AND WAS MADE MAN
Matthew 4:1-11

A sermon given by the Rev. Richard H. Taylor
February 13, 2005 / First Sunday in Lent

Some of you know that during Advent I had some strange encounters. I think they were possibly triggered by the national United Church advertising campaign, "no matter where you are in life's journey, you are welcome here." We were the church locally mentioned most often in conjunction with the advertisements. What seemed to happen was that the community suddenly seemed to realize that we were Open and Affirming, welcoming gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people into our Christian community.

I got a long message on my answering machine at home telling me I was going to burn in hell forever.

And I had a woman call me to set up an appointment. She said she wanted to talk about "membership in Beneficent Church." I thought that was rather strange, since I did not recognize the woman's name, and didn't ever remember meeting her at worship. Any way, when she came she brought another woman with her. They had come across a paper describing our welcome, that we were ONA, and they had come to challenge me by reading Bible passages to me, I presume hoping that I would repent.

It was an interesting morning. We covered a lot of theological territory. One of the women said to me, "we know that your church does so much more for the poor than most churches do. How can you be so good at that, and so wrong on this?"

As they read passages of scripture to me, I tried to respond in ways to indicate that we did not take the Bible literally. I said the Bible is full of contradictions, and we are required to search for that which is most gracious and loving.

They seemed certain that the Bible was always literally true.

To address that idea I introduced the story of the Good Samaritan. You remember the story: a man is going down the Jericho Road and is set upon by robbers who beat him up and steal his goods. He is left on the side of the Road, and a priest, and later a Levite pass by. Finally a Samaritan, a foreigner, a person of another race and religion comes and helps. Jesus asks who proved neighbor to the robbed man?

So I asked the ladies, is the story of the Good Samaritan literally true, did it really happen, or did Jesus make it up to illustrate his point? They were convinced it literally happened. Then I asked, how did Jesus, then, know about the story? Was Jesus actually standing there along the Road and watching the whole thing? Well, no, they couldn't accept that. Jesus is supposed to be loving. If Jesus had been there he would have helped. Then I asked again. How did Jesus know the story? Did somebody tell him it? But, I cautioned, if somebody told the story to Jesus they may have gotten a point wrong, or may have seen it from one perspective, and not understood the whole story. So did Jesus just believe their version of the story, and repeat it, like any common gossip? Could Jesus have gotten it wrong? Well, that was also not acceptable. Jesus, being perfect, they felt would know the story. Jesus would not repeat common gossip.

So I asked again. Was the story literally true, and if so, how did Jesus know it? Well they actually had what seemed to them an easy answer for me. They said Jesus was God. Jesus knew everything. Jesus was able to see and know everything going on on the Jericho Road, and know it in a fully true way. I did not then chose to ask why he then didn't fly down there like Superman and help the guy?

But as they told me about Jesus' magical Godly powers, I had a sinking feeling. Deep in my inner conscience I heard a voice telling me, "You are more conservative than these ladies are." My faith is really more traditional than theirs. What a strange feeling that was.

You see, on this issue I believe the Creed. The Nicene Creed says that Jesus Christ who is God, "who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven… and was made man…" The Creed teaches that the love of God for humanity, for people in this existence, was so great that God in Christ gave up the heavenly realm, was "born," "was made man," and was "crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate." I believe that God blessed, hallowed, and redeemed our human existence, by fully experiencing it, by walking in our shoes in our sensibilities, in our day to day realities. Jesus didn't have any magical powers to see what was going on on the Jericho Road when he wasn't there. He simply had to make do on the best he knew how just like us. He was truly human.

Isn't that what today's text was really about? Living on this Earth is often difficult, often a desert, often a trial. So we want easy answers. We want to look like we can solve all the world's problems and feed everybody. We want special powers to make us look loving and compassionate. And we want to show off. We want to go on "Fear Factor" and snap our fingers and get angels to protect us. And we want power. We want to be able to make decisions for all the countries of the world.

We humans want magical powers. When Jesus was human he wanted miraculous powers. But that was temptation. What God wanted from Jesus was not detached magic. What God wanted from Jesus was a real honest living in the stickiness and difficulty of human reality. To be truly loving, Jesus had to shed his magical powers and experience like we do. No magical power in the wilderness. No magical power when thirsty at the Samaritan well. No magical power in the Governor's court, nor on the way to cross. "And was made man." "And was crucified also."

My two visitors wanted desperately to believe in a Jesus who always had a magic answer for everything. So if you are gay, or have cancer, or are out of a job, you must be distant from Jesus; because if you were with Jesus you would have the right abracadabra words with a wand, or the secret magic potion to make it all better.

But my Jesus is more human than that. My Jesus, in order to understand what it is like to be me left the magic powers at the door, and was made man. He put himself so much into our human experience that he could end up gay, or get AIDS or cancer, or lose his job, or get crucified. He was totally there with us. He was fully human.

And that is what Jesus teaches us it means to be fully divine. To be fully divine means that you are so loving, so caring, so compassionate, that you are willing to give up your magical powers, give up your position of power or prestige, give up your security in the bank, and sit down with the prostitutes and the sinners, and be homeless, and hug the lepers, and leave the superiority complex at the door.

And that is what Jesus is inviting us to do, when Jesus invites us to the forty day and forty night desert journeys of spiritual renewal. Do you think you are pretty juiced up? Come to the place where it is dry. Do you think you have all the answers, come to the place where you answers no longer work. Do you think you can change the world? Come to the place where people get crucified.

Love may mean throwing away the desire to be magical.

What does it mean for the Christian journey? Perhaps the most loving thing we can do might be to give up the idea that we are in charge, that we see everything, and to take on the attitude of not knowing, of being in danger of a cross - and in that reality learning how to live.

Amen.