February 21, 1999
1st Sunday of Lent
Year A
You know, last week we experienced Transfiguration Sunday, the day
that the Church sets apart right before the Lenten season to give us the
strength to get through the introspective season of Lent. We saw an
incredible expression of the Divine—we witnessed Christ with Moses and
Elijah on a hill, shining like the sun, reminding us that the One whom we
follow to Jerusalem, to the horror of the cross, is the same One whom we
will meet at the empty grave on the outside of Jerusalem. We were given
a chance to witness Divine Power manifest itself in its purest form last
week, in ways few of us will ever witness on this earth. But we are in Lent
now, we’ve experienced Ash Wednesday this past week, we have been
reminded that we really are dust, and that we will return to dust,that our
lives really are framed between a beginning and an end, that repentance
matters because it affirms that our actions in this world matter, and THAT
this truth is ultimately an affirmation of the importance of our lives. We
began last week with an experience of raw Divine Power, and now we
have entered into Lent and we see before us in the Matthew passage an
incredible story about how this Jesus of Nazareth resists, RESISTS the
use of Divine Power. Last week, he gives the disciples hope by
displaying that Power because he knows that they need to be reminded
that the other side of crucifixion is hope, that the One who will chose to
give up Power on the cross is the same One who will rise from the grave
with Power. But this week we find Christ in the desert, being driven there
by the Spirit for a time of testing, a time when Evil will test whether he can
resist the powerful temptation to use Power for his own self-interest. He
goes to the desert because he must pass the most human of all
temptations—the temptation to use and misuse power for one’s own self-
interest. The devil in this passage does everything he can to get Jesus
to use his power for his own self-interest, to get Jesus to use his DIVINE
POWER to get him out of his miserable, hungry, lonely place in the
desert. Evil even quotes Scripture to him—“you can do this, you can turn
stones into bread, you can jump off cliffs, you can control kingdoms—
see, it’s right there on paper, its right there in your own Scriptures!” the
devil says to Jesus. And everytime Jesus resists the temptation to
misuse his power, “No, Power is not given to me for me, but for others,
for their healing, for their wholeness, for their liberation, so I won’t use it
like some parlor magician seeking the applause of a living room
audience! I have NOT come and been given power to heal myself, but to
heal others—I have not been given power to feed myself, but to feed
others—I have not been given power to take power, but to give power
up, to go to the cross and show the world that by giving up Power you
receive life and hope and real power. And the reason I think it was
important for Christ to go through this experience is that this struggle
with the use and misuse of power is such a human struggle, maybe the
ultimate human struggle. I mean, who doesn’t know of a politician who
begins with the good intentions of being a “servant of the people” and
ends up being addicted to the power and eventually misusing that power
for his or her own personal gain, whether that gain be of the emotional or
financial nature? Who doesn’t know of a co-worker who gets promoted
to supervisor status and all of a sudden she or he becomes a little heady
with the power? Who doesn’t know of someone in a relationship who has
the upper hand emotionally and misuses that power in their
relationship? Is that you? Is that me?
Power, emotional power, political power, physical power, personal
power—all of these forms of power are so tempting, so inviting in what
they seem to offer—respect and honor, emotional security, a chance to
get a little more attention. Who hasn’t been tempted by these forms of
power? Certainly Jesus was tempted to misuse power in the desert—he
was tempted to use his power a time when he had been driven into the
desert by the Spirit to learn the POWER OF POWERLESSNESS. He was
driven into the desert by the Spirit to learn what he would one day teach
his disciples—remember when he asks them “You want to be first in my
new world?” and then he tells his disciples what he would learn here, in
the desert “Then give up all power and serve one another, and then you
will be first in my new world.” “Remember when he would later say to
them “The first shall be last and last shall be first”—it’s the one who gives
up power who will be given much power. That principle is at the very
heart of the Gospel. Jesus was sent to the desert to learn about the
POWER OF POWERLESSNESS—and he would live into that lesson he
learned in the desert throughout his ministry, and he would live into that
powerlessness, that giving up power when we find him anguishing in the
Garden of Gesthamene and when he screams out to God on the cross,
“Why have you abandoned me?!” What the devil was doing that day
was testing him for a time when the temptation to use power would be so
much greater—when soldiers would arrive to arrest him in Gesthamene
and one of his disciples would pull out a sword and try to use power
to prevent Jesus’ arrest. Remember what Jesus said to Peter at that
moment?“Those who live by the sword will die by the sword.” Those who
live by the hand of power will die by the hand of power. Jesus is in the
desert to learn that real power comes by letting power go Jesus is
learning how to let go of power in the desert, so that one day he will not
be tempted to misuse his power like Peter did at that moment. How
interesting, really, that the first story in Lent from the Gospel of Matthew
is about letting go of power, of learning about the power of
powerlessness, of resisting the misuse of power! A week ago we are
shown an incredible example of Jesus’ power, but this week we are
shown that true power—the power of powerlessness—the choice NOT to
misuse power for one’s own self-interest—the choice not to misuse
power in a personal relationship for a selfish emotional need—the choice
to serve others, is at the heart of real power. Lent begins with a
reminder that power WITH rather than power OVER is at the heart of the
Gospel—that letting go of our misuse of power makes us more powerful—
and we see the strength of that power, the strength of that
powerlessness, when Christ, in the last part of this story, simply tells EVIL
to go away and the devil leaves, leaving only angels to wait on Jesus.
The power of letting go of power, the power of powerlessness, of
choosing not to misuse whatever great power we have or whatever little
power we have, that is one of the lessons we can find with Jesus in our
own little desert, the deserts the Spirit has driven us into, during this
Lenten season. Amen.
