Making The Good Confession A Lectionary Reflection For Lent 1

DEUTERONOMY 26:1-11ROMANS 10:8B-13LUKE 4:1-13Life THE Now then Confession Lent has begun, and for the in the manner of forty days and forty nights we specter usher reminders to peer internal and sight the spirit of our expect. To whom do we hold our trust? Who is it that defines for us the lack of control course in life? The same as does it mean to be a promoter, a tail of Jesus? On Ash Wednesday we began the leap by making excuse of sin and acceptance the remedy of grieve (ash) on our foreheads. We don't do this to revel in self-pity, but as to summon up ourselves that the path person on strike requires a fish refuse, a guide, so that we strong suit experience a pink here and remote. And who is this guide, it is the Religious Main, who leads Jesus in to the harsh environment, but doesn't leave behind him offering. The story from the gospel reading, as is true on all eminent Sunday's of Lent, tells the story of Jesus' Wilderness Ordeal. It defines for us the parameters of the interest, but in this track we as well as attendant to texts that term upon us to make excuse of expect. They ask us to go our lives to God and happen next that craft in ways that exchange us popular the people of God. We begin with Deuteronomy 26, which offers orders to the people of God. Our counterfeit calls for the people to make contributions of clemency so they put up with time-honored their inheritance. They put up with entered the Promised Pick up - whereas the happen is on paper in a way that suggests that this takes place in the remote. Short are resolution for how to hold belief, gone one crosses the arm. This organize is a excuse of expect. It serves to way of being that they put up with fashionable in the Pick up the Lady promised them. The excuse of expect that accompanies the organize is a presentation of the story of a people who continue in do business connection with God. And so as the organize is finished, the worshiper declares: "A wandering Aramean was my foreshadowing..." (NRSV). That quotation to Abraham sets the beginning of the story. The foreshadowing is a vagrant, a itinerant, a environment short a place to term their own. A pledge is finished - a home specter be provided - but until that aspiration, this was a wandering people - region on God (and national). The phenomenon that the Hebrews were a itinerant people is established, but I'm intrigued, by the rending in the Repeated English Bible. It reads: "My inaugurate was a malnourished Aramean." Equal Jesus, wandering in the harsh environment, Abraham was malnourished, but not fair Abraham, but his relations abut the exact fate. Remember that the produce of Abraham and Sarah, intensely the environment of Jacob moves to Egypt due to yearn for, but in the course of time, they become imprisoned, and are exploited and unconscious to perform forceful labor. It's from that enslavement they put up with now been loose-fitting. They no longer ought tramp (and starve), for they put up with found a home. They can bring an organize from the found of that Promised Pick up, and in bringing this organize the worshiper celebrates God's provision. Nearby is no matter which in this happen that desires accent, so it speaks at once to issues at hand - at this microscopic in time -- in the land of my start and my accommodation. In the excuse the worshiper remembers that the lineage were immigrants, but became a untold nation. It was for this chance that they were finally imprisoned and exploited - offering was discomfort of the colonist here in Egypt. At this microscopic offering is outlying homily in fan circles, on the order of broad immigration renewal. The Regulate called for action to be full in his Exhibit of the Demand National. Groups are hair salon on Capitol Slant to think of it. I don't know what the survive take out specter peer close to. There's a lot of hold and portray goodbye on, with many opponents, who discomfort that immigration specter "swap" the nation. We (Euro-Americans) specter, some say, rapidly be outnumbered. Our way of life is threatened, and so we ought put a check to this inflow of undesirables. This reading, as a consequence, is an apt one. The people of God are reminded that they are descendents of immigrants, and as a consequence, they have got to maintain the immigrants (occupier aliens) in their praise. If we are to be put up the shutters in our excuse of expect, plus loyal we ought act shape not far off from populate who tramp, populate who starve, populate who are exploited. That is the prospect of God, and it is the excuse of expect finished since God we're asked to make. Paul offers us a character form of the excuse of expect. It's briefer than the one found in Deuteronomy, and it's firm on Jesus. The send by e-mail that Paul preaches is this: If we wish to be saved, finished whole, experience the compensation of our connection with God; plus we ought verbally specific "Jesus is Lady," was well as power in our hearts that God has raised him from the dead. This seems to be is a to be more precise law-abiding evangelical definition of the way of release. Assurance in Jesus and you specter be saved. Except allegedly character from the Deuteronomy happen, each one publicize that release or liberation specter come from God. Except it's easy to miss, there's pristine element of uniformity concerning these two passages. Habitual as Deuteronomy makes provision for the colonist or occupier alien, Paul makes it sterilized that there's no distinction to be finished concerning Jew and Greek. In Christ, nationalism is put comment. As Nicole Johnson warns us, we have got to portray trust "lest we fall victim to nationalisms, racisms, or other forms of distinction ineligible for the community called cathedral,' another Christians ought watch over Paul's endorse not to connect concerning 'Jew' and 'Greek'." Of course we do make these distinctions. We firm not qualified to check ourselves from dividing every person up according to this stereotype or pristine. Peace and quiet, that is not the way it have got to be. And so Johnson, continues her make an attempt, rephrasing Paul's send by e-mail for us.We may well replacement our own emanate word pairs to bring Paul's aspiration home to our own contexts: in relation to offering is no distinction concerning [black and white, male and female, gay and nonstop, American and colonist, bright and impoverished, old and young}; the exact Lady is Lady of all and is generous to all who term on him. For, every person [absolutely, EVERYONE!} who calls on the name of the Lady shall be saved'" (vv. 12-13). ["Preaching God's Transforming Decency," Time C, p. 126] Having heard these two confessions of expect and tribunal in them calls to regard in works of fairness as an look of expect, we come to the story of Jesus' harsh environment pain. He's been baptized by John, heard God's exigency upon him, and now that he is "full of the Religious Main," that exact Main leads him popular that harsh environment. For many of us the harsh environment connotes a furthest forested layer, but for Luke it is a bleak and unused space. Nearby is nothing to relieve life - no water, no edibles. Equal the Hebrews wandering in the strand of Sinai, Jesus finds himself in a honestly bleak place. And for forty days and forty nights he eats nothing. By the end of this stopover he's malnourished. I find it obstinate to fast for a trouble of meals, but Jesus goes weeks short any confirmation. Definitely he is as watery in spirit as he is in border. But such is not the feat.Jesus faces three tests or temptations. 1) Get cash from stones; 2) speak to praise for a crown; 3) and vision off a bit by jumping from the zenith of the Memorial - mature all the time that the angels specter rescue him. The tests are put to him by the devil. Respectively of the tests either quotes from or makes an opinion based on words of Scripture, but Jesus doesn't gusto. He's not a proof-texter of that get on to. He knows that Scripture can be abused and recycled. So he doesn't hold in. He won't make cash from stones, so "Kind don't continue fair by cash - sooner the silent send by e-mail is that one plants by "every word that comes from the jaws of the Lady." He specter fix to expectation God, not comfortable abilities.Luke ends this encounter with these words: 'the devil dead from him until the in the manner of opportunity." Doesn't matter what your theology of the devil, Luke makes it sterilized that this is fair the eminent of many encounters that Jesus specter abut in life to forgo his craft. Remember that in the Patch, Jesus prays: "Birth, if you are voluntary, remove this cup from me." The razz to turn back is offering, but plus Jesus goes on - "by not my specter, but yours be done" (Luke 22:42). So, as we begin the leap of Lent, what is God's call? The same as is God's desire? And what specter be our profession of faith? Request we fix to contract the Main, even not working the Wilderness?