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tom long name not unknown to many of you once said that on any given sunday morning preacher could look out over the congregation and realized that the majority of the people there almost didn't come Well on days like

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today. I would guess that 100% of us almost didn't come. I waited hopefully for bad news about the weather until about two in the morning and then gave up and finished the sermon. Oh, one

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of the ways to tell that you're getting older if in fact you need ways to tell that is that you increasingly talk about the way things were when you were younger. And there are two reasons for this

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. At least two reasons. And what is that you have more material to talk about? You know , when I was a kid, that phrase used to comprise the last decade of my life instead of

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the last half century. And the second reason is that the number of people who might be able to contradict you is shrinking since more and more of them are either demented or dead. So I will proceed

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. In spite of the fact that I am fully aware that the praise when I was a kid is almost always followed by something annoying. So when I was a kid, land was one of those weird

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things that only Catholics did. He took Protestant Children . In the 1950s of which I was one holidays , religious holidays were not about giving something up, they were about getting things, christmas presents, easter

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eggs. We would have been in gradualist if we had seen people with sooty crosses marked on their foreheads , walking around doing things. And we were pretty sure that the Catholics worshipped the virgin mary instead of

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jesus christ and without that avoiding meat on Fridays or any other days was gross superstition and we resented having to eat tuna casserole every friday in our school cafeteria made with the recipe straight out of the zombie cookbook

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. Although it was how I very moderately amusing to stagger up to someone after lunch and say I just ate a ton of casserole and then pretend to throw up on them. Yeah, well things are better

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now in many respects and I am glad that I've lived to see that Protestants today tend to take ash Wednesday and lent rather seriously, which is required if one is going to take easter seriously, the desert

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to cross and the empty tomb are all bound together . And we must acknowledge the reality of the first two. If we are to appreciate the reality of the third. Now, the story of jesus time

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in the desert, in Mark's Gospel is exactly one sentence long. He was in the wilderness, 40 days tempted by Satan and he was with the wild beast and the angels waited on him. Mark doesn't

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have the dialogue between jesus and satan that are found in Matthew and luke. He doesn't have that debate where the son of God and the enemy of God were throwing bible versus at each other like rocks.

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But in that one sentence, he was tempted by satan and he was with the wild beast and the angels waited on him. In that one sentence, Mark comprehends almost the entire creation assembled are the angels

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, the beasts, and even the fallen one who was once an angel, as the story goes, and with them is jesus, The one who is fully divine and fully human, the creator and the

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created are there assembled. And that it seems to me is entirely appropriate. The gathering of the created order should be, and rightly is the prelude to jesus ministry. That gathering represents a covenant, not

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the covenant God made with Abraham or with David. Not the covenants with the chosen people or the king of the chosen. Instead, it is the covenant with all creation. The covenant that God announced unilaterally

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when the flood had receded. I want you to listen to it again. Yes, as for me , God said, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you and with every living

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creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark . I established my covenant with you that never again

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shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth God said, this is a sign of the covenant that I make between me and

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you and every living creature that is with you for all future generations. I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I

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bring clouds over the earth, and the bow was seen in the clouds. I will remember my covenant that is between me and you, and every living creature of all flesh, and the water shall never

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again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the cloud I will see it . Mhm. And remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on

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the earth. The universality of this covenant is repeated over and over, every living creature, all flesh , all future generations, every living creature of all flesh. This is God's promise to all that God

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had made. It is the promise of love. No matter how angry God became and the the bible records many times when God became angry. Indeed, no matter how angry God became, and no matter

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what punishment God visited upon those who rebelled against the divine rule. There was this promise I will preserve what I have made. And so at the beginning of the drama of redemption, the creatures gather and

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through the very presence of the incarnate Lord the covenant and the promise is renewed. I will preserve what I have made the writer of the Gospel according to Mark. It says almost nothing about what happened out

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there in the desert. But he implied everything. The covenant with all creation is renewed is in fact embodied Now. It's almost impossible to avoid importing the dialogue between jesus and satan that we find in Matthew

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and luke into Mark. And in those dialogues, jesus testing is made explicit, Satan says. In effect, prove yourself show what you can do. Your hungry make bread. You're full of hesitations about

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your tasks, jump off the temple, see what happens, or just fall down before me and I will give you power overall now. It's easy, I think, to miss the subtlety of those temptations

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. Oh, satan did was offered jesus. What Jesus already had, The one who had a multitude with a few morsels of food could surely make bread out of its tone. The one who walked across

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the raging sea could certainly survive a fall from the temple roof. The Lord of the Universe had all the power that could ever be needed or wanted. So satan had nothing new to offer, jesus.

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The actual temptation was to misuse jesus power to use the power for its own sake, to satisfy only physical needs are just to show off or to commit the ultimate travesty of having the creator bowed to the

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creature. The temptations were all directed at jesus using power for power's sake rather than using power in the service of love. And they're in the gathering of all the creatures. Jesus said no to all of

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that and he kept saying no throughout his ministry, it was not a one time thing. Those temptations were always there. Jesus kept saying no, up to the time of the cross and the hour of

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his death. No, I will not use power without love. Mhm. So let's return to the desert. Let's return to the gathering of the creatures and someone was missing. Who was not there,

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civilized humanity. Was not there urbanised, sophisticated homo sapiens of fabulous Bipin, according to Aristotle was not there. The desert by definition was not the city . the work of redemption, jesus teaching and preaching

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and healing could not happen out in the desert. It was going to have to take place in the city. The place where human capacity was always one step away from human self idolatry. The place where

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CAin, the proto murderer chose to dwell, the place where CAin's descendant Lemack boasted, I've killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. If Kane is avenged seven fold, truly

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Islamic, 77 fold. The place the city in chart where power was an end in itself, the place which embraced all that jesus rejected. Had jesus surrendered to satan's tempting, he would have abrogated God's

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covenant with all, had power triumphed over love. The cross would have been impotent the desert, the place of angels and wild beast. And even the tempter, the desert would have been held itself rather

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than the place of lent. The place of repentance and renewal. But she just said no. And now we Protestants are entering lent and we are summoned to remember jesus time in the desert. To remember

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in the strongest possible sense, not simply to recall , but to relive. We are called to give something up and what shall it be? Well, let me suggest this. Let me suggest that this

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land. We should not simply give up something for a little while. We should give up something forever . We should do something more than swear off coffee or the Internet or desserts for 40 days. That

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that's not enough in times like ours. Rather we should make the choice that jesus made and give up our idolatry of power. Someone said that the United States is the richest, most powerful nation in the

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entire history of the planet. I don't know if that's true. I don't know how one would even measure that, But it does seem to be the case that the contempt, contemporary, civilized humanity of

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which our nation is a part, is threatening the life of the planet through the consequences of our technological development. Nobody intended this and few anticipated it. But it seems to be true, and it seems

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to be true that some of the changes that threaten us might soon be irreversible. And that means that we humans through our very intelligence and ingenuity and inventiveness , we humans have set our faces against God's covenant

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with all. The problem is huge and we are small. None of us as individuals is able to single handedly save the planet. But we can do something. We can at least align our lives with

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God's covenant love and care for all living things. So this lent might be the time to start. This lent might be the time to dedicate ourselves to living a little more simply, a little less wastefully

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, a little less carelessly and a little more compassionately . We can be neighbors to our neighbors, rescuers to the poor homes, to the homeless. We can in short be more loving and less power mad

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junkies, not just this lent, but forever. None of us can do everything, but every single one of us can do something more. Then we are doing now. We can be part of the

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covenant with all, rather than the enemies of it for too long and far too often. We have said yes, when jesus said no, and it