Scripture: Deuteronomy 26:1-11, Luke 4:1-13
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
As Maya mentioned, this is the theme verse for our Lent worship, taken from Isaiah 55. It’s a challenging place to start. A sobering reality-check about the distance between our ways of being and living and thinking and God’s ways of being and living and thinking. As far as the heavens are from the earth. God is God, and we are not. All the things that we concern and busy ourselves with, all the things that we prioritize, all our best-laid plans and strategies – God is working on a totally different plane. Even our religious life – the things we think and say and imagine about God – we’re only scratching the surface. Even when we’re not getting it wrong altogether, there’s always so much more.
And when we start to forget it, this season of Lent and Easter has a way of reminding us again. We are following Jesus on a journey to the cross. Suffering and pain, weakness and vulnerability, giving of oneself even to the point of death. My ways are not your ways, says the Lord. No kidding. Which of us would choose the cross as the way to bring healing and hope to the world?
And yet, that is the gift, isn’t it. Because if there’s anything we know about in this world it is the reality of death. As vastly higher as they might be, the ways of God have come to us. In Jesus, that distance between heaven and earth has collapsed altogether. God is God and we are not, but God has taken on our flesh, our joys, our sorrows, our very humanity in all its mortal glory. And then said: “Come, and follow me.”
So through this season we do commit ourselves to seeking God’s ways. Following Jesus, we take a closer look at our lives and invite God to change and transform us. So often the patterns and priorities that we’ve learned as normal parts of life end up being challenged as we pay attention to God and to the scriptures of this season. And something new is opened up as we allow God to work in us.
And so we will find ourselves called from Security to Generosity, from Fear to Compassion, from Earning to Receiving, from Privilege to Welcome, from Scarcity to Abundance, from Control to Collaboration, from Certainty to Wonder. Remembering that there is always more to God and what God is doing than we will ever figure out. We’ll have a different set of symbols here on the table each week pointing us towards God’s ways, and after they’ve been featured on the table they will move to the path up here on the stage, so they can continue to serve as markers on our journey as we seek God’s ways under the sign of the cross.
You’ll notice that we begin today with a stone and a loaf of bread on the table. Reminders of the story that Maya just read about the temptations of Jesus in the desert, and our symbols for seeking God’s ways in the turn from Security to Generosity.
I think the topic of security is always an important one for folks like us who live in individualistic North American cultures. It’s something we are taught to value and strive for every step of the way through life. We’ve all got to look out for ourselves. Provide for our needs. Stake out our little piece of the earth and put our fences around it.
We often talk about this in terms of financial security. Do I make enough money, and is it reliable income? Have I saved enough for a rainy day? Or for retirement? Maybe I have a little extra right now, but I might need it later. There’s a part of financial security that’s just good stewardship of our resources. Being responsible with our time and our money, planning well and learning to live within our means. That’s important work for all of us.
But often there’s a deeper current underneath that pulls us in less healthy directions. In the name of security, we feel like we never have enough. Not enough to relax, not enough to slow down, not enough to share with others. In the name of security, we concern ourselves with our own lives, our own four walls, and lose the bigger picture of community and relationships. We build up stores and defenses and hesitate to share or take risks.
There are other kinds of security we worry about too. Job security, food security, home security, national security, personal security and safety. Many of these are just normal and important parts of making a life. Things that we all strive to keep in place for ourselves so that we can live well. But I wonder if something about the culture in which we live teaches us to expect a level of security that’s not necessarily realistic or healthy. We think that we can do this for ourselves. That we should be able to construct an unassailable life. That we can keep out hardship and pain, that if we build it all up well enough we can keep the roof from ever falling in. That we can secure ourselves against anything.
But we can’t. At least a part of us knows this. Things happen – tumours grow, jobs are lost, investments tank, loved ones die, accidents happen, relationships rupture, pandemics strike, a neighbouring country invades. So many of us have been watching the horrors unfolding in Ukraine these days, as shells rain down and tanks roll through cities and towns destroying homes and sending people running for their lives. Over a million flooding out of the country in the past week. Like so many global events, it can feel like a world away and something that could never happen to us. But it’s a terrible reminder of how quickly everything we’ve worked for can go up in smoke. People who had built lives, gotten good jobs, bought homes, done everything right. Not to mention the many who never had the privilege of these securities, and maybe not the resources to leave either. And it all comes tumbling down, any illusions of security dashed. We watch in disbelief with prayers of lament and petition, hoping for an end to the violence.
I’ve certainly been given pause this week as I fret about finances or dinner menus or gas prices in my little bubble of stability. There are so many crises playing out in different places that put your own experience in perspective. I think of those who have lost homes or loved ones or any assurances about the future. And I wonder about the foundation my own life is built on.
I don’t think that wishing for security is itself a problem. We all want and deserve to be safe and to have the things that we need to live well. We all want and deserve to imagine a good future for ourselves and those who come after us. In fact, scripture often describes a God who offers refuge and security. We rest secure in the cleft of the rock, secure under the shadow of God’s wings, secure in the fortress or shelter. Secure in God’s plans for a future with hope.
But where does our security come from? Where do we put our hope and our confidence? Do we trust in God’s care for us, God’s provision, God’s secure refuge? Or do we need to take care of it ourselves – holding tightly to whatever we have as a bulwark against what might come?
In Deuteronomy, the Israelites are given instructions for what to do when they finally enter the land where God has promised to bring them. A place where finally, after years of slavery and years of wandering, they will be able to build a new life as a people. And the first thing they are to do is gather a first-fruits of what the land produces to be offered to God and shared with the community. Why? To remind the people that what they now have is a gift. To remind them that their prosperity and security in the land won’t be thanks to their own hard work. And to remind them of how they got there.
When they bring their offerings to the altar, the people are to recite and recall their story. That a wandering Aramean was their ancestor. That their people moved to Egypt, became numerous, and became enslaved. That the God of this wandering Aramean heard their cries and brought them out and led them to a place of plenty.
Because this is all God’s doing, they don’t need to hold on to their wealth so tightly. They don’t need the first-fruits of the harvest as security against drought or famine or a long winter. There will be time enough for laying stores and dealing responsibly with the bounty that lies all around them. First it is time to share, to remember and to celebrate. The people are freed to be generous as they are freed from the need to secure their own futures.
Of course, the story of the Israelites in the promised land is not so simple. It’s also a story of conquest and colonization that rightly gives us pause. Especially as it became a model and justification for European colonial projects in Africa and the Americas. So much of the biblical histories and prophetic writings that follow are about God’s people forgetting this lesson about security. They forget where they came from and neglect to care for the widows and the foreigners in their midst. They forget who delivered them and call for kings and defended borders. They forget who provides for them, and begin to horde wealth for themselves.
European settlers in the Americas have done much the same. Claiming the land and its resources. Securing ownership of things that are to be shared and enjoyed. Extracting every last drop of the wealth that surrounds us, leaving nothing for our neighbours or for future generations. We have grabbed as much as we can, sure that what we do not hold is somehow lost to us.
In her book Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer tells the story of European settlers who watched an indigenous community harvest wild rice from a marsh. They only ever took half of the rice that came up, and the settlers figured these local gatherers were just lazy. They couldn’t even be bothered to finish the job. And so the settlers scoured the marsh, taking every last stalk and grain. But the indigenous community took only what they needed. And they knew that if you take all the rice, it won’t come up so plentifully next year.
What difference would it make if we were freed from the need to secure ourselves and our futures? If we could trust that our well-being is rooted somewhere else? If we could let God provide, let the earth bear fruit, let our communities take care of us?
This wouldn’t protect us from loss or pain or sadness or disaster. Placing our hope in God, resting securely in God’s care – it won’t hold all these things that we fear at bay. But neither will the security of wealth or property or influence or work or power or gated communities. We simply cannot secure ourselves against life. But it would free us to live with a new kind of generosity. A new capacity to share, to offer the very best of what we have to each other, to our neighbours, to creation, to our God.
Jesus alone out in the wilderness. Wrestling with the Spirit and preparing for the ministry ahead. Hungry, lonely, tired. Three times the tempter whispers to him – each time offering Jesus the chance to reach out and grab what is his. To secure not only his life but his mission.
Bread, power, guardian angels. Each of them a kind of short-cut security. A quick fix with easy assurances. A way of taking control and skipping over the hard work of trust in God. Doing it on his own, manipulating the pieces, grabbing hold and saying “mine!”.
But Jesus won’t bite. There are no assurances, no shortcuts. There are no walls strong enough to keep the trouble out, to protect against pain. All he has is a calling, an identity: You are my beloved child, and I am so pleased with you. That’s the only security he has, but it’s also the only security he needs. That’s where his life is kept, and no hunger or enemy or danger can threaten him there.
Jesus emerges from the desert having claimed that identity. Having let go of the need to secure himself, his worth, his possessions, his future. For there is no place more secure than the love of God. And from that place he is ready to share. Read to give. Ready to love and to serve and to teach and to heal and to grieve and to cry and to sweat and to bleed and to die. Ready to give all he has because it’s all safe with God.
My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. That’s our challenge and our invitation. Also our assurance, when the things beyond our control begin to circle round. Let’s seek the ways of God that free us to move from building security to sharing generosity.
Amen.