“Will Jesus Waver”

Anna Pinckney Straight

First Presbyterian Church ~ New Bern, NC

February 26, 2023

This week was one of those weeks when after I was done recording the video version of the sermon that goes on YouTube, I felt called to make some changes in the sermon. This isn’t unusual, and typically I email my Sunday version, but the changes were significant enough this week that I thought I would include both sermons. First, the sermon I preached on Sunday, and second, the sermon closer to the video that’s on YouTube.

Peace,

Rev. Anna

Matthew 4: 1 - 11

¹Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.²He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterward, he was famished.³The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.”⁴But he answered, “It is written,

‘One does not live by bread alone,

but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

⁵Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, ⁶saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written,

‘He will command his angels concerning you,’

and ‘On their hands they will bear you up,

so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’”

⁷Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

⁸Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; ⁹and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” ¹⁰Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’” ¹¹Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.

Sermon One – The Sunday Morning Sermon

The New York Times says that one of the ways to have a wonderful vacation is by asking for directions. A lot. Author Kio Stark wrote:[1]

On a visit to London for a conference a few years ago, I decided to skip paying for a data plan. The result was ridiculous, and also delightful. On my first night out, I checked Google maps on my laptop before I left and sketched directions to the large dinner gathering I was to attend. I emerged from the tube and got hopelessly lost. I had forgotten to write down the name of the restaurant. The small street in the address was nowhere to be found. It began to rain. I asked a man outside a bar where the street was. He had no idea but shooed me inside to keep dry. No one else knew either, so I had dinner on a pub stool riveted by the stories a woman drinking straight gin told me about her years as a spy.

Without your phone and its maps, you navigate by other means. A paper map is something you can ask for help with. You may genuinely find it befuddling, and you can also pretend that it is. It’s a pretense to start a conversation with a passing stranger, a shopkeeper, or someone sitting next to you on a bench. Ask for directions a lot. Asking for any kind of help is the key to many doors, it’s a vulnerable act that invites genuine, unguarded assistance. For the daring among us, you can even ditch the map and navigate solely by asking strangers. Prepare to be disoriented, to take all sorts of wrong turns, and find things you weren’t looking for. Surrender control.

How much does vulnerability play into our lives, into what we want, and the people we are called to become?

I saw a video the other day of a man talking about how he proposed to his now-wife. And how terribly it had gone. He had planned an elaborate proposal. But nothing had worked out. They went to an isolated beach to have a romantic supper, but couldn’t find a table and had to sit on the sand. The food they’d ordered was cold by the time they got there, and the wind blew sand into everything. And, well, what they ate, the man had chosen some food to which his then-girlfriend was allergic, and they ended up at urgent care where she finally showed her parents the ring. Happily married now, he reflected on how wrong he was, how he’d focused on all the wrong things – for them - in his proposal - they were none of the things that made them a good couple or indicated they’d have a good marriage. It had been about pride and show. And aside from agreeing with him what impressed me about it was his ability to admit it. To be vulnerable. Show his flaws and his faults, and what a good sign that was for their marriage.

Of course, it isn’t easy to be vulnerable.

In an article about Biblical Friendship, Kendra Weddle reflects:[2]

Faithful friends are life-saving medicine. Loneliness can have devastating health consequences. Ben Sira, [in the book Sirach included in the apocrypha] in the book of wisdom instructs that friends are medicine—faithful friends, that is. We are not talking about casual or haphazard friends but deep, intentional, never-going-to-let-go kinds of relationships.

Such friendships do not mature on their own. Having lived on a farm when I was young, I know that soil must be prepared prior to planting. Placing a seed in parched and nutrient-deficient soil will result in crops that wither and die. So too with friendships. Brené Brown talks about the need for “excruciating vulnerability” as the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, and empathy. Without vulnerability, wholehearted friendships will not have staying power.

I was not ready to be vulnerable with my friend until she was first vulnerable with me. Feelings of shame and unworthiness had worked their way deep within my bones, convincing me that I did not deserve attention and connection. As a result, I had largely cut myself off from deep connections with others. When this heretofore casual friend called me to talk about a specific challenge in her life, all of a sudden the logjam in the depth of my being broke free. Through our shared exposure and honesty, we created a new level of knowing and being. It was a welcome surprise that neither of us had sought.

What can grow when we are willing to be vulnerable with our strengths, our fears, our hopes, and our worries?

As the line in one of my favorite prayers says, “Strong enough to risk appearing weak.”

Vulnerability is, I believe, the kind of strength Jesus shows when he journeys into the wilderness to fast and pray for 40 days and is tempted by the devil.

Jesus does not fast because food is bad or because he does not need food.

(By all accounts Jesus loved a good meal.)

Fasting is not a show of strength, it is a willingness to show his dependence on food, both literal and spiritual.

The encounter with temptation isn’t an idle exercise to show us how it’s done-

It is a willingness to be vulnerable to that which would have called him away

from what his Father had asked him to do.

And so, Jesus refuses to perform a miracle that doesn’t point to God.

Jesus refuses to ask God to step in to do something that does not need to be done.

Jesus refuses to accept power comes from control.

How hard that must have been for a man who wanted to help people. Who loved these people desperately, but could also see the bigger picture.

It’s hard not because Jesus is strong, but because he is soft, the people he loves affect him. You affect him.

The vulnerability Jesus needs is a vulnerability that will take him all the way to the cross.

The Rev. Karl Travis, a colleague who is just a little bit older than I am, reflecting on his life and the medical condition which is robbing him of life much sooner than should be, wrote these words, words I shared at our Ash Wednesday service [3]“Here is the Lenten logic, then; there’s nothing like taking a knee and rubbing ashes on your forehead to make you feel vulnerable. And there’s nothing like feeling vulnerable to remind us upon whom we may depend. And there’s nothing like depending on God to give us the courage to be obedient. Vulnerability leads to courage leads to obedience, and there, just then, we meet Jesus.”

Then, we meet Jesus.

When we are strong enough to risk appearing weak.

To share what we have with another.

To reach out with love beyond our understanding.

Lent is a season when we are invited to be vulnerable. For some that vulnerability is something life has forced upon them, but for many of us, it is something that must be cultivated.

This past Wednesday night as we prepared for the Ash Wednesday service and the imposition of ashes that mark our mortality, a family joined us for worship. Now that’s not unusual. Families join us for worship. Fewer for Ash Wednesday in the evening, but I’ve placed ashes on many a young forehead including the forehead of my own child.

But something about last week and the days leading to Wednesday and as I saw the family walk as I realized I would be imposing ashes on this child’s forehead, well, I wasn’t sure I could do it. Or knowing I could do it, but it was going to cause me to go deep into a well that felt like it was running pretty low.

Now, what would I normally do in that kind of situation? The same thing I have done in countless other situations like that when I wasn’t sure I had the grit to rise to the occasion. Take a deep breath. Say a prayer, And set everything else to the side.

Only this time, I realized that I had a colleague at my side, and I took the risk of saying to her. “I’m not sure I can do it this evening. I’m just not sure I have it.” And she offered to switch places with me. And I accepted.

I’ll tell you, it was hard admitting that I was struggling, but afterward, and the next day, I realized that not only should I preach that I should be strong enough to risk appearing weak, but I also have to actually risk that vulnerability, and this time, I had someone by my side who was willing to switch places, be strong where I was not. A favor I hope to return.

And isn’t that what Lent is all about? To have the courage to be like Jesus and admit where we are weak? And know that we are stronger together? When we know that Jesus has us, and it’s not all on our shoulders?

To speak the places where we are tender or unsure.

Lent tells us, we never do this alone. We are never in the wilderness alone. Jesus is there, he was there first and is there now, and will be where we go.

It can be far more tempting in our 2023 world to wrap everything and everyone we love in bubble wrap. Or push the feelings of insecurity so far down inside that we can pretend they are not there.

But what can happen if we choose the other way, the way of Jesus, and are willing to sit with the places where we hunger, the pathways where we struggle, if we cultivate vulnerability?

if our hearts are always in one piece, how will the Holy Spirit get in?

May this Lent

however, you choose to observe it

be a time of vulnerability,

so that in your living you might trust and depend

on God who created you

Jesus who redeems you (and always wants to meet you)

and the Spirit that sustains you.

These three, already and here, there, and always.

“Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.” Amen.

Sermon Two- The Video Sermon

On Wednesday night, we had a child join us for worship. Now I’ve welcomed children at Ash Wednesday services before. I’ve placed ashes on my own child’s head. But this past Wednesday, my heart just couldn’t take it, the thought of ashes and the recognition of mortality on this child’s head, and so I had Catherine Campbell switch places with me so I could be where I was more comfortable, with people my own age. I hate admitting vulnerability, of having openly obvious chinks in my armor. But as I pondered it on Thursday and Friday. I think I dislike even more a world in which there are no colleagues or friends or fellow church members to lean on when you feel weak.

What does it mean to be vulnerable with your humanity?

Or on the more serious side, I was stunned recently by a news report about a Hindu man in a hospital in Delhi, India, suffering from burns. [4] He received those burns while saving six of his neighbors - his Muslim neighbors - whose homes had been set on fire by a mob protesting in favor of India’s new Citizenship Amendment Act that uses religion as a qualifier for particular opportunities—and makes being Muslim a disqualifier. The riots in Delhi from a few years ago killed dozens and heightened already present fears and prejudices, but in the midst of this, there are abundant stories of Hindus and Sikhs, and others[5] taking in their Muslim neighbors when their lives or homes are threatened. This man literally risked his own life to go into a burning building to save neighbors he’s been told not to trust, and he did it anyway. Because it was right. But doing this made him vulnerable. To fire. To hatred. To discrimination.

R. Eric Thomas, in his recent book, Here for It tells the story of a church meeting in the 1980s, when Thomas was a preteen, a meeting that was called because there were people with HIV who wanted to join the church.

Should they ask these people to self-identify before they join? Should they be allowed to come to church dinners? Should they be allowed near children? Thomas didn’t understand it. He just didn’t. Not that he had a personal agenda. Not that he even fully understood it at this point in history—those early days when not many people understood it. But Thomas knew it was wrong. Thomas’ words were: “We had lost church.”

How should he handle it? As a preteen, he had no authority. No vote. And children didn’t speak in church meetings. And yet, Thomas raised his hand and asked to speak. His face got hot before he was even called on to speak. And when the pastor recognized him, Thomas said “Why? I don’t know why we need to know this about people before they join?”[6]

Thomas openly admits he didn’t come to this action on his own. He credits his father, who would “sit and puzzle through questions for hours, whose house had open doors and open arms inside, and who welcomed the doubt that is necessary for true belief.”

As an adult, Thomas reminds himself and all of us: “welcome is not a neutral state, we have to tend to these things.”[7]

Finally, I’ll tell you about a college junior at an Ivy League school, who had the courage to write a letter to his college paper’s editor from his own experience, lifting up the prevalence of eating disorders on campus.[8] In the end, he wrote these words:

“There’s a good chance you know someone with an eating disorder. Maybe that person is a friend, or perhaps it’s just someone you know who is hurting. Regardless, it’s never bad to reach out — not in confrontation, not in speculation, but in friendship. Knowing that there’s someone who cares about you and will listen to what you have to say can be, in my own experience with recovery, fundamental to reestablishing a sense of self-worth. And for those who are suffering, it can undoubtedly be daunting to share your experience or seek medical help. But it doesn’t need to start in a doctor’s office; reaching out to a trusted friend or family member can be incredibly meaningful so that you don’t have to go on bearing a burden alone. You are beautiful, and you deserve to know that.”

I share all of these stories because of something I believe they all have in common. They are all remarkable not because these individuals are strong or powerful or mighty or superheroes, but exactly because they are not. They are normal. They are hopeful. And they were willing to make themselves vulnerable for something that is bigger than they are. To give up something they might have wanted, an image they could have presented, a resource that might have made them feel secure, money…. or silence. It is a different kind of strength.

As the line in one of my favorite prayers says,

“Strong enough to risk appearing weak.”

It is, I believe, the kind of strength Jesus shows when he journeys into the wilderness to fast and pray for 40 days and is tempted by the devil.

Jesus does not fast because food is bad or because he does not need food.

(By all accounts Jesus loved a good meal.)

Fasting is not a show of strength, it is a willingness to make himself vulnerable.

The encounter with temptation isn’t an idle exercise to show us how it’s done-

It is a willingness to be vulnerable to that which would have called him away

from what his Father had asked him to do.

And so, Jesus refuses to perform a miracle that doesn’t point to God.

Jesus refuses to ask God to step in to do something that does not need to be done.

Jesus refuses to accept power comes from control.

How hard that must have been for a man who wanted to help people. Who loved these people desperately, but could also see the bigger picture.

It’s hard not because Jesus is strong, but because he is soft, the people he loves affect him. You affect him.

The vulnerability Jesus needs is a vulnerability that will take him

all the way to the cross.

The Rev. Karl Travis, a colleague who is just a little bit older than I am, reflecting on his life and the medical condition which is robbing him of life much sooner than should be, wrote these words, words I shared at our Ash Wednesday service [9]“Here is the Lenten logic, then; there’s nothing like taking a knee and rubbing ashes on your forehead to make you feel vulnerable. And there’s nothing like feeling vulnerable to remind us upon whom we may depend. And there’s nothing like depending on God to give us the courage to be obedient. Vulnerability leads to courage leads to obedience, and there, just then, we meet Jesus.”

Then, we meet Jesus.

When we are strong enough to risk appearing weak.

To share what we have with another.

To reach out with love beyond our understanding.

And just as welcome must be cultivated, so must vulnerability, too.

For if there are no

if our hearts are always in one piece, how will the Holy Spirit get in?

May this Lent

however, you choose to observe it

be a time of vulnerability,

so that in your living you might trust and depend

on God who created you