WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT JESUS?
A Sermon for the First Sunday of Lent

Once in a while, preachers have something to teach us. But preachers’ kids? Now, they have the real“low down” on life. One preacher’s son, just three years old, heard a children’s sermon and asked, “’Hey, mom, what do you know about the Devil?’” “My mind,” she remembers, “immediately jumped to a spectrum of theological views…Should I start with ( St.) Augustine? Should I …answer in terms of conservative or progressive...interpretations?...Then I looked at him again and remembered that he was three.

“’What do you know about the Devil?’” she asked her son, “in classic mom/professor mode….’Well,’ he began, ‘the Devil talked to Jesus….(and) the Devil was mean.’ Mean. I began to wonder,” the preacher says, “about the relationship of ‘mean’ to ‘evil.’ What is the difference between ‘mean’ and ‘evil’?...Is it possible to be evil without being mean?...” Her theological reflections were cut short when her son leaned close to her, whispering, “’If we were at a store, and you and Dad were in one aisle, and I was in another aisle, and’ – his hushed tones became downright conspiratorial at this point – ‘there was candy…’ He paused…. ‘The devil would say, “ You should take some!”

Children can help us learn about the devil. And they can also, when we are willing to pay attention, help us learn about Jesus. So, what do you know about the Devil? Years ago I learned one of the most common names for the Devil in the earliest church was “the Adversary.” An adversary is an enemy, someone who wants to defeat us. The Devil is the Adversary, the Enemy. The Devil says, “You should take some! Go ahead. No one will notice. You deserve it.” These days, it is hard to think about temptations, the power of lies or the kind of self-deceit called entitlement without thinking of golf professional Tiger Woods. Let us pray for him and his family.

What I have learned about the Devil is that the Devil never tells the truth. And what I know about Jesus is that Jesus ALWAYS tells the truth. Lent is a time to consider the truth and to tell the truth about ourselves. The truth is, we are not Jesus, and we are not the Devil. The bad news is, sometimes we act more like the Devil. The good news is that, sometimes, we are more like Jesus. And the really Good News is that, if we want to stop being more like the Devil, we can look to Jesus, we can listen to Jesus, we can learn the truth – about our lives and how to lead them – from Jesus.

Of course, we are human. Left to our own devices, we will fail to follow Jesus more often than we want to admit. We will make mistakes. We will sin. We will fail to see the mark of Jesus made on our foreheads and the foreheads of children at Baptism. But Lent is the time to remember those Baptisms, especially the baptism of Jesus. The first verse of today’s Gospel story from Luke reminds us: “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan (where he had been baptized) and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.” There it is, the whole story of Jesus in the wilderness, all wrapped up in one verse. “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.”

What do we know about the Devil? The Devil is our Enemy, our Adversary. The Devil tempts us, lies to us, deceives us. And what do we know about Jesus? Jesus is our Ally, our Friend, the One who tells us the truth. Jesus is full of God’s Spirit and wants to share that Holy Spirit with us.

What else do we know about Jesus? We know that Jesus is a real spiritual leader. A real spiritual leader is someone who, when tempted, still manages to be led by the Spirit of God. Jesus is the One who shows us both how to be led by that Spirit and how to lead others in the power of that same Spirit of God. And Jesus is the One willing to be led by God’s Spirit – even in the wilderness.

Note that the Spirit of God did not help Jesus get out of that wilderness experience. The Holy Spirit did not lead Jesus OUT of the wilderness. God’s Spirit led Jesus while he was IN the wilderness, leading Jesus deeper into that wilderness and through it all. And we can believe that Jesus, our real spiritual leader, will lead us, in the way and in the power of God’s Spirit, through the wilderness of our own spiritual lives.

Why do we believe this? How can we believe this? Because Jesus, we are told in this story, experienced everything we experience. Wilderness? He’s been there. Temptation? He’s been there. Jesus knows all about temptation. Being human like we are, Jesus probably hesitated before he went into that wilderness. “Save us from the time of trial,” says the alternative wording of the Lord’s Prayer (BCP, p. 364). When Jesus taught his disciples to pray, he must have remembered his own wilderness, his own times of trial. He must have wanted his disciples to pray they would be spared what he had suffered. Yet deep down, Jesus no doubt knew that, sometimes, that’s just not possible.

The disciples of Jesus would also come to know some wilderness times of their own. Peter’s bitter weeping after he betrays Jesus, for example, was a wilderness experience. We, too, will come to the wilderness. The truth is that, if we are to follow and to be faithful to Jesus, we will be led by God’s Spirit into and in and through the wilderness. Not to be frightened, but to be encouraged. Not to be weakened, but to be strengthened. Not to die, but to learn how to live. Whether it’s the wilderness of unemployment or armed combat, whether it’s the wilderness of adolescence or extreme old age, Jesus is with us, the Spirit of God is with us, showing us the way not just to survive, but to live.

What do we know about Jesus? Jesus is our ally, our truth-teller and our boon companion on this wilderness journey. Jesus is our true spiritual guide – our best vision of leadership and our best vision of followership. He shows us what it means to lead others by being led by the Spirit of God.

Dear friends in Christ, my prayer during this holy season of Lent is that we, as a community of faith, as All Saints’ Church, would get curious and ask, “What do we know about Jesus?” I invite you to look with me more carefully for Jesus. Let’s listen to Jesus this Lent. Let’s learn from Jesus this Lent.

“’Honey,’” the preacher-mom said, “’if we were at a store; and Dad and I were in one aisle; and you were in another aisle; and there was candy; and the devil said, ‘You should take some!’…What would you say back to the Devil?’ A genuinely sweet grin lit up his entire face and without hesitation he replied, ‘Oh! I would say thank you!’” Today, rather than thanking the Devil, can we say “thank you” to Jesus? Can we thank God today for our children and how they remind us of Jesus? Dare we ask God to show us how to be more like Jesus? Might we try seeking and speaking the truth in love – not about others, but about ourselves? Even when we feel more like the Devil? Even when other people feel like the Devil? Even in the midst of our wilderness?

Let us pray. God, help us. In this season of Lent, help us consider the truth about ourselves. Help us to be more like Jesus. Help us to look for Jesus, to listen to Jesus, to learn from Jesus. Help us to follow Jesus. Help us to be led, like him, by your Holy Spirit, in and through the wilderness times of our lives. We want to do this and we will do this, but only with your gracious, loving help can we do this. We pray this in Jesus’ name. AMEN.

The Rev. Thomas A. Momberg
All Saints’ Episcopal Church
Frederick , Maryland
February 21, 2010

The “preacher-mom” is Lori Brandt Hale, Associate Professor and Director of General Education, Augsburg College, Minneapolis, Minnesota. She tells this story in Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year C, Vol. 2, pp. 44-48).

For more on the interruptions of life, go to http://fathermom.wordpress.com