March 9, 2025: Don’t grasp; it doesn’t belong to you

John Bellaimey

St John’s, Mpls, First Sunday of Lent, March 9, 2025

John Bellaimey

Don’t grasp; it doesn’t belong to you.

 

In the name of God, the self-emptying one, the great giver, the pathfinder, Amen.

Lynnell and I just got home from five weeks in Salt Lake City with our son Jackson, daughter-in-law Mackenzie, and grandchildren Graham, almost three, and Julia, almost one. We got the little ones ready and walked them to daycare most mornings, negotiated tantrums, and went to the zoo with the whole family. Lynnell got to ski as many days a week as she wanted, and I made a bunch of new friends at the parish we attend there, working two days a week at their lively and sometimes frantic food pantry.

And we had the good luck that all five weeks of Adult Forum were taught by a brilliant and wise priest/archaeologist who made the landscape of the New Testament come alive, including today’s Gospel reading, Jesus’ temptation in the desert.

But there’s no place like home, and we are so grateful to be back here with you all! And thank you to Rex and all his helpers who put these services up on Vimeo every Sunday.

This week’s Gospel happens before Jesus stepped onto the public stage. We find him outside the Promised Land, beyond John the Baptist’s campsite, fasting and talking to the Holy One who called him my beloved Son. It was a vision quest, and the fasting is supposed to stir up your consciousness, but by the fortieth day, he got what might be called an anti-vision.

Instead of the Holy Spirit bringing wisdom from above, another character appeared. Someone like Eve’s friendly snake, or God’s wagering buddy from the story of Job. The tempter.

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, you are truly the Son of God. He’s very proud of you by the way, and so am I. I’m here to tell you you’ve succeeded, and you can stop all this fasting and praying. It’s time to get down to work, and I have some helpful advice–totally free, by the way, no cost to you.

Okay, here’s the first slide. Now forty days is the magic number. You’re done here, so you need to put some flesh on those bones. Now, a regular shmo would have to go buy some food, but you have the power of Manifestation! Conceive it and receive it! Claim what is yours!  So go ahead and turn one of these stones into bread, and let’s get you home for a bath, eh?  No? Okay, then let me show you something.

 That’s Rome over there. My client Caesar. Doing terrific work. He’s a natural. Just needed some encouragement from yours truly.

 Over there is my young friend Pharaoh in Egypt, and his ancestor’s pyramid. By the way, your people did a lot of work building those things.

 Over there is Herod Antipas of Galilee, who doesn’t know about you yet, but you don’t want to make an enemy of him.

 So what I’m offering, Mr. Jesus the Messiah, –today only!–is a program for gaining and keeping power. Ends justify the means, looking out for number one, that sort of thing…. What? Really? Okay, sure, you have your own ideas…

 but what about your debut? The Launch? The roll-out? Have you thought about that? How are you going to step onto the stage of world history? Your carpentry shop days are over. Finito. Time to claim your stardom. And. You. Deserve. It. You’re the Messiah! Yeah. Let that sink in! That means there’s only one stage is big enough for you. The Temple. But not in the courtyard or even in the Holy of Holies. Not enough exposure. We’re going to start you…on the rooftop!

 Right in front of everybody. Top of the world, ma, am I right? Yes, they are going to be afraid you’re gonna jump. And you ARE! But the angels…..

 What? You’re kidding me! Jesus! (sorry!)…   but you know it would work!    Hey, don’t walk away… I have so much to teach you…. You have a beautiful future ahead of you!    Hey, I was just spitballing, you know, brainstorming…    Here’s my business card, I’ll…um, see you again…        I’ll find a more opportune time.

 St. Paul wrote, Jesus “did not count equality with God as something to be grasped, but he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant”

As the Bible tells it, God had tried many ways of teaching human beings the way we should live. This new way, incarnation, involved no selfish, magic bread or show-off special effects. Avoided the politics of power in favor of the politics of humility. It was what the Buddha taught: resist the natural inclination to grasp. To take. To hold on. To own.

Our kids are trying to teach little Graham to share toys with Julia, and of course, 2-¾ is too young to understand reciprocity. So they catch him being generous and and tell him why they appreciate it. If she wants to drive the backhoe, he could tell her to wait a minute.  …… OK, it might happen… in maybe fourth grade.

We want to be in charge of our things.  Jesus, too: he tells the Tempter, “I won’t worship you. You’re not the boss of me. Only my Heavenly Parent.”

As soon as the devil leaves him, angels come and take care of him [in Matt and Mk only]. Then he is ready to start his public career. The only story he ever told about his vision quest is this story, about the kind of Messiah he wasn’t going to be: a magician, a show-off, a world leader. What he was going to teach, in word and deed, was unconventional:

• instead of fighting back, shame your enemy by turning the other cheek.
• instead of loving only your friends, love also your enemies. You don’t have to like them.
• instead of respectable people entering heaven first, outcasts and reformed sinners will,
• instead of being calculating and sneaky, be as simple as children, birds, flowers.
• instead of admiring the wealthy and fabulous, God loves the poor and unlovely.
• instead of accumulating many possessions, remind people how contagious and joyful it is to share

And why should we turn all these conventions upside-down? Because God’s love is so much more extreme than we can imagine. Jesus was an utterly confident man, but humble. Unshakeable.     People began to believe that if God could take on human form, this is what God would look like.

So did three year-old Jesus always share? Did he ever command his grandfather to get out of here! Did he ever hit his little sister?  That is a very hard question to answer. On the one hand, I was taught that Jesus never sinned, never got sent to sit on the thinking step. He was, somehow, divine. On the other hand, since he was fully human, how could he not have the natural self-centeredness of a three year old? The early church wrestled with this fully divine / fully human business. They concluded that it was a not a contradiction, but a paradox. A mystery.

We will never know if Jesus learned unselfish love like we do, the hard way, from his parents. Did he wrestle with it for forty days of fasting and prayer, and come out of his “Lent in the Wilderness” walking the Way of Love? Or had it always just come naturally?

On Ash Wednesday, we commit ourselves to fasting, prayer, and acts of love for at least these forty days of Lent. To develop better habits of living.

• We fast to become mindful of the role of food in our life.
• We pray to become mindful of the message of Christ.
• We do acts of generosity to remember that all our stuff really isn’t ours, and to make us think about whose it is in the first place.

In Lent, we’re invited to come to church more, for example to this afternoon’s Evensong. To read the Bible more, study it, get mad at it, and find God in it despite all the human selfishness, violence, tribalism, and finger-pointing. And fast from something that you struggle with. And just pray.

Jesus is always our role-model, even if his mysterious perfection is out of our reach. To consider what God has in mind for us instead of what we often have in mind for ourselves: health, wealth, fame, power, or permanence. To remind us to let go of all our grasping.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

10am Service