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CHAPTER 1

Messy Faith

Scriptures for the First Sunday of Lent

Deuteronomy 26:1-11

Romans 10:8b-13

Luke 4:1-13

The basic proposition of faith can be stated simply: God is in life, and we know God through life as we live it. We don't worship a God who is impossibly far from us, a God outside the human realm. We worship a God who is among us, a God known as Emmanuel, "God with us."

How did the ancient Hebrews know "I am" was their God? Because "I am" saw their suffering in Egypt, liberated them from bondage, brought them in safety to a Promised Land, and gave that land to them for their use. The fruits of that usage — crops from the land — bear witness to God's faithfulness.

How close is our God? "In your mouth and in your heart," said Paul. You have but to confess to God and call upon God's name, and God will bless you with faith.

How could Jesus understand and verify God's call to him? He went into the wilderness, did battle with the devil, and remembered what God had told him. Jesus just needed to live as God had told him to live.

Faith can get messy when it is this close to real life. It's easier to form beliefs from a great distance, where order can be imagined and doctrines inferred. It is much more difficult to seek God in the chaos and corruption of the here and now.

This week's lessons spring from gritty locales and tell stories of God in life. God is known in the offspring of a "starving Aramean" (Jacob). God is known in a word so near to us that it changes our lips and hearts. And God is known in a high-stakes contest between a newly baptized young Galilean and the forces of darkness itself.

A GRATEFUL PEOPLE DEUTERONOMY 26:1-11

The challenge for any believer is to know what they believe and why they believe it. What happened that caused belief to master nonbelief? What changed that made a story grounded in faith seem more vital than a story grounded in, say, one's career or national pride?

Christians created creeds for this purpose. The Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed are the most widely used. They recount the nature of God and tell the narrative of Jesus, and in so doing they relate the impact God has on humankind.

The ancient Hebrews had a different kind of creed. We read it in the twenty-sixth chapter of Deuteronomy, a book presented as the farewell words of Moses as the Hebrews ended their wilderness wandering and prepared to enter the Promised Land of Canaan. Some have called these verses, Deuteronomy 26:5b-9, the "Deuteronomic Creed."

Moses envisioned a harvest festival after the Israelites' first growing season in the land of Canaan, a festival that would be repeated annually. The people were to gather their harvest, and then bring a portion of it to their holy place. They were to present the first portion (usually seen as the first tenth portion) to the priest. And then they were to explain why they took this action.

Their explanation took the form of telling their story as a people (Deuteronomy 26:5b-9). They were children of a "starving Aramean," namely, Jacob. As told in the Book of Genesis, in Israel's prehistory, the sons of Jacob went down to Egypt during a famine. Under Joseph's care they survived, and they eventually became a "great nation, mighty and numerous." But then a new Pharaoh appeared, and he turned the Hebrews into slaves and subjected them to "hard labor."

The people cried out to their God, and God heard them, saw their affliction, toil, and oppression, and decided to act. As told in the Book of Exodus, God performed great "signs and wonders," convincing Pharaoh to let God's people go. When Pharaoh changed his mind, God, "with a strong hand and an outstretched arm," parted the Reed Sea and led the Hebrews to safety. God brought them across the Sinai Desert to the River Jordan — a long journey that formed them as a people — and gave them the land of Canaan, "a land full of milk and honey."

So now they brought their offering to God in gratitude, both for the harvest and for the great acts of liberation and guidance that made it possible (Deuteronomy 26:10).

This creed explains what the people needed to know as Israelites. They were a people whose cries God heard. God had set them free from bondage. They would find themselves in bondage again, during their years in exile in Babylon. God would liberate them again and give them a land for planting. Note that God didn't promise them a powerful kingdom, but a land where they could provide for their needs.

They were a people whose duty was to use the land and to show gratitude for it. The heart of this creed is gratitude. It is not the might and majesty of Israel's God, nor is it some call to rule the world in God's name. The heart of the creed is Israel's duty to give back to God in thanksgiving.

Imagine how world history would have been different — and would be different now — if God's people understood themselves first and foremost as those who have been liberated and called to gratitude.

Instead of parading our excellence and right opinions, we would tell the story of our humiliation and God's response. Instead of presuming the right to rule others, we would plant our land and share the harvest with God. Instead of building bigger barns and grander castles, we would lay the first portion of our harvest before God.

Israel's ancient creed answers perhaps the greatest dilemma in which people find themselves: amnesia. We forget who we are. We forget our descent from the God of creation. We forget the deep love God has for all people. We forget that all we have comes from God. We forget our fundamental obligation to show gratitude for what we have received. We forget to be people of freedom in a world prone to bondage. We forget to go where God leads, rather than where appetite or bullies insist. We forget to do the work God has given us to do, and then be grateful for it and celebrate.

Instead, we allow others to define us — and to believe them when they sell us short. Instead, we take the credit for the good we have and blame God for the bad. We applaud ourselves. We accept bondage as the price we pay for getting the comfort and wealth we crave. We deny any need for gratitude, saying, "I did this, I alone." And we certainly don't intend to share our harvest. Rather than celebrate our good fortune, we lament all that we don't have.

It is appealing to define God by creeds of right opinion. It puts us in charge. Telling a story of liberation, on the other hand, a story of journey, harvest, and gratitude, has an entirely different impact. It acknowledges that we are not in charge. You can see why Moses laid two requirements before his people: Have a harvest festival, and give to God in gratitude. Imagine the family of an office worker or factory worker, or teacher or nurse, gathering each week to celebrate the week's paycheck, laying a portion of it before God and celebrating. Wouldn't that change family dynamics!

I personally resonate with this narrative creed in Deuteronomy more than the more definitional creeds of the Christian era. They describe the same God. The Hebrew creed focuses on God's faithfulness, as evident in acts of compassion, power, and steadfast love. The Christian creeds lend themselves to statements of doctrine. Unfortunately, people in our age — and perhaps every age — are susceptible to the malady that usually follows from doctrine, namely, right-opinion. We are all too easily convinced in reciting the creeds that we find favor with God by correctly defining God's characteristics and knowing how the Trinitarian parts fit together.

The Deuteronomic Creed, on the other hand, points to God and tells a story of divine providence at work. That speaks to the bondage I experience. It is different from the Hebrews' bondage in Egypt, but because this is a narrative, I can make the intuitive leap to my own form of bondage. I can place myself in the creed.

Faith, then, becomes the act of recognizing the moment of liberation at hand and following God's mediator across the dangerous place to freedom.

The promise feels more real, too: a land to work; a place where I belong; a setting where I can create, build, and grow something. That feels more compelling than the acquisition of right-opinion and a sense of superiority that comes from it.

What new harvest is happening in your life? How can you give back to God in gratitude?

TOTAL ENGAGEMENT ROMANS 10:8b-13

Throughout our study of the lectionary selections of Paul's writings, it will be helpful to remember that Paul was a lot like me on Day One of my cross-country pilgrimage. He was sorting through several elements, all of them overlapping like a driver's thoughts and road awareness.

One was the faith that came suddenly to him on the road to Damascus. Without any warning or intellectual ground-laying, Paul found himself totally engaged with this Jesus whom he had been fighting. His entire being became caught up in Jesus.

A second was his work founding churches and mentoring the flawed but earnest leaders who were trying to establish Jesus-centered communities in a hostile environment. One moment, he was disappointed in them, and the next moment he was praising their good work. I sense that he wished they, too, could get totally engaged in Jesus.

A third element shaping Paul was the ongoing opposition that he and his fellow Christians were experiencing, especially within the Jewish community where they were initially a subgroup.

A fourth element was his desire to lay the intellectual ground for continuing church life. He was not a legalist or a theologian, but he did have certain ideas he hoped to plant among Christians, such as salvation by grace, not works.

It's like my drive on Day One of my 4,100-mile, 30-day pilgrimage, Fresh Day on the Road. I knew that first day would be difficult, because I would be making a number of transitions at the same time. I would transition from walking around San Mateo to driving two-lane roads. I would go from being with family to driving alone as a solo pilgrim. I would go from a place where I knew my way around to a journey in which I would very likely miss turns and select wrong roads. I would transition from walking and thinking without interruption to driving crowded roads with magnificent scenery and constant interruptions. Like Paul, I was leaving behind the world of the familiar and predictable, setting out on a journey where everything would be decidedly less clear-cut. I was called to be totally engaged with God while safely and successfully navigating the unknown road ahead.

In carrying out his complex agenda, Paul had an inherent limitation: He wasn't a very good writer. Actually, it's better to say that his skill as a writer was not commensurate with his passion and insight into Christian life and faith. He had some soaring moments, like his memorable words on love in 1 Corinthians 13, but mostly he struggled to convey his ideas. It's as if his vision outpaced his ability to find the right words to describe it. That's why people who read Paul literally and without digging into his ideas often fail to grasp his message.

In Romans 10:8b-13, Paul was trying to express the idea of total engagement. The word of God, Paul says, is near us, on our lips and in our heart (10:8 NRSV). Faith is a matter of head and heart, lips and life, expressing conviction and living that conviction. It isn't just intellectual assent or liturgical practice. It's giving oneself wholly to God. Proof of this total engagement, as Paul saw it, is the radical inclusion shown by believers. All who have this faith — expressing and living the conviction that Jesus is the resurrected Lord — are bound together by a common salvation. Because God is all in all, other distinctions like Jew versus Greek fade into insignificance (10:11-12).

We don't need to keep proving ourselves with proper practice. We just need to call on the name of the Lord (10:13). I don't think Paul was giving a formula for being saved. He was urging his friends to give everything to God. Christians have tended to use Paul as a key source for drafting the proper formula for "winning" and being "right." But such an interpretation misses Paul's deeper message: Don't hold back. Give your lips, your head, your heart, your tribal distinctions — your everything — to Jesus.

That giving of everything didn't happen for me on Day One of my pilgrimage. As I expected, my mind was too preoccupied to switch onto the track of deep reflection. I kept looking for turnouts where I could photograph vistas and double-check my route. I figured I was doing well to get onto the right roads for skirting below the Sierra Nevada range.

I felt scattered when I finally found a motel room in a land of few motels. Focus and deep thinking would have to come later. Like Paul, I was called and motivated to engage deeply with God. And if I couldn't find the focus for it right then, I just needed to be patient.

How is God challenging you to relinquish the familiar and take on something new?

IN THE WILDERNESS LUKE 4:1-13

I'm sure it is no coincidence that I studied Jesus' temptation in the wilderness on the day I spent crossing the Mojave Desert in California.

It's important to remember that as Luke describes Jesus' temptation, his details are rich with meaning. As I drove, I wondered what forty days alone in the Mojave would be like: just snakes and wild animals for company, no water, no food, no people, no break in the monotony. It would be just brown and dusty, probably hot in the day and cold at night.

Luke said God's Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness and kept him there for forty days, not unlike the Hebrews in their forty-year-long wilderness wandering from Egypt to Canaan (Luke 4:1-2). Perhaps even more meaningfully, Jesus' wilderness experience was not unlike the scapegoat of the Day of Atonement ritual, which was loaded down (figuratively) with Israel's sins and then led away into the wilderness (see Leviticus 16:20-22).

I have studied the story of Jesus' temptation many times and focused on the jousting between Jesus and the devil. This time, because of my crossing of the Mojave Desert, I saw deep meanings in the very setting itself. I think Luke wanted his readers to see Jesus totally alone, on the verge of collapse, and close to being broken. That is how wilderness experiences are for us. We use the term "wilderness" casually to describe any hard time. But there are places and there are experiences that go beyond challenging; they become excruciating, terrifying, soul-depleting, and spirit-breaking.

It is in those moments that the devil strikes. Not when we are having a bad day — though a bad day could make us vulnerable — but when everything is lost and we are aching in despair.

We need to see the difference. It is so easy to get caught up in so-called "first-world problems," like running out of seltzer, getting sass from a child, or being criticized at work. Those relatively minor difficulties can undo us. If unchecked, they can cause us to lash out at our partners, hit our children, or drown our sorrows in self-pity and booze.

Jesus was caught up in something altogether different, something we might never experience except for crushing losses like the death of a child or suffering a violent crime. Jesus showed an extraordinary ability to remember God even at a bottom that was below anything we know.

The evil one tested Jesus in three ways. They were, in effect, the three dreams people often have: magic, wealth and power, and equality with God.

First was the temptation for Jesus to turn a stone into a loaf of bread (Luke 4:3). Stone into bread, water into wine, bread into flesh, wine into blood — we have strong yearnings to do magic, to step outside the normal constraints of reality and do something supernatural. Think about it. How much of our modern worship or spirituality centers in a desire for magic, for escape into the supernatural?

Jesus responded that life isn't about what magic can produce — bread, in this instance — but about remaining faithful to God (Luke 4:4). It's not about jumping onto a different track where reality is suspended, but clinging to God in reality itself. In other words, in the morning watch as a parent, in the challenge of mastering lust and appetite, in turning down the terrible engine of self, we choose to stand with God. That is a lot more difficult than wishing upon a spiritual star that some magic moment will happen if we just yearn for it.

The second test was wealth and power. Satan promised Jesus what countless leaders, employers, and seducers have promised us: If we will just give ourselves to the tempter, we will have everything we want in life (Luke 4:5-7). Like an employer claiming to offer a boundless future of riches and applause, the devil claimed to control all that matters in life. The devil lied, of course.

We are surrounded by marketers and sellers with potent tools of persuasion. They promise us happiness, beauty, great sex, long life, and victory over our neighbors if we will just buy their product or give them our time and loyalty. They, too, lie.

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