Lead Us (Not) into Temptation (Sermon)

Lead Us Not into Temptation

Psalm 32 and Matthew 4:1-11

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

2/26/23

 

¹ Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven,
    whose sin is covered.
² Happy are those to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity
    and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

³ While I kept silent, my body wasted away
    through my groaning all day long.
⁴ For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;
    my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.

⁵ Then I acknowledged my sin to you,
    and I did not hide my iniquity;
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,”
    and you forgave the guilt of my sin.

⁶ Therefore let all who are faithful
    offer prayer to you;
at a time of distress, the rush of mighty waters
    shall not reach them.
⁷ You are a hiding place for me;
    you preserve me from trouble;
    you surround me with glad cries of deliverance.

⁸ I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go;
    I will counsel you with my eye upon you.
⁹ Do not be like a horse or a mule, without understanding,
    whose temper must be curbed with bit and bridle,
    else it will not stay near you.

¹⁰ Many are the torments of the wicked,
    but steadfast love surrounds those who trust in the Lord.
¹¹ Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, O righteous,
    and shout for joy, all you upright in heart.

(Psalm 32 – NRSV)

 

The Holy Spirit led Jesus into the desert, so that the devil could test him. ² After Jesus had gone without eating for 40 days and nights, he was very hungry. ³ Then the devil came to him and said, “If you are God's Son, tell these stones to turn into bread.”

⁴ Jesus answered, “The Scriptures say:

‘No one can live only on food.
People need every word
    that God has spoken.’”

⁵ Next, the devil took Jesus into the holy city to the highest part of the temple. ⁶ The devil said, “If you are God's Son, jump off. The Scriptures say:

‘God will give his angels
    orders about you.
They will catch you
    in their arms,
and you won't hurt
    your feet on the stones.’”

⁷ Jesus answered, “The Scriptures also say, ‘Don't try to test the Lord your God!’”

⁸ Finally, the devil took Jesus up on a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms on earth and their power. ⁹ The devil said to him, “I will give all this to you, if you will bow down and worship me.”

¹⁰ Jesus answered, “Go away Satan! The Scriptures say:

‘Worship the Lord your God

and serve only him.’”

¹¹ Then the devil left Jesus, and angels came to help him. (Matthew 4:1-11 – CEB)

 

 

         The gospel lesson for the first Sunday of Lent is always the story of Jesus’ temptation. The narratives of Jesus’ birth and baptism lead to this moment of testing, clarity, and commitment. It’s a watershed moment in which Jesus faces possibilities which must be, in some way, real for him if his life has the meaning and the agency of grace we proclaim. I mean, if Jesus is fully human, even if he’s fully whatever else, doesn’t he have to wrestle with the possibility of exploiting his gifts for personal gain?

I say have to because temptation exists as an inescapable reality for everyone walking spiritual paths. Indeed, the first line of the story declares that “the Holy Spirit led Jesus into the desert” to be tempted. While that may sound more mean-spirited than Holy Spirited, our Christian journey is fraught with decisions of whether to remain true to a Christlike ethic of love or to abandon it for paths that might appear, on the surface, to be safer, surer, and more rewarding. But those seductive and thoroughly selfish ways depend on the vices of greed, manipulation, and violent power—the very things Jesus wrestles with in the wilderness.

If you’re hungry, says the Tempter, turn rocks into bread.

And Jesus says, in effect: Look, Old Scratch, you’re not even human. You don’t understand that there’s more to our lives than eating. More than getting and owning. God understands that, though. And God has given us this earth which can bless all life with the abundance of enough.

It seems to me that when humans get greedy and confuse excess with blessing, we create the problem of scarcity. That makes scarcity more than an economic precept. It’s a creation of selfishness, fear, and idolatry.

In Exodus 16, the Israelites learn that lesson in their own wilderness. When God tells them not to hoard manna, they give into the temptation to try anyway. And they discover, overnight, that stockpiled manna becomes foul, worm-infested, inedible. It’s God whom we trust, not the “bread from heaven” itself.

Then jump from the top of the temple, says the Father of Lies. If people see you do something like that, forget feeding them bread. You’ll have them eating out of your hand! They’ll believe and do anything you say!

And Jesus says. I’m the one being tested, not God.

Ok, says the Adversary, and he whisks Jesus up to a high mountain peak from which they can see the whole world. Then he says, Look out there. Everything and everyone you see—all of it can be yours, if you just follow me. If you just commit your life to me. Put your faith and your trust in me, Jesus, and you can rule the world!

“Go away Satan!” says Jesus. When God takes people up mountains, it’s not to inflate them into domination but to humble them into service. That goes for me, too. I didn’t come to rule the world. I came to heal it, to restore it. I came to love the entire Creation and to teach it how to be alive and loving. God is alive and loving in the created order, and I will not exploit or undermine the God-revealing holiness within me or anyone else.

With that, the Tempter leaves, and God’s angels, in whatever form, come and tend to Jesus.

You know, in the Lord’s Prayer we pray, “lead us not into temptation.” And none of us want to be tempted, at least not by things about which we feel ashamed and against which we feel defenseless. Temptation is part of being human, though; and, as we’ve acknowledged, it’s integral to our spiritual formation. We never know what we’re capable of, what our true spiritual gifts are, until we learn to face and overcome temptation.

Let’s go back to the benediction I used last week. To close the service, I read from the Brian McLaren book our group just finished discussing. The excerpt was a list of virtues of love, and with each virtue, McLaren includes challenges we face in learning to love as we are loved. Those challenges are, basically, temptations—temptations to avoid, deny, or withhold love. And each temptation is as real as the breath in our lungs right now. I won’t rehash the whole list, but it included the realities that:

“[We] can’t learn to love people without being around actual people—including people who infuriate, exasperate, annoy… reject, and hurt [us], thus tempting [us] not to love them.

 

“[We] can’t learn the patience that love requires without experiencing delay and disappointment.

 

“[We] can’t learn the generosity that love requires outside the presence of heartbreaking and unquenchable need.

 

“[We] can’t learn the endurance that love requires without experiencing unrelenting seduction to give up.”^*

 

         Giving into temptation can do all kinds of damage to ourselves, others, and the earth. If we don’t acknowledge temptation, though, and if we don’t allow ourselves to face it, as Jesus does, what will we learn about ourselves and about faithfulness? How will we grow as Jesus followers?

I’m not going to assume to rewrite the Lord’s Prayer, but when I pray it, and when I get to the line about not leading us into temptation, I think I’ll start adding, God, thank you for my temptations. Lead me through them into deeper faithfulness.

         Temptations can be our allies in faith. The things that tempt us the most can reveal hungers and thirsts within us that only God can satisfy. So, where we’re tempted to abide violence as a justifiable means to ends, maybe God is telling us that we’re capable of trusting the more demanding ways of forgiveness and grace.

Where we’re tempted to succumb to prejudices based on race, ethnicity, political or religious affiliations, God may be inviting us to face the ways we judge ourselves, and then to begin forgiving and loving ourselves more fully and gratefully so that we can extend that love to others.

Where we face temptations of lust, perhaps God is revealing in us a capacity for the deeper and more passionate intimacies of prayer and unity with God and with the Creation.

When temptations get the best of us, God doesn’t stand back, shaking an angry finger and saying, You miserable sinner! God holds us ever more closely saying, Hey, listen! I know it’s tempting to chase after easy and feel-good fixes. But I’m right here, struggling with you. This is how you discover your best self. And I’m with you to help you learn to use all that energy, courage, creativity, reason, and passion to discover the fullness of my image within you.

You are my Beloved, says God. And you haven’t even scratched the surface of your potential for loving yourself, others, and me.

Believe it or not, says God, when you let me help you die to yourself and rise to Christ, temptation can become a door to resurrection.

 

*Brian McLaren, The Great Spiritual Migration: How the World’s Largest Religion is Seeking a Better Way to Be Christian. Convergent, New York, 2016. pp. 184-185.

 

A Transfiguring Conversation (Sermon)

 “A Transfiguring Conversation”

A Readers’ Theater

Exodus 24:12-18 and Matthew 17:1-9

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

2/29/23

 

¹³ So Moses and his assistant Joshua got up, and Moses went up God’s mountain. ¹⁴ Moses had said to the elders, “Wait for us here until we come back to you. Aaron and Hur will be here with you. Whoever has a legal dispute may go to them.”

¹⁵ Then Moses went up the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. ¹⁶ The Lord’s glorious presence settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days. On the seventh day the Lord called to Moses from the cloud. ¹⁷ To the Israelites, the Lord’s glorious presence looked like a blazing fire on top of the mountain. ¹⁸ Moses entered the cloud and went up the mountain. Moses stayed on the mountain for forty days and forty nights. (Exodus 24:13-18 – NRSV)

 

Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. ² And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became bright as light. ³ Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him.

⁴ Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will set up three tents here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”

⁵ While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, the Beloved: with him I am well pleased; listen to him!”

⁶ When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. ⁷ But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.” ⁸ And when they raised their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.

⁹ As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.” (Matthew 17:1-9 – NRSV)

 

 

         When our Sunday school class worked with the story of the Transfiguration, we wondered what Jesus, Moses, and Elijah might have been talking about when Peter, James, and John saw them standing together. While we can’t know what they were discussing, I did think, “Well, it could be fun to imagine that conversation.”

-----

Jesus: So, we meet again.

Moses: Again? Weren’t we just together a moment ago?

Jesus: Sort of. But time gets weird when you’re alive in God’s fullness.

Elijah: Man! First you all yank me out of living without dying, and now you yank me out of really living without being born. No disrespect, but can you make up your mind?

Jesus: Your human experience was kind of unique, Elijah.

Elijah: Yeah. It was a whirlwind. No pun intended. Hey, Jesus, those guys cowering over there. Are they with you?

Jesus: Yeah. Those are three of my twelve disciples.

Elijah: Well, they look a little weak-kneed. Can’t you find better followers than that?

Jesus: Oh, they’re not so bad. They can get a little excitable, and a little thick-headed, but they’re good people. And they’ll get better.

Moses: Tell me about it. And Jesus has only twelve half-wits to worry about. I had a whole nation of them! There were times I wanted to grab that bunch whiners and ring…

Jesus: Bless their hearts?

Moses: Yeah. Sure. Bless their hearts.

Elijah: So, Jesus, why’d you bring us here anyway?

Jesus: Honestly, things are about to get rough, and I decided I could use a little company from folks who might understand. It’s going to be bad in ways even you guys didn’t have to experience.

Moses: Why? What’s going on?

Jesus: Well, do you guys remember what happened when you went up on mountain tops?

Moses: Like when God gave me the ten suggestions?

Jesus: We still call them commandments, you know.

Moses: Oh, don’t give me that, Jesus! Just a little while ago you went through a lot of the laws God gave me and said, “You have heard it said” in the law, “but I say to you,” and in one sermon you rewrote what took me a lifetime of hard work to get across to people who just wanted to eat and be comfortable!

Elijah: Yeah! And what’s with this whole love your enemies business? On Mt. Carmel, I thought y’all wanted me to shame those prophets of Baal. That’s why I took a sword to the whole lot of them.

Jesus: Wow. Maybe I should have invited other folks today. Maybe Jonah, or Micah, or Daniel. Folks for whom lessons on humility might have stuck.

Elijah: Sorry, Jesus. Maybe there’s just something about being on the earth, again. Everywhere I look, there’s so much potential in the midst of all this chaos, and I want to do something about it.

Moses: I hear you, Elijah. We’ve seen, felt, and tasted God’s wholeness, and when we’re in that state, we view the world with God’s eyes. We see beneath the trouble to the original goodness and holiness underneath. But as soon as I set foot on this mountain, I, too, felt an urge to try to control things—like I did when I made water come out of that rock. God really didn’t like that.

Elijah: Yeah, I guess I was kind of out of control while seeking to control all those prophets of Baal. Out of that bunch, God could have had a lot of new followers and leaders, but pride consumed me like that fire consumed all that wet wood. What a waste. Again, Jesus, I’m sorry.

Jesus: It really is true for both of you: Once a prophet, always a prophet. And that’s why you’re here. You see what others fail to see. You’ll say what others fear to say. You remember beyond what was to what’s now possible in God’s grace. And you both know that nothing in this life is easy. Nothing at all.

PAUSE

Moses: So, back to you, Jesus. You say life’s about to get hard?

Elijah: Moses, it sounds like death is about to get hard for him.

Jesus: It’s going to be the worst, you know. Really the worst.

PAUSE

Elijah: And how can I help? What do I even know about death?

Moses: Yeah, Elijah, you missed out on one of the most humbling and holy of human experiences. No one wants to die, but a life on earth without death is hardly a life at all.

Jesus: True enough, Moses. And the same is just as true, maybe even more so, for a life without suffering.

Elijah: Why is that true, Jesus?

Jesus: That’s everyone’s question, isn’t it? If there is a God, and if God is good, why do people suffer?

Elijah: Well look, pretend I’m one of those three guys over there. What would you say to them?

Jesus: Ok. Let’s try something. In about two thousand years, someone is going to write this: “The capacity to endure and suffer­—generously, without bitterness, without revenge, without fail—[is] absolutely essential.”¹ He’ll say that “The way of love, then, is the way of annoyance, frustration…need, conflict…and exhaustion.”² Finally, he’ll say, “This difficult way, this way of love and suffering, this way of Christ is unavoidably the way of the cross.”³

Elijah: The way of the what?!

Moses: You mean…you’re going to…THEY’RE going to…What?!

Jesus: Now you sound like my disciple Peter. Listen, very soon, the people are going to have, from now on, an image in their minds—an image for their minds—of God’s own heart, broken open in love for them and for all things.

Moses: How can something as unfair as that be “absolutely essential”?!

Jesus: Think about it, Moses. Who would you have been without Pharaoh? Elijah, who would you have been without Jezebel? Think of all you accomplished in the face of opposition, and through your own suffering. People still remember the stories of your faithfulness. And they keep finding strength and hope in them. Look, there will always be people who cause suffering, because there will always be people who think they shouldn’t haveto suffer, so they try to avoid it. And that’s not possible. In fact, the only way that makes it feel like someone can avoid suffering is by causing suffering for others. Still, there will always be people like you. People who endure and overcome. People who trust that, even in suffering, God is present, and that on the other side of suffering lie unity, wholeness, and hope.

Elijah: Jesus, those guys over there—who, by the way, are beginning to look at us—how are they going to understand all this?

Jesus: They’re not. At least not yet. I’m going to tell them to keep quiet about all this. They’re not going to understand until—and here’s the kicker—until God plucks me from death like God plucked you, Elijah, from your own life. And that can’t happen until the people think that they ended my life on their terms. Believe me, I wish it could happen another way. And I’m not through asking about that. But it looks like the world will have to have some kind of example of true suffering. Not suffering endured while creating suffering—like when people go to war. The point of war is to make as much suffering for everyone as possible until one side suffers so much it can’t cause suffering for the other side anymore. And that’s not a matter of winners and losers. Everyone loses. And I can’t stand that. The point of holy suffering is to expose the futility of violence, of vengeance, of hate. And the point my suffering is to reaffirm the holiness of life…all life.

PAUSE

Moses: But Jesus? A cross? Really?

Jesus: Yeah. A cross.

Moses: And I thought I had it rough. Forty years in the desert leading a bunch of whiners.

Elijah: You sure you can’t just get God to whisk you up in blazing chariot? Stage that in Jerusalem in front of the temple and people will talk about it forever, won’t they?

Jesus: I was sorely tempted to try that. But that avoids the whole suffering thing, doesn’t it? Everyone is always thinking that God is angry and wants revenge against human sin. But this will not be about changing God’s mind or God’s heart about the people. It’ll be about changing the people’s minds and hearts about God.⁴

Moses: Well, Jesus, I think maybe you’re making peace with this. You’re positively glowing right now. Kind of like I did when I was with God on Mt. Sinai.

Elijah: Yeah. I’m seeing that, too. And I think your guys over there see it, as well. They look a little scared, though.

Moses: Jesus, were we supposed to do this kind of thing, too? Did we let you down by not dying on a cross or something?

Jesus: No, no. Not at all. You were still under the old system of sacrifice. That was all the people could handle at the time. But after what the Creator, the Sustainer and I do, people will see that altars and sacrifices are things of the past—at least I hope and pray they do. Micah saw this coming when he said, “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God?” That’s what I’m trying to do. And that’s what I want my followers to do—forever.

Elijah: Is that even realistic? Will anyone get it? Will anyone do it?

Jesus: Some will. And over time, some will become many. And many will become even more.

Moses: You seem to feel pretty confident about this, Jesus.

Jesus: Well, it’s all about love, isn’t it? And love is like candlelight. Share the flame, and there’s more for everyone. More light, more warmth, more hope.

Elijah: I guess this means we’ll see you again soon enough.

Jesus: You will, yes. And if people really become my disciples, loving as I love them, there will be even more of me than there is now.

Moses: May it be so.

Elijah: May it be so.

Jesus: Amen.

 

¹Brian McLaren, The Great Spiritual Migration: How the World’s Largest Religion is Seeking a Better Way to Be Christian. Convergent, New York, 2016. p 183.

²Ibid., p 185.

³Ibid., p 185

⁴Ibid., p 187 (Here McLaren is paraphrasing Fr. Richard Rohr.)

Seasoned and Enlightened (Sermon)

 “Seasoned and Enlightened”

Isaiah 58:1-9a and Matthew 5:13-20

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

2/5/23

 

Shout out; do not hold back!
    Lift up your voice like a trumpet!
Announce to my people their rebellion,
    to the house of Jacob their sins.
² Yet day after day they seek me
    and delight to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness
    and did not forsake the ordinance of their God;
they ask of me righteous judgments;
    they want God on their side. 
³ “Why do we fast, but you do not see?
    Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?”
Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day
    and oppress all your workers.
⁴ You fast only to quarrel and to fight
    and to strike with a wicked fist.
Such fasting as you do today
    will not make your voice heard on high.
⁵ Is such the fast that I choose,
    a day to humble oneself?
Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush
    and to lie in sackcloth and ashes?
Will you call this a fast,
    a day acceptable to the Lord?

⁶ Is not this the fast that I choose:
    to loose the bonds of injustice,
    to undo the straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
    and to break every yoke?
⁷ Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
    and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them
    and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
⁸ Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
    and your healing shall spring up quickly;
your vindicator shall go before you;
    the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.
⁹ Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
    you shall cry for help, and he will say, “Here I am.”

(Isaiah 58:1-9 – NRSV)

 

         Prompted by Brian McLaren’s book The Great Spiritual Migration, our Monday night group is having energetic, challenging, and often cathartic conversations. We’re talking about what it has meant, and what it’s now beginning to mean to follow Jesus in this world generally, and, particularly, in a society experiencing the turmoil of cultural ferment.¹

McLaren starts by addressing the Church’s centuries-long slide into an institution built more on rigid doctrine about Jesus than on an empowering invitation to follow Jesus. McLaren asks his readers to consider a theological and spiritual “migration” from a religion that has become tolerant of certainty, safety, and even injustice toward a “movement” of following Jesus in his ways of radical and open-ended grace.

Now, I am deeply grateful for and committed to our religious tradition. I see great work and potential in this congregation—in you. I see great work and potential in our denomination and in our ecumenical and interfaith efforts. I also feel like I am mostly realistic about the church’s limitations and failures. Still, I think McLaren asks compelling questions: Did Jesus come to found a religion, or to begin a movement? Didn’t he come to set the Creation on a trajectory of proactive love through which all things draw closer together, and, thus, closer to God? Isn’t union with God, here and now as well as in the life to come, our ultimate goal? And doesn’t that goal require movement—a movement that involves constant openness to God and to what God is doing in the world, through love, to draw all things closer to God’s Self?

Last Sunday, we read Matthew’s version of the Beatitudes—the beginning of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Today we’ll read the next eight verses of that famous sermon. Here, Jesus calls us to a movement of love, compassion, and justice—a movement toward Jesus’ actions which are all-too-easily anesthetized into talking points when the faith community replaces kinship with creeds, prayer with programs, and mission with maintenance.

I’m going to read from The Message because, to me, this version seems to capture the spirit of Jesus’ call to his expansive and enduring movement of grace.

¹³ “Let me tell you why you are here. You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? You’ve lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage.

^14-16 “Here’s another way to put it: You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.

^17-18 “Don’t suppose for a minute that I have come to demolish the Scriptures—either God’s Law or the Prophets. I’m not here to demolish but to complete. I am going to put it all together, pull it all together in a vast panorama. God’s Law is more real and lasting than the stars in the sky and the ground at your feet. Long after stars burn out and earth wears out, God’s Law will be alive and working.

^19-20 “Trivialize even the smallest item in God’s Law and you will only have trivialized yourself. But take it seriously, show the way for others, and you will find honor in the kingdom. Unless you do far better than the Pharisees in the matters of right living, you won’t know the first thing about entering the kingdom. (Matthew 5:13-20 — The Message)

A literal translation from the Greek won’t render the text as we just heard it. Eugene Peterson, though, a now-deceased Presbyterian pastor and scholar, worked for years, seeking input from his peers, to paraphrase scripture in a way that sought faithfulness to the spirit of the ancient texts.

Consider the opening line of today’s reading: “Let me tell you why you are here.” While that statement is not in the Greek text, it’s not just Peterson trying to be hip. It’s holistically faithful to the story. In it, Jesus is saying, Look, you’ve been taught many things about God, about your neighbors, and yourselves. And while I don’t want you to forget any of that, in following me, you’ll discover that what you’ve learned has barely scratched the surface. It helped to prepare you for this moment; and I’m going to take you much further than the Law can. We’re going start an adventure where only grace dares to go.

Then Jesus calls his followers salt and light. Salt enhances the flavor of food. That is to say, salt is used not for its own sake but for the sake of the vegetables, or the meat, or the bread dough to which it is added. So, what Jesus wants to avoid isn’t salt simply losing its taste, but the problem of salt losing its capacity to bring out “the God-flavors of this earth.”

As salt, followers of Jesus look for and enhance the “flavors” of holiness that God has infused into all people and all things. To lose one’s saltiness, then, is to lose not only awareness of all that God has created, but to lose reverence for and relationship with the holiness within God’s Creation.

         Jesus uses the metaphor of light in a similar way. “You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world.”

While we can look at a star or a light bulb and see its brightness, looking atlight can do more harm than good. Light is not meant to be seen but to be that by which we see ourselves, our neighbors, mountains, bluebirds, starfish. In the NRSV, Jesus calls his followers “the light of the world.” As light, we are ones by whose bright love the image of God is seen and known within us and around us.

The last verse of today’s reading suggests that the Pharisees have lost their saltiness and their brightness. No longer looking for relationship, and no longer expecting holiness, they focus on rules and doctrine, on sin and sacrificial atonement, on who’s in and who’s out. And while those tactics can keep people afraid and compliant, they create and depend on an image of God that is angry, vengeful, and violent. So, thank God Jesus announces a fresh and ongoingmigration.

When Jesus says, “God is not a secret…We’re going public with this,” he’s calling us to live our individual and corporate lives from the new point of view of grace. While we may still struggle with all of the same anxieties and fears, Jesus empowers us to live in those struggles as salt in a casserole or as light in basement. He calls us, as salt and light, to recognize and evoke the holiness, the possibility, and the joy in the world—even in the realities of blandness, darkness, and chaos, because even there, God is actively present. And God’s presence is, far more often than not, manifest through limited, imperfect human beings just like us.

         When I was 24 years old, two years married, a seminary drop-out, and green as a January daffodil, I backed into teaching middle school. The first months almost did me in. I didn’t know the material, but the kids knew me. They saw, and some of them exploited, my rattled nerves and my desperate need to be liked.

         Two of my faculty colleagues, Mr. Buie and Ms. Benton, saw those same things, I’m sure. And, yet, they saw something more. In addition to being a teacher, Mr. Buie was a pastor and a farmer. He knew people, seasons, and patience. Ms. Benton, having been recently widowed, had a newly-unvarnished and yet good-humored understanding of what was important and what was fluff. Those two veteran teachers never tried to tell me who I was. They never tried to meddle or make decisions for me. They befriended me, encouraged me, challenged me, supported me, celebrated with me.

Whether they knew it or not, Mr. Buie and Ms. Benton were salt and light to me. Seasoned and enlightened, they taught me to recognize my own worth and to claim it as a gift from God. And that allowed me to start becoming, slowly, salt and light for my students.

Now, all of that was something I realized in hindsight more than in the moment. And isn’t that how God seasons and enlightens us? Isn’t that how God uses us to bring out “the God-flavors…[and] the God-colors in the world”? Through relationship, struggle, and blessed surprise?

 

¹All references to Brian McLaren come from his book: The Great Spiritual Migration: How the World’s Largest Religion is Seeking a Better Way to Be Christian. Convergent, New York, 2016.