Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD
February 24, 2023

The Adversary
Matthew 4:1-11

Just over a decade ago, I spent a week working in a garden on the Isle of Mull, off the coast of Scotland in the Hebrides.  The garden was a windswept hill overlooking the sea – on an inlet of granite rocks reaching down into the water.  The place was once an old granite quarry, but it had been turned into Camas, an outdoors center for troubled teens and pilgrims making their way to Iona, a short ferry ride away.  The garden would produce most of the food needed by the camp once it got growing, but as it was early spring, everything had to be brought in from outside – by wheelbarrow pushed over a mile and a half of track laid over beautiful Scottish bog.

Teams took turns cooking meals and washing up, and we were instructed to be careful and frugal with what we made – everything needed to be eaten, nothing wasted.  It was the director’s job to bake the bread that accompanied most dinners.  Eager to be helpful, I offered to bake a no-knead loaf I’d been perfecting that year – my entre into bread.  “No-knead?” he scoffed at me.  “no way.  It won’t be as good.  Good bread takes time – you have to show it some love.  It needs attention.  You’ve got to knead it.”

I didn’t bake the bread.  I know now that even more than kneading, he was right: good bread takes time – and, some attention is a good thing.  The bread that comes from the supermarket, sliced and bagged for sandwiches is easy enough, but it’s completely different from bread baked at home.  It has more in common with a sponge, really.  It might be called wonderbread but it’s pretty far from wonderful.

Is this what Jesus is thinking when he refuses the tempter’s invitation to turn stones into bread?  That a miracle would be too easy?  Just turn the stones to bread? Jesus scoffs.  No way.  Takes the joy out of it.  Good bread takes time, you’ve got to show it some love and really knead it if you want it to be good.  You can take a shortcut to satisfy your hunger, sure – stop at McDonald’s or pick up the Wonderbread – but it won’t be very good for you.  It won’t be delicious.  It won’t be as meaningful as a meal prepared from scratch and shared around the table.

“Stones into bread?  No way,” Jesus says.  We live by the word that gathers us round the table together to eat and celebrate in good company – meals that feed our hearts while filling our bellies, meals that help us remember who and whose we are.

Here at the beginning of Lent, each year we remember this story of Jesus in the wilderness.  These forty days without food, wrestling with temptation, prepare Jesus for ministry – just as forty years in the wilderness prepared and formed the people of Israel from disparate tribes and families enslaved in Egypt into a single nation who trusted in God.  This season gives us, too, forty days to prepare.  Forty days to wrestle with what separates us from each other and from God.  Forty days through which to journey with Christ to Jerusalem, to prepare our hearts and minds for what will happen to him there.

Scripture tells us that after he is baptized by John in the Jordan, with his robes still dripping wet, the Spirit leads Christ out into the desert, where he fasts and prays.  This is a vision quest.  A ritual of purification.  A rite of passage to prepare him for the work ahead.

In his baptism, Jesus hears God claim him as a beloved son.  When the tempter shows up, he questions that identity, saying, “if you are really the son of God, prove it.” Evil tempts Jesus to use his power selfishly by turning stone to bread; to test God by throwing himself off the temple; and to forsake God altogether by seeking earthly power instead of the keys to the kingdom of heaven.

The temptations of the adversary are pernicious.  They would make Jesus settle for small power, self-serving power, power that would satisfy his own immediate needs and ego.  These temptations would make Jesus miss the bigger, selfless, all-encompassing work God was calling him to.  Jesus and his followers were meant to feed the world, not just ourselves – and he goes on to feed five thousand with just a few loaves and fishes.  His ministry was intended to confront and challenge the forces of evil in the world, not to capitulate to them.  He goes on to proclaim that the reign of God had come near in him, to cast out demons and heal brokenness wherever he found it.   And though he would not throw himself from the spire of the temple, he will eventually go willingly to his death, to reveal the truth that violence will never save us, and love always will.

I admit have a hard time with this story, because its depiction of evil personified as the tempter, the adversary, is outside of my experience of sin in the world.  Evil is real – the devil, not so much.  Plenty of people have opened my eyes to their experience of him, though.  In my last call, I shared communion and studied the Bible with women at a shelter each month.  Many of them were survivors of abuse, who wrestled with addiction, and were dealing with the consequences.  Some of them were not that different from me, people who had been dealt a bad hand.  Most of the time, our theologies were very different, but those women taught me more about the adversary than my theology classes ever did.

Living close to the line, every day felt like a battle – the intersecting forces of poverty and racism, addiction and misogyny were not only real, they were personified.  From their perspective, it was the evil doer who was hard at work, opposing them, keeping them from getting ahead.  The adversary made it so that no bus lines ran near the only apartment they could afford, so they couldn’t have a home and make it to their job, so they wouldn’t be able to see their kids again this month.

Though I’m well acquainted with the reality of evil in the world, I’ve never felt it was personally fighting against me and my well-being – but I’ve always had the privilege of housing, and stability, mental health, and employment.  For me, the experience of evil and brokenness is expansive – The way discrimination and white supremacy have been baked into our economic, health, housing, criminal justice, and education systems.  How retributive violence and war seem like a foregone conclusion instead of forgiveness and grace and reconciliation.

But Lent is an invitation to consider evil – that is, all which opposes the will of God for love, peace, and wholeness – as intensely personal as well.  All that is within us that is complicit and complacent with the world as it is, instead of committed to creating the world as we know it should be.  The parts in us that are impatient, unkind, selfish, greedy.  Those tendencies are within us.  We know they are.  And these days of Lent are a chance to reflect on those shortcomings, that inner and outer brokenness, and to recommit ourselves to being the people God would have us be, following Christ in living lives of love and justice.

This season of Lent is an opportunity to remember who we are and to whom we belong.  A chance to deepen our commitment to God by practicing our faith – not by taking shortcuts, but by feasting on the word that truly nourishes us – baking and sharing the bread of life with one another and the world.

 

Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD
February 19, 2023

The Lighthouse
Matthew 17

A couple of summers ago, Dary, the girls and I visited the Owl’s Head lighthouse on the Maine coast, near Rockland.  We brought sandwiches and ate them on a picnic blanket in the grass, and the girls clamored around on the giant rocks that made up the shoreline on an inlet nearby.  Once we’d eaten, we climbed a long set of steps to go up to the lighthouse.  It’s not a tall building; a quaint, white brick structure situated on a high bluff overlooking Penobscot Bay.

Inside the lighthouse, a winding staircase, dark and steep, led us up into the light room at the top that held the giant lens – windows all around, of course, and a tremendous view of the sea, rocks jutting out into the water, waves crashing down below.  It must have been July when we were there, because what I remember most was the HEAT – even with a breeze through the open windows – the light reflected and refracted by the lenses was intense, heating the air and shining everywhere you looked, impossible to avoid, bright and HOT.  There is a metal walkway outside all around the room at the top of the light, and I stepped outside and leaned over the railing and breathed the fresh salt air, looking out at the brilliant blue choppy sea, and I can’t really explain it, but I just was overcome with something like awe: amazement at the beauty of the ocean, and gratitude for the devoted men and women who had kept the light burning for so long – since the lighthouse was established in 1825.  The house wasn’t electrified until 1989, so for more than 150 years, a gas flame was tended through short hot summers and long, lonely winters.  How many lives had they saved?  How many ships had they safely steered through the rough waves and treacherous waters?  How many long, impossibly hot summer days and nights had they ensured that the flame continued to shine?

I can’t help but think about that lighthouse when I read this transfiguration story.  Bright, hot, impossible to miss – a beacon shining forth for all to see.  This is the vision of Jesus.  The rational part of my brain is tempted to explain this story somehow, make it make sense, or be more palatable for us 21^st century Christians.  But I don’t really think that’s what we’re meant to do here. This story is important – all three synoptic gospels include it – and we revisit it in one form or another each year the Sunday before the season of Lent begins.  But why?  This vision is miraculous, mysterious, far outside our realm of understanding and belief.  Why is it central to the story of our faith?  What difference does it make for us?

Look around.  This Sunday we stand on the mountaintop together, looking ahead down the path into the valley.  In the weeks to come, we will travel with Jesus and the disciples down from the mountain, making our way through Lent with him along the road to Jerusalem, where danger and death await.  This vision is meant to give us a glimpse of who he really is, to reassure us that the terrible things to come will not be his undoing.

Seeing Jesus’ transformation, Peter, James, and John should have no doubt about who he is: the brilliant radiance of God in human form.  And yet, they seem to have a hard time believing it.  I would, wouldn’t you?  In fact, they’re terrified: the brothers cower on the ground and hide their faces – Peter on the other hand is awestruck – he proposes a building project, perhaps wanting to designate that mountaintop as holy ground.  As if we need an altar to do that.

The word transfiguration itself means a complete change in form or appearance – Jesus the man, transformed into a shining deity.  The message is clear: Christ is both human and holy, divine.  But I don’t know if the disciples are able to comprehend what that means… if having been shown his true identity, shining forth bright and hot, they know what to make of their friend and his teachings.  I wonder, once the vision goes away and the disciples head back down the mountain, what changes for them, having seen this – having heard the voice of God call their friend beloved, and calling them to listen to him.   How does a mountaintop experience – change us?

Mountains are places of mystical encounters – where truth is revealed and perspective is gained.  Moses met God on the mountain, and received rules for living.  The commandments for covenant community.  A mountaintop experience can change how we see the world and our place in it.  The overarching emotion of a mountaintop experience is AWE – “Awe is the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your understanding of the world,” according to a UC Berkley scientist.

Buddhist teacher “Sharon Salzberg defines awe as “the absence of self-preoccupation.”  Moments of awe get us out of our own heads by right-sizing us, helping us “realize our place” in the grand scheme of things.  Awesome feelings help regulate our emotions, deepen our breathing, stimulate the vagal cells around our brainstem.  Awe is good for us! It reconnects us with what is true and gives us new energy with which to go about our work in the valley.

Seeing Jesus shining on the mountain, I can’t help but remember him saying “You are the light of the world,” and his instruction for us to shine our light for all to see.  Bright, and hot.  Impossible to miss.  I remember what one of our bible study folks said as we engaged that text a few weeks ago – her take away was that we should all just let our light shine!  By being ourselves, contributing whatever it is that WE do best.

And so maybe our takeaway from the transfiguration today could be this – 1) embrace awe as a spiritual practice.  Seek it out.  Take the unknown path, make space to encounter that which we cannot explain, beauty that takes our breath away – this is part of the preparation that strengthens us for the journey ahead.  Awe builds our emotional endurance, and it is something we can find when we slow down and take time to notice the world around us with fresh eyes.

2) Christ, who shone like a beacon, hot and bright like a lighthouse guiding ships safely to shore – calls us to shine our light, too.  To be our awesome selves, to contribute whatever it is that makes us come alive, to further his work of peace, love, and justice in our world.  Trust that when you offer what you can, the spark in you glows more brightly.  Shining forth for all to see.  God tells us to listen to him – do not be afraid!  Shine!

We can’t stay on the mountain.  Just like the disciples, we’ve got to go back down, back into the fray.  Peter, James, and John were heading with Jesus towards Jerusalem, into conflict and condemnation, suffering and death, disappointment and grief.  And we are heading out into a broken world with our own faults and frailties, our worries, shame, and doubt.  But awe quiets the voice within, puts our worries in perspective and helps us hear the voice of the one who made us, whose love is strong enough to sustain us through whatever may come – you are beloved.  Let your light shine!  Do not be afraid!