Jesus and the Devil: The Fine Line Between Faith and Stupidity

[Second in a series on Jesus' three temptations in the wilderness]
Matthew 4:1-11, Psalm 91

I don’t know about you,
but I’ve always thought the second temptation of Jesus
isn’t really much of a temptation.
Jesus was taken to the pinnacle of the temple,
and told to jump, because God had promised to protect him.
Now I enjoy being on high places and looking out over everything.
There’s a certain thrill to it.
I got a couple chances to do that
when Irene and I took our vacation to Europe.
One day, in fact, I did climb to the pinnacle of a temple,
the Cathedral in Cologne, Germany.
I walked up 532 steps, almost to the top of one of the spires,
over 500 feet above the streets.
It was great. But I really can’t say,
“I was so tempted to climb out the window and jump.”
No, the thought never crossed my mind.

Later, I went on a hike with Pierre-André Lechot,
whom some of you remember, from their time here at Park View.
And I had my first-ever experience with a sort of rock-climbing.
It was actually a horizontal trail along the face of a cliff,
with a thick iron cable embedded in the rock,
that ran the length of the trail.
We were both wearing harnesses with clips,
so the whole time we were physically attached to the cliff.
And it was thrilling
to look down on their village a thousand feet below.
But never once did I think to myself,
“You know, if I unclip myself from this cable, and jump,
the Lord will surely save me.”

Nope. Second temptation of Jesus? Not a temptation.
And if it wasn’t tempting for me,
it certainly wasn’t for Irene,
who on both occasions kept her feet firmly at ground level.

On the face of it, this is a rather silly and stupid temptation.
Now the first temptation was different.
Turning stones to bread, after a 40-day fast in the desert,
might be kind of hard to resist.
But to jump from the temple,
expecting angels to swoop down from the sky,
and scoop you up in their arms
and keep you from so much as bumping your foot?
That’s not faith, that’s stupidity.
It must not have been much of a challenge for Jesus to resist.

So, if on the face of it, it looks too easy or too silly,
it must mean we need to look beyond the face of it.
Because these three temptations were not only real for Jesus,
they are emblematic of the temptations we face.
Hebrews 4:15 tells us that Christ is not someone
“who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses,
but we have one who in every respect
has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.”

So if this story of Jesus’ victorious struggle with the devil
is to be of encouragement to us,
we have to look for the deeper struggle in this for Jesus.
Why was this such a temptation for Jesus?

Well, one way to put it, is to say that Jesus was tempted
to put God into the position of serving him,
instead of the other way around.
It was the temptation to try to force God’s hand.
And to give in to this temptation,
would be to hand a victory to the devil,
the Great Separator (as I called him last week).
Because it would separate Jesus from mission, and his identity,
which was to serve God, and the purposes of God.

This whole arrangement between the Creator God,
and the Incarnate One, Jesus Christ,
was that Jesus would be the hands and feet of God in the world.
He was here for the sole purpose of serving God,
and announcing the rule and reign of God.
For anyone to say to God, “Look, God, here’s what I’m about to do.
Now, it’s up to you to do this in response.”...
for anyone to say such a thing,
is to grab the agenda out of God’s hands,
and try to take over responsibility.
Threatening to jump off a precipice,
trusting God to rescue you,
is actually not an act of trust in God at all.
It’s an act of profound mis-trust.
It’s saying to God, “I don’t trust you with the agenda.
I’m taking it over from here.”
_____________________

Now, I suppose, we can all begin to see,
how very real,
and how everyday,
and how much of a challenge,
this second temptation of Jesus really is,
the temptation to have God serve us, instead of us serve God.

Often, I’ve heard preachers suggest that this second temptation,
is primarily that of choosing the sensational and spectacular,
as the way to get the message across.
That Jesus was being tempted to use his divine connections,
to draw attention to himself, to achieve fame,
and to convince people to believe in him.
That makes sense, in a way.
But that explanation isn’t very satisfying to me.
Because, in fact, Jesus’ ministry often did wind up
being very attention-getting and sometimes sensational.
Some of his acts of ministry were indeed
public displays of miraculous power,
such that thousands believed in him.
What could be more spectacular and in the public view,
than feeding a crowd of thousands,
with five little loaves and two fishes,
then collecting 12 baskets of leftovers?
That was far more likely to draw attention and draw crowds
and convince skeptics,
than jumping from the top of the temple.
At most, only a handful of people could be eyewitnesses to that.

Furthermore, in the gospels, these three temptations of Jesus,
function in the story, as universal human temptations.
I don’t think the temptation to do things
spectacular and sensational and which make us famous,
is really a universal human temptation.
Sure, some folks have an ambition to achieve celebrity status,
and might be tempted to jump, strictly for that reason.
And public personalities,
like pastors, for instance,
or politicians, or other public figures,
could find it tempting to pursue the spectacular.
But most people actually prefer being behind the scenes.

No, I think this is a universal temptation,
and it’s a temptation on a deep level,
and it’s a temptation we all struggle with every day.

We aren’t being tempted to jump from a pinnacle every day.
But daily we are tempted to buy into the assumptions
of the pinnacle-jumper.
Daily we are tempted to make decisions on the same basis
as the pinnacle-jumper.

Pinnacle-jumpers assume God is here for them.
That’s the reason they’re willing to jump.
They are acting out of a false understanding of the nature of God.
Since God loves me,
it must mean that God will do anything for me.
If I have enough faith,
God will give me whatever I ask.
If I love God sufficiently,
and live a good, holy, and sufficiently pure life,
then God will surely return the favor,
and work on my behalf.

Whenever we talk about our faith in terms of
what God does for me,
we are in danger of falling for the second temptation.
Too much talk about how God has blessed me,
or done this for me, or that for me,
or provided me with this thing or that thing,
or how wonderful my life is with God in it,
some red flags ought to be going up.

The fact of the matter is that faith in God
does not prevent me from suffering,
it does not shield me from disaster,
it does not guarantee me a blessed and privileged life.

Authentic faith is God-centered faith.
Always and only.
Faith focused on me and my needs and my agenda
is a distortion of the Gospel,
and can scarcely be called faith.

That’s where the devil got it wrong,
when he quoted Psalm 91 to Jesus.
The psalmist never said and never meant,
“Take any risk you want, and God will protect you.”
No, the focus of this psalm is something altogether different.

Let’s take a look at it again...Psalm 91.
The heart of the psalm is in the first two verses.
“You who live in the shelter of the Most High,
who abide in the shadow of the Almighty,
will say to the LORD, ‘My refuge and my fortress;
my God, in whom I trust.’”

This is a psalm about where to find our home, our identity.
It is about entering into the deep with God.
It is about becoming so immersed in, so identified with, God,
that it would be the worst insult for someone to suggest
that you’re in this for what you get out of it.
It would be inconceivable to think of God as your candy-man.
It would be like someone accusing you
that the only reason you go back home to visit your parents,
is the free food and lodging.
In some unhealthy families it might be that way.
But no one in their right mind would suggest
that the reason we should stay on good terms with our parents,
are the freebies we get when we visit.

So why is it we are so tempted to think of God that way?
Why is it that so often it’s our own agenda
that’s driving our relationship with God?
That’s the bottom line of the second temptation:
to let our agenda determine how we relate to God.
It’s to assume,
well if I have this need, then that is the way God will meet it,
or if I’m in that situation, then God will surely act in this way
on my behalf.
To think that way is to distort the nature of God.

In life, bad things happen.
Terrible, unthinkable things happen.
Unexplainable suffering occurs.
Last November 1, the Jeffrey and Carolyn Schrock family,
relatives of Paul Schrock,
suffered a terrible tragedy when a car accident took the lives
of their five children in Washington State.
This past Wednesday, in Florida, the opposite corner of the country,
the Barbara and Terry Mann family lost their five children,
and three other relatives, as a result of a crash.
Both families were heavily involved in their respective churches.
Their pastors spoke about their faith and commitment.

Now, who would like to go and read Psalm 91 to these two families,
and try to convince them
that if we stay on God’s side,
God will protect us from suffering?
that God will send his angels to keep us from
dashing our foot against a stone?

Claiming that God protects the faithful from suffering
is a gross distortion of the truth.
It’s a logical impossibility to claim both
that God will rescue us from every danger,
and that God is with us in our suffering.

In other famous psalm, we are assured that
God will walk with us through the valley of the shadow of death,
not that God will keep us from ever entering the valley.

It’s a result of our culture
that glamorizes health and wealth and success and social status,
and stigmatizes disease and poverty and defeat,
that we have invented a God whose primary work in our lives,
is to protect us from suffering,
and bless us with abundance.

It’s a result of our culture,
that we have blurred the fine line between faith and stupidity.
Faith is,
to place our full trust in the God
with whom we are in deep communion,
with whom we dwell,
and in whom we find our refuge.
But to trust in some principle
that whatever we want or need or ask for, we will get,
is not faith, but stupidity.

That might sound a little harsh.
I’m not trying to call you stupid.
...Well, yes I am. But I’m calling all of us stupid, including myself.
And by stupid, I’m referring to the dictionary definition.
Stupid comes from the Latin word meaning dazed, or stunned.
And thus, unable to think clearly.

Our individualistic, consumeristic, success-driven culture
has us in a daze.
We are unable to think clearly.
We’ve been stupified.
And we have confused faith with a formula.
In our culturally-induced stupor,
we have confused authentic faith
in a God of love and self-sacrifice,
with a self-centered cheap religious substitute,
that would guarantee success and freedom from suffering.
_____________________

So what can we say about Psalm 91?
What exactly did the devil get wrong,
when he quoted the scripture?

And to be honest, there are parts of that psalm
that are truly hard to reconcile.
Because it does claim God will deliver us
from pestilence, terror, and destruction.
A thousand will fall on our right and on our left,
but it won’t come near us, it says, v. 7.
I don’t have easy answers for all this.

But to just begin to answer, I would make several observations.
First, the psalm is not about risk-taking behavior.
It’s about living within the deep shelter of God.
It’s the ones dwelling under the wings of God,
that this psalm is addressed to.
It’s not those going out looking for trouble,
putting themselves at risk for reasons of self-promotion.
That’s the first reason the devil got it wrong.
The other observation is that the psalm itself
does not guarantee protection in every incident and every case.
V. 15 says, “I will be with them in trouble.”
V. 16 says, “I will show them my salvation.”
What we are assured of, if we make God our refuge,
is that we will never suffer ultimate destruction.
Our end is clear. Our end is salvation.
The angels will bear us up.
Maybe not in the time and manner we wish for.
But God will not allow our final destruction.
We will be delivered.
We will find rest.

And when you read the whole psalm,
you find out that, ironically,
when Jesus refused to listen to the devil when he quoted the psalm,
the real message of the psalm came true.
Jesus was delivered, like it says in v. 3, from the snare of the fowler.
The devil, the Great Separator, the deceiver,
failed to catch his prey in the trap.
Jesus was delivered from the snare.
_____________________

This temptation, far from being easy to avoid,
is probably one of the most difficult.
It is only by the grace of God,
that we can be saved from the stupor
brought on by our culture, and by our sinful nature.
May God, in whom we trust, be gracious to us all,
and give us the strength to resist.

—Phil Kniss, January 29, 2006

Jesus and the Devil: The Great Separator

[First in a series on Jesus' three temptations in the wilderness]
Matthew 4:1-4

Today, and the next two Sundays, I’m going to preach about the devil.
I can only imagine what you’re thinking.
Like, “You know,
there’s two churches I’ve always wanted to visit.”

Preaching about the devil is not something I’ve done a lot of,
as a career Mennonite preacher.
And with good reason.
The Gospel is the Good News of God.
So when I preach the Gospel,
I preach about what God is up to,
what God’s mission is in the world.
Too much focus on the devil
can ruin a good Gospel sermon.

There are some hellfire-and-brimstone preachers
who every Sunday pound the pulpit and shout at people
about the terrible, horrifying things
that Satan is doing right under their noses,
and if they don’t watch out
they’re going to wind up in a lake of fire.
And, oh, by the way, Jesus saves you from that lake of fire.
But the accent is on the evil things the devil is up to.
They capitalize on human fear of fire, pain, and eternal torment,
and scare people into the church.
I’m not sure I would call that Gospel preaching.

So I emphasize the wonders of a good and compassionate God,
whose mission it is to heal, reconcile, redeem, and restore.
But I would be doing a disservice to the Gospel,
if I didn’t also say there is a struggle going on.
We live in a world that’s rebelling against the Creator God.
We are all touched by evil, by sin, by the brokenness of the world.

And that didn’t happen because God failed at creation.
It happened because there were powers of evil at work
to undo the goodness of creation.

Theologically speaking, we say we live in an in-between time—
between the original wholeness of creation,
and the wholeness to come, when all creation will bow once again
to the rule and reign of God.

But right now, there is a struggle between good and evil.
We all know that’s the case. We see it everywhere we look,
including within ourselves.
But people understand this struggle in different ways.
Some see it as a war between two individual beings—
God and Satan, Yahweh and Lucifer.
And these beings are given an image, a face.
They could be described like boxers in a ring.
In this corner, we have the white-bearded man on a throne,
with a white robe, a deep voice, and a shining scepter.
And in the opposite corner, we have the red-robed little man,
with horns, a scorpion tail, and a pitchfork.
In contrast, some people not only de-personalize them,
but make them only abstract influences for good or evil,
that aren’t capable of working directly in our lives.
And there are many other ways of talking about good and evil.

So when I talk about the devil these three weeks,
you’re each going to have a different image in your mind.
My position is,
that whether you picture the devil
as a little red demon with a pitchfork,
or as a dark cloud in the spiritual atmosphere,
what really matters for a life of faith,
is that we accept that the powers of evil are real,
they are opposed to God and to God’s mission,
and they are working actively in our lives
and in the systems of the world.
The aim of this sermon series
is to explore how Jesus dealt with this reality,
and what we might have to learn from his experience.
_____________________

The Gospel writers talk about Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness
as a struggle between two beings, Jesus and the Devil.
The Spirit led Jesus there. The devil met him there.
And they struggled.
The struggle was real, and very down-to-earth for Jesus.
No matter how literally you interpret the temptations.

I understood the nature of this struggle better,
when I discovered that the word “devil” in Greek, diabolos,
while it’s often translated “accuser” or “slanderer,”
can also mean something like “divider” or “separator.”
Diabolos is like other words that begin with “di”—
di-verge, di-gress, di-sect, di-vide.
It’s taking what is supposed to be whole,
and separating it into disparate parts.

The lights went on for me.
That’s really the essence of the work of the devil.
To take apart the wholeness God designed in Creation.
God created us in his own image, for fellowship with God.
God created us to be in intimate relationship with each other.
God created us as whole individuals, mind, body, spirit, all as one.
God created us to be united with the earth itself.
The Hebrew root word for “Adam” and “soil” are the same.

But the Great Separator got right to work in Genesis chap. 3,
to tear these unions apart.
Adam and Eve tried to run and hide from God in the garden.
Cain and Abel were separated from each other by murder.
Adam and Eve became ashamed of their own bodies.
And they were all driven from the Garden,
and forced to struggle against the soil for food.

That’s still the work of the devil, the divider, the separator.
To alienate us from God, from each other,
from our own beings, and from the earth.
The devil, as in the book of Job, roams the earth, if you will.
And we, created as God’s free children,
often follow the path of the Great Separator,
and we become alienated.

But the mission of God in this world is reconciliation.
It is to restore what was present in Genesis 1 and 2.
And it’s a mission that will be accomplished.
The cross of Jesus Christ, and the empty tomb,
assure us that life is stronger than death,
that love will drive out fear,
that wholeness will utterly defeat alienation.
But for now, we live in the in-between time,
where the struggle continues.

That’s why the devil met Jesus there in the wilderness.
Knowing that Jesus was embarking on a mission
of proclaiming the rule and reign of God,
over all other powers, worldly and spiritual,
the devil, the Great Separator, met him there in the desert,
in order to separate him from his father,
from his mission, from himself.
_____________________

So with that in mind, we look at the first temptation.
The devil came to Jesus and said,
“If you are the Son of God,
command these stones to become loaves of bread.”
This was a temptation for Jesus to misuse his power,
and thus separate himself from his true calling.
The power Jesus possessed could at any time,
either be directed toward meeting his own needs,
or toward accomplishing the purposes of God.

Jesus had a legitimate need.
He was fasting. And Matthew says he was famished.
He was in a weakened state.
But the whole purpose of his fast,
was to set aside physical need and comfort,
in order to more fully attend to God,
and to who God was calling him to be,
and to what God was calling him to do.
Jesus went into the wilderness,
for the sole purpose of clarifying his identity in God,
to more fully identify with the purposes of God in the world.

What a temptation it must have been, in a state of weakness,
to turn inward,
to redirect attention to needs of the self.
If Jesus gave in to this temptation
to misuse his power for self-satisfaction,
it would have meant profound separation
between his agenda, and God’s.

So Jesus answered, “It is written,
‘One does not live by bread alone,
but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
Now, obviously, this is about more than eating or not eating.
There’s nothing terribly profound about saying that
healthy life requires much more than food.
We need shelter, good relationships, fulfilling work, love.
Everyone already knows this stuff.

Jesus is communicating a much deeper truth about human life,
one that the devil was hoping he’d forget about.
Jesus was saying, when he quoted Deuteronomy,
that full and abundant human life is found
outside our narrowly-defined selves,
and our narrowly-defined needs.
Our deepest human hunger is bigger than our stomachs.
It is a God-sized hunger.
When we move beyond our narrow selves into God and God’s purposes,
then we touch life in its fullness.
The power we’ve been given in life, however great or small,
should be put to use for that larger good,
the good that is God’s work.

Isn’t it the case, that we are nearly always drawn
to use our power to meet our own self-defined needs.
That’s true of individuals.
And it’s true of systems—like families,
like congregations,
like institutions,
like corporations,
like nations.

In this world we live in, the way we use power is almost entirely
under the influence of the Great Separator.
Power is used to divide and conquer.
Power is used to gather and accumulate resources for ourselves,
and the groups we represent,
and therefore it sets us apart from others,
it puts us into adversarial, competitive relationships.
Power separates.
At least, that’s what we’ve come to expect about power.
Power gives us the right to order our world in such a way
as to maximize our own advantage.
Even when we use our power and wealth
to meet the needs of others,
like those who suffer from poverty, disaster, or war,
as noble and necessary as helping might be,
it still can serve to maintain our position of superiority.
We still call the shots.
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” we say.

Well, I say, the kind of world that makes a rule,
that beggars cannot be choosers,
is a world under the influence of the Great Separator.
It’s a world that keeps those with power and resources
safe and secure in their exalted positions,
and keeps the poor and needy in their dependent positions,
without the dignity and freedom of choice.
Jesus seemed to think even beggars had human dignity and freedom,
and could be “choosers.”

It would have been a simple thing for Jesus to use his power,
in that one little moment out in the desert,
to relieve his own hunger,
but it would have given the Great Separator a foothold.
It would have been a step toward separation from his calling.
A small step, maybe. But one heading down the wrong path.

I think, by Jesus saying no to the devil,
it prepared him for a life of redefining power altogether.
The power that Jesus lived out all through his ministry,
including his suffering, death, and resurrection,
was a power that showed itself best when it was laid down.
It was an upside-down power.
It was the power of letting go.
The power of choosing not to do what he could have done.

That was the power of the cross.
A fitting conclusion to what began in the desert.
Jesus’ ministry begins and ends struggling with the devil
over the same temptation—
a temptation to misuse his power
to meet his own needs
and short-circuit his suffering,
rather than lay down his power for the larger good.

The bread temptation was relatively easy to resist.
It took one quote from scripture to get rid of the devil.
At the end, it was more difficult.
His right-hand man Peter tried to convince him to take another path.
In the Garden, Jesus begged God to let him avoid the suffering.
It was so agonizing, he sweat drops of blood.
Then on the cross, one of the thieves, along with the soldiers,
dared him to use his power to save himself.
It had to have been a great temptation.

But he chose the power of sacrificial love.
The moral power of declining to use the power he had
to save himself and destroy his enemies.

That is a sobering thought
for those of us who live in a culture that glorifies people
who use their power and wealth to benefit themselves.
We hardly blink an eye anymore,
when rich, spoiled celebrities go to court to sue somebody
who offended them, or inconvenienced them,
or stole some of their limelight.

And it’s a sobering thought
for those of us who live in a nation
that uses its global economic and military power
to bully other nations into doing whatever is in our best interests.
We hardly blink an eye anymore,
when we thumb our nose at the rest of the world.

Now I certainly don’t expect Hollywood or Washington or Wall Street,
to suddenly start acting like Jesus.

But we, brothers and sisters, are the church.
We are instructed to act like Jesus.
We are expected to fashion our lives after a different model.
We are called to be a community of contrast.
Shaped and formed by the person of Jesus Christ.
A people who live as if the reign of God is near.

But in this meantime, we are being tempted just like Jesus.
To separate ourselves from our truest calling.
And it’s not merely an individual temptation
that we must resist individually.
We, the body of Christ, are collectively being tempted
to abandon our calling and identity,
to separate from God and God’s purposes,
and to be absorbed by a world that is largely
following the way of the Great Separator.
We have to shift the way we see ourselves in the world—
as a community of God’s people who live by a different ethic,
an ethic shaped and formed by the person of Jesus Christ.

In all that we are, and all that we do,
both individually, and collectively as a church,
let us follow the One who was tempted, severely, and withstood.

—Phil Kniss, January 22, 2006

Epiphany: Walk Toward the Light

Isaiah 60:1-6; Matt. 2:1-12

A few weeks ago when Irene and I were in Germany,
we got to see the bones of the three wise men.
Actually, we saw the box the bones were in.
Actually, it was the gold-plated sarcophagus,
embedded with 1,000 precious gems,
with 78 figures carved into the side,
in which there are bones of three people,
that someone once claimed were the bones of the three kings.
Those bones arrived in Germany in 1164,
when the Roman Emperor took them from Milan, Italy,
and gave them to the archbishop of Cologne.
These relics were so precious,
that they decided to build a cathedral to house them.
It took them 632 years to finish what is now
the largest Gothic church in northern Europe.

It’s a pretty long way, I think, to get from the story in Matthew 2,
where some eastern astrologers came to visit the young child Jesus,
to worship him and present him with gifts,
to this golden jewel-studded sarcophagus of bones,
where daily a couple thousand pilgrims come to pay homage.
For that matter, it’s a long way from Matthew
to the romanticized, sentimentalized Hallmark version
of three kings on three camels holding three treasure chests,
their crowns silhouetted against a night sky bright with stars.
In fact, there’s so many layers of tradition and legend around this story,
from the time it was written down until today,
that it’s nigh to impossible to peal them all away,
and get down to the heart of the matter.
But this morning, I’m going to try to do that.

Epiphany is the day in our church calendar—January 6, to be exact—
when we remember and celebrate this great story.
It’s the twelfth day of Christmas.
For the Orthodox church, it is Christmas.
Some Amish groups celebrate it as Old Christmas.
No work is done.
They fast.
They exchange gifts.
But almost everywhere
this story is connected with the tradition of gift-giving.
That’s what I was told growing up,
when I asked, “Why do we give gifts at Christmas?”
“Well, it’s to remember the wise men who gave gifts to Jesus.”
I sometimes have wondered how giving
expensive toys and clothes and electronics to each other,
is the best way to celebrate gifts
that were given to Jesus as an act of worship.
But for a little boy opening presents on Christmas Day,
any reason is good enough,
so the answer I got satisfied me.
_____________________

Today, I’m not satisfied with that answer.
So I’m asking anew:
“What’s really going on in this story from Matthew 2,
and what is the best way for us as a church
to remember and celebrate it?”

This is a story of some educated, observant, and visionary people
from far outside the geography and culture of Israel and Judaism.
These were people who studied the night skies as a profession.
Who were specifically looking for signs in the heavens,
that might signify something important going on in this world.
That was their job, that was their world view,
and they were living it out in a fairly ordinary way.
I doubt any of their friends or family were shocked,
when they announced what they were doing.
Making a journey to honor a divinely-inspired and divine-revealed
birth of a king, would not have been so strange
for persons from that culture, with that world view.

The point worth remembering, I think, and celebrating every year,
is not their star-studded royal presentation of expensive treasures
to the Christ-child.
It was the fact that they... noticed the light,
and decided to walk toward it.
On their own accord, they chose to leave their comfort zone,
and move toward whatever significant thing this was,
that God was doing in this world.
They were astrologers, but what they really cared about, ultimately,
wasn’t in the sky.
They looked to the stars for the express purpose,
of figuring out what God was doing down here.
And when they discovered something, they acted on it.
They got involved.
They walked toward the light of God.

I can’t think of anything more important
for living faithfully as a follower of Christ in today’s world,
than to imitate the magi...
than to be watchful, observant,
looking for signs of God at work in the world,
and then walking toward that sign,
getting involved, participating in the activity of God.
_____________________

But we’re not geared to think that way about Christian faith.
Especially not in our North American culture.
I don’t think I’m taking too much of a leap to say,
the biggest single obstacle preventing the church today
from being the kind of church God called us to be,
and keep us from walking toward the light,
is consumerism.
Yes, consumerism.
It is the sworn enemy of radical Christian discipleship.
It is the enemy of the church.
Ant it’s all around us.
We swim in it like fish in water.
And like fish, we’re oblivious to it.
Someone once said, “I don’t know who first discovered water,
but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a fish.”

We are socialized, from the day of our birth,
to orient our whole lives around meeting our personal needs.
That’s what gives our lives meaning, getting our needs met.
Remember Psychology 101,
Abraham Maslow’s “hierarchy of needs”?
Once our basic needs get met—food, water, shelter, etc.—
we can move up to the next level, and then the next,
and once we get to the top, all our needs are met,
and we become “self-actualized.”
In that model, the essence of being human,
the source of meaning for human life,
is in getting our needs met.

Our culture is organized around this principle.
The economy is completely dependent on this principle.
And if it so happens that we become affluent enough
that all our needs seem to be met,
then it’s necessary, in order for our economy to grow,
that we create more needs,
so we can produce more, and consume more.
That’s so much of what drives the growth in technology.
If we can have it, then we want to have it.
And with the help of some advertizing and marketing,
we can soon convince ourselves that we need to have it.
Does anyone, really, need HDTV?
Oh, but it’s so cool, I know.
And I admit that I’ve lingered long
around the HDTV displays in Costco.
Does anyone, really, need to have a bluetooth device
attached to their ear the whole day,
so they can listen to their own music, take phone calls,
and surf the internet,
when they’re walking down the sidewalk or driving a car?
Now, nobody talk to me about my PalmPilot.
Even if I can play music on it.
This I really need. It’s way down there, on Maslow’s hierarchy.
People who use paper and pencil appointment books,
just don’t understand it.
See how easy it is to define need, on our own terms?
Of course, this applies not only to technology.
It applies to clothing fashions, home furnishings,
cars, food, recreation.
Because our economy revolves around “meeting our needs”
things we need just keep growing in number, exponentially.

And it’s inevitable,
given how immersed we are in our culture,
that church gets to be viewed the same way.
It’s all about us and our so-called needs.
To the point where we have completely distorted
the whole reason for our existence as a church.

I’ve been reading lots of books lately
to prepare for my doctoral seminar this week in Chicago.
One of them is titled “StormFront: the Good News of God.”
In it, the authors are saying much the same thing
about the effect of consumerism on the church.
They say, “We confuse the gospel with an infomercial,
and we confuse the community of God’s people
with vendors of spiritual goods and services.”

I think we all, including myself, have to admit that
we often evaluate church on the basis of what we get out of it.
If church is meeting our needs, we’re happy with it.
If it’s not meeting our needs, we look for a church that does.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with meeting needs, of course.
In fact, the church had better not turn its back,
when there is genuine human need.
Jesus said the righteous will be judged in glory,
on whether he will be able to say to them,
“When I was hungry you fed me,
when I was thirsty you gave me a drink,
when I was sick you visited me.”
The issue is not whether we should meet needs.
The issue is not whether we should enhance
happiness, health, and meaning in life.
The issue is how our culture defines happiness, health, and meaning.
It is defined largely in personal and private terms.
But the God of the scriptures calls us to find meaning in life
by participating in something much larger than ourselves.
We, the people of God, are invited to participate with God,
in his mission of establishing the reign of God on the earth.
We are called to be God’s holy nation and priestly people,
to serve God for the sake of the world.

News flash! The gospel is not about us. It’s about God.
Stop and think about it.
Don’t we usually define the “good news” in terms of
something good that happens to us or to creation.
We try to articulate the gospel in such a way
that it appeals to us, or to whoever is hearing it.
When I prepare a sermon, I often find myself asking the question,
“Now what is the good news for the people in my congregation,
and how can I best proclaim it?”
That’s not necessarily a wrong question,
but when the New Testament talks about the Gospel,
it’s usually not framed in terms of what people want to hear.
When Jesus refers to Gospel,
he nearly always is referring to the reign of God.
When the writers of the epistles write to the church about Gospel,
they’re almost always referring to what God has done in Jesus.
It’s not about us, sisters and brothers.
The Gospel is about what God has done
and is still doing in the world.
Sometimes it’s welcomed, often it’s not.
Either by us, or by those outside the church.

Our mission is not to see how much Gospel we can receive,
how much good news there is to hear and rejoice over.
It’s about participating with God’s work of redemption in the world.
It’s about confronting the powers.
It’s about confronting the status quo.
And that’s not always pleasant.

The symbol of the Gospel has always been the cross.
But not the kind of shiny cross that we hang on the wall
or around our necks,
and hope it acts like a charm
to bring us blessings and ward off evil.
No, the symbol of the Gospel is an instrument of death.
It reminds us of Christ’s suffering.
It reminds us of the cost involved
if we choose to participate in this gospel.
The cross is an offensive symbol.
The early church meant it to be.
Paul said in 1 Corinthians that it was
“a stumbling block to Jews, and foolishness to the Gentiles.”
It was meant to shock and startle.
It was meant to remind believers in Jesus
not to take lightly their decision to follow him.

But in our North American culture of consumerism,
we have conveniently domesticated the cross.
As the authors of the book “StormFront” said,
“North Americans prefer a religion of receiving
more than a religion of participation.”
We have little motivation to look at the cross
as a reminder that we are called to participate in that suffering,
to actually die with Christ.
We don’t want to think too long and hard about a gospel
that calls us to lay down ourselves and our needs,
and to lose ourselves in a project that’s bigger than us.
_____________________

But that’s exactly what the magi did,
when they saw the star rising in the east,
and realized God was up to something larger and more mysterious
than what they could imagine.
They laid down their personal need of home and security and safety,
and went to participate in this thing beyond themselves.
That’s the heart of the story, behind all that glittering gold.

And with that in mind,
I look with new eyes on the vision of Isaiah 60,
that was just read by Owen.
This was God’s word through the prophet
for the people of God.
And I think we can hear it as a word for us.
“Arise, shine; for your light has come,
and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.” - v. 1
And the prophet goes on, painting this mental picture
of a city of God on a hill,
attracting kings and nations to it - v. 3
It draws people in like a magnet.
The earth and its peoples are covered in thick darkness, -v. 2
but they look and see a yonder light
(just like the magi).
And they walk toward the light.
They are drawn out of their darkness and into the light.

That’s the kind of church we are called to be today.
A church that stands in stark contrast to the world around us.
Most assuredly, not a church that lives by
the same kind of consumerism and individualism of our culture.
We are a contrast-society.
We give the world an alternative
to the darkness that overshadows
those who live only for themselves.
That is the highest missionary calling of the church, I believe.
To live as a city of light on a hill.
To model for the world a life lived under the reign of God.
That is our mission.
But keeping in mind, of course, that it’s still not about us.
We don’t undertake this mission with the arrogance
of thinking we’re going to show the world how it’s done.
No, we do as Isaiah says.
We simply arise and shine.
We get up, and allow the light of God to rise upon us.
The light is all God’s doing.
It’s the glory of the Lord Almighty,
that provides the attraction.
We are weak, limited, fallible,
just like all the peoples living in the darkness.
We also stumble around in the dark sometimes.
But what makes us different than the world around us,
is our willingness to participate in God’s activity,
our willingness to be where the light is.
Peoples are drawn to the light.
But the light is God’s.

People of God, come to the light.
Come, participate in God’s work
of redeeming the world from its darkness.
Come. Arise. Shine.
_____________________

It is in that spirit,
that you are invited to the Lord’s table this morning.
A spirit of participation, and not just receiving.
Come, you who are part of God’s covenant people,
and partake of these symbols of the sacrifice of Jesus for the world.
In Jesus Christ, God moved in the world for its salvation.
God continues to move in the world today.
And at the table we join in communion with God,
and with each other;
saying we belong to you, Lord,
here we are...at your service.
And yes, we also receive at the table.
We are nurtured and sustained by this ritual.
But primarily, it is offering ourselves to God.
It’s participating in the continuing work of God.

In addition to receiving the symbols of the bread and cup,
those who would desire prayer and anointing
for the healing of mind, body, spirit, or relationships,
are invited to come to where Barbara will be standing,
and she will offer prayer and anointing.
But this ritual of anointing,
even though we come with great need in our lives,
and hope to receive healing and hope,
it’s really not just about receiving.
God makes us whole, not as an end in itself,
but in order that we can participate more fully in God’s mission.
Even prayer for healing is decidedly outward-looking.

I’ll ask those who are serving communion this morning,
to please come forward now, and make preparations.

—Phil Kniss, January 8, 2006