Lent 1C
February 17, 2013
Luke 4:1-13
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord
Jesus Christ. Amen.
If
you have been around for a while, and you see a lot of advertisements, you may
have noticed an evolution of advertising strategy. A PBS documentary called
“The Persuaders” points it out. (This is available to watch online, if you are
interested.) It used to be that advertisers focused on the quality of their
product. You still see this of course, and this is really the least manipulative
way to advertise! Then celebrity endorsements got to be a big thing. Now, the
most persuasive advertisements don’t so much boast about the quality of the
product, or about what famous person uses said product, but rather they focus
on what the product means for your
life. They paint a picture of a lifestyle that you could have… if you owned
this product. Perhaps you see a classic, lovely, slightly hip living room full
of smiling, attractive people, and they are all holding a particular wine glass...
which can be found at Target for only $4.99 per glass. If you own a set of
these glasses, this lovely dinner party could happen in your own home, and you
could have all the friends to go with it! Your picture of what you’d like your
life to look like can be a little closer to your grasp, if you only own this
wine glass, that car, of the newest Apple product.
How
this evolved is that companies looked at cults and other organizations, and
determined why people wanted to join them, and then applied the same principle
to brands. Turned out, both operate with similar principles. People “join” a
brand in search of some sort of fulfillment, to feel like they belong
somewhere, and so brands began to fill what had previously been filled by
churches, schools, etc. Someone told me once that people in American are on
average more loyal to a brand of toothpaste than they are to a church
denomination. Whoa!
But
really, it’s not such a surprise. Because people are hungry to belong, hungry for fulfillment. We want to be
fulfilled in our jobs, in our family life, among our friends. The trouble is,
this fulfillment can be difficult to come by, and we search for it among
anything we can, especially if it is close at hand.
And
that is where we run into the problem of temptation – the very problem Jesus
has in our Gospel reading today. The detail that jumped out at me in this text
is that “Jesus was famished.” Famished, exhausted, weak, susceptible,
vulnerable. Just exactly the state the devil wanted him in when he begins his
tempting ways. And the first temptation is the most carnal of all – he suggests
Jesus feed himself! Wow, what I wouldn’t give to be fed after 40 days without
food. And the next two aren’t any easier: Jesus turns down authority over all
the kingdoms of the world, and a chance to prove himself as the Son of God. Yet
all of this, he turns down.
Of
course we’re not tempted by such dramatic things as these… or are we? We, too,
hunger: for love, companionship, identity, belonging, purpose. We crave power:
over the various circumstances in our lives that don’t go the way we would have
liked. And we long for a chance to prove ourselves to the world: as people who
matter. But the difference is that where Jesus knows exactly how those needs
can be fulfilled – that is, by God alone – we, on the other hand, search for
anything earthly that might be close at hand to fill them for us, whether that
is the latest technology, or the hottest new fashion, or dozens of clever
friends, or brilliant and successful children.
Theologians
have reflected on this concept of seeking to be filled by earthly things in
many various ways. Blaise Pascal, a 17th century French philosopher,
talked about a sort of God-shaped hole that lies within us. “This [hole] we try
in vain to fill,” he writes, “with everything around us… [But] this infinite
abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words
by God alone.” One contemporary theologian, Barbara Brown Taylor, compares this
desperate longing we have to fill that hole with a baby’s pacifier. She writes,
“Whenever we start feeling too empty inside, we stick our pacifiers into our
mouths and suck for all we are worth. They do not nourish us, but at least they
plug the hole.”
What
is particularly destructive is what we look for to be our un-nourishing
“pacifiers.” These things become another word we are more familiar with:
addictions. In our desperate attempts to plug the hole, we become tempted by
whatever makes us feel better in the moment, be it alcohol, work, or shopping.
And if it works once, we learn to rely on it to do the job every time – even as
we know that these are only quick fixes, and not what will sustain us in the
long run.
Often,
I think, we seek to fill that hole with stuff. Remember what I was saying
earlier about advertising strategies? If ads can convince us that our lives are
somehow lacking because we do not have this product, or put more positively,
that our lives will be more whole and true if we do have this product, then it
is no wonder that we go out and buy it. How tempting it then becomes to fill
our God-shaped holes with stuff, and to let our stuff then define who we are.
Tell me, if I were to walk into your house right now and look at your stuff,
what would it say about you? Would your stuff accurately define who you are, or
how you want to appear to the world?
This past week we started our midweek series on
hunger. We talked about some of the hidden rules of poverty – that is, the
different sets of rules that people unknowingly abide by depending on whether
they dwell primarily in the lower, middle, or upper class. One set of rules is
not better than another; they are just different, and often misunderstood by
the other classes. One thing I often hear middle class people complain about is
that people who live closer to the poverty line don’t manage well the money
that they do have. Instead of saving it for when they might need it, they spend
it on a big screen TV or a new iPhone. But think about it this way: when you
see someone walking down the street with an iPhone, what assumptions do you
make about them? It’s hip technology, it’s a slick product, it’s expensive… so
this person must be: hip, “in,” and financially stable. Everything they want
you to think about them. The phone becomes a way to feel fulfilled, worthy,
accepted. It becomes a pacifier to fill the God-shaped hole.
We all have God-shaped holes, and we all are tempted
by quick-fix pacifiers to plug the hole. But these things do not nourish us.
Jesus knew that, of course, and so his response to the devil is to quote the
word of God, Scripture, because that is
something he knows he can trust, and something that is nourishing and
sustaining. In other words, he lets God fill that hole, because indeed God is
the only one who can.
This whole sermon, I’ve been referring to a place in
us that seems to be lacking, that is a hole, a place where we experience
hunger. What if instead of imagining that we are lacking, we imagine that this
hollowness within us is not something bad or wrong, but rather, an uncluttered
place in our soul into which God can enter and rule? If you feel loneliness,
for example, don’t reach immediately for something to fill it – something
earthly and fleeting. Instead, name the feeling, let yourself feel it, and
imagine God entering into that emptiness. If you feel sadness: let yourself
feel that hole, then let God come into it and nourish it. If you feel anxiety:
notice that you feel anxious, then breathe deeply, letting the Spirit enter you
just as it entered Jesus when he was led into the wilderness. And as you
breathe out, let God remain in that place, fulfilling you and nourishing you in
a way that nothing on earth ever can.
As you come forward to this table in a few minutes,
hungry for fulfillment, remember these things. As you reach out your hands for
bread, ask for this sacrament to fulfill you. As you feel it going down your
throat, know that God is going into that part of yourself that needs filling.
And as you return to your seats, remember that Christ goes with you, fulfilling
and nourishing you, wherever you go.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy
Spirit. Amen.
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