Sizzlin' in Lent's Seductive Space

A while back the ELCA asked pastors to name a few members to receive a newsletter called, Seeds in the Parish. Besides their name, address, age range, gender and ethnicity, the pastor was to identify each one’s role in the congregation. Most titles were routine and obvious: leader, teacher, evangelist, etc. My favorite is Mission Interpreter. It sounds so bold and out of the box. I’ve used it only once. Next time I have a chance I’ll use that title, Mission Interpreter, to describe Jamal Caldwell (not his real name).

I say that, in part, because Jamal coaches me to use a blog to connect with younger people who aren’t yet part of this community. The latest lesson came in an email. Jamal encouraged me to put the blog up for review with a high-powered editorial / marketing service. They'll test the blog to see if it meets the standards of high exposure, heavy hitters like CNN, Fox News, USA Today and Reuters News Service.

Overall, applying for the review didn’t take much time, maybe 20 minutes. The greater challenge was responding to the three main questions using the required maximum keystrokes, not words, keystrokes. Imagine me saying anything in 200 keystrokes! What I’ve said before I’m saying this took 1,162 keystrokes.

The next challenge was answering the questions honestly, or rather, fairly – fair to them and fair to us. One item said, “Tell us about yourself and your blog.” Another said, "Summarize the blog," which I took to mean, what’s its focus, why do you write it. You see part of the difficulty here. Is it my blog, or our blog?

Now since I’m trying to persuade them that there’s some sizzle in the blog content, I tried to put some sizzle in these responses. I wanted both me and us to sound like we’re sizzlin’ folks and this is a happenin’ place. Of course, there’s not much point in evading the truth. If they choose to read the entries, they’ll make up their own minds.

Still, I worked to find sizzle, in me, in you and in us. I said I’m a second career, boomer pastor. I said you are a multiracial urban congregation in America’s heartland. (I don’t think of us as you, and me but they need to know that, for now, the pastor is the author.) I borrowed phrases from this piece about finding a church home. [See, "You'll Know a Church Home When You Find It," on this blogsite.] I read it often. It always prompts the same questions. If we’re being this kind of church, do I have the stamina to stay here? If we’re not being this kind of church, do I have the courage to leave here?

The best line said, “We’ve got a blue-state consciousness in a red-state context.” Pretty cool, huh? That might hook ‘em enough to read the blog, but there’s no telling what they’ll think of it.

Trouble is, you see, the last two blog entries are about Lent. How you gonna make Lent, and people who are praying, fasting and almsgiving, sound sizzlin’? How does a place where that happens sound happenin’?

Maybe I should say Lent is a fierce battle against temptation. Perhaps, using less churchy words to describe what temptation is would sound more sizzlin’. Temptation is trying to persuade someone. Temptation is wily pressure or cunning manipulation. Better yet, temptation is seduction. There’s a sizzlin’ word. When you’re seducing someone, you’re alluring, beguiling. Seduction is enticing someone from here to there. It comes from the Latin word, seducere, to lead away. Sounds more like an Oscar party than church, right? Now that’s sizzlin’ in a happen’ place!

Well, how about for the rest of this I just focus my whole heart on the flock God’s entrusted to me and not worry my mind over the flock my inflated ego thinks I should have over at CNN. How about for the rest of this you focus on Luke’s version of Jesus’ desert journey (Luke 4:1-13) as if you never heard it before, cuz it’s been a year since you heard it, and a year is a lifetime in the life of a true disciple.

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, 2where 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. 3The devil said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread." 4Jesus answered him, "It is written, 'One does not live by bread alone.'"

5Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. 6And 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. 7If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours." 8Jesus answered him, "It is written, 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'"

9Then 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, 10for it is written, 'He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,' 11and 'On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'" 12Jesus answered him, "It is said, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'" 13When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.

This Bible story, like every Bible story, is about God before it’s about us. This story tells us that the Jesus we call God’s divine son, is fully human. To be truly human Jesus must have the capacity to be tempted, i.e., allured, beguiled, enticed, influenced, persuaded and yes, seduced. Jesus could not have been some first century Clark Kent, capable of jumping into a phone booth to stop a satanic herd of pigs from goin’ over a cliff. Humans aren’t like that!

Jesus listened to and followed God’s word. He was full of the Holy Spirit. That’s why he was tempted, that is, had to struggle, needed to fight the battle. See, listening to God isn’t a struggle. Following God isn’t a battle. But those who listen to God will attract folks motivated by different words. They struggle for our attention. Those who follow God will be a magnet for folks charmed by other pathways. They battle for our allegiance. When they come around with their alluring terminology, we have to struggle. When they come around with their beguiling alleyways, we have to do battle.

Notice just how precise and persuasive this tempter is. The Greek word Luke uses for devil is diabolos. It means slanderer. That’s someone who, with lies, defames, insults, libels, or maligns.

This Satan, in Hebrew that means adversary, suggests to Jesus that, “If you are the son of God, then you should do these good things.” Do you see that? At root, these aren’t bad acts. God will have Jesus do each of these things in God’s own good time, when it pleases God for Jesus to do them. [Jesus does multiply loaves. Jesus does come to rule the world after defeating, not worhsipping the devil. Jesus is lifted by temple authorities onto a cross and after three days shows that God "protected" him from defeat by death.] It’s also true that the devil’s motivation and timing are not rooted in the word of God.

Pay attention to this sixth verse. The devil says authority over the earth has been given to me. That premise, stated nowhere in the Bible - especially nowhere from God’s mouth -doesn’t tell the truth, but how often have we been persuaded to act as if it were so. The powers are at work out there, but they have no authority out there unless we refuse to struggle, until we fail to do battle.

We carve out 40 days for Lent. But Lent isn’t about time; it’s about space. Lent is the journey we’re invited to take that crosses the space between where we are now and where God wants to lead us.

Inside that space, the distance between the last time we listened to God’s word and this moment, we have an opportunity to distinguish God’s word of life from the tall tales the culture would have us believe about ourselves, about world and about God.

Inside that space, the distance between the last time we walked in the evening shade with God and this moment, we have an opportunity to differentiate God’s high road of selfhood, wholeness and grace from the back alleyways the culture would have us travel toward selfishness, emptiness, and greed.

We make our way in this space, even though that often makes us crossways with the same world, the same flesh, and the same devil that put Jesus crossways, for us, on Calvary. We make our way in this desert space, pressing toward the promised land, so that we, like Jesus, can become more certain about our identity, more clear about our own mission under God’s rule, and more confident about how God wants us to join in what God never tires of doing, creating, saving, and blessing the world out there, including all God’s children.

Here’s how that looks. When you’re out there, where the powers are at work, and someone says, “What a coincidence…” that’s your chance to join the struggle. That’s your opportunity to wrestle with that false terminology and seduce them from over there to over here. “No, it’s not a coincidence. Our running into each other in this unlikely place is a grace from God.” When you’re out there, where the powers are at work, and someone says, “I’m havin’ a string of bad luck…” that’s your chance to do battle. That’s your opportunity to confront that charmed alleyway and seduce them from over there to over here. “No, it’s not bad luck. This awful experience you’re having gives us an opportunity to look for the ways God works all things for good for them that love and trust the Lord. Let me sit with you until that happens, that God makes a way out of no way.”

Sometimes when that happens, and God strengthens you for the struggle, the sizzle will be obvious. Other times the ways that’s happenin’, that God emboldens you for battle will require a Mission Interpreter. There’s none better to do that work than we who hear this God’s voice, eat from the fruit of this God’s table, and walk faithfully along this God’s path - alone and together.