James Tissot, Jesus Tempted in the Wilderness (Jésus tenté dans le désert), 1886-1894
I want to introduce you to four people. I am working hard to get to know them. I think I am getting my footing with a couple of them, but all four are still a little mysterious to me. And all of them will forever elude my full understanding, as everyone does. (I’m working hard to get to know everyone here at Grace Church, but there is not one of you about whom I can say, “Yeah, I’ve got that one fully figured out.” I think this might come as a relief to you!)
But here’s what I think I know about these four particular people.
Eddie tells you the honest truth. He does not soften things. He doesn’t seem instinctively diplomatic, so he may never work for the State Department (or want to), but I could see him in the White House Situation Room, frankly assessing a complicated mission and bluntly telling the President what she needs to know. I get the sense that Eddie simply doesn’t waste time on delicacies. “This is just how it is,” he seems to be saying, whenever we talk. I find that refreshing.
Livia! Livia dazzles like lightning. She wants you to know the whole story, and she pulls you into her narrative. She had been watching everyone who played a part in the story she’s telling, and she touches on all the subtle details. She is a fierce friend. She is all in. If you need help, call Livia. I suspect she will relentlessly, enthusiastically come to your aid. And she will make you laugh.
Robbie is surprisingly insightful. He will reflect on questions, and think carefully about his answers. He will also push back on you with skill but also sensitivity, readily letting you know what he will or will not do, even if he thinks he might disappoint you. Robbie is quiet but powerful.
And finally, Breesa: Breesa certainly is a prophet, but (and I am not kidding) she may also be a saint. I sense that she would never, ever say this about herself, and may be embarrassed to hear me say it. Even at the age of seven, she seems appropriately self-aware, and self-effacing. But I think “hmm… she may be a saint” nonetheless, because she looks upon the problems of the world with utter seriousness, and she thinks about those problems, and she prays about those problems, and she resolves to do what she can about those problems.
Of course, much to Breesa’s relief, all four of these people are saints, as is everyone in this room. The most ancient definition of saint is my favorite one: a saint not an impossibly holy person; a saint is simply anyone who follows the Way, with a capital ‘W’. The Way of Jesus. The Way of the Cross. The Way of the Good News. The Way of life - death - life, the Way of ministry - crucifixion - resurrection. And today, all four of these people are going to consciously say they want to follow this Way, and all of the rest of us are going to commit to supporting and encouraging them, which means we also are on that same Way.
So we also, all of us, are saints.
Together, we will, like all of God’s saints, go into the wilderness, where, like Jesus, we will be tested, confronted, frustrated, sometimes famished and nearly dying of thirst, in our effort to follow the Way.
And, if we saints are like Jesus, we will encounter the diavolos. We usually hear this word translated into the English word “devil,” and that is too bad, because “devil” too easily reminds us of a cartoon demon, red as cinnamon red hots, sporting horns of a goat or ram, swishing a forked tail and flapping bat’s wings, sometimes holding a trident, sometimes bearing the nose of a pig. Dante imagines a three-headed monster frozen in the ninth ring of hell, with a notorious sinner in each of his three mouths.
I mean, really now.
Let us set all of those vivid images gently but firmly to one side. (They could possibly be useful in some way, so we won’t toss them altogether.) We might be more enlightened – and perhaps more disturbed, too – if we recognize the diavolos who tempts Jesus in the wilderness not as an exotic evil beast, but as a dimension of Jesus’s own human consciousness. Or we could imagine the diavolos as our lesser selves ... or if you want to be Jungian about it, our Shadow.
I try to follow the Way, capital W, and so I have been in the wilderness quite a lot. And I most certainly have a shadow. My lesser self: he is smaller than he should be; he listens to his fears; he wants to beat you to the last cookie on the plate; he resents you if you tell him the truth; he is sometimes pre-verbal, or just mute with obstinate anger. He is not mature. He is dangerous, gluttonous, and selfish. And, I work with him. I do not deny his existence, and I try not to exile him from my consciousness. I can even be compassionate with him. Jesus teaches us to confront, and be confronted, by our shadows, by the diavolos that lurks within.
We can see so much Shadow, so much diavolos, outside of ourselves, too, in this troubled world. Ukraine is a major worldwide source of passion right now, and yet, sadly, in that war there is nothing new under the sun: violent invasions have dotted the global map for every year of Grace Church’s 30-year existence, and for most of the thousands of years before that. Genocide is all too common, and shockingly so in such a supposedly advanced and enlightened age. Violence rages across the face of the earth. The earth itself is grievously wounded by it. We are right to notice and work with the diavolos. It is causing great destruction.
And all of this brings me back to these four people, these saints.
One way that I respond to the diavolos – the one lurking in my own inner shadows, and the one raging across the earth – is by talking to saints, and asking them questions. In a few minutes I will ask these four saints two questions, the first of which is, “What do you seek?” Over the past few days I worked to be sure that they know what they are saying – and mean it – when they reply, “Life in Christ.” So we talked about what that might mean. We mostly focused on how life with Christ is the Way of self-giving love. (We could also have focused on how life with Christ is the Way of responding skillfully to the diavolos.)
But first I asked them this same question – “What do you seek?” – without the pressure to answer in a programmed way. I encouraged them to answer it however they wanted to answer it. And I received four impressive answers. Here are their answers:
What do you seek?
“I want my family to be even happier.”
“I seek God’s love.”
“I want my friends to move back and be close to me.”
“I seek forgiveness of sins.”
These are, each of them, excellent and intriguing answers. We talked about what they might mean. I tested a couple of them to be sure they weren’t just what the person thought their priest wanted to hear. I thanked these saints for their time, and for their patience with all of this talking and examining and teaching I am doing with them. And I continue, day by day, to pray for them, by name, mostly praying, “God, keep them safe, oh please, keep them safe, and hold them close, and strengthen them to face the diavolos, and help all of the rest of us to learn from them, and to respect them. And did I ask yet to keep them safe?”
And I pray for all of you, too, as we wander together in this wilderness, as we work together to follow this Way. The journey ends in resurrection, I assure you, as I have been assured. But it is sometimes a hard journey. May we be as wise and patient as these four saints when Jesus turns to all of us, as he likes to do, and asks us this same penetrating, startling question:
What do you seek?
***
Preached on the First Sunday in Lent (Year C), March 6, 2022, at Grace Episcopal Church, Bainbridge Island, Washington.
Deuteronomy 26:1-11
Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16
Romans 10:8b-13
Luke 4:1-13