Fifth Sunday in Lent
Online Worship
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Rev. Amy Zalk Larson

Click here to read scripture passages for the day.

Beloved of God grace to you and peace in the name of Jesus.

In this time when we have to stay physically distant and isolated, it’s hard to hear that Jesus chooses not to go to help his sick friend. He hasn’t been instructed to stay at home, he isn’t living in a time of mass quarantine, but still Jesus stays where he is for two days after he hears Lazarus is ill.

His dear friends, Mary and Martha, ask him to come and help their brother, but he doesn’t come, he doesn’t move. Even though they are faithful followers of Jesus, even though he loves them, after Jesus hears Lazarus is sick, he stays put. I find this troubling.

Those of us hearing the story learn that Jesus sees Lazarus’ death as an opportunity for the in- breaking of God’s glory. But Martha and Mary don’t know that. What they know is that Jesus doesn’t come right away. Jesus doesn’t move quickly to help them when they ask. They know he could have done something and yet, he wasn’t there.

In our own lives too, God sometimes seems absent, silent, unmoved by our pleas for help, unresponsive to human suffering. And these days many of us are struggling to experience God’s presence when we can’t gather in the places and with the people that usually help us to know that God is with us.

Martha and Mary both cry out to Jesus in grief and anger, “Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died.” So many people throughout the ages and so many of us have raised similar laments. These cries are found throughout scripture, especially in the Psalms. They are important, faithful things to say to God. Out of the depths we cry to God. I encourage you to bring whatever you are feeling to God in prayer in these days.

Yet, Martha and Mary don’t get answers to their laments. Jesus doesn’t explain why he delayed in coming. He doesn’t tell them that he stayed put so that God’s glory could later be revealed. He doesn’t even say I’m going to raise Lazarus, just wait. They don’t get explanations. They don’t get answers.

 Instead, they get Jesus. Mary and Martha get Jesus and they discover Jesus really is present with them, even though he delayed, even though he didn’t answer their request the way they hoped. They get Jesus and his presence brings new life – not only within Lazarus, but also within Martha and Mary.

We don’t get answers either. We don’t get explanations as to why suffering, why the coronavirus, why God seems silent sometimes. We also don’t get our loved ones back from the tomb, as Martha and Mary did. But we do get Jesus. Jesus is present with us, God is present with us even when things aren’t the way we’d hoped, even when we can’t be physically together in worship. Jesus is present with you and his presence gives new life in much the same way he gave new life to Martha, Mary and Lazarus.

Jesus shows Martha and Mary that he is truly present with them in how he responds to their laments and grief. He doesn’t critique or correct them. He doesn’t turn aside or avoid their pain. Instead, he stays engaged and he’s deeply moved by their suffering.

When Martha says, “Lord if you had been here my brother would not have died,” Jesus engages her in conversation. He assures her of God’s presence by telling her, “I AM, the resurrection and the life”- using the ancient name of God, the great I AM, for himself. He promises her that God is present and bringing new life now and forever- even when she can’t see it. These promises create faith in Martha, they create something new within her. They bring new life and hope where there was only grief and pain.

Those same promises and the presence of Jesus do the same for us. They create faith within us bringing life and hope for us. The great I AM, the resurrection and the life, is with us, God is with you.

Then when Mary comes to Jesus with her lament and her tears, Jesus remains present to her pain. We’re told that when Jesus sees Mary weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he is greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He doesn’t turn away. He doesn’t tell her every- thing will be OK. He begins to weep. Mary finds that she is not alone, Jesus is with her in her pain, sharing her tears. She is given comfort and hope, new life, by Jesus’ presence.

Jesus is present with us, sharing our tears and our sorrow as well. God does not turn away, even in the face of deep anguish. God joins us. Whatever you are feeling in these days, God shares in it with you.

Then, after being so present to Martha and Mary, Jesus shows that he can be present even to Lazarus, even though Lazarus is dead. God can reach Lazarus even in the tomb. Nothing, not even death, can separate us from the presence of God. As Romans promises – neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Jesus can reach Lazarus, Jesus can reach us and our loved ones – even in death.

Lazarus is brought back to life on earth, for a time. He goes on to an earthly death again. Yet after Jesus stands at his tomb and calls him out, and after Jesus calls those gathered to unbind him and let him go, Lazarus knows deep in his bones that God is always present for him. He and his sisters know that God’s presence means life, now and forever.

Jesus stands now at all the tombs of our world – in all the places where death and evil and sorrow seem to prevail. God is present with us in the hospitals and at the southern border, when earthquakes and tornados strike. God is present at the graveside even when only 10 or fewer can gather to bury our loved ones. God is present with those who have to say goodbye via a video call. God abides with us as we wonder how we’ll pay the bills and in the sleepless nights. God is present in all those places and God’s presence with us means life.

Jesus is also present calling those around us to unbind us and let us go, calling us to do the same for others. When we are bound by fear and anger and despair, God works through community to set us free into God’s abundant life. God works in community even when we are physically distant.

God is present now in the Decorah Area Faith Coalition that is ready to launch a fundraising campaign to help individuals impacted by this crisis. God is present in the neighbors running errands for others and in the volunteers who have signed up to help on the Decorah and Winneshiek County Mutual Aid Network. God is present in all those working to make sure people can access food and medication in safe ways. God is present in all the medical professionals caring for the sick throughout our country and in so many other ways.

God is with us. God is with you.

You share now in the eternal life of Jesus – the life that will come and be present in the midst of death, the life that calls forth new life in us, in you.

Let’s take a moment for silent prayer.

Fourth Sunday in Lent
Online Worship
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Rev. Amy Zalk Larson

Scripture passages: Isaiah 43:1-5a; Psalm 23; Ephesians 3:14-21; Mark 4:35-41

Beloved of God, grace to you and peace in the name of Jesus.

“A great gale arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped.”

Oh, do we know what that feels like. The massive storm of the coronavirus has arisen. The gale force winds pound. The waves beat against our boats. We are already being swamped.

This storm is real. This storm needs to be taken seriously. And there is something even more real, even more important for us to remember. We are not alone in the storm. God is present with us in it. It may feel like God is sleeping, like God is not doing anything in this storm. We may wonder, like the disciples did, “Don’t you care that we are perishing?” Yet the power of God is at work.

The power of God brings peace amidst the storm.

The power of God brings faith when we, like the disciples, only know fear.

The power of God brings hope out of despair, life out of death.

This is what God does.

Still we wonder, how is this power of God at work? We don’t see Jesus simply stilling this storm with a simple word. So how is the power of God at work in these days of global pandemic? As Ephesians reminds us, God’s power is at work within us. We’re reminded that God “by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine.”

God’s power is at work within us. God’s power is at work in this storm, within each of us, to work faith, hope, courage, creativity and acts of love in this time.

God’s power at work within us helps us to organize even when we can’t meet in person to care for each other and the most vulnerable. I’ve seen this happen in Decorah this past week as the Decorah Area Faith Coalition and the newly formed Decorah and Winneshiek County Mutual Aid Network are working together to care for our community. I’ve seen this happen at Good Shepherd as Pr. Marion and the Social Justice Subcommittee work with me to organize our congregation into flocks with designated shepherds who will help to care for us all in this time.

God’s power at work within us also helps us to be creative and resourceful in this time. I see this creativity at work in people who are sewing masks for our medical professionals. Many hospitals around the country are providing protocols for how masks can be made and delivered to where they can be washed and put to use. I’m hoping we can do this for Winneshiek Medical Center as well, soon; the hospital in Cresco is accepting masks. If you live elsewhere check your local hospital website for their recommendations.

I also see resourcefulness at Good Shepherd. Brooke got us ready to livestream worship in less than 24 hours last week. Our Communications Subcommittee and administrative assistant have worked to launch a way for people to give offerings right from our website so that we can carry on our mission as a congregation even when we can’t gather. Watch for more on that soon.

Kathryn Thompson has continued her amazing ministry by generating a number of resources for children, youth and family; and Youth Forum will be meeting using Zoom after worship today. Many who have never used Zoom have figured it out this week. I have had such joy seeing some of your faces during our Bible Study, Faith Coalition and Social Justice Subcommittee Zoom meetings.

Other congregations are also being creative and resourceful using the different gifts they have. We will be sharing these and collaborating together in the days to come.

God’s power is at work within us. We can’t always see this. We can’t always feel it. Sometimes all we can feel are the storm clouds above us. So, this week I have been doing a meditation that’s been helping me to be attentive and open to God’s power at work within us.

This meditation is called a Light Visualization and it’s a very helpful secular meditation technique.

You visualize sunlight above your head washing over you and filling up your body from your toes all the way up your head. This visualization helps you to experience calm and peace even amidst storms. I’ve been praying this meditation this week with our Ephesians passage for today in my mind. Our Ephesians passage is a prayer that we may be strengthened in our inner beings with power through the Spirit and that we may be filled with all the fullness of God.

So, this week I’ve visualized that sunlight above my head as the love and power of God. I’ve imagined it washing over me and filling me with all the fullness of God, strengthening me in my inner being. I’ve imagined it doing the same for you all dear people of God as I’ve prayed for you all this week. That power and love of God is always there – above our heads, within us, all around us. This exercise just helps us to notice it and receive it and experience it.

Let’s take just a moment together and I’ll lead you through this prayer practice so that you might experience being filled with all the fullness of God and being strengthened in your inner being.

Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Then let your breathing return to its normal rhythm.

As you breathe in and out, imagine the sunlight of God’s love and power above your head. Imagine it washing over you, filling you with warmth and peace and light. Imagine it filling you up, starting with your toes, moving up your legs, past your knees, then to the upper half of your body through your chest, filling you up while continuing to flow from above, flowing down into your fingers, your wrists, up to your elbow and shoulders, filling up your neck, your face, your forehead and the top of your head. Then simply let your mind rest in this awareness that you are filled with the love, the power, the fullness of God.

As you move through your day, when all you feel is a dark cloud over your head, you can take a moment to flash this image quickly. Just take a breath and imagine being filled with the sunlight of God’s love and power from the tips of your toes to the top of your head.

The power of God is at work in this storm. It is at work within you. God works peace amidst the storm; God works faith out of fear, hope out of despair, life out of death – for you, for me, for this world God so loves.

Let’s take a moment for silent prayer.

Third Sunday in Lent
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Rev. Amy Zalk Larson

Today’s worship was livestreamed and available through radio broadcast only.

Click here to read scripture passages for the day.

Beloved of God, grace to you and peace in the name of Jesus.

In our reading from Exodus today, the people of God were wandering in the wilderness uncertain and unafraid. They couldn’t find water. They couldn’t tell if God was with them or not. I’m guessing some were completely panicked and some thought others were overreacting just a bit.

We know something of what that is like. These days of a global health emergency are frightening and unsettling. And dear ones, it is OK to feel whatever you feel – afraid, isolated, overwhelmed, angry, ill-equipped, frustrated, all these things; it is OK to feel them all. We are not alone in all these feelings. We are not alone as we face this situation.

Today all of our assigned scripture readings give us stories of communities and people who have experienced things similar to what we’re facing today – communities and people that have known disruption, fear, suffering and social isolation. In these stories we see that God’s people have been in times like these before and that in these times, God is so very close, so very present. Our Gospel reading shows us that God, in Jesus, was present to the Samaritan woman at the well in the midst of her social isolation. Our Romans passage assures us that God is present in suffering, that God pours love into our hearts so that we might endure. And our reading from Exodus shows us that God was present to the Hebrew people even when they felt so very alone in the wilderness. The people had endured intense hardship in Egypt. God had delivered them, but then they found themselves journeying in the desert with no water. They got really worried, to say the least.

They forgot that God had led them out of Egypt and that God was leading them through the wilderness. They panicked and quarreled and tested God. They asked, “Is the Lord among us or not?” Yes, came the resounding answer, yes. God was with them. God is with us. God said to Moses, “Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.”

The people could only see the rocks, they could only see cold, lifeless stones all around them. On their own, they could not see that water does in fact course through rock formations. They needed God to help access the water that was already there. They needed God to unleash the gifts within God’s good creation.

In our current wilderness time with COVID-19, fear will try to turn our hearts to hard, cold, lifeless stone. Fear will try to tell us to panic and hoard supplies. And our sin, our human tendency to curve in on ourselves, will try to keep us fixated on ourselves and how this all impacts us.

Yet beloved people of God, there are deep waters of compassion and kindness coursing within each of our hearts. We have been baptized into Christ, who is living water for the world. As our reading from Romans today reminds us, “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” [in baptism]. And God is present with us even now to unleash this living water from within our hearts. And oh, dear ones, we need the waters of compassion and kindness to flow from our hearts now more than ever.

The world needs us to rise to this occasion and bring forth the love of God for the sake of the world that God so loves.

Psychologist Gretchen Schmelzer has written a powerful article entitled “This Can Be Our Finest Hour — But We Need All of You.”^[1] I’m going to read most of her article now as it is such an important word.

She writes: “For the vast majority of people nationwide and worldwide, this virus is not about you. This is one of those times in life, in history, when your actions are about something bigger. They are about someone else. They are about something greater, a greater good that you may not ever witness. A person you will save whom you will never meet.

 You may be healthy, and your kids may be healthy. You parents may be healthy. Everyone around you seems fine. And all the things you planned and the 2020 spring you thought you were going to have has been completely undone … It all seems fast, and out-of-proportion and disorienting. You look at each action and think—but it would be okay if I did that. It’s not so big. We worked so hard. They would be so disappointed.

Your losses are real. Your disappointments are real. Your hardships are real. I don’t mean to make light or to minimize the difficulty ahead for you, your family or community.

But this isn’t like other illnesses and we don’t get to act like it is. It’s more contagious, it’s more fatal—and most importantly, even if it can be managed, it can’t be managed at a massive scale—anywhere.

We need this thing to move slowly enough for our collective national and worldwide medical systems to hold the very ill so that all of the very ill can get care. Because at this time of severe virus there are also all of the other things that require care. There is still cancer, heart attacks, car accidents, complicated births. And we need our medical systems to be able to hold us. And we need to be responsible because our medical systems are made up of people and these a- mazing healthcare workers are a precious and limited resource. They will rise to this occasion. They will work to help you heal. They will work to save your mother or father or sister or baby. But in order for that to happen we have very important work to do. ALL OF US.

So, what is our work? Yes, you need to wash your hands and stay home if you are sick. But the biggest work you can do is expand your heart and your mind to see yourself, your family as part of a much bigger community that can have a massive—hugely massive—impact on the lives of other people … You can help by canceling anything that requires a group gathering. You can help by not using the medical system unless it is urgent. You can help by staying home if you are sick … by cooking or shopping or doing errands for a friend who needs to stay home … by watching someone’s kid if they need to cover for someone else at work … You can help by seeing yourself as part of something bigger than yourself.” From Pastor Amy: I would add, too, that you can join in public policy advocacy for the most vulnerable and for our communities. The ELCA Advocacy Network has issued an alert that we’ll share on our website and Face- book page.

Gretchen Schmelzer continues …

When the Apollo 13 oxygen tank failed and the lunar module was in danger of not returning to earth, Gene Kranz, the lead flight director overheard people saying that this could be the worst disaster NASA had ever experienced—to which he is rumored to have responded, “With all due respect, I believe this is going to be our finest hour.”

Imagine if we could make our response to this crisis our finest hour. Imagine if a year or two from now we looked back on this and told the stories of how we came together as a team in our community, in our state, in our nation and across the world. Your contribution to the finest hour may seem small, invisible, inconsequential—but every small act of ‘not doing’ what you were going to do, and ‘doing’ an act of kindness or support [or advocacy] will add up
exponentially. These acts can and will save lives. The Apollo 13 crew made it their finest hour by letting go of the word “I” and embracing the word “we.” And that’s the task required of us. It can only be our finest hour if we work together. You are all on the team. And we need all of you to shine in whatever way you can.”

Beloved of God, we often wonder if we can shine the way the world needs. Our hearts often feel like hard, cold, lifeless stone. But there are waters of kindness and compassion coursing within our hearts. God is present with us to unleash those waters, to let healing help flow for us and through us for the sake of the world.

As Romans assures us: With the presence of God, we know that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

Let’s take a moment for silent prayer.

^[1] http://gretchenschmelzer.com/blog-1/2020/3/10/can-we-make-this-our-finest-hour

Second Sunday in Lent
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Rev. Amy Zalk Larson

Click here to read scripture passages for the day.

Beloved of God, grace to you and peace in the name of Jesus.

Hasn’t the sunshine recently been wonderful? It’s such a balm to the soul to have brighter days, longer days, warmer days. I would like to put out that we’ve been enjoying bright days even before daylight saving time began, but that’s beside the point.

I love getting out in the bright sunlight to walk the dogs with my spouse Matt. I want to soak up all the natural vitamin D I can. It’s fun to run into neighbors and friends after we’ve all been cooped up inside. Judging by the foot traffic near my house this week, I’m not alone.

Yet being out when the sun is shining, especially in the summer, also makes you more visible and exposed. You should protect against UV rays with hats, sunglasses and sunblock. Also, people will see you, so maybe you don’t want to wear a ratty t-shirt and sweatpants. If you’re walking at, say, 10:00 a.m. on a weekday, people may wonder why you’re not at work or being more productive then. There’s a good chance someone will want to stop and chat and maybe you’re just not feeling social.

When you walk at night, in the dark, it can feel cozier, quieter, easier to walk without interruption. You’re a little less conspicuous, a little more sheltered.

Nicodemus seeks Jesus under cover of darkness, in the night. He’s interested in Jesus and wants to learn more. Yet, it seems he wants to keep his interaction with Jesus secret, hidden, private. He sees something intriguing in Jesus, but he doesn’t want to go public with it. Maybe Nicodemus is concerned about his own position and security. Jesus is upsetting the powers that be. Whatever the reason, Nicodemus doesn’t want to be exposed as he seeks Jesus out. He isn’t ready to follow Jesus in the full light of day. He needs some information, some answers, first. Seems reasonable. But Jesus, in typical Jesus fashion, refuses to give Nicodemus a straight answer about who he is and what he does. Instead, he tells Nicodemus that he must be born from above, that no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. That seems a little extreme.

Nicodemus is just gathering information and Jesus tells him he needs to be born from above. The word translated here as above can also be translated as again or anew. So, Jesus is saying
Nicodemus needs to be born from above or born anew or born again or all three. No matter how you translate it, it’s an intense metaphor. Being born involves change, disruption, transformation. It involves being pushed out of a dark, cozy womb into a much larger, riskier, and yet more bright, beautiful world.

Nicodemus totally misses that Jesus is using a metaphor. He interprets Jesus’ words literally, ask- ing, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the
mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus has offered Nicodemus a metaphor to transform his imagination and his relationship with God, but Nicodemus gets hung up on the literal and totally misses the point. As he does, he makes it clear that Jesus is right. Nicodemus does need to be born anew but, it seems, Nicodemus doesn’t particularly want this to happen.

He wants to stay hidden in a safe, dark place. He wants to be fed with simple, direct answers.

Nicodemus wants to remain comfortable in womb-like protective darkness and simplicity. But Jesus wants Nicodemus to live with God in the full light of day. He wants Nicodemus to move
beyond absorbing simple answers and into full participation in the kingdom of God. Jesus wants Nicodemus to be born anew. He wants the same thing for us. Jesus wants us to be born again into full participation in God’s kingdom of love, mercy and justice. God wants to push us out of our comfort zones into being more visible followers of the way of Jesus.

Certainly, there are times when we need comfort and nurture, times when we need to be sheltered like a child growing in the womb. The Hebrew word for womb is also the biblical word used to de- scribe God’s compassion. The Bible shows us our need for quiet, simple growth in the womb of God’s compassion. Yet, the Bible also gives us images of God laboring to give birth to God’s people, God laboring to push us into the fullness of who we have been created to be. God wants us to be born anew.

So how does this happen for us? These days, Christians struggle with this metaphor and its
implications. People speak of being born again as if it’s something we do, as if we are in control – think- ing that if we say the right things, do the right things, make a decision for Jesus, believe the right doctrine or get baptized the right way, then we will be born again. By implication, those who don’t do those things can’t be born again.

The thing we seem to forget is that the one being born has very little to with the whole birth pro- cess. The work of birth is done by the one who is giving birth! (As many of us know first hand!) So, being born anew depends upon God, not upon us. It is the work of the Spirit – the Spirit, like the wind, blows where it chooses. We have very little control over the process of our being born anew.

That’s a little unsettling and uncomfortable. Like Nicodemus, we’d probably prefer more direct answers, clear steps outlining what to expect in our life with God. We do get some assurances and some promises. We are assured, in the witness of scripture, that God has chosen to pour out the Spirit upon the church. We’re promised that we are each given the Spirit and a new birth in baptism.

But, that is just the beginning of a lifelong process of ongoing renewal and rebirth.The Spirit
doesn’t give us new birth once and then leave us be. We are reborn over and over. We are born again when we are convicted of our sin and yet assured that we have new life in Christ. We are born again through the very body and blood of Jesus. We are born again when life events disturb us, but still God brings new life out of them as God promises to do.

The Spirit continues to nurture us and push us out of our cozy, comfort zones and into a larger, riskier and yet more bright and beautiful world. In this larger work we are not safe. We come up against the powers that be, the powers that oppose God’s new kingdom and God’s passionate love for the whole world. We come up against sin and hatred and death. Yet in the face of all this, the Spirit gives us new birth, new life, again and again. The Spirit gives us what we need to live as participants in God’s kingdom of love, mercy and justice.

This is what happened for Nicodemus. Later in the Gospel of John we see that the Spirit pushed him to speak up for Jesus in a heated conversation between the temple police and other Pharisees. Then after Jesus’ death, the Spirit pushed Nicodemus to anoint Jesus’ body with oil at great risk to himself.

The Spirit birthed Nicodemus into new life. The Spirit does the same for us. We are reborn today.

Let’s take a moment for silent prayer.

First Sunday in Lent
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Rev. Amy Zalk Larson

Click here to read scripture passages for the day.

Beloved of God, grace to you and peace in the name of Jesus.

My parents had very different views of the wilderness. My dad so enjoyed the Boundary Waters as a teen and young adult. He was thrilled when my sister and I both fell in love with the area. Dad also loved backpacking in the mountains and rejoiced that I spent three summers working at a camp in Colorado.

My mom wasn’t so sure. She wanted to like the wilderness, but she was also a worrier. Whenever one of us would head out on a wilderness adventure, she’d do a ton of research on the dangers we might face. She’d buy safety products, four types of bug spray, and every possible form of sun protection. The sun protection was an especially good idea for her pigment deficient daughters, but we didn’t always appreciate that. Now that I’ve gotten lost out there a few too many times and after the appearance of a skin cancer spot, I can see the wisdom in my mom’s ways. Being in the wilderness makes you quite vulnerable.

Jesus found himself in a very harsh kind of wilderness experience – one that is usually more imposed than chosen, a kind we often do our best to avoid.

Yet, all of us experience harsh wilderness times within our souls – times when we feel vulnerable, exposed, raw, at the mercy of forces beyond our control. Sunblock and bug spray can do nothing to protect against these elements. We also enter collective wilderness seasons, as well – as the climate grows more volatile and the coronavirus spreads, as divisions deepen in our country, as events unfold in Syria and on our southern border.

When our souls feel vulnerable, we’re often tempted by things that give us the illusion of power and control, that offer a false security. In wilderness times, we’re tempted in many of the same ways Jesus was. Perhaps the temptations come from an actual Satan, a tempter. More likely they come from within us, but that’s beside the point.

What matters is that Jesus shows us a different way to be with the wilderness times. When Jesus was vulnerable and famished in the wilderness, he was tempted to choose a quick fix – to just turn stones into bread. All sorts of quick fixes are available to us these days, all manner of instant gratification. And in our vulnerable, wilderness times they can seem even more appealing: buy something, eat something, get away on vacation, try these five simple steps and you’ll feel better. Sign an online petition or post something on Facebook and you’ll change the world.

Our culture trains us to seek immediate solutions, but they are rarely the most helpful response.

They let us skip over the internal work we need to do in the wilderness of our own psyches, wrestling with hard truths, with our own biases and assumptions. Sometimes we need to be uncomfortable so there is more space within us for God to bring change, so that our hunger for God’s word and God’s guidance can grow.

In the wilderness, Jesus rejected the quick fix and instead relied upon God’s word. As he did, his commitment to God’s ways and his trust in God deepened. The same thing can happen for us in wilderness times. Except, notice that even as Jesus trusted God, he also didn’t just take a blind leap of faith. Satan tempted Jesus to just throw himself off a high pinnacle and trust God to catch him. Jesus discerned that this was a test and remembered scripture that says, “Don’t put God to the test.”

We often get the impression that trusting God means turning off our brains, abdicating personal responsibility and putting everything into God’s hands. But God gives us agency and intellect and expects us to use them.

I wonder if we put God to test when we simply pray for healing, peace and justice and then fall back and expect God to fix everything in our lives and our world. Jesus teaches us to pray differently – asking what needs to change within us. He calls us to spend time in the wilderness where we can better listen for what God wants us to do, where we discover how lost we get when we don’t follow in God’s ways. We especially get lost if we seek to use power and control rather than follow God’s way of love. This is a major temptation when we feel vulnerable. We want to go on the attack, stop our opponents, win arguments, prove others wrong – we want to put ourselves above others.

Jesus also faced the temptation when he was in the wilderness. Satan showed him the kingdoms of the world and promised Jesus could rule over them all – if only he made a deal with the devil. Instead of claiming power, Jesus remained faithful to God’s way of being. In him we see that change doesn’t come through power over others, it comes through being vulnerable and practicing love for ourselves and others.

When we find ourselves in wilderness times personally and collectively, it’s so tempting to try to protect ourselves, to try to avoid feelings of vulnerability. Yet the wilderness times can help us hunger for God, listen for God, and be reminded again that God brings change through love.

Wilderness times can be a powerful gift and during the season of Lent, the church intentionally enters the wilderness together. We practice hungering for God’s justice, we increase our times of prayer, and we recommit to following Jesus in acts of mercy and love.

As we face this wilderness together, we can trust that Jesus has gone before us into it and that he is with us in it now. We can also trust that God will minister to us in the wilderness, just as God sent angels to wait upon Jesus in the wilderness. Let’s join in a prayer for our Lenten wilderness written by Jan Richardson:

I am not asking you
to take this wilderness from me,
to remove this place of starkness
where I come to know
the wildness within me,
where I learn to call the names
of the ravenous beasts
that pace inside me,
to finger the brambles
that snake through my veins,
to taste the thirst
that tugs at my tongue.

But send me
tough angels,
sweet wine,
strong bread:
just enough.
Amen

Here we receive what we need for our Lenten wilderness – Christ’s presence here for you, sweet wine, strong bread – just enough, for you.