[Mcgregorpage] McGregorPage #701, Lent 1, 2/21/10

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Lent 1 – February 21, 2010


Deuteronomy 26:1-11
Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16
Romans 10:8b-13
Luke 4:1-13


God's Protection, God's Reign


If you are the Son of God, command this crude oil to become gasoline and drive off.  Jesus hesitated to satisfy his hunger, to take from the earth at the instance of his need.  He paused to remember that, "the earth is the Lord's and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it."  (Psalms 24:1)  We don't do that.  Most of us don't. We pounce on a resource as if it were ours by birthright.  Our whole economy is based on this pounce.  Find a resource and exploit it.  That is our golden rule. 


Choosing to live under that rule, however, negates both the rule and the promise of God:    "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.'  For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence; he will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness is a shield and buckler.  You will not fear the terror of the night, or the arrow that flies by day, or the pestilence that stalks in darkness, or the destruction that wastes at noonday. (Psalm 91:1-6)


We turn every stone into bread.  We turn every kingdom into an emerging market.  We worship our asset value, and when the DOW plunges from its pinnacle, we cry, "Remember your promises to us, O L - o - o - o - r - d!"  Right.  But, where was the fast?  Where was the tithe?  Where was the humility in the presence of the gifts of God?  Where was the recognition of God's claim on God's earth?  On our use of it?  Where were the sharing and the generosity appropriate to God's love for all?  Where was provision for the alien? 


“Wait! I thought that if I confess with my lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in my heart that God raised him from the dead, I could exploit my environment at will.  Can't I confess with my lips and eat a Twinkie at the same time?  Can't my provision for the poor be never to let a chocolate éclair go begging?”  


I don't believe Paul intended his proclamation to be read, "If you ever confess with your lips... if you ever believe in your heart...” Confessing with your lips that Jesus Christ is Lord is like what Jesus was doing when he told Satan that his first allegiance was to God.  It is not that Jesus never ate again.  The point is that his confession, his fasting, preceded his eating.  The confessing and believing upon which salvation follows is one that precedes every act  -- before one eats, before one takes possession of the land, before one indulges in the bounty of the land.  It issues in the tithe of the first fruit.  It is to that confessing and believing person, to that confessing and believing community that the promises of God belong.


(The only weight loss program that has ever blessed my household has nothing to do with diet, but everything to do with fasting and replacing the reign of appetite with the reign of God.)


At each temptation, Jesus denied his own need in favor of God's reign.  In so doing he thwarted Satan and claimed God's protection. We deceive ourselves if we think we can claim God's protection without deferring to God's reign.




May these thoughts strengthen you. 
 
An Open Letter to Fellow Pastors 
>From Roland McGregor, United Methodist Pastor 
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