Sermon - First Sunday in Lent - Year C - The Rev. Jeffrey W. Mello - March 6th, 2022

To view a video of this sermon, click HERE.

Deuteronomy 26:1-11; Romans 10:8b-13; Luke 4:1-13

In her book The Dream of God, Verna Dozier writes,  “The important question to ask is not, ‘What do you believe?’ but ‘What difference does it make that you believe?’ Does the world come nearer to the dream of God because of what you believe?”

Belief is a tricky thing.  Many of us come to this place this morning with various understandings of what it means to say “I believe” or even “We believe” as we do every time we say the Nicene Creed.

What does it mean to believe?  And what does it mean that you believe?

Why do we even need to say the Creed, as I was asked recently after church, and not for the first time.

Well, there are a great many reasons we say the Creed.  And there are a great many reasons we say the Creed we do.

The Creed we say every Sunday was born of the Council at Nicea in the year 325 and amended in 381 at the council at Constantinople.

It was agreed that this Creed would never be changed, standing as a hymn of unity among Christians the world over.  Though the church would split between East and West in 1054, and despite further divisions and reformations, this Creed has remained a unifying cornerstone of our shared roots.

The Creed as we say it each Sunday is a hymn being sung by our siblings in Christ the world over.  It means that the Creed we will say in just a few minutes is the same Creed that was said in the subway tunnels and bomb shelters in the Ukraine earlier this morning, or even now as we say it.

That, for me, is reason enough.

We could talk about the difference between saying “We believe in” and “I believe that.”

We believe.  Not each one of us all the time, but as a collective body of Christ, we believe together in One God, in Jesus Christ, in the Holy Spirit.

Believing in is not believing that.  Believing in is giving ourselves over to a relationship.  It is dynamic.  It is something we do with our very bodies. 

Believing that is the territory only the mind; the intellect, or opinion.  

Think of the difference between saying that you believe in someone and that you believe that something.

We believe in.  We give our hearts to.

In the readings from scripture this morning we are given multiple examples of the difference between believing in something and believing that something.  

In the readings from Deuteronomy, in the Psalm, in Paul’s Letter to the Romans and in the Gospel of Luke, we are shown that believing in God ought to lead to behavior that demonstrates that belief.  It ought to make a difference in our lives that we say we believe.

In Deuteronomy, the Israelites are told how to respond to their belief that God delivered them out of slavery and into the land that was promised to them.  

They are to give the first fruits of the land away.  

If they believe that God delivered them with “a mighty hand and an outstretched arm,” they ought to act like it by doing the same to those who are now suffering.

In his letter to the church at Rome, the apostle Paul illustrates this point by writing that what we confess with our mouths is to be believed with our hearts.  What we say directs the actions of our hearts.  At least, it ought to.

And in Luke’s story of Jesus’ time in the desert, there are three temptations.  The devil tempts Jesus by reminding him that, if he wishes, he can have bread to quench his hunger, he can have power to escape his vulnerability and he can have certainty to extinguish any doubt.

Jesus responds to each of these temptations with a confession of what he believes in, reciting three different verses from Deuteronomy.  

“One does not live by bread alone” Deuteronomy 8:3

“Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.” Deuteronomy 6:13

“Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” Deuteronomy 6:16.

What Jesus believes in makes a difference in how he acts in this wilderness confrontation with evil.

Jesus could have given himself personal exemptions from each temptation.

He could get bread, while others starve.

He could grab power, while others remain at the mercy of powers and principalities.

He could end all doubt; his or anyone else’s, by making a public demonstration of God’s favor for him on command.

In the desert, Jesus could have drawn the line between the “haves” and the “have nots” with him on the side of the “haves.”  Instead, his belief in who God was, and who God was calling him to be, led him to place himself with those on the outside, with those on the margins.  With those who fear, doubt and hunger.  With us.

Friday night at our first gathering of Lenten House Church I made a comment about “redistricting privilege.”  I’m not sure if I heard that somewhere or made it up in the moment, but the image that I had in my mind was how often, throughout history, the pursuit of justice and peace has included moments when people on the margins have drawn the new line of justice just wide enough that they are now included in it.

I was thinking of white women winning the right to vote in 1920 at the exclusion of women of color, who would wait another  45 years.

I was thinking of cisgender gay men who worked hard for equality by sacrificing and excluding our transgender siblings.

I was thinking of those in leadership positions in the church who are divorced or who are women who still work to exclude the LGBTQ+ community from ordination or leadership in the church.

It seems that just about every time we have the chance to blow the windows wide open and let the Holy Spirit do her work, we forget what we profess to believe in and act out of the temptation to pay attention only to our own self-interests.

But Jesus shows us another way.  Jesus, throughout his life and ministry, consistently draws the line of God’s love and grace and mercy with all of humanity, all of God’s children inside it.

Where do we draw the line?

What we believe in ought to inform how we act in response to that belief.

“The important question to ask is not, ‘What do you believe?’ but ‘What difference does it make that you believe?’ Does the world come nearer to the dream of God because of what you believe?”

AMEN.

© 2022 The Reverend Jeffrey W. Mello