St. Mary Nanoose Bay

March 10, 2019, First Sunday in Lent

Luke 4:1-13   

Let the Word be near you, on your lips and in your heart.              

Paul tells us in his letter to the Romans that we heard read this morning that “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved”(Rom10:13), and that the Lord of Jew and Greek “is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him” (10:12).             This is tricky stuff because we heard from our first reading from Deuteronomy of a God promised a people in bondage a land but didn’t give it to them until many generations had passed. So for the Jews who lived in slavery in Egypt under very harsh conditions, they didn’t experience being saved, and they didn’t experience the abundance and generosity of God.            

There are many people in the world today who could say the same. They are suffering, they feel excluded or ignored by the rest of the world, and they aren’t being saved from war, starvation, slavery.            

So how do we reconcile this dilemma, historically and today?            

We look to Jesus.            

Jesus came to save the world through his words and example. What’s noteworthy in the stories we have of him, is that he didn’t come and heal the world in one fell swoop. He healed individuals with whom he came in contact. He healed those who wanted to be healed. He spoke taught those who were open to him and his teachings, who were cognizant of his power and presence. And the legacy and power of his life is still, all these hundreds of generations later, taking shape.            

So, for me, there is solace in his example. To trust that I need to leave to God what is God’s and to concentrate on what I can do, what I am called and feel moved to respond to, in my own life, my own family, and the community and world I find myself in.

To worry is to take on what is not our own. That much seems clear.            

Just this past week, I was at the school to pick up mail when I ran into a woman who rarely gives me the time of day. She stopped when I said hi and within minutes was telling me about her son who had been invited to travel to Latin America with his roommate over Spring Break. She said, “I dread him going, I will worry about him the whole time.” I was about to murmur in agreement, “yes, that will be hard for you,” when I realized my words would not be helpful. Instead I told her a story from when my son was a teenager..            

Once when he came home later than expected, I told him, “You worried me!” and he responded without thinking, “I wasn’t even thinking about you.” And in that moment, I realized that he was living his own life, not bonded to me in the way I was to him. And in that realization I understood that I had to do my own work to let him go and be his own person, live his own life, take his own journey. That’s not to say we didn’t talk about how he might help me out by letting me know what he was going to be late. But not as a punitive thing, as a way he could help me. And he was willing to do that.            

But I couldn’t stop worrying. And one day, he looked me in the eye and said quite sternly, “Your worrying diminishes me.” I had to ask him to explain…. “When you say you are worrying about me I feel like you’re telling me I’m not capable, I’m a loser who can’t manage his own life.”            

Well, that was news to me! For some reason, I had equated worrying about someone with loving them! I think many of us do. I’ve worked on letting go of this worrying for a long time. In face, it’s one of the things I’m letting go of again during this Lent. Jim is in Nepal. I could be worrying about him. After all, the road he wanted to walk from Kathmandu to the birthplace of the Buddha, recorded 900 deaths in the last month! Not from violence, but from landslides, sharp cliffs and poor roads. And I can assure you, worrying didn’t prevent any of those deaths. So my practice this Lent is to offer up to God my worry every time I become aware that I’m engaging in it.    (Let me assure you, Jim has promised me not to walk that road!)         

The writer Byron Katie says that there are 3 kinds of business: Mine, Yours, and God’s. And the key question to ask ourselves is – “Whose business am I in?” because if we’re not involved in our own business, who will be? We can’t respond to life if we’re in other people’s business, worrying about them, thinking about what they should do.            

And if we’re worried about earthquakes, landslides, if we’re going to get sick, when we’re going to die, then we are in God’s business because these are things we cannot know and it’s futile to worry about them. Yes, we can take care of ourselves, yes, we can have an emergency preparedness kit on hand, but if we lie awake worrying about that which we have no control over, we are in God’s business, and Lord knows, we have enough business of our own to attend to!            

Jesus was in his own business when the devil tempted him as we heard in the Gospel reading from Luke today.            

He had been praying and fasting and even though he was hungry, more importantly, he was grounded and connected with God.

When the devil tempts him to use God’s power to turn a stone into food, he knows that satisfying the desire of the moment will not serve him or life in the long run – “One does not live by bread alone.” His response was a discerning … it was his business to know the difference between what was real and what was hollow.            

When the devil tempts Jesus with power, he doesn’t fall for that empty promise either. He stays in his own business and gives to God that which is God’s “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.”            

Then the devil tempts Jesus with God’s love – to test it, to prove it. And Jesus again stays in his own business secure in the knowledge that he is loved, there is nothing to test or prove to someone else.            

Our own business involves plenty. We have so much to learn, so much to experience. So much, as well, to let go of, to relinquish – our misinformed ideas of how to protect others, our attempts to control them, our ideas of what we think would be best for them.            

The devil was trying to tell Jesus what was best for him. We all have that devil on our shoulders. And it’s in our best interest to tell that devil to keep out of our business. To stop trying to be God and determine what is best for us. That’s our business to sort out.            

We each have our own journey to make through life. It takes our whole life to learn how best to make that journey, who to listen to, what sign posts to trust. Each of us does it on our own. Others will travel with us, we will share tips and experiences along the way, but each one of us has our own calling, our own quiet voice that we need to learn to listen to. We can challenge each other, call each other to be rigourous and open and honest, but we can’t live another person’s life. And really, we have no idea what God has put in the heart of another to do, to overcome, to embrace.              

Our best hope is to build and deepen our relationship with God so that we learn how to rest in trust, in God’s love.              

After all, Jesus tells us, “Can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?”             

So instead of worrying, try surrendering that worry and focus instead on the love you have for the person and give thanks for them; surrounding them with love and light and trusting that God has a plan for them, and you. Pay attention to that little devil, or that big one, and resist the temptation to get into other people’s  or God’s business. You have enough work with your own.  

Lord, this Lenten season, let us stop worry and let Your Word be near us, on our lips and in our hearts.

Amen.