Stories

Every family has stories to tell. Some families have stories that only go back a generation or two; others have richly embellished stories stretching back through several generations. I work with a deacon who has lived in this area for many years. When someone’s name comes up, he can tell me who the parents and grandparents were, what they did for a living, how the family fared through the decades, and sometimes the histories of the spouses of that individual. It is truly remarkable.

“A wandering Aramean was my ancestor,” the people of Israel are supposed to recite when they reach the Promised Land. The reference is to Jacob, a nomad from many generations previous, the grandson of Abraham. What would the world be like if Christians had continued to use that early confession, reminding themselves that they, too, had an Abrahamic faith, like Jews and Muslims? Would Islam have been better known, so that it didn’t burst into consciousness only through its militant forms? All Jews were not considered terrorists when Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated. Christians were not all equated with Scott Roeder, an anti-abortionist who killed an abortion-performing doctor in church. Why, then, are all Muslims considered potential terrorists by so many people?

“For there is no distinction between Jew or Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and generous to all who call on him,” Paul writes. I cannot say that all religions are different routes up the same mountain. It is clear that some take routes up very different mountains, with very different goals. At the same time, I cannot say that all religions except Christianity are devoid of truth. Even Paul did not say that. Yet he saw that the clearest route to God is through Jesus Christ, God’s greatest self-revelation of who God is. Paul said that to believe in Jesus Christ and confess him with the lips is to make oneself open to the saving grace that God intends for all of us.

On the first Sunday in Lent, we see just what kind of son Jesus chooses to be in the great story God has laid before him. Although the devil says, “If you are the Son of God…” the Greek could perhaps better be translated “Since you are the Son of God” – given that you’re God’s Son, just what kind of Son will you be? Will you be one that uses magic to feed yourself when you’re hungry? Will you, like Faust, believe that the devil can give you power and authority that is not his to give? Will you make God serve you instead of serving God? To all of these temptations Jesus replies by quoting the Bible, even parrying the devil’s misuse of a psalm.

What does it mean for us to be a child of God? How will we respond when temptations come upon us? How do we see ourselves in the story of our faith, in this long-lived and many-branched family we call Christianity? There is always the temptation to focus on weakness, on the inability to be all that God desires us to be. But Paul gives us this promise: “No one who believes in him will be put to shame.” It is not what we do that gives life; it is what God has done for us. Through baptism, we have already been taken into the family. God already accepts us as children through the grace of Jesus Christ. We are already part of the story. What remains to be seen is what kind of children in that story we will be.

Lent 1: Deuteronomy 16:1-11; Psalm 91; Romans 10:8b-13; Luke 4:1-13. I also need to acknowledge the ecumenical lectionary group I attend, and John L. Esposito’s lectures on Great World Religions: Islam.