Sermon on Matthew 4:1-11

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

Our readings today speak to the human temptation toward domination.

Our archetypal ancestors in faith, Adam and Eve, weren’t content to walk with God through the lushness of Eden, at peace with God and creation.

They feared God was keeping something from them. Their egos didn’t want to be told they weren’t as smart as they could be.They wanted what they didn’t have. They wanted knowledge and power and control. There’s a reason why this story has continued to be told through the ages, and it’s not just because it’s in the first few pages of our Bibles.

We keep telling it, because we see ourselves in it:

We recognize the scarcity mindset that wasn’t satisfied with the abundance of Eden.

We recognize the insecurity that rose up when the serpent said that God wasn’t telling them the truth.

We recognize the desire to gather knowledge and power and resources beyond our basic needs.

Then, we get another version of that story in our Gospel reading.

Newly baptized Jesus wandered in the wilderness for forty days and forty nights without food and without the comforts and safety of home.

The accuser came to tempt him, and the temptations seem awfully familiar: the temptation to gratify our own desires, the temptation to test God’s relationship with us, and the temptation of power over others.

Jesus succeeded where our archetypal ancestors did not, but the temptations are common to the human experience.

We human beings still fall prey to these temptations.

We succumb to these temptations:

1.    when we choose the convenience of single-use plastics without considering where they will end up.

2.    when our companies choose short-term profits over the long-term cost to our planet.

3.    When we ignore research that warns of the devastating effects of climate change.

4.    When we allow species to go extinct because we only consider our human needs instead of considering those of our sibling species.

5.    When we choose not to make lifestyle and business changes now that would improve the lives of the generations that will come after us.

6.    When we cling to a scarcity mindset instead of letting our God-given imaginations find new ways of creating abundance for all.

We’re surrounded by these temptations. Marketers and lobbyists and advertisers spend their careers trying to get us to succumb to the temptations to consume and extract and acquire and dominate without considering the polluting and death-dealing effects of our choices.

We’re spending this season of Lent considering our broken relationships with creation. There’s a lot to grieve and lament.

And the dominant Western culture doesn’t give us a lot of tools for how to do that.

We’re encouraged to move on from grief and any unpleasant emotions as quickly as possible (preferably by buying something to make us “happy”).

We’re encouraged to numb ourselves (preferably with something we can buy or through media that has advertisements that will get us to buy).

We’re encouraged to hustle and grind and work harder until we’re so exhausted we don’t have time to think about what needs lamenting.

We’re encouraged to think positively, with “good vibes only.” It’s called “toxic positivity” because it keeps our other emotions bottled up instead of processing them in a healthy and mature way.

We don’t have many models or tools for lament.

Fortunately, the Bible gives us some.

There is, of course, a whole book called Lamentations.

And then there’s the book of Psalms, which is full of songs—poetry that shows us an incredible range of human emotion: from the pinnacles of delight to the depths of despair. They show us that God isn’t afraid of our emotions—no matter how big, unpleasant, or shameful they might seem to us.

There’s a whole category of psalms called “lament psalms.”Some are individual, lamenting circumstances in an individual’s life, and some are communal, lamenting events in the world and ways God’s people have strayed. These psalms can help us learn to lament and give us some frameworks for what lament can look like.

My therapist gave me a lament exercise a number of years ago, and I’d like to share it with you today. We’re going to write our own lament psalms using Psalm 71 as a guide.

On the first page, there’s more information about lament psalms.

The second page breaks down the parts of Psalm 71 and gives us space to write down equivalent parts of our own laments.

The third and fourth pages contain Psalm 71 so you can see the different sections.

We’re going to take some time to work on this exercise. We probably won’t have enough time to finish, and that’s okay. You don’t have to share this with anyone—it’s between you and God. Read over the exercise and start writing whatever you can. You don’t have to stick to the parts of the psalm as described—it’s just a framework to get us started.You can also draw your psalm or sit in quiet prayer.

You can lament about our broken relationship with creation, but you don’t have to. You could lament about a situation in your life or something broader. However the Holy Spirit moves you is exactly right.

The Spirit led Jesus to the wilderness, where he overcame human temptation to domination.

Let the Spirit lead you in lament, which can help us move toward right relationship with God, each other, and creation.

The Lord be with you.

Gracious God, Creator of wilderness and garden, accept our laments this day and continue to teach us to lament the ways we succumb to the temptations to domination. Heal our relationships with You, each other, and creation. Draw us to your heart and renew a right spirit within us, this Lent and always. Amen.

Sermon on Genesis 2:4b-9

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

On Ash Wednesday, we remember our mortality—that we are dust and to dust we shall return.

It’s an uncomfortable and maybe even depressing day of the church calendar.

We might feel some shame for the ash crosses on our foreheads that remind us that we were made out of earth. It can feel like one day our bodies will fail us by not being alive anymore.

Anything to do with our bodies can feel shameful when we get told so often, particularly in the epistles in the New Testament, that spiritual is good but the physical is bad.

But that was influenced by Greek philosophy, and it’s just not present in the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible, in the same way.

We read today from the second creation story in Genesis, and we can see the joy God put into creation.

It’s our origin story, and in it we can relish details like God planting a garden full of “every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.”

When we read that God formed the first human out of earth and breathed God’s breath into those newly-created nostrils, we can imagine God as delighted as a child with a mudpie and as tender as a potter at the wheel.

How can it be shameful to be crafted so expertly?

How can it be shameful to have God’s very breath in our lungs?

And as with all living things, there is a life cycle that is natural, even though it can be painful.

We are, of course, promised that that isn’t the end of our story, but even that doesn’t mean that our bodies are bad or shameful.

They’re as beautiful as any other part of God’s creation.

But we’ve grown disconnected from our bodies and the earth. We confessed today some of the ways our relationship with the earth is broken.

Most of us go about our day without thinking about the earth at all.

We live in climate-controlled homes, drive in cars with the windows rolled up, walk on treadmills at the gym, listen to the radio instead of the birds, and buy precut produce at the grocery store without wondering where it came from or who grew it or what will happen to the plastic packaging when we throw it out.

When we grow disconnected from the earth, our home, we start treating it as disposable. We start acting like we’re the only species that matters. We lose the patterns of rest and activity dictated by the natural world, and we forget that we ourselves are part of nature. And when nature suffers, we suffer, because there’s no us apart from nature.

Here at First Lutheran, we’re going to spend the seasons of Lent and Easter this year exploring our relationship with nature and God, who called it very good.

And our siblings in Christ at Emanuel Lutheran, our partners for this Ash Wednesday, are exploring the theme of stewardship this season.

Our themes enrich each other.

We often think of stewardship as only being about money, but it really has to do with every aspect of our lives: gratitude for and generosity with what we have been entrusted with—our time, talents, and treasure, our relationships with each other, our communities, and the cosmos we’re a part of.

How do we show our love for God by being good stewards of these?

God is still inviting us to love God and our neighbor.

And our neighbors include all species and the land on which we live.

God is still creating the very good cosmos, and we get to have an impact on it in big and small ways, because we are a part of it.

Marking a cross of water on our foreheads to remember our baptism reminds us that we are a part of the family of God.

Marking a cross of ash on our foreheads reminds us that we are part of the family of the God-created cosmos.

Our good bodies will return to the earth from which they were formed, continuing the cycle of life, even as we’re held forever in God’s loving embrace.

And until then, we have agency in cooperating with God to make the earth a more habitable place for all life.

We have some resources available at the entrance for contemplating how to be good stewards of creation, which works for the theme for both Emanuel and First Lutheran. If you get the Thursday announcement emails from First Lutheran, you’ll get links to these tomorrow.

Consider cutting down on shopping, meat, or single-use plastics for Lent. Or instead, plant a garden, call your representatives, take a nature walk, or support a local sustainable business.

There are a ton of ways we can learn together to be better stewards, more mindful consumers, and nicer neighbors on this planet.

On this Ash Wednesday, remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.

Remember you belong to the family of the cosmos. You get to show gratitude and generosity in that kinship.

And most of all, remember God’s deep and abiding love for you and all creation.

Sermon on Matthew 17:1-9

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

The season after Epiphany always ends with the perplexing story we call “The Transfiguration.”

I always feel bad for Peter and the other disciples, because they get told off for not really getting what’s going on. I feel bad for them because I’ve never really gotten what’s going on in this story either.

One minute, Peter, James, and John were going on a nice mountain hike with Jesus. Then next, Jesus started glowing so bright their eyes hurt and they saw not one but two long-dead ancestors in faith!I wonder if they thought the altitude was getting to them.

Poor Peter started nervously offering to build religious monuments when apparently all he was supposed to do was listen.Then a talking cloud rolled in to tell him to be quiet. And after they got back down the mountain, Jesus told them to keep what they had experienced to themselves.

No wonder they were terrified! That’s a lot to take in on one afternoon, and they couldn’t even process it with others.

But for all the perplexing supernatural elements, some important physical details ground this story.

First, it happens on a mountain. Like Moses meeting with God on Mount Sinai, Jesus was inviting some of his disciples to meet with him among the rocks and trees. The setting of this story, despite its mystery, is profoundly earthy.

And when the poor disciples fell to the ground, scared out of their wits, it was Jesus’ touch that brought them back to themselves. Sometimes words alone can’t shake our emotional state, but someone’s hand on our shoulder or a long hug can help regulate us.

Then, Jesus led them back down the mountain. They had a mystical experience, but they weren’t supposed to stay on the mountaintop. They had work to do in their ordinary lives ministering to ordinary people.

Have you ever had a mountaintop experience?

Perhaps you went to camp as a child and connected with God in a new way amid the beauty of nature.

Or maybe you’ve attended our annual women’s retreat and walked the labyrinth at night under the star-filled sky.

Or maybe you’ve had a mystical experience in a hospital room. Or maybe you’ve had a dream that felt like a vision.

God can do amazing things to get our attention.

But I wonder if we’re as open as we could be to receiving what God has to say to us.

I wonder if mystical experiences of God seem to happen most often on a mountaintop because that’s where we slow down enough to be willing to listen.

I’ve heard creativity researchers talk about why we most often have our best ideas when we’re in the shower or on a walk.Those are often the only times we stop giving ourselves input—we’re not listening to the radio or watching a show or checking our email.

Our brains need downtime, even boredom, in order to engage in creative thinking. I wonder if it’s the same for being receptive to God’s messages for us.

If we never slow down to breathe or notice what’s around us, maybe we’re missing messages from God.

Maybe we need to get out of our daily routine to change where we put our attention. So many biblical stories of encountering God happen on a mountaintop or in the wilderness.

We’re pretty disconnected from the natural world. We spend a lot of our lives indoors. That’s definitely the case for me. Even when I’m walking around the park near my house, I’m rarely without headphones. If I go to the mountains, I want to stay in at least a cabin, thank you very much. If I’m at the beach, there’s a good chance I’m walking on the sidewalk instead of the sand.

We may not pay much attention to the natural world in our fast-paced, climate-controlled daily lives.

But the good news is that though we might consider ourselves apart from the natural world, we’re actually a part of it. We can’t get away from nature, because we are nature.

So, we don’t necessarily need to go to a mountaintop or to the wilderness or any other natural place to have an encounter with God, because nature is all around us. Wherever we are, there is nature, which is God’s handiwork. We don’t need to go somewhere special to find God, because God is with us, God’s creations, wherever we go.

We just need to slow down enough to pay attention. God doesn’t always speak through something as dramatic asa voice coming from a mighty cloud or a burning bush or a talking donkey.

Sometimes God speaks through the sun warm on your skin or a child’s laughter or a leaf crunching underfoot or your own heartbeat.

Just as Jesus invited the disciples up the mountain, God beckons to us wherever we are to meet with God. And just like the disciples fear dissipated at Jesus’ touch, we can find comfort in the physical—in what God created. And then, God leads us back into our daily lives, where we get to live out God’s love for all creation, including you and me.

God created the world and called it good.

God created you and calls you good.

But when we humans forget that we’re part of nature, we tend to create problems for the beautiful planet we live on—polluting and extracting and dominating our own global home.

We’re going to spend the Lent and Easter seasons this year talking about creation: God’s love for it, why we should care about it, how we can love it better. From remembering this Wednesday that we are dust and to dust we shall return to celebrating that we have a God of new life, let’s find our mountaintops right where we are and meet with God, whose love permeates every seed and sparrow and strand of your hair.

God’s voice is still speaking, listen to it.