Everyone for each other

Matthew 4: 1-11
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
March 1, 2020

Just recently my husband David and I finished watching the Amazon series “The Man in the High Castle”. It’s loosely based on the book written by Philip K. Dick, published and set in 1962. In this alternate reality the Allies lost WWII. The U.S. is divided into the Japanese Pacific States and the Greater Nazi Reich, separated by a neutral zone that encompasses the Rocky Mountains. One of the main characters, John Smith, was an officer in the U.S. Army, but now he is an SS officer in the Reich. He and his wife Helen had to make a choice, between safety and security or imprisonment, perhaps even death. But it wasn’t that simple at first. Their infant son was hungry and they had no food. The first thing the Nazis offered was bread and meat and cheese and milk for the baby, from an American officer now in the Reich, and it looks like mercy. It looks like kindness. But the food is a gateway to safety. Safety is then the gateway to security. And once security is in place, it is the gateway to power.



These are the same choices being offered to Jesus in the wilderness: bread, safety and security, and great power. Jesus does not reject the needs themselves but instead rejects a supernatural god as a means to his own ends. God is not a superhero or a genie or a crutch. God is not something that can be replaced with one’s ego.

When we human beings are in our own wilderness place, whether it is grief or despair, loneliness or bone-tiredness, anger or fear, illness or pain, sometimes we can reach for things that we think will give us what we need or that assure us everything will be okay or at least distract us from how we feel. When we are feeling vulnerable or insecure, we can be attracted to certainty, assurances, a path forward that bears a strong resemblance to the past. We like what is familiar; we fear the unknown.



We loathe feeling powerless, having no control. If we can avoid pain, we will. We would do almost anything to protect and save those we love from pain. Sometimes it can be easier to feel fear or despair rather than hope because we know fear and despair won’t disappoint us.

I would give anything for us to not have to do the active shooter training scheduled for this afternoon. I never thought I would have to lead a congregation through something designed for our safety that could also produce injury or trauma or anxiety. I feel vulnerable, I feel powerless, and I don’t like it at all. I don’t have any control over whether anything like this might happen. On sunny clear days of confidence and cold cloudy days of fear, it is oh so tempting to say, “We don’t need to do this. Nothing like this has ever happened in Delaware.”



Another part of me wants to curl up in a ball and scream because we do need to do this. Sadly, because of who we are as Church, because of what we stand for, because our culture is so polarized, we could be a target for hate. I’m angry that these kinds of trainings are becoming normalized, that violence is normalized in our culture. Our society places the burden of defense on those who are vulnerable rather than doing more about what leads to gun violence. We may say “God is our refuge, a very present help in trouble” but we know that God will not save us, cannot save us from those who intend evil.



Then I see this bread on the Table, and it looks like mercy. It looks like kindness. And yet I can hear a voice mocking me, “Why do you still eat this bread and drink this cup? It’s just an ordinary loaf of bread. Its atoms have not changed into something else. Why do you remember blood poured out for sins? You detest violence and all that comes with it. This cup cannot save you from yourself, the worst of who you are.”

And yet what if it was Skittles and a can of Arizona tea on that Table, the last thing Trayvon Martin ate, his “last supper” before he was killed? What of the blood of that lamb that was slain for the sin of racism? When we remember Jesus at this Table, when we commune with him and with his death, we remember all the innocent lives that have been taken, that one day it will never happen again. Until then, we come to this Table, this courageous, brave space to remember and to acknowledge that we are all beloved, we are all each other’s keeper, and Jesus shows us the way, even to unto death. That is our spiritual food, our safety and security, and the source of our power.

American philosopher and activist Dr. Cornel West wrote, “To be a Christian is to live dangerously, honestly, freely - to step in the name of love as if you may land on nothing, yet to keep on stepping because the something that sustains you no empire can give you and no empire can take away.” 

We think we would not choose what John and Helen Smith chose, what others have chosen, but it is not that simple. We have already given away some of our freedom that we may have temporary safety and security, and powerful people now have even more power and control. Every day we are given the choice to be not only for ourselves or for those we love but to be everyone for each other. Every day we are given the choice to claim each other, to claim the gospel that says we are all beloved and worthy, and a world without violence is possible.

Amen.

Benediction



When your path is full of worry
[God] will see you through
When you think you’re alone on your journey
[Love] will see you through


All your silver, all your gold
Won’t shine brighter than your soul
Amen,
Amen, amen