speaks as one who understands the temptations never go away, and that church can embrace the faith of Jesus in simple acts that are super intense. Care for people. Do good in the world. I don’t know if that will stop the pirates ravaging our government today as they attempted to do on January 6, 2021, but it is a place to begin locally when the temptations return. It’s not easy, but the best way to not be fooled again is to not be famished inside or outside the wilderness. Jesus didn’t fall for it. Followers of Jesus do Jesus-like things. You do your best. Persons of other faiths that may pass by this site, I suggest the parts of your holy texts that teach something like the Golden Rule. Maybe you are of no particular faith and consider yourself spiritual, agnostic, or something else. The simplicity of Zoroastrian faith is a place to begin in the wilderness or oasis: Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds.
Words and Meditations
I was gifted the trust of the pulpit today at Southern Hills Christian Church. Here are the words I shared in a lightly edited form. The text for the day was Luke 4:14-21
Good morning church. I start my day with thirty minutes of silence. It’s a practice I began in college when I studied Buddhism for a year. This week, I’ve been thinking about the words and meditations our Nation offered and received on inauguration day and the days since. I’ve thought about the words and meditations of my neighbors, family, and friends who have different religious experiences, economic circumstances, and political perspectives than my own. One morning, I remembered a story by the late Rev. Dr. Peter Gomes. Gomes was the Professor of Christian Morals at Harvard Divinity School and a minister at Harvard’s Memorial Chapel for many years.
Gomes was a guest preacher on the first Sunday after George Bush won the 2004 Presidential election. Many people sitting in the pews that day felt distraught, but many felt righteous. The lectionary gospel reading that day was Luke’s version of the Beatitudes. The message of the Beatitudes is meant for people who are not used to winning and who always consider tomorrow to be a better day. The Beatitudes describe a world turned upside down when the downtrodden are lifted up and those on top are cast down. In Gomes’ words, “It is the ultimate redistribution of wealth, and one can see why a certain kind of socialists would find it appealing and why a certain kind of capitalists would find it appalling. The gospel message in Luke is simply that knowing this, we now have a chance to do something about it before it is too late.”
Those who felt righteous that day grumbled to the settled pastor that the quest preacher brought politics into the pulpit. Those distraught felt comforted. Gomes says, “Both were wrong. I preached simply what the gospel presented and, alas, situational listening did the rest . . . Good news to some will almost inevitably be bad news to others.”(1)
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Gomes said, “The Bible alone is the most dangerous thing I can think of. You need an ongoing context and a community of interpretation to keep the Bible current and to keep yourself honest. Forget the thought that the Bible is an absolute pronouncement.” Our meditations and our words matter in shaping what we bring to the biblical witness and how we interpret its story about the good news of God and the life of Jesus of Nazareth in our ongoing context.
On the top floor of the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington D.C., where the permanent exhibit begins, there is a little area with videos and archive documents that tell the story of how the museum came into existence and its purpose. One of the videos said, and I’m paraphrasing, “This museum, like all museums, has a perspective. It has a story we are telling. Listen to it. Explore it. Argue with it.” I bring that perspective to my study of the bible. It is my sacred text. Both Testaments contain authoritative stories that stand on their own without being assimilated through the work of Supersessionism. For me the bible is a kind of museum. And like a museum, you don’t have all the artifacts, original documents, and first or second-generation complete experience, so one must imagine, look for context clues, and to broader history, recognizing that I may only see in a mirror dimly.
The lectionary is one of the bible’s curators. It gathers biblical stories from a Christian perspective and applies them to a story about Jesus of Nazareth and God in the New Testament. The Apostle Paul, his disciples, and the gospel writers did the same to explain their experience of Jesus as the Messiah or Christ as they evangelized the world with their living example, their words, and meditations. Jesus was Jewish. The Hebrew bible was his sacred text. The early followers of the Way, what Christians were known as before being called “Christians,” were Jews and Gentiles who had their holy scriptures, cultural stories, legends, traditions, and interpreters.
I need to pause for a side note from my companion, the Hebrew bible scholar, and remind us that when you read “law” in the Hebrew scriptures, she suggests the better translation is “teaching.” All of the Torah is teaching. She also wants Christians to remember that for the Jewish community, prophets were religious and cultural critics who spoke what people needed to hear, even when or especially when it was not what they wanted to hear. The prophets of the Hebrew bible are not future tellers or predictors of Jesus, specifically. That’s one of those interpretive acts we read back into the ancient text as we use words and meditations. The modern term is “revisionist,” and it is rarely positive act.
An old story from the Talmud says that in the first century, a stranger asked two rabbis a question. “Teach me the whole Torah while standing on one leg.” Rabbi Shammai was angered and hit the gentile with his measuring rod. Rabbi Hillel responded, “That which is hateful to you, do not unto another: This is the whole Torah. The rest is commentary. Now, go and learn.(2)
As we join the story today about the life and times of Jesus in the gospel of Luke, it is important to remember that the letters of Paul had been floating around Jesus communities, think house churches, long before the gospels were written. Evolution of the Word is an excellent book by Marcus Borg. In it, he provides a chronological order of the New Testament that begins in the 50s CE(common era). 1st Thessalonians is the oldest original Pauline letter and is the first book in the New Testament of Borg’s chronology. The gospel of Mark appeared in the 70s CE, and Luke in the 110s. I think of the Synoptic Gospels (Mark, Matthew, Luke) and John as prequels. They give Jesus a backstory for those who had met him through Paul, the early Jesus communities, and all who professed faith in Christ ever since.
Just before the reading for today, Jesus had two life-altering moments. Full of the Holy Spirit, he returned to Nazareth after being baptized and spent forty days in the desert, listening for God and facing his temptations. Jesus faces them, is strengthened, and knows those will always be his temptations. The text says he was about thirty years old when he began his work. I invite you to listen for the good news of God.
Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.
When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
Luke 4:14-21, NRSV
‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’
And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’
Christian tradition considers this Jesus’ first sermon. We don’t know if he was nervous speaking in front of the hometown crowd, but he had a good reputation before he stood to speak. As a Timothy of my congregation, it was tradition to preach at my home church at least twice before being ordained into Christian ministry. My mother told me that the first time she heard me preach, she was proud, nauseous, and puzzled. Not much has changed over the years.
We don’t know if Isaiah was the preassigned reading for the day or if Jesus asked for it, but he skips around and blends Isaiah 58:6 and Isaiah 61:1-2, but not all of verse 2. Go back and read Isaiah 61. The prophet is talking to people who have returned from exile. Remember situational listening. This sermon scene is Luke’s way of foreshadowing his story about the ministry of Jesus. From this point forward, Jesus puts his words and meditations about the year of the Lord’s favor into practice for the poor, the captives, the blind, and the oppressed. Jesus tells the people in the synagogue and all of us here that, today, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. It leaves everyone speechless. People may have been looking at one another. Is he saying what I think he is saying? I would have asked. So I did. I asked “Text with Jesus” AI chatbot, “What did you mean when you quoted Isaiah 61:1-2 in the gospel of Luke?” AI Jesus responded.
I quoted Isaiah 61:1-2 to proclaim the purpose of my ministry. It’s about fulfilling God’s mission of hope and restoration. By referencing these words, I revealed my presence and work were a continuation of God’s promise to God’s people. It served as an announcement that through me, God was actively working to bring salvation and transformation into people’s lives. It’s all about love, grace, and liberation.
Over the centuries, Jesus’ call back to Isaiah has been spiritualized, theorized, and paralyzed as Christian theologians have systematically explained God’s salvation story through Jesus alone. Faith in Jesus Christ has replaced the faith of Jesus in the promises of God. While belief and faith in Jesus the Christ can change a person, can comfort and help one understand what may come beyond this life, then and there, Jesus offers an alternative vision of the present. It is an invitation, a calling, to live differently, here and now. I remember a time when WWJD (what would Jesus do) was everywhere. Translation: followers of Jesus do Jesus-like things. If God was working through Jesus, then surely God is working through those who claim the faith of Jesus and faith in Jesus today. We need to take great care and great tact with our words and meditations because life is a great balancing act.(3)
Dr. Karoline Lewis, Professor of Biblical Preaching at Luther Seminary, describes Jesus’ reading of Isaiah with this question. “If you could choose the words that might encapsulate who you are, the only words that would communicate the essence of yourself, your life, your commitments, what would they be?”(4)
Theophane the Monk tells this story.
I had just one desire—to give myself completely to God. So, I headed to the monastery. An old monk asked me, “What is it you want?” I said, “I want to give myself completely to God.”
I expected him to be gentle, fatherly, but he shouted at me, “NOW!” I was stunned. He shouted again, “NOW!” Then he reached for a club and came after me. I turned and ran. He kept coming after me, brandishing his club and shouting, “Now, now.”
That was years ago. He still follows me wherever I go. Always that stick, always that “NOW!”(5)
The historian Diana Butler Bass offers this thought about the text. “Living in God’s promise is not about yesterday. Nor is it about awaiting some distant Messiah and eternal life in the Kingdom of God. It is about NOW. This is a hard truth to hear and receive. Jesus’ friends refused. They would rather stay mired in nostalgia and complain about the future. How great the prophets were! If only a savior would appear and get us out of this mess! But Jesus’ sermon remains as clear and poignant and important and urgent as ever: Today this promise has been fulfilled in your hearing–what we need is here. Today.”(6)
Siblings in faith, remember that God’s grace and peace are not simply abstract concepts. You’ve experienced God’s grace and peace. God’s compassion and the way of Jesus are present in this world through your faith and your actions. Your individual and collective efforts as a congregation have the power to transform the world around you, even if it is just for a moment. I still want to believe that a moment might be, can be enough.
Even when you are not sure who is my neighbor, it’s the way you tend to your neighbors.
It’s the way you deal with ones that call you an (the) enemy.
It’s the way you tend to one another.
Sometimes, you can sense it.
Sometimes, you can see it.
Usually, you don’t know how kindness, a supportive word, a question or an action, small or large, can alter the trajectory of a person’s day, week, or life. And it may take a while to know how that moment affected you.
Jesus of Nazareth met people where they were in life’s journey:
the poor and the rich,
the powerful and the powerless,
the healthy and infected,
the in-group and the outcast.
His living demonstrated his words and meditations.
His living reminded people of another commandment: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
That’s a mysterious gospel fulfilled in our hearing, meditations, words, and living.
There is ministry to do and gospel to be from this corner of Edmond, that only you can do and only you can be. Go be it.
_________
1. Gomes, Peter J, The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus: What’s So Good About the Good News? Harper One (New York) 2007, p 30-31.
2. Rabbi Edward Feinstein, “On One Foot?” January 27, 2016. https://www.aju.edu/ziegler-school-rabbinic-studies/our-torah/back-issues/one-foot
3. A borrowed idea from Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You’ll Go!, Random House, 1990.
4. Karoline Lewis, “Commentary on Luke 4:14-21.” January 27, 2013. workingpreacher.org. Accessed January 21, 2025. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/third-sunday-after-epiphany-3/commentary-on-luke-414-21
5. Theophane the Monk, Tales of a Magic Monastery. Crossroad (New York) 1994, p 50.
6. Diana Butler Bass, “The Power of Today.” Day1.org, January 24, 2016. https://day1.org/weekly-broadcast/5d9b820ef71918cdf2003dc8/the_power_of_today accessed January 25, 2025.