The First Sunday in Lent - February 14

God Acted
Deuteronomy 26:1-11
Luke 4:1-13

The Old Testament reading appointed for today is from a portion of Deuteronomy that provides instructions for worship. They are written as a speech by Moses to the people, but they are very specific guidelines for worship. In a sense, they are an excerpt from an ancient Hebrew Book of Common Prayer.

The people are instructed to take the first fruits of the harvest; place them in a basket; gather together at the place of worship; then say: “Today I declare to the Lord your God that I have come into the land that the Lord swore to our ancestors to give us.”

Next, the priest takes the baskets of produce and sets them before the altar.

Then the people are instructed to say: “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor…” We had to memorize that passage in seminary, the passage that begins “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor…” Then it was translated “A wandering Aramean was my father.” The Hebrew word probably is “father.” It refers to Jacob, father of the twelve tribes of Israel.

This is a VERY important passage in the Hebrew Scriptures. Remember, it is recited by the people within worship. It has been described as the creed of the ancient Israelites.

We recite creeds, of course, in worship. In just a bit we’ll say together the Nicene Creed.

At their most fundamental level, think about what creeds are. They are statements of who we are, what identifies or defines us as a group. They describe how we understand our relationship with God. As we say them in worship, they have the power to form us as God’s people.

This creed sounds quite different from ours. Our Christian creeds are statements of belief. Sentences in our creeds start out “I believe” or “we believe”.

Listen to how sentences start in this creed:
[Jacob] went down to Egypt and there he became a great nation. (The Egyptians treated us harshly.)
We cried to the Lord.
The Lord heard our voice.
The Lord saw our affliction.
The Lord brought us out of Egypt.
The Lord brought us into this place, a land flowing with milk and honey.
So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O Lord, have given me.

These are action statements. And God is the subject of most of them. God’s action is the focus, rather than the peoples’ belief. This Hebrew creed, of course, has implications for the peoples’ beliefs about God, just as our creeds refer to ways that God has acted in our lives. But the primary focus is very different.

Could you imagine writing your faith story using active God statements?  Some of you know or have been taught the value of using “I” statements in some settings, particularly relationships. And they are valuable. But I wonder if we don’t use too many “I” statements in our relationship with God. Think about using sentences where God acts to describe your life. Or start with something smaller like the journey of this Lent. Or that just a day, today or tomorrow, and describe God’s action in your life. And not just in general terms like God is with me, or God loves me today, but in specific events of your life. God acted…

The exercise is a little tricky, at least for me. Because I don’t believe that God micromanages or predetermines every detail of our individual lives. But I do fervently believe that God is active in our individual lives in specific situations… and we often don’t notice.

Examples of action God statements we might be able to make:
God turned my heart from anger… this morning when so-and-so made me angry.
God heard my prayer for guidance…
God showed me the right way in the specific choice that lay before me…
God opened my eyes to see some need or wonder that I would not have seen on my own…
God saved me from temptation…

Lent, particularly today, draws our attention toward temptation. At the end of the journey of Lent will you be able to say anything about God’s actions in your life? We need God’s help to resist temptation. Only Jesus resists temptation on his own. On this first Sunday of Lent we always have one of the accounts of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness and Jesus’ power to resist temptation. Also on this first Sunday of Lent, always coupled with one of those readings, we have the collect where we acknowledge our weakness and cry out for God to help us, to save us, to strengthen us just where we need it. So, as we journey through Lent we might describe that journey with God statements.

Today I failed in my Lenten discipline, but in humility and penitence I turned to God and God forgave me.

Or, today God helped me to withstand temptation. It takes God’s help. It takes God’s action.

So try it. Try describing your faith, or your day, or your Lenten journey with sentences that describe God’s action in your life.

 For a model, we have the creed of our ancestors:
We cried to the Lord.
The Lord heard our voice.
The Lord saw our affliction.
The Lord brought us out of Egypt.
The Lord brought us into this place, a land flowing with milk and honey.