A Meditation for Communion by the Rev. Dr. Hilary J. Barrett
Preached at Pleasantville United Church of Christ, February 21, 2010
Deuteronomy 26:1-11, Psalm 91: 1-2, 9-16, Luke 4:1-13

"Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness,
where 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."  (Luke 4:1-2)

A friend of mine is a pastor who, for many years, has been going to see the same doctor.  Now, this probably happens to all of us in our respective positions in the world, but when pastors go to see doctors, very often we end up being pastors – to our doctors.

Over the course of many years, this doctor shared bits and pieces of her own journey with my friend.  He quietly listened as she processed out loud the changes that were coming in her life.

So it didn’t surprise him completely when this good Jewish doctor let him know that she had decided she wanted to be baptized.

Given their long history with one another, my friend wrestled with whether or not it was a good idea for him to baptize her and decided, instead, to send her to a church not far from her house, where there was a pastor he trusted and a congregation he knew.  He hoped that, there, she could find love and support for her journey.

He made the referral, alerted the pastor to watch for her, and hoped for the best.

As it happened, the doctor went to worship and it was a wonderful experience her.  But her hunger to see Jesus was fierce, and she wanted more.  She was hungry for an experience that matched the urgency of her deepest need.  And somehow the pastor at that church failed to see that.

After attending worship, she shared with the pastor that she wanted to be baptized and the pastor responded by inviting her to a New Member’s Class where, very much like our own New Members’ Class, she would have an opportunity to meet others from the church, share a bit of her journey, and find out more about the structure of the church and the programs that it offered.

This was not what she was hoping for.  She wanted to be baptized.

After a couple weeks of silence, my pastor friend got nervous.  He hadn’t heard anything from either his doctor or the pastor to whom he had referred her.  And he began to worry.

When he got the call, he wasn’t surprised but he was deeply disappointed.

She went to a little independent Baptist church in a strip mall down the road where, when she told them she wanted to be baptized they said, “praise Jesus” and baptized her.  And that’s where she’s going now. 

Now in the big picture, this is good news.  This is the news we want to hear.  Someone with a hunger for Jesus was baptized recently and we hope and pray that her journey is full of grace and mercy.

But in the small picture, this story signifies a failure of one of our local UCC congregations.  In some ways this is a complicated story.  But in other ways it’s not.  This is a story about a woman with a deep and passionate hunger to bring Jesus into her life; a hunger responded to not by an invitation to the baptismal font, but to an Inquirer’s Class where she could learn about the programs of the church.  Sometimes I think we are afraid of peoples’ hunger in the Church.  Sometimes, I think we underestimate the power of peoples’ longing.

Hunger, and the power of hunger, are at the core of today’s gospel story.  Luke is careful to add this detail to his version of the story:  “He ate nothing during those days and at the end of them, he was hungry” (Luke 4:2).

"Only two of the four gospels give the long version of Jesus' temptation in the wilderness.  John leaves it out altogether and Mark's gospel covers the whole thing in two sentences: the Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness, he was there forty days, Satan tempted him, wild beasts kept him company, and angels waited on him.  That's it; that's all Mark knew--or that's all he thought we needed to know--about what happened between Jesus and Satan in the wilderness."[1]

But Luke gives us the detail that Jesus was hungry.  It’s the kind of line we might pass over quickly in a passage like this one.  It’s the kind of line we might not even pay attention to.  “The real drama is still coming, after all, and so we typically see this mention of Jesus’ hunger as no more than the necessary set up to the first temptation—Jesus was hungry and so the devil wooed him into making some wonder bread out of stones.  But then we move on to other temptations that have nothing to do with this little passing detail on Jesus’ being hungry.”[2]  Or do they?

After several weeks with no food, Jesus was terribly hungry.  “He was actually verging on the beginning of starvation.  It made him vulnerable not just to a temptation to turn stones into bread but to all the other temptations, too.  When you’re really hungry, you might also be a little on edge, a little ornery, a little low on patience.  It is the kind of circumstance in which the devil sees an opening, and we’ve all of us been there.”[3]

There’s a clever advertising campaign on television these days; maybe you’ve seen it.  It’s a Snicker’s commercial that includes cameo appearances by legendary celebrities.  The one I’m thinking of is 4 guys in a small hot car and one starts complaining about the heat.  The guys in the car hand ‘him’ a snickers bar and say that every time he gets hungry he becomes ‘such a Diva.’  The kicker is that the ‘guy’ who is accused of being a Diva is played by the great vocalist Aretha Franklin. 

We’ve all been there.  Some of us are more vulnerable to this than others, but most of us know just exactly how cranky some people can get when they’re hungry.  Their personalities can change almost entirely.  And the truth is – it’s a physiological change.  Our brains just don’t function as well when we’re really hungry; we are not ourselves.

Hunger is at the core of this scripture story.  And the first temptation that Jesus has to deal with hooks him in the place where he is most immediately hungry, and therefore the place that he is most immediately vulnerable. 

But hunger is at the core of every temptation we face.  Hunger is at the core of many of our spiritual issues. 

We are hungry to matter – to the people we love and to the world.

We are hungry to find meaning in our lives.

We are hungry to find people of integrity that we can trust and believe in.

We are hungry for purpose and a sense of call.

We are hungry to belong to a community where we know that we are safe and loved.

And when we are deeply hungry, that hunger can leave us open to all kinds of temptations that we would otherwise turn away from.  The Spirit drives Jesus into the wilderness where – first of all – he is hungry.  And being that hungry he is left vulnerable to all kinds of things that he might not have been vulnerable to under ordinary circumstances. 

The devil says:
You’re hungry? 
I can give you everything that you hunger for.  Food.  Power.  Control.  You’ll never be hungry again, if you follow me.

The devil says:
You want to matter? 
I can give you power beyond your wildest dreams. 
Follow me and no one will ever say “no” to you again.  You’ll never have to suffer fools again.  Doors will open and people will finally treat you the way you deserve to be treated.

The devil says:
You want something you can trust, don’t you?  Something you can count on?  Something to believe in?  You want something that will be there when you want it; on your schedule; on your terms.  Hey, don’t we all?
Follow me, and I’ll make sure you never have another moment’s doubt in your life.  I can make you feel like you’ve got the Universe wrapped around your baby finger.  You’ll never have to feel like there might be something out there you don’t understand; something out there you can’t control.  Stick with me, kid -- you’ll be golden.

What’s really important to see in the dialogue between Jesus and the devil is how extremely reasonable the devil is.  Barbara Brown Taylor is one of America’s foremost preachers and she calls the Temptation Story, Jesus’ “Wilderness Exam.”  In one of her sermons she says that, “What this dialog proves among other things is that the devil is biblically literate.  He knows exactly where to find the Bible verses he needs to put Jesus to the test, but Jesus knows more than what the Bible says.  Jesus knows how to do what the Bible says, which is how he passes his wilderness exam.”[4]

Every time the devil offered him more--more bread, more power, more protection--Jesus turned him down.  No to the bread, Jesus says, no to the kingdoms, no to the angelic bodyguards.  He is full up, he says, on worshipping God and serving only him.  So by the end of the story, the devil still has all his bribes in his bag and Jesus is free to go.[5]

Did you hear that?  Barbara Brown Taylor says that Jesus is “full up…on worshipping God and serving only him.”  Jesus is so full with the Word of God and so full with the the Love of God and so full with the Worship of God, that the devil is unable to get the upper hand.

Notice that this story does not say that Jesus is so full of God’s love and power that he doesn’t have to deal with the devil.  It doesn’t say that, if you and I are full of God’s love we’ll never be tempted again.  Nope.  Temptation is a part of life.  It’s part of the spiritual realities of life – temptation is everywhere, and like Jesus, we are most vulnerable to it when we are a hungry. 

What this story shows us is that, when we fill ourselves up on the goodness of God, we are far better equipped to deal with the temptations that the World throws at us.  When we are full up with the good things of God, we are far less vulnerable to the things inside ourselves or in our world that threaten to undo us.

The Lenten journey begins with a scripture story that acknowledges the power of hunger.  It acknowledges the ways that our deepest hungers, left unaddressed and unmet, can turn into the places of our deepest vulnerabilities.

The Lenten journey begins by reminding us to fill ourselves up on God’s goodness so that we are better able to fend off the temptations of this world, and the ones we carry around within ourselves.

The Lenten journey begins with a meal, here at this table, where we can nourish ourselves on the bread of life and the cup of blessing and be filled with the goodness of Almighty God.  Come, let us meet at the Table, where we will receive everything we need to strengthen us for the Journey.

Thanks be to God.  Amen.