First United Methodist Church
March 9th, 2025
Rev. Lauren Hall
Ordinary Lives Can Be Holy
Do you know what that text reminds me of? Stress…Has anyone here ever experienced stress? Maybe a little bit? That’s what I thought.
One of my favorite supervisors once told me that stress is a regular part of our lives. We can’t avoid it. But what we can do is choose how we are going to respond to it.
In today’s scripture the devil is working very hard to tempt Jesus to worship him. For Jesus, it’s bread, power and safety. But it could be something else. Because it doesn’t really matter what the temptations are. What matters is what the temptations do. And what they do is cause stress, because they are designed to turn us away from God, making us desire the temptations more than the peace we have found through our identity as children of God.
Satan knows how to get to us. Notice how each of the temptations he uses seeks to erode and undercut Jesus’ confidence in his relationship with God and therefore undermine his identity.
Jesus, of course, picks up on this. Which is why when the devil offers him bread, he responds with an affirmation of his trust in God. The next temptation is more transparent, offering Jesus the power of the world’s leaders in return for Jesus’ allegiance and worship. Jesus most likely never even considered or desired that power, but Satan puts the idea into his head. Jesus knows that his allegiance can only be given to the one from whom he has received his identity. We are better candidates for this kind of temptation, and we often get caught up in it. And finally, the devil proposes that God is not trustworthy, and goads Jesus into testing that relationship. But Jesus refuses.
In each case, the devil’s goal is to make him doubt that he is enough, that he is secure, or that he is worthy of God’s love. And in the face of these temptations, we see Jesus quoting the sacred story of Israel in order to assert that he is a part of that story and therefore reaffirms his identity as a child of God. Rooted in the Scriptures, Jesus is reminded not only that he has enough and is enough but also that he is of infinite worth in the eyes of God.
Satan uses bread, power, and safety. But it could have been youth, beauty, and wealth. Or confidence, fame, and security. On one level, we experience specific temptations very concretely, but on another they are all the same, as they seek to shift our allegiance, trust, and confidence away from God and toward some substitute that promises a more secure identity.
And that is when we experience stress. Conflict, doubt, insecurity – these all rob us of our identity and create in us a sense of inadequacy and fear. We need to fill the void and as we chase after these temptations, we are tempted to do more, to accomplish more, to purchase more – whatever it takes to buy happiness.
Think about all the messages we hear through media and advertising. When we feel less than whole, we’ll hear something somewhere that promises that purchasing something or electing someone will relieve our stress. When you’re hungry, you’re not yourself. Eat a Snickers. Snickers satisfies. You deserve a break today. Go eat at McDonalds. Need to know something? There’s an app for that. Keep in mind that marketing is designed to persuade us to purchase what they are selling. The best way to do that is to convince us that we lack something and that their product will fill that void.
Don’t get me wrong. Marketing professionals are not evil. They are simply using the power of persuasion in order to sell their products. Our challenge is to avoid the temptation to focus on them, because this draws our allegiance from the God who created and redeemed us. Our desire for the product or idea erodes our confidence that we are already good without substitutes – God created us good.
This is the way Satan works. Satan uses temptations to convince us that we need a substitute for God. And he’s been doing it, successfully, ever since he succeeded with Adam and Eve!
You may wonder, why would Satan waste all his energy on people who have been baptized? We have been given life and love and a guaranteed future in God’s Kingdom. Sin doesn’t condemn us. Christ saved us from that on the cross. But sin does disrupt our lives, and it creates chaos and stress.
The more our lives are disrupted the less we are willing or able to do to build the kingdom of God. When we fail Satan wins. And that’s why it’s important for us to always remember that God created us good and loves us more than anything.
Jesus says, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” When we are stressed, or feeling inadequate, or being tempted to find a substitute, we need to remind ourselves of our identity as beloved children of God. When we begin to lose our faith in God and our confidence in ourselves, we need to have our identity renewed and restored so that we can live in the confidence of God’s abundant life and share God’s never-ending love with those around us.
We come to church for that. But we don’t have to wait for Sunday to make room for God. Lent is often focused on self-denial, sacrifice, and resisting temptation. All of which are good, sound Wesleyan disciplines. But if denying ourselves our favorite treat causes us to focus on it and desire it even more, what is the good of that? What if instead of denying ourselves the thing we love for forty days, we spend this time creating a holy space in our lives? To find joy in our ordinary lives? To give thanks to God for the thing we love? To make room and prioritize our time with God?
Jesus said, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me…my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:29-30).
A yoke is a carved piece of wood that is made to fit over the neck of a farm animal so it can pull a cart or wagon. If the yoke doesn’t fit properly, it will chafe and the animal won’t be able to do its job. A good yoke wouldn’t be labeled, “one size fits all.” It would be made for that body, the slope of his shoulders, the breadth of her back.
I know it’s not very comforting to imagine ourselves as farm animals, but we know that we all carry burdens. We carry our lives on our backs. We need practices that fit us, that settle against the shape of our lives with ease.
Then the point of spiritual practice is not simply to carry more, try harder, do better. It fits. It’s easy. As Jesus would say, “It’s light, I swear.” (Good Enough, pp. 47-48)
Perhaps this Lent we should take time everyday to remind ourselves of Christ’s love and grace that was poured out for us simply because God loves us.
Let us pray…
Loving God, we believe in the power and presence of your goodness. In the face of big evils and worldly temptations, may your Word make its way from our hearts to our lips. This call is not an easy one to follow. It is much easier to succumb to the temptations of the culture of greed. But Lord, we know that your love and power are never obsolete. Your presence is with us always, lifting, healing, restoring, encouraging us to move forward on the journey of service and compassion. Empower us to share this love with others, for we ask this in Jesus’ Name. AMEN.
