Mark 9:1-8

Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.

For only the 3rd time this millennium, we gather for Sunday worship on the day that commemorates St. Valentine and celebrates the role of love in our lives. In light of this rarity, and given that there is a proclamation of love in today’s gospel, it seems that the stars have aligned for a “lovey-dovey” sermon.

Actually, every sermon every Sunday should be a “lovey-dovey” sermon. For many people, the experience of worship is the only time they are reminded of the fact that God loves them. Everything we do as a church–not just worship, but every service project, every class, every piece of music rehearsed, every decision the church Council makes, every meal shared, every dollar given to the church, and every dollar the church gives to the community is a reaction to the announcement that God is love (1 John 4:8), God loves you, and God loves this world.

I’ll pause here to make sure we are all on the same page about what love is. To help, I’ll share some Valentine’s Day cards from some brilliant Christian thinkers through the ages:

In order for each of us to function at our best, we require being the subject of loving attention. It is as vital to our spiritual and physical wellbeing as oxygen, water, and food. There is an abundance of research that has concluded that the extent to which children feel loved by their parents in their adolescence correlates to the child’s ability to form healthy, secure, and trusting relationships with others throughout their lives. One study concluded, “Children who felt rejected (unloved) by their parents were more anxious and insecure, as well as more hostile and aggressive toward others, when compared to children who felt loved.”*

This does not mean that anyone who grew up feeling unloved is destined to a life without love; however, it does mean that such a person will have a harder time and have to do more spiritual and psychological work to overcome their childhood deficits.

I hope that everyone worshipping with us has had the fortune of being loved, in a healthy way, for as long as you can remember. I know that not everyone has. I know that some people need to do more work to really understand that they are worthy to receive love and effective at showing love to others.

Once again, just like every other week, we invite you to experience that love; so, we repeat the announcement that God loves you. God is completely head over heels in love with you; and not because of anything you have or haven’t done. God decided to love you before the earth began. God loves you even when you do not feel loved by others. God loves you even when you feel like you can’t love yourself or others.

We all need to hear that; we all need to be reminded of that. I do. You do. Even Jesus and his followers needed to be reminded of that.

Recall the gospel story for today. Jesus ascends the mountain with three of his disciples and there they experience the presence of Moses and Elijah. In the midst of their conversation, Jesus begins to shine like the sun. The voice of God chimes in, proclaiming, “This is my Son, the Beloved! Listen to him.” It’s an announcement reminiscent of Jesus’ baptism when he rose out of the Jordan River and heard the voice of God announcing that he was loved.

Jesus was God’s beloved; therefore, we should listen to Jesus. And what does Jesus have to say to us?

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength….You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Mark 12:30-40)

“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Mark 5:44)

“By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35)

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love.” (John 15:9-10)

Jesus is God’s beloved. Listen to him!

Take the time today to remember and thank those who have loved you. Even if they have passed from this life to the next, speak to them, visualize their smiling face, honor their memory and their love for you. I encourage you to make a list of people who have loved you well; not as a self-indulgent exercise but simply as a way to fill yourself with gratitude. Seriously, make a list. Like, right now...you’re at home after all; there’s got to be a piece of paper and a pen somewhere nearby.

Regardless of whether your life has not been filled with love or not, know that you are invited to experience God’s unconditional love in the pages of scripture and in prayer. Find your Bible, open its pages, and let yourself be immersed in God’s story of love and redemption. Once you find something that speaks to your soul, sit in silence with nothing but that scripture and find yourself transported into God’s safe and loving embrace.

I’ll finish by inviting you to do one more thing. Come up with a subtle cue or some way of reminding yourself throughout the week that you are loved. You could bookmark a verse about God’s love in your Bible and re-read it at least daily. You could draw a heart on a sticky note and stick it to your bathroom mirror. You could change the background image on your phone or computer to something that reminds you of God’s love. You could commit to listening to sappy love songs all week long. Just keep it simple and make it fun. Valentines’ Day or not, we all need to be reminded that God loves us so that we can share that love with the world.

Amen.

* https://medium.com/@williamfwalkerjr/how-to-destroy-a-child-make-them-feel-rejected-and-unloved-95b89fcdff1c

Luke 4:1-13

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished. The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’”

Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said to him, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” Jesus answered him, “It is written,

‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’”

Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, 10 for it is written,

‘He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’”

Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.

The wilderness seems kind of close these days if you ask me.

Maybe it’s the news again – our politics, that tornado that ripped through Alabama last week, everything going on in places like Venezuela and Haiti and Great Britain, Alex Trebek has pancreatic cancer…

Maybe it’s that the Methodist Church went the other direction – the wrong direction, in my opinion – when it comes to loving gay and lesbian and transgender people… (I’m not judging the Methodists, mind you, so much as I am lamenting with them and with all those who are scandalized by that decision.)

Maybe it’s the sadness of yesterday’s funeral for Joe Richards and all that led up to it…

Maybe it’s the threshold of Lent we crossed over on Ash Wednesday… or that I’m getting ready to head to the actual desert, out in of Phoenix, later this week… or it could just be one less hour of sleep thanks to Daylight Savings Time.

Whatever it is, the wilderness doesn’t seem so hard to find… or very far away… or easier to get into than out of these days.

And I’m always fascinated with Jesus and his time out there in the wilderness. This Gospel story is one of those oldies and goodies most of us have heard before where the Devil and Jesus seem to be playing this well-choreographed, back-and-forth kind of dance and dialogue:

First, Jesus is hungry. Starving, even, after 40 days of fasting. And the devil says: "If you are the Son of God, you could turn these stones into bread." Jesus insists that man doesn't live by bread alone. So the devil hurls him around the universe, shows him all the kingdoms of the world, and tempts him with a promise: "All this will be yours if you’d just worship me." And Jesus, faithfully, says, “No, worship the Lord your God," and that's that. So the devil takes him high atop the pinnacle of the temple and says, "So prove to me that you're really God's son and take a dive … you won't get hurt if what God says about you is true." And Jesus refuses, reminding himself and Satan that our God isn't one we ought to test.

The point of Lent – and the point of this Gospel story this time around, for me, anyway – is to wonder what it means to be called into the wilderness. I think we’re called to seek out and to put a finger on the evil and darkness and temptation in our own lives. We’re called to name it, to stop denying it, and to confront it in ways we neglect too much of the time.

But that's hard to do, this wilderness wandering – whether it’s the First Sunday of Lent or any other day of the year – or we would do it more often, more faithfully, with more resolve and courage and success, I believe. We don’t head out into the wilderness enough of the time, following the Spirit’s lead. We’re more likely to find ourselves pushed there, dragged there, kicking and screaming. Or we end up there, in the wilderness – much to our surprise – before we know what’s coming. And then the temptation of it all is to let it overwhelm us – the grief of it; the fear of it; the unknown and uncertainty of it all, whatever the case may be, in the wilderness.

And so we fail the tests too often, don’t we? We fill ourselves with all the wrong things too much of the time. Where Jesus refused to turn stones into bread – we grab the potato chips or the ice cream; the booze or the weed or the cigarettes or the pills.

Where Jesus turned down the offer for more power and glory, we go after as much as we can grab and look for it in all the wrong places – work, money, things and stuff, just for starters.

And where Jesus refused to put God to the test, we do… every time we throw up our hands and wonder why God won’t – why God hasn’t – just fixed everything that’s wrong with us, with the world, and with this wilderness.

And I think the reason we fail the tests too much of the time is because we forget something Jesus knew and held onto, from the start. Remember, Jesus entered into the wilderness “full of the Spirit” and “led by the Spirit,” on the heals of his baptism. I like to imagine that his hair was still wet when he met up with the devil in the dessert. He was fresh from the Jordan where the heavens had opened, a dove had appeared out of nowhere, for crying out loud, and God had declared him beloved, “the Son, the Chosen” with whom the Creator of the Universe was well pleased.

And it’s with all of that in his back pocket, that Jesus made his way into the wilderness to duke it out with the devil. So it’s easier for me to imagine that he might have resisted all of that temptation and passed all of those tests with flying colors, don’t you think?

And that’s our call and invitation, too. To remember, however and whenever we find ourselves in the wilderness, that – just like Jesus – we can enter it all on the heals of and filled with the promises of our baptism. And when we live like that, our chances of resisting the temptations… of passing the tests… of making it out alive are infinitely more likely, it seems to me.

I came across a poem by Jan Richardson, an artist and author and United Methodist pastor, who says this better than I could. It’s called, “Beloved Is Where We Begin.” It goes like this:

If you would enter into the wilderness,
do not begin without a blessing.

Do not leave without hearing who you are:

Beloved,
named by the One who has traveled this path before you.

Do not go without letting it echo in your ears,
and if you find it is hard to let it into your heart,
do not despair.

That is what this journey is for.

I cannot promise this blessing will free you
from danger,
from fear,
from hunger or thirst,
from the scorching of sun or the fall of the night.

But I can tell you that on this path
there will be help.

I can tell you that on this way
there will be rest.

I can tell you that you will know
the strange graces
that come to our aid
only on a road
such as this,
that fly to meet us
bearing comfort
and strength,
that come alongside us
for no other cause
than to lean themselves
toward our ear
and with their
curious insistence
whisper our name:

Beloved.
Beloved.
Beloved.

The wilderness seems too close… too easy to find… too hard to navigate… too difficult to escape too much of the time.

The temptation to quit… to choose the selfish, prideful, destructive way… to take the devil’s hand and follow his lead… the temptation to despair can seem like a watering hole in the parched places of our lives.

But if we enter into those desert places… If we engage the temptations of this life, filled first with and led by the Spirit of our creator… If we enter into the wilderness with the waters of baptism still dripping from our foreheads and the promises of God ringing in our ears.

We don’t have to fear any of it, knowing that we and those we love will come out of it alive – in one way or the other – on this side of God’s heaven or the next – always beloved, in the end.

Amen

All You Need is Love

Beloved in the Wilderness