Service for March 9 First Sunday of Lent

Sermon for March 9, 2025 First Sunday of Lent

Luke 4: 1-13

When I’m looking for insight or inspiration one of the writers, I often turn to is Diana Butler Bass. In her blog post this week she wrote this: “On this Ash Wednesday, my heart is broken and every shred of hope I once had is gone.

I’m not well. My soul is sick. I see nothing but greed, destruction, lying, inhumanity, and evil all around.

If anyone tells me that I came from ash and will return to it, I may well laugh in their face. Or cry and never stop. I just hope I don’t hit the priest. Because — read the room, people — we’re standing in ash up to our knees.

This is a brutal Ash Wednesday.”

I think many of us can relate to Butler Bass’s lament. Some of us are facing job loss. Others have health concerns or financial trouble; marriage problems, grief or stress… the list goes on and on.

But Ash Wednesday and Lent are upon us and the wisdom of the church year has sustained generations of people through the joys and sorrows of millennia. So what can the season of lent offer us this year?

A typical Lent tradition, even popular among many people even those who are not church goers or even believers is to “give something up” for the 40 days of Lent. That may be helpful, especially if you use it as a way to clear out those habits or things that no longer serve you. Simplifying your daily routine or even clearing away some things may give you space to hear God’s voice; the voice that always calls you beloved. It is the voice always inviting you into a life of abundance, of love and goodness and hope.

I’m not sure giving up dessert or carbs or a glass of wine, can serve that purpose. If it can, good for you! Do it!

But it might even be counterproductive to give things up.

One writer had this to say about giving things up for Lent:

“Jesus would probably laugh at us for giving up things like chocolate, beer, coffee…all the things that actually bring us joy and make us happy.

What he might suggest is giving up the things that make us miserable in God’s Paradise.

Things like self-doubt, insecurities, jealousy, greed, and gossip and anger.

The things that move us away from the Light.

Honor (Jesus’) sacrifice by giving up the darkness in your life.”

How can we honor Jesus’ sacrifice by giving up the darkness in our lives?

That’s what Jesus was doing in the wilderness in the gospel story we heard today. He was giving up the darkness and moving toward God, toward the light! The key to understanding this story is to remember that Jesus wandering in the wilderness came AFTER Jesus rose out of the river Jordan, newly baptized hearing the voice of God name him “Beloved.”

Even being God’s beloved does not prevent a time of wilderness wandering; a time of isolation, loneliness, or even temptation.

It may be, in some sense, that for Jesus to fully understand what his belovedness meant, he had to face the darkness that all humans face. Maybe it was important for him to understand that belovedness is found in the midst of our lives – in the midst of all the joys and the sorrows.

After those 40 days of isolation and deprivation, Jesus is faced with choices that force him to define what it means to be God’s beloved.

One of my favorite writers is Barry Lopez who in his last book, wrote about the life of Captain Cook; you know Captain Cook, the first European to set foot in Hawaii. Lopez tells the story of Cook’s voyages that mapped the part of the world we call the Pacific Ocean and the lands that border it. Lopez writes about Cook’s accomplishments but also about his self-doubt. Cook wrote in his journals about the doubt he had about whether his life’s work had been worth the years away from his family, years of doing work that was of questionable value, in his mind. In summarizing Cook’s life Lopez asks, “What did Cook mean by his life?” “What did Cook mean by his life?”

It’s an interesting way to ask that question. We usually ask, “What did his life mean,” when we’re evaluating someone accomplishments. But Lopez asks, “What did HE mean by his life?”

When our lives are over, if we could live our lives coherently, always making choices that align with our values and our purpose as we understand it, we might be able to say exactly what we meant by our life. From the perspective of the end of our lives we might be able to say, “This is what I meant to say by the choices I made!” This is what I meant by how I reacted to what life gave me! This is what I meant to convey to my family, to my dearest loved ones and friends! This is what I meant to convey to everyone! This is what I meant by my life as God’s dearly loved child!

In this BRUTAL Lenten season, rather than being too hard on ourselves, maybe it’s enough to gently ask ourselves, What do we mean by our lives? What do we mean to say by the choices we’re making in this Lenten season and every day?

In an effort to follow Jesus’ lead, maybe we can gently ask ourselves, is this (whatever it is): this activity, this use of my time, this way I’m spending my money – whatever it is in your life, can we ask ourselves: “Is this freeing me from the darkness? Is it helping me to follow Jesus in knowing how truly beloved I am by God, no matter what is happening in my life or in the world around me? Or are my choices, my actions and my thoughts contributing to the darkness.”

And then, still, being gentle with yourself, just notice. Listen to your heart. Listen to your Spirit. Listen to the still, small voice of God who is always, relentlessly calling YOU Beloved, my dearly loved one; calling you to come rest in God. Come trust in God’s goodness.

The Spirit leads to places where we encounter what we need; things that are not always easy, not always comfortable. Immanuel/God with us does not mean God takes away all pain, all that is challenging, all heartache. We are promised that God is With us – in it all; through it all.

At this time, when so many of us feel as though each day brings news of uncertainty, of chaos, and fear of worse to come, in these times the pattern of the church year calls us to make space for the truth and the awareness that God is WITH US, that we ARE God’s Beloved and we can choose every day to walk a little closer to the light! Amen.

Pastor Val Metropoulos

Immanuel Lutheran Church