Scripture: Matthew 4:1-11
This is the first Sunday in Lent. I said Wednesday night at the Ash Wednesday service and also in the newsletter, that I find myself reflecting this year about what it means to walk humbly with God, kind of my personal Lenten theme. Many of you recognize that phrase as being the last part of the verse from Micah, Micah 6:8 to be exact, that says “and what does the Lord require but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God”. I am quite fond of that verse, as I know others of you are as well. It seems to sum up so simply, and yet so eloquently, what the life of faith consists of. But for whatever reason, I have been thinking about the walking humbly part, thinking among other things, that maybe it’s not so simple as it sounds. I don’t have much of an explanation as to why I find myself occupied with that particular phrase, but maybe I don’t need an explanation. It does seem to me to fit in to what I feel like the spirit of Lent is. To walk humbly with God.
I do recognize, however, that there is something, shall we say, questionable about making “to walk humbly with God” any kind of a Lenten theme. Preaching about it for instance. I have always considered preaching something of an un-humble activity. Not that it necessarily has to involve the most extreme kinds of self-righteousness or self-importance or sanctimoniousness. Hopefully it is possible for ministers to avoid the worst of all that. Still it has always struck me as sort of un-humble thing to do, preaching, to get up here and speak every Sunday, and expect people to listen. I made my peace with that a long time ago—just decided to say to myself that it is what it is and do it anyway—or I would have had to give up the ministry, which I didn’t want to do. But then you come to preaching about walking humbly with God and it seems a bit like a contradiction in terms, a little bit like preaching a sermon on how it’s more important to live your faith than to talk about it, which is a sermon a whole lot of ministers have given, including me, hopefully with some awareness of the humor of the whole thing.
So there’s a bit of a problem in my mind with preaching about walking humbly. There’s also a bit of a problem in paying any attention at all to the thought of walking humbly with God. Because, of course, as soon as you become self-conscious about it, as soon as you say to yourself that this is what you’re trying to do, and you have some thoughts about how to do that, and you begin to make some progress so that you start to think that maybe you’re getting to be not so bad at the walking humbly stuff—well, you can see where this is headed. The humble part begins to disappear rather rapidly. It would seem like the only way to get to the point of genuine humility would be not to think about it at all, to pay no attention, to be completely unaware. The only problem with that being that being completely unaware that humility might be a desirable thing also, in my observation, very seldom leads to genuine humility, genuine humility being quite a rare thing in any case. So since it can be easy to tie yourself up in knots over things like this, I decided to go ahead and risk it, recognizing that it is a risk, to go ahead and think about, and preach about, walking humbly with God.
Where to start! How about with Jesus, and the story of the temptation, traditionally a story that is read at the beginning of the Lenten season, because Lent begins with the beginning of Jesus’ ministry and the stories follow him down the road that leads to the cross, the end of his ministry. I have realized, somewhat to my surprise, as I have spent some time thinking about walking humbly with God, that this concern about walking humbly with God is really at the heart of a lot of how I relate to Jesus, both in positive and in negative ways. There was a time when I struggled, struggled with great seriousness and intensity, over the doctrines and titles that we have surrounded Jesus with. The dual nature of Christ, was he both divine and human, fully divine—God—and fully human somehow at the same time. Was he Christ, messiah, savior, and if you said yes to those things, what other beliefs went along with it. I struggled with all those things. I won’t say I have stopped struggling with those things, and I certainly won’t say that I have settled all those questions.
But gradually, over the years, I have put all that to one side, feeling the need neither to positively affirm nor positively deny all the titles and doctrines surrounding Jesus. In my evolving relationship with Jesus, I have come to understand him as a way of understanding God, a way of having God revealed to me, a way of seeing into the heart and will of God, seeing through a glass darkly to be sure, but nevertheless having the life of God illumined for me through Jesus. I am content to say all those things and to let the doctrinal issues go. They somehow don’t seem quite so important to me any more.
Where I do find myself still struggling some with Jesus, I realize, is over this question of walking humbly with God. There are places in the gospel stories where Jesus, frankly, doesn’t come across as very humble. Where he talks about himself, for instance, describes himself as the way and the truth, says that no one comes to God except through him and that whoever loves father and mother more than me is not worthy, speaks as though he knows the future, tells the disciples what lies ahead and sets off toward Jerusalem at the end of his ministry with heroic bravery, knowing full well what is in store. All of this and more is there in the gospel stories. To be honest, I wish it weren’t, but it is. I say I wish it weren’t because I have to say that when Jesus talks that way or is presented that way by the gospel writers, he loses me. Not that there aren’t ways to interpret those passages that can be helpful, not that I can’t get anything out of reading those portions of the gospel, but mostly the Jesus of these passages is not the one who gets my attention or who touches my spirit.
The Jesus who does touch my spirit is also in the gospels. He is the Jesus who on more than one occasion didn’t want to talk about who he was, what titles or dogmas should be attached to him, who on more than one occasion, as Corey Walker pointed out last week, told other people not to talk about who he was, maybe because there were other, more important things to talk about, who said to someone who approached him and called him “good teacher”, “why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone”, the Jesus who needed down time, sometimes felt abandoned by God, who wept at the death of a friend and over the state of the world, and so forth. This Jesus gets my attention and touches my spirit because although I have come to look to Jesus to illumine the life of God for me, I also, and even more, look to Jesus to illumine the life of faith for me. I want Jesus to reveal not only something of the heart and will of God, but something of what it means to walk humbly with God.
The Jesus we meet in the story of the temptations is very much the second Jesus. In spite of the supernatural parts of the story, the Jesus we meet here is a very human person who tries to establish from the beginning what the faithful life is going to consist of for him. Twice he refuses to lay claim to the title, Son of God. He refuses to makes claims as to what he can do because he is God, turning stones into bread, for instance, or what God will do for him, saying instead that it’s not right to put God to the test. The life of faith, certainly not a life of faith that is walking humbly with God, is not a quid pro quo where we do something for God expecting God to do something for us in return. The life of faith is not about rewards at all. It is not only not about receiving the kingdoms of the world, it is not about the good health, happiness, contentment, satisfaction you have a right to expect if you are a person of faith, a really good person of faith, a truly humble person of faith. It is not about protection from harm or sorrow. To walk humbly with God is to not imagine that our faith or our justice seeking or our mercifulness is of such high quality that it places God in our debt. To walk humbly with God is not to negotiate deals with God. To walk humbly with God is not to claim to know, and to be at peace with not knowing, all about the outcomes of faith.
At least this is what I hear Jesus saying to me in the story of the temptations. It is just a beginning to be sure. In his confrontation with Satan Jesus says some things about what walking humbly with God is not. It occurs to me that there are some other things that walking humbly is not. It is not, for instance, the same thing as being compliant, obedient, and non-rebellious, though I think sometimes it gets confused with those things. It is also not to be confused, walking humbly with God is not to be confused with the humility that has sometimes been forced on people, a humility that someone else has decided is your proper place and things should stay that way.
But I’m getting ahead of myself here. There is much more to be said about what walking humbly with God is not. There is also much more to be said about what walking humbly with God is. Those things will have to wait. In the meantime, may we know ourselves to be supported by angels, as the story says Jesus was at the beginning of his faith walk, may we know ourselves to be supported by angels, some of whom are very close at hand. Amen
Jim Bundy
March 5, 2006