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Trinity Episcopal Church Hattiesburg, Mississippi First Sunday of Lent February 25, 2007 Go To Trinity's Home Page

Deuteronomy 26:1-11
Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16
Romans 10:8b-13
Luke 4:1-13
Collect of the Day
From the Revised Common Lectionary as Adapted for Use by the Episcopal Church
and Authorized by the 74 th General Convention of the ECUSA

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. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished. The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’” Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said to him, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’” Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’” Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time. ( Luke 4:1-13)

Take a Left, Then a Right, and There’s God
The Rev. Dr. Bill Stroop

     I am among the most directionally impaired people you will likely ever meet. I can get lost in my own house. But I am also one who stops and asks for directions – all the time. When navigation systems became affordable, I knew I wanted one, because it would make me feel secure that I would get safely to my destination. So when I traded cars a few years ago, I got one with an on board nav system that talks to me and tells me where to turn. And she doesn’t get mad when I goof, she just recalculates the directions and tells me what to do.

     Shortly after I started my ministry here, I went to visit someone on the west side of town – just past Highway 49. I had their address, which I programmed into the nav. The highlighted route led me up Hardy Street to 28 th, where the system told me to turn left. Uh oh. No left turn is allowed there. No problem. I went up to 29 th and made the left, and the nav system compensated nicely. I was safe, and I arrived at my destination on time.

     But that experience reveals a problem with the system. The directions given are dependent on the timeliness and accuracy of the map information contained in the system’s memory. For example, my system does not know of the existence of Highway 49 between Jackson and Yazoo City. So each time I drive to Indianola up Highway 49, the system thinks I am driving through cotton fields, and urges me to turn around and go back to a paved road.

     Now before you think I am complaining about the nav system, let me assure you that I am not. All computer mapping systems are dependent on stored map information when they plot out directions. Because road information might be incomplete, one has to pay attention to the roads along the chosen route. In England, British drivers passing through the village of Luckington ended up driving into the Avon river because their GPS systems plotted out a route over a bridge that had been closed. Local villagers found themselves pulling two cars out of the river a week.[1]

     The Psalmist who wrote Psalm 91 felt very confident that God would protect and sustain him as he traveled through life. He was safe and secure “in the shelter of the Most High … under the shadow of the Almighty.” The map the Psalmist saw before him did not show any closed left turn lanes or roads with downed bridges. Rather, it showed him a place of refuge for those battered by the storminess of life and for those who had wandered and become lost.

     We want to feel safe – safer than we do now. We want to have the kind of confidence and trust that the Psalmist had. But we live in a culture of fear and anxiety. We install dead bolt locks on our doors, and pole guards on our sliding doors and windows to protect ourselves. We install alarm systems on our houses and cars. We buy heavy SUVs because we feel safer surrounded by all that metal.

     Sometimes all this concern about safety and security in our everyday life infiltrates our spiritual life and makes us feel spiritually insecure as well. And when that happens, we might find ourselves questioning our self-worth, our value, and whether our life has any meaning at all.

     And if we reach a place where a few doubts, and worries have crept in, and then have something go terribly wrong, like a car accident, injury, loss of a job, or even a death, we might find ourselves seriously doubting statements like “God is a fortress.” We question our faith. After all, if God loved and cared for me so much, then why did these bad things happen? Isn’t God supposed to protect me? Isn’t that what the Psalmist was telling us when we wrote, “There shall no evil happen to you, neither shall any plague come near your dwelling.” Where are those angels that are supposed to have charge over me?

     Another thing that can happen when cultural fears and anxieties undermine our belief in the nearness of God and the reality of God’s love of us is if we get it into our heads that we have somehow strayed from God, or sinned, or done something to earn God’s disfavor. When I was a hospital chaplain, I spend a lot of time with a man who had lost sight in both eyes, lost both of his legs from the hips down, lost his left hand and forearm, and was in danger of losing the last working finger of his remaining right hand to the ravages of diabetes. He was convinced that he had suffered like this because he lacked sufficient faith. “If only I had more faith” he would say.

     But looking at God as a talisman that will preclude danger, pain, suffering, or trouble is not accurate either. That’s what Jesus teaches us in today’s gospel lesson.

     The issue of faith in God and God’s love of him was exactly the crisis that Jesus faced in the desert as he was tempted by Satan. In Luke’s gospel, Satan is described as using the words of the Psalmist to tempt Jesus to jump off the pinnacle of the Temple. “Jesus, if you really are God’s Son, go ahead and jump! Don’t you think that God will prevent you from feeling pain, getting hurt, and maybe even dying?” But Jesus understood that testing God and trusting God are two very different things. When tempted by Satan, Jesus chose to trust in God and face whatever came head-on, whether it was starvation or thirst, loneliness or scourging, mockery or torture, or death by crucifixion.

     Jesus understood probably better than any of us that in the midst of the dangers and trials of our lives in this world, God would never abandon him. Jesus understood that faith in God is no guarantee of a life of ease, without worry. Rather, faith in God means that God will answer God’s people and will be with them in times of trouble. Near the end of his own life, Paul had come to this same understanding when he wrote that not even death itself can keep us from the love of God.

     Our walk through life is not a MapQuest™ journey of the shortest and easiest route between two places. It is indeed a life that will be marked by potholes, roads without bridges, and incomplete information. We will suffer. And we will have to endure much.

     But, around every corner, along every pathway we take – paved or otherwise – we will be with God. God has promised us that God will be in the midst of our crowded, noisy, dangerous, and often under-construction journey of life.

     We can live without fear, because God is with us no matter where we find ourselves.

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Deuteronomy 26:1-11

When you have come into the land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, and you possess it, and settle in it, you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from the land that the LORD your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket and go to the place that the LORD your God will choose as a dwelling for his name. You shall go to the priest who is in office at that time, and say to him, “Today I declare to the LORD your God that I have come into the land that the LORD swore to our ancestors to give us.” When the priest takes the basket from your hand and sets it down before the altar of the LORD your God, you shall make this response before the LORD your God: “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous. When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labor on us, we cried to the LORD, the God of our ancestors; the LORD heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. The LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O LORD, have given me.” You shall set it down before the LORD your God and bow down before the LORD your God. Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the LORD your God has given to you and to your house.

Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16

1 He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High, *
abides under the shadow of the Almighty.

2 He shall say to the LORD,
“You are my refuge and my stronghold, *
my God in whom I put my trust.”

9 Because you have made the LORD your refuge, *
and the Most High your habitation,

10 There shall no evil happen to you, *
neither shall any plague come near your dwelling.

11 For he shall give his angels charge over you, *
to keep you in all your ways.

12 They shall bear you in their hands, *
lest you dash your foot against a stone.

13 You shall tread upon the lion and adder; *
you shall trample the young lion and the serpent under your feet.

14 Because he is bound to me in love,
therefore will I deliver him; *

I will protect him, because he knows my Name.

15 He shall call upon me, and I will answer him; *
I am with him in trouble;
I will rescue him and bring him to honor.

16 With long life will I satisfy him, *
and show him my salvation.

Romans 10:8b-13

“The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved. The scripture says, “No one who believes in him will be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. For, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

Luke 4:1-13

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. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished. The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’” Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said to him, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’” Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’” Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.

Collect of the Day

Almighty God, whose blessed Son was led by the Spirit to be tempted by Satan: Come quickly to help us who are assaulted by many temptations; and, as you know the weaknesses of each of us, let each one find you mighty to save; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.  

[1] Timothy F. Merrill, Exec. Ed. “Our Big, Fat, Hot, Polluted City.” Homiletics. 19(1):69, 2007.

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Copyright © 2007, William G. Stroop - All Rights Reserved.
22 February 2007

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