Sermon 3/6/2022 “Gain and pain”

Sermon 3/6/2022 “Gain and pain”

Preacher: Jo J. Belser
Location: Church of the Resurrection, Alexandria, Virginia
Text: Luke 4:1-13
Day: 1Lent, Year C

Our gospel lesson today tells us that Jesus was compelled to undergo testing “in the wilderness” immediately after his baptism. Our lectionary separates these events, but they really are one story.

We know this on some level. We know because our human experience is that “gain” and “pain” go together, that gain and pain are traveling companions in life. We want there to be all “gain;” we pray for all “gain,” but life dishes up pain, too. Gain and pain come together for us, and even for Jesus.

According to Luke, Jesus was bathed in divine approval at his baptism and then the very one who was so approving one minute sent him into the barren wilds to be tested. It was as if God were saying to Jesus, “You’re in my creation now and you know you have my abilities. How will you use what I’ve given you?”

But wait! Where’s a nuance here I can’t let slide past us. Jesus IS the Christ, so Jesus is God in the flesh. And the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ Jesus. Scripture neatly separates these various aspects of God into different entities, and they are. But they also are one in the same. So, Jesus bathed himself in divine approval, then Jesus put himself into “time out” in the wilderness to be tested.

Why did Jesus do this? Jesus’s human body had this inner channel talking to him. You know the one—the “chatter channel” that simultaneously questions and praises us. We heard in scripture about the praise from heaven. We presume the internal critique because to be human is to have that chatter channel. And that’s where we humans can go wrong.

The ego speaks to us on our “chatter channel” and we can get mired in what that voice tells us. And the human ego is not an unbiased observer; it doesn’t speak objective truth.

Someone recently gave me a book entitled, “Mary Magdalene Revealed.” This book definitely is not gospel, but it contains some gospel, the kind that feels deeply truthful when we hear the words:

“[True life],” this book says, “is about acquiring a vision that allows us to see what has always been here, within us. [True life is] about the quality and intensity of our existence. [True life is] about actually being present, instead of being caught without even realizing it is the endless stories the ego tells us…”

Right after his baptism, Jesus set out in search of such a vision, or to confirm his vision, about his true life. He must have wanted to clear his thinking and obtain a vision of how he would spend his life and share his love, to test whether he was willing to accept the pain to achieve the gain.

The test itself was painful. Jesus was starving. We humans can go up to two months without food if we have enough water. At the metaphorical 40-day mark of Jesus’ test, he would have been famished and his body would have been in crisis. He would have been faint, dizzy, weak, and experiencing abdominal pain if not also organ failures. And then came the real pain: the Test. Jesus was tempted.

Temptations are NOT random; temptations are always to do the things that appeal to us that we know we shouldn’t do. There must have been a great deal of desire on Jesus’ part to misuse his God-given gifts by turning rocks into bread, not just for his starving self in the wilderness, but for everyone on Earth.

Scripture tells us that Jesus was very compassionate and observant. He would have seen that the people all around him had to work hard for food. He must have thought about using his gifts to feed everyone. But Jesus knew that HE was to be the Bread that the world needed. To be diverted from his true Bread Mission would have emptied this world of the nourishment we need most.

Jesus’ second temptation was to accumulate earthly power and his third was about self-annihilation. We know that Jesus passed these tests and used his God-gifts for the rescue mission he was sent here to accomplish. But notice that Jesus made choices, choices that involved accepting pain to achieve a gain or (put another way) Jesus chose the gain despite the pain.

So, too, for us. Life—our greatest wilderness—is full of potential pain as well as potential gain. And our choices contain both. We don’t get one without the other. But when we examine the choices we face, the ones of greatest consequence, we find that we are really seeking is life: more life, new life, a changed life, a better life, for ourselves and others? With each choice of consequence we make, don’t we hope that our choice will lead to a chance for a better life, more gain with less pain?

There’s a book entitled The Midnight Library that’s been on the New York Times bestseller list for over a year. It’s story line follows a woman who has discovered a library “on the edge of the universe,” the book’s promo materials say. In this library, each book is a story with a different potential outcome of the woman’s life, had she made different choices in life. I won’t be a spoiler in case you haven’t read this book. However, we’ve all read JESUS’ Book and we know that The Midnight Library would be empty, had Jesus made other choices in the wilderness during his self-imposed testing. In other words, Jesus chose to accept his God-given purpose in life and to use his God-given gifts for good. He accepted his future and all of its potential pains as well as the gains. And had Jesus not done so, our choices would be limited, finite.

But, thanks to Jesus’ choices, we have eternal choices, choices we make in the face of our temptations that have eternal consequences. Choices about using our gifts versus shutting ourselves off from the gains due to the pains that might be involved, pains like fear, anger, hurt, embarrassment, guilt, disappointment, selfishness, and the like.

What possibilities are there in your life you might have decided aren’t worth the potential pain? What would it take to choose anew, choose differently, to live into a new future? These questions are the work of Lent; don’t let the potential pain deter you from the tremendous gain available.