What kind of Messiah?

What kind of Messiah? The Dover Church
February 21, 2010 – 1st Lent Scripture: Luke 4:1-13


Lent is a serious season, during which our scripture lessons pose questions of the utmost gravity. Beginning to today, with the devil showing up and asking Jesus, “What kind of Messiah are you?”, right through Good Friday, with Pilate washing his hands and saying, “what is truth?”, we are faced with questions that go right to the heart of the God we believe in, who we are as God’s people, how we live that out as a community of the faith, the witness we offer to this life we have been called to.
For many of us, the devil is an enigma, a relic from a supersititious and pre-scientific past. We never talked about the devil in any of the First Congregational Churches I worshipped in around the country in my lifetime. We left that to the hellfire and damnation churches. If anything, folks like us made the devil a laughing matter. I remember doubling over in laughter every time the 1960s TV comedian Flip Wilson would dress up as Geraldine and claim “the devil made me do it.” And in Swedish, most curses involve the devil, but that was also a laughing matter for a boy.
But in church, well…I don’t think anyone took anything called the devil all the seriously. As I remember it, this story was often interpreted in a personal, private, spiritual way, talking about the individual challenges all of us faced in our lives and the choices we made, but never of good versus evil in any sort of world-historical perspective.
While I still don’t come down one way or the other about the existence or agency of the devil, I think just discounting him robs this lesson of the dire seriousness it demands of us. For, in many ways, this confrontation, this temptation, is the hinge of Jesus’ ministry. In all of the faith traditions with which I am familiar, the leader goes through just such a period of intense spiritual introspection and confrontation with or temptation by spiritual alternatives. Moses, the Buddha, Mohammed, Odin, to the name the ones I know best, all had their times of challenge in the spiritual desert, emerging with their vocation clarified and energized. Stay put, turn back, choose another way, go forward? What do to? How to be? Who to be? What kind of Messiah are you? Obviously, Jesus was alone out there in the desert, so what actually happened was either passed on by Jesus himself or invented by the writers. But the implication remains.
“What kind of Messiah are you?” The question might seem frivolous to us. As Christians, we often assume that there is only one Messiah, Jesus, and the way Jesus went about it is the only way to be a Messiah. But in Jesus’ day there were all kinds of Messiahs out there to choose from. We know from historical records and from the rejection Jesus meets in the Gospels that his vocation was the not the popular one.
Where the people of Israel were looking for a Messiah who would deliver them by the sword, Jesus came preaching and living non-violent resistance, power through weakness and love. Where the people of Israel were looking for a Messiah who would reorient their faith by circling the wagons and rooting out the weeds which had crept in, Jesus came preaching a faith of radical inclusivity, where not just one nation was chosen but all people were invited, of direct relationship with God unmediated by priests or institutions, unbounded by any law but that of radical, unconditional and unlimited love. And where the people of Israel were looking for a Messiah who would bring prosperity to God’s people, Jesus came preaching and living a prosperity for all, especially the least, growing out of sharing, giving, community, and compassion.
The choices Jesus made make all the difference in the world. They were intended by Jesus to make all the difference in the world. That is why the sinister character of the devil is necessary, in Hebrew, El Satan, which translates as “the tempter” or “the tester.” Which path are you going to take? Jesus choice was momentous and it ought to be momentous to us as it is quite literally about life or death. Not some sort of spiritual life or death, but actual life and death played out right here and right now in our world.
My friends, we have to give the devil his due and ask ourselves, “what kind of Messiah do we want?” Use the Greek translation, Christ, or the Latin translation, Savior, if that is more helpful. But do we really want to follow the kind of Savior Jesus was? Do we really want to choose that path? Do what he commanded? Live as he lived?
Once again, these questions may seem frivolous. We’re here, after all, aren’t we? So we’ve made our choice, right? I’d like you to notice that I have been consistently using the pronoun “we” throughout this sermon. I hope you understand that I include myself. These are the questions I ask myself too. And it is serious, more serious than most of us want to imagine. Because there are very powerful alternative salvation options out there, options more enthusiastically endorsed by more people than the real Jesus option. We ourselves are probably sucked in without even noticing. Let me give you the three that the devil puts to Jesus and are powerful in our world right now. I call them salvation myths.
Salvation myth one: peace comes through violence. We can be secure if we achieve overwhelming military supremacy and are willing to wield that force “for the good.” Sound familiar? We picked this one up from the British, whose Pax Britannica was borrowed from the Pax Romana, a peace which brought such peace, joy, prosperity and happiness to Jesus’ life.
Salvation myth two: prosperity is to be found in ever increasing production and consumption. Growth, growth, growth. It’s OK that we get and use up more and more for less and less, even if it means sweating the folks who make it on the other side of the world, even though we know the earth is a limited system and will both run out of resources and collapse environmentally before too much longer unless we change our approach.
Salvation myth three: the quick fix. Don’t worry! There is an easy solution and we are not going to have to suffer or strive to make it happen. God, or some God-like being, the President, a scientific or technological genius, or a CEO of a multinational corporation, is going to give it to us.
When we pray the Lord’s Prayer together every Sunday, we all say those last two petitions together: “lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil.” For years they went right over my head, What temptation? What evil? Because I thought like a child, I assumed it meant little things. But now I know that what Jesus was referring to are the very things he was tempted with in this morning’s lesson. Buy into the salvation myths of power, prosperity, and the painless quick fix, or follow Jesus? Tempting, tempting, oh so tempting. How so?
Well, for starters, by the standards of the world I live like a Rajah and I am not as wealthy as many of you. Wealth well earned is good, but I have to ask myself: have I bought into the salvation myth of ever increasing prosperity through ever increasing production and consumption? Quantity for me over quality for all? How tight do I have to wear the blinders to avoid seeing the human and environmental degradation my lifestyle demands? And talk is cheap. In the balance of life, do I spend more time, effort and money consuming stuff, or building the kingdom of God for which I pray every time I pray, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth, right here, right now, as it is in heaven”? Yesterday I went shopping at BJ’s and spent $257, $19 of which bought wash cloths for the folks in Haiti. My razor blades alone cost $37.
Second, my family and I are safe and comfortable here in Dover. That’s a good thing. That’s one of the reasons why we’re here. But I have to ask myself: have I bought into the salvation myth of peace through violence? That I can truly be safe while others are not? That you can’t make an omelet without cracking a few eggs? That we can force others to play by our rules? In the balance sheet of life, do I spend more effort paying taxes for and turning a blind eye to the violence done for my safety and security, or to actively making peace in our world? Building relationships across divides?
And third, the quick fix….oh I long for the quick fix to all the world’s problems. I don’t want to be responsible for all the problems which are out there somewhere else. I’m busy with a wife, kids, a church, you name it. Actually commit my life to being an agent of the change I desire, as Gandhi put it? Sure, I dream about it, but after a hard day at work I just want to bury my head in the sand of this nice little island in the woods.
You see, these are deep, spiritual questions which demand an answer. Unfortunately, anything other than a “Yes” amounts to a “No.” These are not political questions. They transcend parties and nations. Before the actual kingdom of God building must come the spiritual struggle, which is why I chose our first hymn with Martin Luther’s perspective on the magnitude of what we’re up against. Luther was a serious man. Maybe I’m a kindred spirit to Luther, another tormented northern European preacher, but I ask myself that question: “what kind of Messiah do I want?” As your pastor and spiritual friend, I ask you as individual people of faith, “what kind of Messiah do you want?”And as your spiritual leader, I ask all of us as the church in this place: “what kind of Messiah do we want?” I pray that we may choose Jesus and act accordingly. I sincerely believe that his is the only way, the real truth, and the path to life. Amen.