Sermon for the First Sunday in Lent

February, 21, 2010

Romans 10:8b-13

Luke 4: 1-13

Read Lessons Here

In the culture of the deep south where I grew up, it was not uncommon to work during the week alongside someone who, on Sundays, was the pastor of a little congregation, often out in the country or at the edge of town. I worked with two such country preachers in my years in the car business. One pastored a little Baptist congregation in Mississippi and the other a CME church in a small town north of Memphis. Working with such folks meant that workplace conversation would, from time to time, shift to theology, and in the deep south that always involved a lot of Bible-quoting. And it wasn’t just preachers and pastors who could quote the Bible. Sometimes it seemed like everybody knew two thirds of it by heart. In that part of the world there wasn’t always a huge distinction between preaching and quoting the Bible, so an awful lot of people tended to know a whole lot of Bible. Preachers and Bible quoters were quite common in my early world, and fortunately for all of us, preachers weren’t given any kind of deferential treatment when it came to story telling.

My Baptist friend told me once about the local preacher who ran a dry goods store way back when. It was the kind of store that sold everything from fish hooks to caskets. It was also the kind of place where a bunch of fellows would be sitting around telling stories watching the world go by at just about any hour of the day. The store owner had a reputation as a Bible-quoter who tossed little quotes into the mix of daily life to put things into perspective, little gems like, “store up for yourselves treasure in heaven,” or “are not sparrows two for a penny, yet the Lord takes care of them,” or “love your neighbor as yourself.” His life was brimming with Bible.

One day, while there was a fair crowd sitting around the store, a stranger came in and asked for a blanket for his horse. The preacher went into the back and took a blanket off the stack and presented it to the man telling him it would be five dollars. The man asked if maybe the merchant had something a little better, so the preacher went back and sorted through the stack to find a blanket in a different color. He came back and told the stranger, “I have this one for seven dollars.” The stranger said his was a mighty good horse and he really wanted the best for him and did the proprietor have anything else. The preacher went out back again and pulled a red blanket out of the same stack, red being the only color left that the stranger hadn’t seen. “I can sell you this one for ten,” said the preacher, and the man bought the blanket and went away happy. When it was once again just the preacher and the regulars, a silence rested on the boys for a minute until one of them spoke up an said to the merchant, “you know, you talk about Jesus and quote a lot of scripture, didn’t you just sell that fellow a five dollar blanket for ten dollars? You sure that was all right?” “It’s right there in the book,” said the preacher. “He came to me a stranger and I took him in.”

Maybe the moral is that there’s more to quoting scripture than quoting scripture.

Today, both Paul and Jesus are shown to have been formed in a culture where scripture is a part of that formation process. They are both quoting the Bible in the stories we have today. Of course, it is not quite right to say they are quoting the Bible. They were quoting the Torah. Paul reaches into the book of Deuteronomy to find words to help make sense out of his experience of Jesus, and Jesus fights off temptation by quoting from the same book in today’s gospel. What I want us to notice today is not the content of the words they choose as they reach into their tradition, just the fact that they have such words ready to apply to their lives. Paul quotes scripture when he says “no one who believes in him will be put to shame.” We know that Paul is talking about Jesus, we know he clearly applies these words and this promise to Jesus, even though the words were originally written about God. The scriptures in which he has been steeped provide a language with which Paul can make sense out of what is happening in his world.

In the story of Jesus’ temptations in the desert Jesus and the devil are both quoting scripture. The devil is working from the psalms and Jesus is coming back with words of instruction from Deuteronomy, words attributed to Moses the great teacher of the law. In this story Jesus has the words at hand for the test in which he finds himself. The words he has carried for much of his life now have a purpose, an application, that makes them a living force for him as he contends with the powers that would bring him down. Again and again in the gospels, Jesus quotes from the sacred writings and people respond as if he has said something new. Jesus lets the old words come to life in new ways in his current situation because he understands those words to contain more than thoughts and concepts about God or law. He knows they are to be applied…...used in the living of our lives. Jesus had studied the scriptures in such a way that they had become a part of him. I would commend that as the reason for spending some time with scriptures. Read them so they can become a part of your life.

All my life I have heard people talk about studying the Bible. My preacher friends were all for it. As a cradle Episcopalian, I didn’t hear much about Bible study when I was growing up. A lot of people raised in the Catholic Church tell me they didn’t learn much about the Bible either. Growing up in a tradition that didn’t push Bible study, and knowing that people in the Bible belt where I lived who did push Bible study also usually wanted me to change my ways, I kind of grew up equating Bible study with reading about what I’m doing wrong. It never sounded all that appealing. I sometimes looked for words of comfort in the Bible, but coming at that project without some idea of where to begin can be tricky. There are a lot of un-comforting words there too, and it helps if you’re in trouble, to know where to look for what you need.

So, as we head into the Lenten season, I’m going to do what any good preacher might do and recommend that you spend some time with your Bible in the weeks ahead. And I want to suggest what might be a new way of reading scripture that may feel a little different from what you have tried before.

Often, when we speak of studying the Bible, we speak of learning what God wants of us. We treat the pages as if they contain a secret that we have to work out, or extract from the words. We often treat scriptures as if they are lists of concepts that are fixed, concepts that if we could just wrap our minds around or approach from the right perspective, we could grasp and they would make our lives work. This approach to scripture can be productive, but it can also lead to long arguments and even wars as we wonder how anyone could read the same words we read and come up with different answers. In a way, we end up serving scripture by struggling to come up with the right way to understand it.

Another way to approach scripture might be to let scripture serve us by being available to us when we need its language or its promises or even its judgements in our daily lives. If we wait until we have some urgent need to approach the Bible, we may be frustrated at what we cannot find. If, on the other hand, we, like Jesus live with the stories and the teachings, immerse ourselves in them, let them become familiar to us, we will find them shaping our lives and helping us in times of need. Learning the Bible is not an end in itself. Everything there is meant to help us in our lives and in our relationship with God.

Maybe the best way to begin reading scripture is to read it as literature. It is some of the most important literature of the Western world. Take it lightly. If something doesn’t seem possible or doesn’t seem to have anything to do with you--or if you wish it didn’t--take it as literature. Hold it lightly. The words were written by folks wrestling with some pretty big situations and experiences. We don’t usually live in such times, thank goodness. But if we have heard the stories, are familiar with the teachings, then when we do find ourselves in moments of need or wonder or deep gratitude, they may come back to us, like they did for Jesus in the desert, and connect us in those moments to a great community whose experience and encouragement we may really appreciate.