Sunday: The 1st Sunday of Lent
Reading: Luke 4:1-13
Preacher: Peter C. Lane

Immediately after Jesus was baptized and heard the voice from heaven say, "You are my Son, the beloved, with you I am well pleased," he was led by the Spirit in the wilderness to be tempted by the devil for forty days. The church has long read this passage about Jesus' forty days of temptation on the first Sunday of Lent, for in a sense, the forty days of Lent are set aside to consider our response to temptation. Or perhaps more properly, we consider our response to having given in to temptation. That makes it hard to draw a quick strategic lesson to help us with our Lenten disciplines. See, Jesus did not give in to temptation. He resisted. Yet, one of the fundamental assumptions of Lent, the foundational anthropology of Christianity, is that humans do give in to temptation. We could muck around in the debate about the exact cause of this "sinful nature." Instead, let's just agree with the old hymn writer that we are indeed "prone to wander." What can be instructive to us about Jesus' little run-in with the devil is that in resisting those particular temptations Jesus was defining himself. These weren't piddly little temptations-resisting another half-slice of German Chocolate Cake or something; these were temptations that would have brought Jesus glory and power. In resisting them, Jesus defines himself as one who engages the world and is in solidarity with his people. During this Lenten time of self-examination and repentance, one thing we do by resisting temptation is to define ourselves and turn back to the promise of our baptisms. The questions, then, that Luke will help us grapple with this morning are: Who is Jesus? Who are we? How shall we live? [1]

Who is Jesus? That is the question that Luke is taking on in this last private moment in his story before he unveils Jesus to the world. The first thing Luke does is to make it clear that Jesus is part of the great ongoing story of God's people. The forty-day fasting in the wilderness repeats what was done by the great Old Testament figures Elijah and Moses. And all three of Jesus' responses come from Deuteronomy. Jesus was going to be another great figure-the Son of God as we learned in his baptism. But how? The devil offers Jesus a way through power and fame. Each plausible temptation would have made Jesus' work easier. Being able to turn stone to bread could have fed the hungry. Think what he could have accomplished as literal ruler of the nations. And doing a Double McTwist 1260 off the temple in Jerusalem would have earned him a gold medal. But Jesus will eschew that path of power and glory. He will not exempt himself from ordinary human life. The salvation of Jesus will not come by magical power. Instead Jesus will be the Messiah by taking the hard road of engagement with the world and solidarity with his people.

Who are we? This passage says nothing about the followers of Jesus. But having read Luke's entire story, we know that Jesus' followers too are given the Holy Spirit, that we too are tempted, and that we too will not be able to build the Kingdom of God through trickery or political domination. And, of course, we know more than that. Through our own baptisms we know that we are Christ's own forever. And during Lent we are acutely aware that we are prone to wander, that we are not the people who we want to be. These are the grounds on which we can scrutinize ourselves.
To bring this to life, let me turn to a specific example urged on me by our proximity to the feast of Absalom Jones and by the reminders of Black History Month hung from light posts all over the city. This community, St. Paul & the Redeemer has put a lot of thought recently into what it means for us to be a faithful community. During the recent rector search process, you created a parish profile. One of its four explicit goals read, "We are looking for a rector who will help us bring the diversity of Hyde Park-Kenwood inside St. Paul & the Redeemer and nurture diverse connections within our congregation." While this goal included diversity of all kinds, race was clearly on the minds of the authors. How can we accomplish that goal? The Christian tradition of Lent suggests that to be the people we want to be, to accomplish what we want, we must begin with self-examination and repentance. Let me look at the goal of racial diversity with these Lenten glasses. It would be tempting to be impressed by our racial diversity and grow complacent. After all, only 2-3% of mainline protestant churches have a minority representation of at least 20%.[2] Our racial diversity is something to celebrate. It enriches our corporate life, reflects our neighborhood, sets us apart from so many churches, and embodies a biblical vision. But we also ought to be fearless in our self-examination. I am very proud to come from the same parish as Absalom Jones, the first African-American priest in the Episcopal Church. His picture hangs (for the time being leans against a wall) in my office. [3] Absalom Jones and I both spent many years at Christ Church at 2nd above Market Street in Philadelphia. One major difference is that Jones went there because his owner, Benjamin Wynkoop, was a member and later a warden of Christ Church. I went there of my own volition. Of course, that was centuries ago. But, there is plenty of history here at SPR. In the early decades of the 20th century, our children's choirs put on minstrel shows to raise funds.[4] In the late 1950s Benjamin C. Willis, the notorious Superintendent who resisted further integration of the Chicago Schools was a member here. He and his wife gave the money to build the kindergarten room. In the 1960s this parish was very active in the struggle for Civil Rights. Our tradition of having one black and one white warden is now old enough that I can't quite figure out who started it. So, who are we? We are people, created in the image of God, marked as Christ's own forever, eager to be faithful and yet prone to wonder. We are a people called to welcome all and confident enough in God's love to examine our record and turn back again and again to the people we want to be.

How shall we live? Absalom Jones, in a sermon given on the day that the African Slave Trade was banned, told his congregation that they must "Let [their] conduct be regulated by the precepts of the gospel; let us be sober minded, humble, peaceable, temperate..., frugal..., industrious, just in all our dealings, and ever ready to honour all men." [5] SPR must be a vital community engaging all of the people of Hyde Park/Kenwood whatever their social position, whatever their race and wherever they find themselves on the journey of faith sharing the good news that God is reconciling the world, putting things to rights. Aware of our frailties and our failings, St. Paul & the Redeemer's hospitality must actively pull all people towards God's table.

Who is Jesus? He is the Son of God who rejected the flashy to be in solidarity with us. Who are we? We are a people created in the image of God and a community trying to engage all the people of our neighborhood. How should we live? We should live humbly, aware that we are prone to wander and so be a people quick to self-examination and repentance. And we should do all of that with the knowledge that Sundays don't count in the forty days of Lent. It is bad counting, but great theology. Lent is about owning up to our failings, but always in the light of the resurrection.

Notes:
[1] I took these questions from David C. Hester's article on this passage published in the January 1977 issue of Interpretation.
[2] John Dart, "Hues in the Pews," Christian Century, 118 no 7 F 28 2001, p 6-8.
[3] An original print of Jones was given to SPR by Carol Moseley Braun. She received it at a liturgy commemorating Jones that involved both Christ Church and The African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas, Jones' later parish.
[4] "The Story of St. Paul's" was privately printed in 1956. I have a copy.
[5] Jones' full sermon is available here: http://anglicanhistory.org/usa/ajones/thanksgiving1808.html