Sermon from 1st UMC East Greenbush 2/22/26

 

Matthew 4:1-11, Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7

          Many of you know that I work as a hospital chaplain and this past Wednesday was a busy day. I arrived at work at 6:45 am and helped set up a table in the area referred to as “main street” at the hospital. It’s the main hallway where almost everyone walks through on their way to the various units of the hospital. The table had printed out signs on it that said “Lenten Ashes” and cards with Lenten prayers on them. To set up, I helped carry out the little plastic cups of ashes that had been prepared and the long individually wrapped Q-tips that the hospital said we need to use to dispense ashes in a sanitary way. And then I stood there as the shifts changed and said “good morning, we have ashes for Ash Wednesday if you would like to receive them.” And over and over again I smeared dust on foreheads and said “remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

 

          At times I felt a bit like those people at the mall with the perfume kiosks trying to get passersby to stop and sample their product. Because sometimes I could see people were hoping I wouldn’t make eye contact and that they could just hurry on by. But instead of selling fragrances, I was offering dirt.

 

Honestly, I’ve never been into the whole “ashes to go” thing as I feel like just getting ashes without the beautiful liturgy of repentance and scripture readings is a bit disjointed. But, mostly, dispensing ashes at the hospital was a really meaningful experience for people. Some people stopped and asked what it meant and I got to tell them why we do it and what it means. Some people let tears out as I looked them in the eye and reminded them they are dust. Some people stopped and shared their stories with me. Some people asked me to pray for the loved one they were visiting in the hospital.

 

          We gave ashes to over 200 people in that main street hallway, and, in addition to that, we went to the floors and offered ashes to staff and patients there. The staff were so appreciative, even if it wasn’t part of their faith tradition and they did not take them. As I swiped my badge and walked through the doors of the Emergency Department, it struck me what a unique opportunity it was to invite people to pause in the midst of their busy jobs of keeping people alive to be reminded that we are all going to die.  It’s a bit of a juxtaposition really.

 

          I thought of this kind of juxtaposition as I read the scriptures for today. We read two examples of people being tested. The first is Adam and Eve in the garden. God tells them there is only one tree to avoid and then after being tempted, they eat from that tree. And then in the Gospel reading, Jesus goes out into the wilderness and is tested three times. The first is with bread when he is starving, the second is to jump from the pinnacle of the temple and the third is with power. Jesus resists every temptation.

 

          It’s interesting to look at what happens before and after this. Before this reading in Matthew Jesus is baptized and then goes right into the wilderness where our reading from today takes place. As soon as he comes out he learns that John the Baptist has been arrested and he gets right to work, he starts calling his disciples and begins his ministry of preaching, teaching and healing. This order shows us how Jesus chose to begin his ministry. Before he began surrounding himself with crowds and travelling around, he went to the wilderness to be tested. He looked inward and wrestled with temptation and when he came out, it’s as if he is fully connected with God’s will. Like he emerged with a special kind of closeness and reliance on God that would enable him to face all the suffering, pain, temptation and struggle that lies ahead.

 

          For Adam and Eve, it’s a bit of a different story. Before the passage that was read, they roam freely and without shame, they enjoy closeness with God, even a physical closeness with God. But after this passage, after they disobey God and give in to temptation, they are sent out. And then the pages of the Bible after that tell the story of God and humanity trying to keep that closeness again and again as humans move away from God, God calls them back and it happens over and over again. For Adam and Eve, this experience of temptation was a move away from connection with God, for Jesus, it was a deepening of connection with God. Both went through temptation and struggle, but there were two different choices made and two different outcomes.

 

          I don’t know about you, but I wish we didn’t have to go through the struggle part. I wish we could just become closer to God, wiser and more connected through just being comfortable and everything going well. I wish it so much that I often find that I am holding tension in my body as I worry and fear and try to control uncontrollable things. I’m not one to say that God causes our struggles in order to prove something about us. I hear that often as people wrestle with why something bad is happening to them. They wonder if God is causing their suffering to try to teach them something. I believe that God wants love and joy and peace for us and that God suffers with us when we suffer, but that life is full of choices and scary things and uncontrollable things that there is no rhyme or reason for. And Jesus models for us how to walk through all of that and stay connected to God. How to weather the storms and find that God’s love and peace was actually there with us all along and has not left us.

 

          Beginning last Wednesday with Ash Wednesday, we are invited to follow Christ on a journey through the wilderness. To face the tests, the temptations, the scary things of this world and hold on to our faith, stay connected to God and trust that God has not left us. I’d rather skip to Easter baskets and candy than face the discomfort and pain, and yet … I do believe that there is much to be gained from the valleys of life, from the wilderness wrestling.

Often people think that a chaplain’s job is to encourage people, make them feel better and provide reassurance. That’s actually not true. What we do is sit with people in the struggle, in the pain, in the uncertainty. Part of our training is to practice again and again not trying to fix people. If a patient tells me what they are struggling with and I tell them “everything will be ok, don’t worry, you will be fine.” I am not honoring their story, their pain, their struggle, I am not honoring the ways their spirit is growing through that experience of suffering- I am only trying to fix them so that I can feel more comfortable. And so we practice again and again sitting in the suffering, and trusting that God is present. We don’t have to turn off the hard things or make them look away from the struggle, we can accompany them as they face the pain, trusting God will hold them in God’s eternal and unconditional love … without our empty reassurances or shallow attempts at fixing.

          It is a strange thing to walk around a hospital where everyone is focused on saving lives- and remind everyone that we will all die as I wipe dust on their foreheads. When I walked into that Emergency Department last Wednesday with my sanitized Q-tip and plastic cup of ashes, it did feel like a strange juxtaposition. Everyone is busy and I am asking them to pause. Everyone is doing their best to not show emotion and I am looking them in the eye to see their humanity. Everyone is working against death and I am inviting them to face it.

 

          But it’s also really beautiful. In the midst of medicines and diagnoses and machines and a constant rush, we remember that we are humans, all of us. The nurse, the doctor, the custodian, the patient. All of us are made of dust and to dust we shall return. And it’s ok. We are all connected in that shared humanity, we are all in it together. None of us is unique in having to face the truth of our own mortality. There is a connection in that. It’s also a reminder that there is so much we can’t control. And that’s ok. We are called to trust in God, the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the one who molds us from the dust and the one who invites us into a new life beyond this one. We are connected in that reliance on God. No matter what we do, we are all dust and to dust we shall return. A reminder that we can release the tension, the weight of the world, the attempts at controlling or understanding what is not controllable, because it’s all in God’s hands. 

          This week I had a birthday, I turned 45. When I was 25 I became a pastor and in all that time I have longed for wisdom. I have studied and prayed and accepted new challenges and learned and taken classes and trainings and thought and thought and thought and asked questions and worked hard to find wisdom, the kind of wisdom I always though a pastor should have. I have heard people talk about how there is a certain kind of wisdom that comes with age and I think I am starting to understand that more and more. In all this time of being determined to be wise, in trying to figure everything out, in trying to remember to loosen the tension in my jaw and let my shoulders release the weight of the world, wisdom kept coming, through every tear and laugh, every moment of awe and moment of pain. Through the tests and temptations that I failed and the ones I passed. It has been lesson after lesson in trust. In knowing that God is with me and that no matter what I do, God is the beginning and the end. That I am dust and to dust I shall return.

Sermon from 2/8/26 “The Fast I Choose”

 

Isaiah 58:1-2

          We have this Sunday plus one more before Ash Wednesday. If you look at your bulletin, you see it says “5^th Sunday After the Epiphany.” That means we are still basking in the light of that big bright star in the sky that brought the wise men to see the baby Jesus. We are still celebrating that the birth of Christ is good news for the whole world, it is an epiphany of God’s love for all the ends of the earth. So … why are we talking about fasting? Why are we reading this passage from Isaiah that is all about fasting? We still have the Shrove Tuesday feasts and Mardi Gras celebrations to look forward to. We have Super Bowl parties to go to and indulge in junk food and endless snacks while watching million dollar commercials. Why would we want to start talking about fasting before we need to?

 

          During the week I work at a hospital and I encounter people all the time who are fasting … not because they want to. Patients will tell me with exhaustion in their faces “I haven’t eaten anything in days” as they wait for surgeries and procedures or the all clear notification from their doctor. And I feel for them. Some mornings I can barely make it to noon before my stomach is growling and I am thinking about the lunch that awaits me.

 

          I used to fast every Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, but then I got pregnant and then I was nursing a baby and then another one and … 14 years later I am still trying my best to hold on to the excuse of having to care for children. But I have done what many Christians do, and that is to pick something to fast from. Usually I pick something like sweets or time scrolling on my phone or some other habit that I know is not healthy for my mind, body or soul. And that’s important and a way to focus on nourishing what is best for us.

 

          But that does require some thought … right? Thought about what is best for us. What is actually feeding us, mind, body and soul versus what we are just filling ourselves with. What focuses our attention on what God wants for us rather than taking our attention through distraction. It takes some discernment to know what to fast from, how to fast and why we are doing it. Otherwise, we are just giving something up for a while, and what good is that? Like when one of my kids says they are giving up chores for Lent.

 

          So I suppose there is some reason to be talking about fasting before Ash Wednesday, some time to reflect and consider before we are faced with the decision of how we will make our Lenten journey meaningful, what we will do to use those 40 days as a times of focus on Christ. And the reading from Isaiah today has some guidance on this. Actually, some very strong words about fasting.

 

          The passage begins with a problem. There is a breakdown in the relationship between God and the people. The people are mad and say “Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?” They are doing what they think they should be doing, they are worshiping and fasting but it isn’t getting them what they want from God. They want to be noticed, they want to be taken care of, and so they fast but … God isn’t responding the way they think God should.

          The prophet points out that, yes, they are fasting but as they do it they fight with each other and treat each other terribly. And the response to their upset feelings is, “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?”

 

          In other words, the people are being challenged to fast from injustices, cruelty and a lack of kindness. Suddenly, giving up food for a bit doesn’t seem so hard … because in comparison with working to bring human dignity, justice and freedom to those who are oppressed and hurting … it seems much more doable.

 

          In his commentary on this passage, Walter Brueggemann writes, “[God] is not a God who likes to be flattered in a more or less passive routine of worship; this God is out working the neighborhood and wants all adherents doing the same.” In other words, God is not asking for empty ritual or grand acts to show religiosity, but rather, the way to get God’s attention is to be out there in the world loving God’s people.

 

          What is required for fasting is not simply the act of giving something up, but the commitment to turn from self-indulgence, the nurturing of a deep care for others, the practice of denying one’s comfort to show mercy to another. It is not simply about giving up, but also of giving.

          This past week in the Spiritual Care Department at the hospital where I work, we were preparing to make videos about the upcoming holy seasons of Lent and Ramadan. I told the Imam who was there to talk about Ramadan, that I think it is important as interfaith chaplains to be mindful of Ramadan so that we can be aware of the pain Muslim patients are experiencing when they are in the hospital and medically unable to fast and are also separated from the communal experience of Ramadan. He said that is something that Imams often address, how to care for people who are physically unable to fast. He used the example of new moms who are breastfeeding their babies. He said the act of feeding takes the place of the fast for them. I thought about that as I read this passage from Isaiah. The act of feeding another in need, is the fast. Like with the call from Isaiah to bend your heart toward others as an act of fast, as an act of devotion to God.

 

          Is that an easy way out? An excuse to not give something up as an act of sacrifice? Do we just say “I’ll make a donation to the needy” and go along our way as we blur the line between the Mardi Gras indulgences and the somber days of Lent? I don’t think so. Because, I don’t see how you can have one without the other. This passage calls us to share our bread, our house, our clothing. This requires a sacrifice of something that we have while also being with others, being part of a community, knowing, hearing and loving our neighbors. Because when we keep them at arm’s length, we don’t know them, we don’t see them, we don’t know their needs or the struggles they face.

 

 

          After these words about sharing food and your house and your clothing, the prophet says, “If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday.” So … this is how to get God’s attention. The passage begins as the people are mad that they aren’t getting from God what they want, and here we learn that by caring for one another, by sacrificing self-indulgence and seeing your neighbor … that is how to lift the darkness and “you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.” You will be nourished. This is the nourishment they seek, but it comes not from continually filling oneself, but from pouring oneself out through love.

 

          I think the “pointing of the finger” thing is interesting. In my New Oxford Annotated Bible, it says the pointing of the finger is “a gesture of contempt.” Which goes along with the “speaking of evil.” So … the call is not just to physically be with the neighbor and care for them but to remove contempt for them. Which … is hard because, let’s face it … people can be really annoying and mean and condescending and infuriating. And sometimes it feels like people need a good finger pointing.

 

          But I know that for me, when I feel the most annoyed or upset by another person, I am the least willing to truly see them, to see their struggles, their heart, their perspective. And when I am mad or annoyed or upset by another, the last thing I want is someone telling me to go be with them, to go be a good neighbor. Instead I want to close that door, walk away and never have to deal with them again.

 

          But here is our God, out there in the world, in the community, in the neighbor. God incarnate, God with us, God loving all of creation, each person made in God’s image. And I wonder … is it possible to know that God, with a heart closed off to God’s beloved? Perhaps, the call to fast is also a call to clear our hearts from all of the closed doors, from all of the hardened paths, from all of the walls we have put in place.

 

          It’s not an easy calling. I think I would rather just avoid ice cream for 40 days than have to feed others, clothe others, house others … love others. But this is where God says our souls are watered, this is where all of us in community are restored, by caring about the other and risking love.

 

          So as you see the calendar pages turning and the days of Lent approaching, think of what fast you choose and who you choose it for.