Empty Carbs

Poolesville Presbyterian Church

02.14.2016; Rev. Dr. David Williams

Scripture Lesson:  Luke 4:1-13

LISTEN TO SERMON AUDIO HERE:

Last Sunday, the tradition continued.  It’s been years now, since the kids were little.  We gather with my parents before the radiant rectangle of our primary downstairs screen, and watch the sportsball.  It is our solemn duty, as Americans, to gather on Sportsball Sunday to watch sportsball.

And sure, we usually don’t have a dog in the hunt.  We do it anyway.  I enjoy the game, for the big spectacle sportuality of it, which is usually impressive.  And there’s something else.  Not the commercials, which for some reason I cannot fathom have become a cultural event in and of themselves. Not the halftime shows, because gah.

I enjoy the carbs.  Because on Sportsball Sunday, the meal is a festival of carbohydrates.  Chips and dips and insta-pizza and pretzels and hoppy fermented beverages, one empty calorie after another, in a stream that flows forth from the kitchen to the basement in multiple bustling errands.

It’s not exactly the most nourishing of evenings, but Lord, do we eat.

It’s the story of the temptation of Jesus, of his trial and challenge in the wilderness.  This story occurs in both Luke’s Gospel and Matthew’s story of Jesus.  It’s not in Mark, of course.  Mark doesn’t bother with details he views as irrelevant, so he gives us just one terse sentence: “Wilderness.  Forty Days.  Tempted by Satan.  Wild Beasts.  Move along.”

But Matthew and Luke share it in every detail.  What that tells us is that this story likely comes from what is called the “Q” source.  “Q,” which comes from the word “source” in German, is an ancient collection of sayings and stories about Jesus to which Matthew and Luke both had access.

Q’s story of the temptation is three distinct vignettes, three little stories within a story.   Matthew and Luke tell them in slightly different order, but each has Jesus facing the Accuser, who tempts him three ways.  Let’s wind ‘em back, in reverse order.

The last of the stories in Luke has Jesus up on the highest point of the temple.

The whispered suggestions to Jesus here are notable, because they’re not just Ol’ Scratch offering power.  “You say you trust in God above all else,” comes the sly suggestion.  “Then jump.  Surely God will protect you from harm.”  And then, well, then comes the kicker.  “Angels will protect you,” he hears.  “They’ll bear you up.”  Both words from scripture.

Jesus responds with a single verse, from Deuteronomy 6.  “Don’t put God to the test.”

In the second of the two stories, Jesus is tempted with political power, with control over all of the world.  “It’ll all be yours, if you just worship my power.”   Again, Jesus responds with a passage from Torah, from Deuteronomy 6:13.  And again, he affirms that his relationship with God is central, vital, and unshakeable, and that the human hunger for power over others doesn’t rule over it.

And in the first, in the first  of the three stories, Jesus is tempted with his hunger, with his physical need.  “You’re hungry.  Use your gifts to feed your hunger,” comes the whisper.  Here’s a rock, Jesus.  Turn that rock into bread.  Maybe a sourdough.  Or a tasty Challah.  Just something, to meet your most basic needs for energy.  But Jesus responds with a word of scripture from Torah, with Deuteronomy 8:3, which declares that our relationship with God is more important than anything else.

More important, in fact, than our own desire for life, our own desire to sustain ourselves and to feed the hungers that gnaw at us.  Out in the desert, deep in the heart of a fast, bread would have been an understandable thing to be thinking about.  Just a little energy, to keep yourself going.  Just a little something, to tamp down that feeling of emptiness.

But Jesus wasn’t there for bread.  He was there for something more, for a nourishment that bread couldn’t provide.  He was, in that wilderness, testing himself against the purpose of his life, against the end goal against which every action he took was tested.

He knew that what was presented to him meant nothing.

So much of what we do, frankly, is equally empty.  Our minds are full of information that claims to be relevant

Like late last Saturday afternoon, when I was going for a walk.  More of a hike, really, as I found myself taking an introvert-break from the retreat that I’d been running since the night before.  Session after session, conversation after conversation, and my capacity for socialization had been depleted to critical levels.  I’m not sure if that red light was flashing on my forehead, but it might have been.

And it being a retreat, there was food.  Cookies and little tiny powdered donuts and dessert after every meal, and presentation software really doesn’t burn that many calories.

I needed to recharge and move my body, and there was time.  And so, a hike, down well maintained dirt roads and along fields, heading towards a familiar destination: Sugarloaf.  It was sort of a funny thing, being so close to Poolesville, particularly as the retreat organizer had told me the facility was right at the foot of Sugarloaf Mountain, and asked if I knew where that was.  

Yeah, yeah, I’ve been there.

And last Saturday was a perfect Sugarloaf day, the air Granny-Smith crisp and sweet in the comfortable mid forties.  The well kept dirt and gravel roads around the Stronghold were wet with melting snow, and burbling streams of meltwater splashed and sparkled as they wended their way to the Potomac.  As I approached the entrance, a little group of hiply dressed-for-a-hike twentysomethings popped out of late model hatchbacks.  They walked ahead of me, chatting earnestly about something just out of earshot.

Something exciting and young, I didn’t doubt.  The merits of some obscure band they had gone to see, perhaps.  Maybe an art house film, or some point of politics or sociology.

I arrived at the overlook, just a couple of minutes after they did, and slightly more winded.  Before us, the Ag Reserve, a clear sky dappled with cloud, the day beautiful, the view lovely.

And as I stood, taking in the beauty of God’s creation, I couldn’t help but overhear the conversation of my little cluster of twentysomethings.  They were having a sustained conversation about health insurance deductibles, and the process by which they’d submit reimbursement requests for out of network providers.

For five minutes.  None of them seemed particularly interested in the view they’d hiked up there to see.  They were not there, in the place they found themselves.

I’m not much different, much of the time.  My mind easily turns to thoughts that are distractions, empty calories.

In this first Sunday in Lent, as we enter our own forty days of wilderness preparation, there’s plenty of empty carbs out there.  There are plenty of nothings, processes that are part of our lives but do not build us up.  There’s nothing inherently wrong about them, if they’re kept in balance.

But ours is not a balanced culture.  We are encouraged to chase after emptiness, to pursue things that stir our hunger but do not nourish our souls.

And we are reminded, as we are every year, that this season is the time to remember that we do not live by bread alone.

Seek, and be fed.

Let it be so, for you and for me, AMEN.