Comfort, Complacency

Luke 4:1-13

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.

"Comfort, Complacency"

As we enter our journey into Lent, we probably shouldn’t spend our time looking for the word “lent” in our Bible indexes, in our concordances, or even googling the term “lent in the Bible.” Although there is Biblical evidence for the length of our days in Lenten time, it is not a Biblical practice—there was no such thing as Lent way back in those days. There are certainly stories about fasting and self-denial and prayer, but there is no evidence of this Lenten journey that we’ve all begun together. So where did Lent come from, how did all of this happen?

I love how Barbara Brown Taylor paints the scene for us, saying that the need for Lent

. . . did not arise until much later, when the initial rush of Christian adrenaline was over and the believers had gotten very ho-hum about their faith. When the world did not end as Jesus had said it would, his followers stopped expecting so much from God or from themselves. They hung a wooden cross on the wall and settled back into their more or less comfortable routines. . . little by little, Christians became devoted to their comforts instead: the soft couch, the flannel sheets, the leg of lamb with roasted rosemary. These things made them feel safe and cared for—if not by God, then by themselves. They decided there was no contradiction between being comfortable and being Christian, and before long it was very hard to pick them out from the population at large. They no longer distinguished themselves by their bold love for one another. They did not get arrested for championing the poor. They blended in. They avoided extremes. They decided to be nice instead of holy and God moaned out loud.

I love her description—that the first Christians got complacent. They got comfortable with their lives, began thinking that they could do everything and anything for themselves without God’s help, stopped being bold and forgot how to proclaim the Good News, started to blend in instead of living holy lives.

And luckily, in the 2nd century, some very smart and faithful person recognized all of this—saw it and knew that something better be done to change it. They looked to their Bibles and began to realize that the number 40 kept on coming up from the Old Testament to the New, from 40 days and nights of the great flood, to the 40 years that the Israelites spend wandering in the wilderness, to the 40 days that Elijah spent journeying to Mt. Horeb, and most certainly to the 40 days that Jesus spent in the wilderness being tested by the devil before his ministry began. Christian practices began to rise in many different forms around Easter time, some folks fasting from Good Friday until Easter Sunday morning, others fasting and praying for longer.

It was suggested that there be a Lenten time, the term “Lent” springing from the Anglo-Saxon word “lencten,” meaning Spring. It was also the word for “March,” the month in which our journey to Easter usually falls. The practice of Lent seems to have become more official during the Council of Nicaea in 325, very official in 373 after a priest suggested that his congregation fast for 40 days until the more intense fasting that would take place during the Holy Week leading up to Easter. I think these folks were very smart in suggesting that this Lenten time come during Spring, perhaps even hoping that it would be a springtime for the soul for all of the folks back then, a springtime of the soul for all of us. They were smart suggesting that we spend 40 days walking with Jesus to the cross, culminating in a resurrection from death for him, a resurrection for all of us and our lives. 40 days to pray, 40 days to fast. 40 days to examine our sin and confess. 40 days to open up our lives and souls, 40 days to look at how we are living our lives. 40 days to decide how we are blending in instead of stepping out and distinguishing ourselves as the true Christians we are called to be. 40 days to realize that, even though we think we can live without a Savior, we really can’t. 40 days to remember what is to live like we are people who are graced by God and God alone.

I think, in many ways, it’s pretty easy to find ourselves in the same place today as the early Christians so long ago. In so many ways, we have become complacent. We have become so comfortable with our lives, thinking that we can do everything for ourselves, that we don’t need anyone’s help with anything, especially God’s help. We are fitting in, no longer sticking out and standing up, no longer being bold in our proclamation.

Think about it. We have so much technology and information at our fingertips. As Patrick reminded us last week, we can simply google anything we’re interested in, any question we have, any phrase we want to learn about and have information show up in a matter of seconds. Most of us can walk into a Wal-Mart and have all of our needs met, whether we need a game or dog food or a movie or camping equipment or food for dinner. We can order our dinner online from restaurants and have it delivered to our car, not ever having to talk to anyone or hardly even move to eat. We can respond to other people’s comments and feelings on social media without ever having to see those folks face to face, to see their facial expressions or their pain or hear their voice inflections, making comments anonymously and without feeling. We can go through our days without being troubled by too much, and we can go through them without ever bothering to see what is troubling someone else. We are so often too scared to reach out to or defend someone who truly is the least of these, lest we take the risk of losing our livelihoods or our images or our standing in society. Life is, simply put, comfortable for us. And that comfort leads to complacency.

I’ve been struggling with this ever since I got back from Haiti in May—with the things that I took comfort in before the trip, with the things that allowed me to be complacent, with the things that helped me rely only on myself and not on God. After spending a week in the poorest country of the Western hemisphere, a country further devastated by disaster, everything changed for me. Life changed for me. After collecting bath water from rain that rolled down from the roof in Haiti, I’ve been struggling with how comfortable I am here using gallons of water daily for bathing and brushing my teeth and washing my face. After hearing that Haiti has an 80% unemployment rate and seeing so many people lining the streets trying to sell whatever goods they could scrounge up, I’ve been struggling with our stress over an 8-10% unemployment rate here (and please don’t get me wrong—I’m not trying to belittle anyone who is stressed out from unemployment at all—just trying to deal with the discrepancy). After seeing so many people cram into a tap tap in Haiti to get where they need to be, I have struggled with how easy it is for me to drive to and from work every day by myself here. After seeing so many people desperate for any kind of medical care—and so many folks who will never get it in Haiti—I have struggled with our heated debates about health care here, debates that have led to so much hatefulness. I have struggled with the fact that I get frustrated if I have to wait too long for the care I need here while so many in Haiti are thankful for any kind of health care they can scrounge up, not to mention those who will never get the care they need. No matter how we feel about health care, I have struggled mightily with our harsh words to each other over how we take care of eath other. After seeing a country that is so desperate for any kind of stable political infrastructure, I have struggled so much with our recent election. I hated it. I have struggled with our mean words to each other, struggled with the fact that each major candidate spent over a billion dollars to tear the other one down, struggled with the fact that I have been a very complacent participant in our system without ever really fighting for the changes I think we need.

Until I went to Haiti, I didn’t really realize how comfortable I was, how complacent I was, to just be in the world, to just be without ever really challenging the status quo, without doing as much as I could to help those in need. I didn’t really realize how comfortable I was proclaiming that I was a follower of Christ, a follower who wasn’t really willing to risk my place in the world or my livelihood or my life to truly follow him and do as Christ commands—to love my neighbor just as I have been so greatly loved. I didn’t realize how easy it was for me to settle by being nice instead of being holy. I didn’t realize the contradiction of being comfortable and being a Christian.

That is why I need these 40 days of Lent, this springtime for my soul, this resurrection for my soul, really, this time to fast and pray and reflect—to reflect about my place in the world, my complacency in it, and what I can do to challenge and change it. I’m sure many of you are in the same place. We all need this time to get ready—to get out hearts and minds together, to think about how our sin and spend time in confession, to realize, remember, and celebrate that Jesus truly is Lord, the Lord of our minds, hearts, lives.

I think about our Gospel story today, about how Jesus spent those terrible, gutwrenching, awful 4o days in the wilderness, spent them being tested and tempted to the very core of his being. He needed that time in the wilderness to get ready for his life of ministry, to be prepared for all that he would face along the way, to be set apart and to get ready for the cross that was awaiting him at the end of his journey. Jesus entered the wilderness for those 40 days and nights, and he was tempted by the devil to succumb to him, to succumb to power and privilege, to succumb to comfort, to succumb a god other than his own. Jesus needed that time to think about who he was, whose he was.

And so do we. We need these 40 days and 40 nights, this time to be a springtime and resurrection for our soul. We are entering into wilderness, a wilderness that is tough and long and fraught with temptations of power and privilege of comfort and complacency. We are entering the wilderness, but the good news is that we are not alone. We are still able to feel the mark of the cross on our foreheads from Ash Wednesday, and we are invited to the table today. This table is set for us, set to shake us out of our comfort, out of our complacency, set to remind us that we are given all we need right here. At this table, we are given the life of our Lord who lived and journeyed to the cross and died for every single one of us. Thanks be to God.

Harvest Labor

Luke 10:1-9

1 After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. 2 He said to them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. 3 Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. 4 Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. 5 Whatever house you enter, first say, "Peace to this house!' 6 And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. 7 Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. 8 Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; 9 cure the sick who are there, and say to them, "The kingdom of God has come near to you.'

Recently, I’ve been fascinated, and frankly, frightened by a survey released by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life on the religious practices of Americans--in particular young adults under the age of 30. The results should be kind of scary to you, to me, to all of us who care about the young adults in our midst and the future of the church that we love so dearly. The results suggest that nearly 1/5, 20% of Americans, say that they are religiously unaffiliated, that they consider themselves to be “spiritual” and not “religious,” that they don’t go any church of any kind. These numbers are pretty alarming for this minister, and they get even scarier when they simply focus on young adults under 30. The number changes from 1/5 to 1/3, from 20 to 33%. Listen to some further results:

Two-thirds of them say they believe in God (68%). More than half say they often feel a deep connection with nature and the earth (58%), while more than a third classify themselves as “spiritual” but not “religious” (37%), and one-in-five (21%) say they pray every day. In addition, most religiously unaffiliated Americans think that churches and other religious institutions benefit society by strengthening community bonds and aiding the poor. With few exceptions, though, the unaffiliated say they are not looking for a religion that would be right for them. Overwhelmingly, they think that religious organizations are too concerned with money and power, too focused on rules and too involved in politics.

As a result of this survey, National Public Radio has spent some time interviewing young adults, asking them what is happening in their religious lives, their spiritual lives, asking about their faith histories and religious practices. These young adults tell fascinating stories. Kyle, 27, talks about the cross he had tattooed on his wrist as a teenager—a reminder of his faith during those times when he felt weak or unsure or had questions. But Kyle has since fallen away from his faith, not really able to explain why. When the interviewer asks Kyle if he believes in God, he says, “I don’t, really, but I really want to.” This response broke my heart. A Muslim young adult explains how he has fallen away from his faith because he can’t believe in a God who would ask Abraham to sacrifice his son; a young Christian woman explains how she was brought up in a Christian school but left the church when the school taught her to believe that homosexuality was a sin. She believes that each person is a uniquely created child of God and simply can’t reconcile the two ideas. A Jewish man explains how he spent every day of his life at the synagogue, but whose life was turned upside down by abuse and suicide in his home. Such different experiences, such different reasons, but the result is the same—the church is missing out on a vital group of folks just like these bright, smart, and searching young adults, and this vital group of folks is missing out on the church. The harvest is indeed bountiful, but the laborers are few.

The authors of the survey shared some other ideas about why so many young adults, or “nones” as they called them, aren’t part of any church or faith tradition right now. They suggest that the church should speak out on social issues, but maybe, just maybe, they are speaking out on the wrongs ones. They suggest that religious organizations have become too involved in politics, power, and money. They suggest that the church has gone from caring for the well-being of those around us, those outside these walls, to caring only for the spiritual well-being of those who only show up in the pews on Sunday, those who look the same and walk the same and talk the same. Maybe the church has chosen the wrong priorities in its message, causing it to become morally bankrupt. Maybe the church has gotten scared and gotten so caught up in itself and the arguments in its midst that it has chased many of its laborers away. And I truly believe that our own denomination has been very guilty of this in the past 2 decades. The survey authors suggest that our young adults want to work, that they are looking for a bountiful harvest—and that perhaps the church needs to find what has been lost and explore what can be found and reclaim its central message: that we love as Christ first loved us, that we love our neighbor as we love ourselves, that we proclaim that great message of Christ’s love to everyone we meet. The harvest is bountiful, but the laborers few.

This very same problem is echoed in our Gospel story today—a bountiful harvest with few laborers to go out and do the work. Christ calls the disciples who are gathered there, calls so many more to go out. Christ anoints 70 of them (a number that suggests many, many more), and tells them to go out to every place and town, to meet people and eat with them, to accept their hospitality and meet with them, to heal them and love them and announce his kingdom. He tells them that the harvest is plentiful, that there is so much to do. He reminds them that it won’t be easy, that there is a lot of pain in the world and a great need for healing love, reminds them that they will encounter lots of grief and hardness along the way. But, even though it will be hard, they have to go. Christ anoints them, after all, to go out and spread his message of love, of acceptance, of welcome, of grace.

You know, I think that I could preach about 10 different sermons on this text, but there are several important themes in this story for us to think about today as we study this text. Christ anoints the disciples and the others to go out and set the way for him—he doesn’t simply say “go,” but anoints them, sets them apart, ordains them for their service, makes them ready. And he doesn’t send them out on their own. I love that the text specifically tells us that Christ sends them out in pairs. None of them has to go this alone, instead, they go together to support each other, to hold each other up, to lift each other up when one of the pair is having a rough time, when the other doesn’t think he or she can do it anymore. And they’re going to need each other, as the story reminds us, because this business of setting the way for Christ is not easy. “Go on your way,” Jesus says, “see, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves.” Jesus knows that they will meet resistance, perhaps even violence, along the way. Even though the disciples can’t quite believe it when they are told, Jesus knows how his life is going to end and that it’s not going to be pretty. He knows that this proclamation is hard, that there will be lots of resistance and lots of negativity, and he does his best to warn them. Even though he will have to die alone for his message, Jesus puts the disciples and the others together, gives them support, sends them out together.

I think this story also tells us about who we are and what we are to be as people of mission, about how to do mission. When they arrive in the towns together, Jesus tells them to sit with people, to accept the hospitality that is offered, however it is offered. He asks them to abide with folks, really, which is so much different than simply telling them about Christ and then heading toward the nearest door to get to the next person. Sit with them, listen to the stories of their lives, eat what they offer, spend time with them, get to know them, be with them, abide with them. Jesus then tells them to cure, to heal, to try and fix whatever has been damaged and broken in their lives. And then, and only then, tell them about the kingdom, setting the way for Christ. As a seminary professor of mine once said in a class set at a homeless community, “It is hard to hear the Gospel of Christ on an empty stomach.” Perhaps Jesus is telling them that the most important thing about mission, about preparing the way of Christ, is not the always the quantity of people who hear the message, but the quality about how the message is proclaimed.

Jesus pretty much lays it out for them, and none of it sounds particularly easy. It would be so easy and natural, almost, for the disciples and the rest of the seventy to shut down, to be scared, to refuse to go and do mission. This is really hard stuff. But they don’t—they have been told that the harvest is plentiful, that there is much work to do out in the world. Jesus sends them out into a broken and fearful world to labor—to live and to love, to eat and to heal, to listen and to share.

And Jesus does the same for us, folks, especially today. We have all been through a lot in the last few months in the life of our church. I know that you are hurting, and I know that I’m hurting, as well. It was gutwrenching to see your tears last week as you left worship, and it was gutwrenching for me to stand before you and hold back my tears when we sang “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling.” There has been so much change, so much transition in the life of our congregation—and there will continue to be as we search for an Interim Head of Staff, as we eventually search for the next person God is calling to be with us. Transition is so hard in so many ways, and in some ways, it can hold us back, can cripple us from going out in the world to work. In so many ways, it is hard to share the message of Christ when we are hurting, so hard to go out into homes when we are nervous about what will happen next in the life of our church community.

The news for us to hear today is both great and hard as we are reminded that the harvest is indeed plentiful—and always will be. There is so much struggling in the world, so much sin, so much brokenness. As we all know so well, our world struggles with violence, with war, with broken community, with so many “isms.” We have so many ways to hurt each other and break each other, and we live in a world that is broken and fearful because of all the ways we sin. We live in a world where people are hurting and lonely and distant and hopeless. Those young adults who shared their stories in the NPR interview echoed that as they spoke about the alienation and isolation, the violence and tragedy, the apathy and doubt that has kept them away from the church. The harvest is plentiful, and our Christ needs more laborers.

It is true, we have free will, and we can choose to shut down, to ignore the world around us, to live in sadness and fear, to ignore the harvest all around us. But isn’t it better to live as those who go out in pairs, those who are anointed and set free and made ready for service? As a congregation, we have been through so much in the last few months, but the world goes on around us. There is much work to be done and many laborers needed in this broken world. I really don’t think it’s a coincidence that today is Souper Bowl Sunday—because, no matter what we are going through, we are reminded today that there are so many hungry people in our midst, right outside these doors. It’s no accident that our PCM luncheon is coming up soon to remind us that folks need help paying the most basic of bills, that work on our Habitat house is just beginning to remind us of our basic need for shelter. Life goes on. It must. Folks, if we are nothing else, we are laborers. No matter what, there is always work to be done. The harvest is always plentiful. Thanks be to God.