Good enough

 

Luke 4: 1-13
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
March 6, 2022

Photo of a green fern branch with one sprig missing.

Usually, when we arrive at Lent, we are exhausted or at least feeling a sense of weariness, and that’s without a pandemic, the climate crisis, and an armed conflict. We’re weary of winter and impatient for spring. Let’s face it—a season of self-denial, reflection, and repentance isn’t exactly something to look forward to. And yet with all that is going on right now it feels as though it will take an unrelenting heroic effort from all of us to pull us through, as though every demand and request requires a “yes”. With so much evil, danger, and suffering, who are we to refuse any opportunity to do good in this world?



The temptation of Jesus in the desert is not to tempt him out of his self-denial but to tempt him into doing good. And not just the good he is capable of like anyone else but better. As if the devil or more accurately, the Accuser is saying, “Don’t just be good, be better. Be best!”



This brand of righteousness goes by many names. Purity culture, which insists perfection can be attained by preserving physical intimacy exclusively for marriage, that marriage is only between a man and a woman, and there are only two genders. The Protestant work ethic, which promises that with hard work, self-control, and thriftiness anyone can achieve virtue, satisfaction, and success in life. Virtue signaling, in which individuals and institutions give moral opinions about the lives or politics of others or their own as means of communicating whose character is worthy. It’s more than the evangelical, fundamentalist Christian righteousness. This brand of righteousness is the muck in which grows racism, sexism, ableism, capitalism, classism, and every other oppressive ism you can think of.



At its root this kind of toxic righteousness is known as White supremacy culture. We know we’re experiencing this culture when we think or when we’re told there’s one right way to do something, when we subject others to or are subjected to paternalism and perfectionism, when we enforce or we’re given a binary “either/or” proposition, when we believe or we’re told we have the right to comfort (think of advertising and consumerism), and it’s preferable to avoid conflict (think White fragility). It’s the individualist philosophy of “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” and “God helps those who help themselves”. It’s when fear is used to control and deny agency with the illusion of safety. White supremacy is a dehumanizing message of “not good enough” to those who are not White, but it ends up harming everyone.

15 Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture:
Perfectionism, Sense of Urgency, Defensiveness, Quantity over Quality, 
Worship of the Written Word, Only One Right Way, Paternalism, Either/Or Thinking,
Power Hoarding, Fear of Open Conflict, Individualism, I'm the Only One, 
Progress is Bigger/More, Objectivity, Right to Comfort
Tema Okun and Kenneth Jones
Dismantling Racism Workbook, 2001

All of that can be heard in the Accuser’s seductive invitations to Jesus. “If you have power, use it to save yourself. Use it to rule the world and make it good. Use this power to prove once and for all that God cares and has not abandoned God’s creation.”



Jesus answers the Accuser with “No, I trust that I am good enough. I trust that what God has given is enough. I trust that today is enough.” Trappist monk and mystic Thomas Merton was once asked—probably one too many times—about his life and practices. He replied, “What I wear is pants. What I do is live. How I pray is breathe.” Nothing more is necessary to live a life of purpose and meaning, a life that can make a difference in the life of another.

"He said, 'Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety. Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in. Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense. This new day is too dear, with its hopes and invitations, to waste a moment on the yesterdays'." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

'The world needs changing but it doesn’t need our burnout. The world needs the gifts of community but not the burned-out expressions of community. Remember that it was the Spirit that called Jesus out into the desert. UCC pastor Eric Elnes writes in his book Gifts of the Dark Wood, “The Spirit beckons us not to be good, but to be human—humble…by [traveling] the path that brings you most fully alive in this world, but in order to stay on this path, you must learn to say no to doing a great many ‘good’ things.” Jesus’ divinity was living into his full humanity, not by mapping out a strategy or a five-year plan but by allowing himself to be led by the Spirit into being fully alive.

What if instead of depriving ourselves of that which gives us joy, we gave up perfectionism for Lent? What if we gave up thinking we know what’s best for others? What if we gave up using the words “must” and “should”? What if we leaned into the unknown and uncertain rather than tried to control it? What if we listened to the Spirit, to the stillspeaking God, that voice which calls us into being fully alive and trusted that we are enough? It’s not about giving ourselves a pass but about doing the good we can do today and remembering to enjoy this life we’re given only this day.

"Nothing is more important than empathy for another human being's suffering. Nothing. Not career, not wealth, not intelligence, certainly not status. We have to feel for one another if we're going to survive with dignity," - Audrey Hepburn

This Table is one of imperfection: messy, complicated relationships, betrayal, desertion, disruption, but also connection, compassion, mercy, and profound love. And in that moment it is enough. At this Table Jesus meets us where we are, in our imperfect, beautiful human lives, and gives us bread that he blesses and breaks for us, pours out his life that we might have life and have it abundantly. There is nothing we must or should do to earn this. It is a gift just as our lives are a gift, just as all that we have is a gift, just as all of you are a gift. We are dust and to dust we shall return. We are loved and to Love we shall return. Thanks be to God.

Benediction – enfleshed.com


Go forth sharing what you have
While preserving what is yours —
your wellbeing, your body, your Inner Truth.
For we are at once ourselves and part of the Beloved Whole,
We are signs and wonders,
We are milk and honey,
We are bound and we are unbound.