I’ve got to admit it.  I’m not
tempted by the things Jesus was “tempted” by in the dessert.  I
have never once wanted to change a rock into bread (perhaps because I
lack that skill???), I’m well aware that running kingdoms or even
democracies is incredibly difficult work that I don’t wish to partake
in, and I do not wish to test God by jumping off high places for no
reason.

Nope.  I do not resonate with
these.

There are not my temptations.

You want to know what my
temptations are?  These days I have serious temptations to stop
fighting – to just give up on the pandemic and stop trying to be
safe and stop trying to create safe places.  I want to do CRAZY
things like bring my kid to worship, or have dinner at a friend’s
house, or get a plane and meet one of my dear friend’s new babies.  I
want to just stop worrying.  I want to make people happy.  I want to
encourage people, “sure, do whatever you want in worship.  Take of
masks!  Stop distancing!  Sing!  Don’t worry about it!”  I’m
tempted to just give up.

AND

(and this is the really annoying
part)

I’m also tempted in exactly the
opposite way.  I live in constant fear that a choice I make will
result in my unvaccinated, too young to wear a mask kid getting COVID
and living with long covid for the rest of their life.  And so, I
want to create a bubble and never leave it.  I want to stay home,
stop day care, have groceries delivered, and function on zoom until
…. forever I guess.  

Actually, if I’m honest, more
than really being tempted by either extreme, I’m tempted by the idea
of not having to decide anymore.  “Is this safe?”  “Is this
safe ENOUGH?”  “Is this worth it?”  “If this results in my
kid having long covid, in 20 years will I think this was the right
choice?”  “Do I need to do this because someone else’s needs
outrank my own (or outrank my needs related to my kid)?”  “Is
this the right balance of caution and courage?”

I’m so tired.  It is so tempting
to move to one extreme or the other and just stop deciding.  It is so
tempting to move to one extreme or the other and only have one group
of people frustrated with me and my decisions.

The temptation is to just…
give up.  To pick an extreme and live with the consequences and at
the very least not have to decide OVER and OVER and OVER again.  

This likely isn’t even relevant
to most of you anymore.  Maybe you remember it, but those who are
vaccinated and immunocompetent, those of you who don’t live with
people who are either unvaccinated or immunocompromised, are possibly
just feeling free now.  Numbers are down, and lots of very reasonable
people are ready to go on with life, for good reason.  And for you,
it may even be that my temptations are a sort of unpleasant reminder
of your past, one that you’d rather forget.

I also know that I’m not alone.
There are plenty of families with kids under 5, or with
immunocompromised people, or even just people who work with kids or
immunocompromised people who still adjust their lives to protect
others – or just people who adjust their lives to protect others.
People make these choices because, in the end, they think it is
right.  

Of course, there are ALSO people
who have decided that the needs of connection, or the life-giving
work they do, or the risk they’ve assessed mean that letting go of
fear and seeking out other people is the right choice for them.  

Hmmm.

I guess what I’m saying is that
I’m tempted by simple answers, by choices I can make once and not go
back to, by CLARITY, but CERTAINTY.  I don’t need to be able to make
the choices for everyone or have them be the same, but my goodness
gracious I’d like some simple answers for ME.  I’d likely settle for
a single simple answer, if I could get one.

If you’ve been listening to me
preach for some time, you may be scratching your head at how I, one
of the people you know who is most comfortable thinking in shades of
gray could get to such a desire for certainty, for black and white
answers.  The answer is unfortunately simple:  the higher anxiety
goes, the more humans search for certainty and wish to back it up at
all costs.  So, what you are hearing is that I’m a human impacted by
anxiety.  Just to put it out there, so are you.  Welcome to the
2020s.

Bruce Malina and Richard
Rohrbaugh in “Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels”
point out that what Jesus is being tested on in the desert is his
loyalty to God.  Does he show faithfulness to God, as kin?  Does he
show faithfulness to God as his leader?  Does he show faithfulness to
God in understanding God’s wishes?  The answers, of course, are yes.

But I rather liked that they
referred to the question about commanding a stone to become bread as
a test of kinship loyalty to God.  They explain it this way:

Note carefully how the devil
frames the first challenge, “If you are the Son of God…”
Precisely that has been the claim and precisely that is what is being
tested.

Note also how carefully Jesus
answers when his lineage is questioned.  He does not
answer in his own words, as if his honor derives from what he is in
himself.  To do that would be to grasp honor above that of his own
Father and turn honor into dishonor.  So he answers as a loyal Middle
Eastern son would always answer – with something from his family
tradition.  He offers the words of his true Father in Deuteronomy and
by such laudable behavior he gains honor as virtue.¹

A test of kinship loyalty to
God.  That does resonate.

Probably because all the angles
of what I’m tested by are variations on the theme of “a test of
kinship loyalty.”  What is my loyalty to my immediate family – my
child and others who are vulnerable?  How do I balance that with my
loyalty to my church family – which includes people who are
vulnerable in all sorts of ways including in needs to be together and
in needs to lower COVID risks.  How do I balance THAT with my
“kinship loyalty” to God?

And suddenly, with that framing,
at the very least, I can understand why I feel pulled in so many ways
and exhausted by the pressure of every decision.  Kinship loyalty
itself pulls me in a multitude of directions, and each direction has
its own set of reasons why it is right good, and most of the time
each direction has something pulling in exactly the opposite
direction that ALSO has reasons for being right and good.

But, at least I have a frame to
make sense of it!

And, if I want to simplify
things, I can admit to myself that for me, kinship loyalty to God is
not actually distinct from kinship loyalty to those I already care
for.  (With the possible exception that God would likely include ME
in my calculations, which I notably did not.)

So, the long and short of it is
that I FEEL the testing, I feel the wandering in the desert, I feel
the yearning for clarity, but, at least I know it all comes from
love?

And THAT gets me to the
absolutely fabulous Deuteronomy reading.  It is a favorite of mine.
Deuteronomy is set in the wilderness, but at the edge of it.  The
whole book presents itself as a series of speeches given to prepare
the people before they enter the Promised Land, so that when they get
there, they’ll do it right.

One of the themes of Deuteronomy
is that it is in the adversity and challenge of the desert that the
people learned to depend on God, and it is going to be more
challenging to remember their dependence on God when things are going
well.  As a person who feels like I’m wandering in the desert, I
think I respond along with those who listened the first time, “Yeah,
that’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

The reading says that when they
get there, and they grow things, there is going to be an ABUNDANCE,
as that is what God wants for the people.  As they grow that
abundance, as they settle into a sense of food security, they’re to
remember their wanderings and give thanks for their abundance.  And
as that happens, they are to REMEMBER their story, they are to
REMEMBER their scarcity, they are to REMEMBER what it took to get
there.

Isn’t that interesting?  I think
in our culture we tend toward wanting to remember the glory days, not
the days of struggle.  We think about when we were strong and
capable, not when we were … struggling to find our way in the
desert.

But, the idea of this
commandment to tithe is to do so while recounting struggles, and to
give thanks for abundance by noticing what it took to get there.  AND
THEN taking of that abundance to share with those who don’t have it
(the landless priests and Levites and the foreigners without land
allotments.)

This whole thing just moves me.
That idea that we recognize our weak times, the idea that abundance
is God’s will for us (the culmination of the story), the reality that
the first thing to do with abundance is to share it, the creation of
a system whereby an abundance for some makes life possible for
others, and within all this that this is where our tradition of
offering comes from which is just so cool.

The culmination of the story is
abundance.  The people are being taught how to distribute God’s
abundance fairly.  They may be standing on the edge of the Promised
Land, but the goal is to get there and live there and have it be just
for everyone.

(And they did!  For centuries!
And it was equitable!  It is possible!  That matters too.)

So for me, right now, in my
place of being tested in the desert, I’m going to take hope from the
story about abundance, and the reminder that it is God’s long term
plan for me, for us, for all of us.

That doesn’t actually solve
anything in the present, but it is unsolvable.  However, having some
hope helps me get through.  Abundance is God’s plan for all of us.
God teaches us how to be generous with our abundance.  Kinship
loyalty to everyone is how we get there, and I guess… learning how
to balance a multiplicity of needs within the kinship network is.. a
useful skill?

Well, in any case, hear the
words the people were to say as they brought forward their offerings:

“A wandering Aramean was my
ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in
number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous.
When
the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard
labor on us,
we cried to the LORD, the God of our ancestors; the
LORD heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our
oppression.
The LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand
and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with
signs and wonders;
and God brought us into this place and gave us
this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.
So now I bring the
first of the fruit of the ground that you, O LORD, have given me.”

or perhaps:

“I have emerged from a
confused and lost people.  In the midst of existent struggles with
justice and equity, came a pandemic that threatened everything and
everyone in many ways.  The challenges that might have united people
overcame them and separated them.  We became harsh to each other.  I
did not know what to do.  I was never certain of anything.

I cried to the Lord, as did
everyone else, and God heard our voices,

and offered us rest.

God guided us when we didn’t
know where to go.

God gifted us when we couldn’t
figure out which way to turn.

God was with us, when we were
numb.

God did that, and brought us to
a new world, and helped us form it into something better.

So now, I bring the first fruit
of hope, that you, O God have given me.”

May the day come when we can say
THAT as we bring forward our offerings.  Amen

1 p. 240-41
(Textual Notes: Luke 4:3)

Rev. Sara E. Baron
First United Methodist Church of Schenectady
603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305
Pronouns: she/her/hers
http://fumcschenectady.org/
https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

March 6, 2022