When We are Tested

Lent 1A-26
Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago

We began worship with a walking meditation to symbolize the start of our Lenten journey. Following his baptism the Spirit propelled Jesus into the wilderness—a journey which was also highly symbolic and potentially deadly (Matthew 4:1). Among our ancestors in faith, to be in the wilderness was to be where one may become lost or die. This is the root of our word “bewildered.” It refers to the physical and emotional state of being lost.

These forty days we stand at a threshold. ‘We go into the wilderness — sometimes willingly, sometimes not — never knowing if we will make it home. Is there food? Or will we become food for the beasts? Death stalks in the wilderness. Our worst fears, our greatest weakness — both grow in the heavy night. And, if by some chance that we do make it back, we don’t know what will greet us upon our return. All we know is that if we do get home, we will be different than when we left. And there is no wilderness without danger. This is the fearsome holy, the unsettling sacred’ toward which Lent invites us now. (Debie Thomas, “Tempted,” Journey with Jesus, 2/23/20)

350 years ago, sometime in July 1673, seven men left the Mississippi to paddle up the Illinois to the Des Plaines River. Native Americans had told them about a trail running along what is now Irving Park Road over which they could portage and then put into the Chicago River which opened into Lake Michigan. Jacque Marquette and Louis Joliet were among the first Europeans to enter the Chicago region. They marveled at the fertility of the land and the abundance of wildlife. They said, ‘We have seen nothing like it before.’ ‘For a distance of 270 miles, I did not pass a quarter of an hour without seeing wild game.’

It’s difficult to imagine now. The city grid we all know wouldn’t be drawn up until 1833, but it could not change the contours left behind when the glaciers receded some 10,000 years ago, nor could it erase the paths indigenous peoples and wild animals created as they traversed the gentle ridges, followed the rivers, skirted the wetlands, and moved along the ancient Michigan shoreline. The Potowatomi, Mishigama, Inoka, and Iliani peoples left a legacy we see today in our diagonal streets and six-sided intersections. Lincoln avenue follows a slight geological rise, as does Elston Avenue and Waukegan Road. Milwaukee was apparently once an old buffalo trail. Clark, Ridge, and Green Bay scribe the contours of Lake Michigan. Chicago was once a wild landscape of prairie grasses, boggy marshes, and wetlands.

Wilderness comes in all shapes and sizes. Barbara Brown Taylor writes that, “the only way you can really tell if you’re in one is to look around for what you normally count on to save your life and come up empty.” By definition, that’s a wilderness.
Urban people can experience wilderness in city streets, next to hospital beds, school classrooms, online chatrooms, in our homes, and/or in public parks. Wilderness can look like walking out of work with the news that your job is ending. Wilderness can be the stress of someone in your family who is really struggling or sick. Wilderness is staying too long in a bad a relationship or suddenly ending a good one. ‘The ashes we wore on Wednesday speak of the wilderness ash of grief and weary exhaustion, sin that sickens us and our world, of things that imprison us, the fears that eat away at us. Needless to say, no one prays for this wilderness.’ (Rev. Lindsay Mack, Luther Memorial, ELCA)
The wilderness into which Jesus goes is a place of isolation and death. Today’s gospel is a remarkably detailed tour of temptations set before Jesus by an articulate, Torah-toting, scripture-quoting devil. All three of Satan’s tests tempt Jesus to betray his identity and misuse his power.

Later, Jesus will turn a couple fish and five barley loaves into a feast for 5000. But now he refuses to use that same power to transform stones into bread to feed himself. Later, Jesus will walk on water, calm the stormy seas, and pass through the violent mob at Nazareth. But now, he refuses to jump from the top of the temple to justify himself to the devil. Later, angels will pronounce Jesus is King of kings and Lord of lords—the alpha and omega. But here, Jesus refuses to take any shortcuts toward his final goal.

Later, bystanders will repeat the same challenge shouting from the foot of the cross. ‘If you are the Son of God, save yourself and come down from that cross, so that we may believe in you’ (Matthew 27:40). But Jesus won’t jump from the top of the temple. He won’t come down from the cross either. Jesus won’t misuse his power to do magic tricks or to benefit himself. Jesus says no to Empire and yes to nonviolence. He says no to scarcity thinking and yes to abundance. He says no to life lived in fear of death and yes to life lived in pursuit of love and the way of the cross. Now the question this Lent is ‘can we?’

350 years ago, the land upon which we now live appeared very different. I wonder how those early explorers would make sense of Chicagoland today? The landscape they knew would be both familiar and bewildering.
Likewise, in this, the year of our Lord, 2026 it feels like the ground beneath our feet has shifted despite the fact we never moved. We see an iron triangle of billionaires, autocrats, and international criminals, intent upon ending democracy. We see White Christian nationalists, who are neither Christian nor patriotic, focused on preserving the old hierarchy: men over women, white people over all people of color, straight people over LGBTQ people. We see, Big Tech platforms functioning like digital fiefdoms in which billions of us have become unwitting serfs laboring on digital estates we do not own. Algorithms, not the Holy Spirit, now shape our attention, identity, and desires. (Yanis Varoufakis, Techno-Feudalism: What Killed Capitalism).

At his baptism, Jesus heard God call him, ‘The Beloved.’ In the wilderness Jesus had to face down every vicious assault on that truth. When the memory of his Father’s voice from heaven faded Jesus had to figure out how to be God’s beloved in a lonely wasteland.

“So. What does Jesus’s temptation story mean for us as we begin our Lenten journeys this year? Maybe it means we need to follow Jesus into the desert. Maybe it means we should hunker down and look evil in the face. Maybe it’s time to hear evil’s voice, recognize its allure, and confess its appeal. Maybe it’s time to decide who we are and whose we are. Remember, Lent is not a time to do penance for being human. It’s a time to embrace all that it means to be human. Human and hungry. Human and vulnerable. Human and beloved. May the God who loves us even in the wilderness, grant us a holy Lent” (Thomas). “When we are tempted to barter our souls, trading the truth for power to control, teach us to worship and praise only you, seeking your will in the work that we do.” (When we are Tested, ACS # 922)