The Story of Your Life
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THE STORY OF YOUR LIFE
The Rev. J. Donald Waring
Grace Church in New York
The First Sunday in Lent
March 9, 2025
After his baptism, Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. (Luke 4:1-2)
Some time ago I was reading a psychology journal that included the case study of a man who is now in his late 40s. Robert’s most vivid childhood memory is of a rainy Saturday afternoon when he was eight years old. He was an only child, and none of his friends were around, so he was stuck in the house all day. His parents had argued that morning, and stormed off in their own directions. Now his mother was upstairs, and his father was off somewhere in the car. From Robert’s point of view, it would be just another day for him to occupy himself. His parents frequently fought, and were too distracted to pay much attention to his schedule.
Robert – or, Bobby, as he was known in those days – decided to play basketball. He would be Magic Johnson, and his opponents would be the dining room chairs. To inbound the ball, Bobby bounced it off an empty section of dining room wall. Unfortunately, he mishandled the pass. The ball slipped through his fingers and shattered an antique vase on the dining room table. Bobby’s mother heard the crash, rushed downstairs, gasped in horror at the broken family heirloom, and proceeded to give him the tongue-lashing of his young life. Bobby spent the rest of the day quarantined to his room. He remembers his parents revving up into another argument over dinner that very night. Just a few days later his mother and father explained to him that they would be getting a divorce.
Bobby began assembling the facts of his newly-fractured life as well as any eight-year old could piece them together. Despite the assurances of his parents, his school counselors, and his relatives that everyone loved him, he quietly came to a terrible conclusion that he could not shake from his mind: he was the cause of the strife. His misbehavior, his parents’ hushed conversations behind closed doors, pictures of his parents as a happy young couple before he was born, and finally, symbolically, the smashed family heirloom could not lie. The story of his life was that he was the difference-maker, and not in a good way. He was to blame for the breaking of his home.
Today’s passage from the Gospel of Luke reads almost like a case study in a psychology journal. The person working to sort out the story of his life would be Jesus. We tend to think that Jesus had his life all figured out, right from the start, almost as if, as a newborn infant, he thought to himself, “Aha, I’ve tricked them all. They think I’m a baby, but I’m actually God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, of one Being with the Father.” In truth, the Gospels give us a much more realistic narrative of a long, slow process by which Jesus came to grips with his identity. Just before today’s reading, Luke describes Jesus as about thirty years of age. What was Jesus doing before beginning his public ministry? We don’t know. The best assumption is that he was working in the family carpentry business in Nazareth. There he would be immersed in the rituals of his people, and he would study the Scriptures. All around him would be speculation about the coming of God’s Messiah. When would God send the redeemer to rescue the Jews from oppression? What sort of mighty king, or warrior, or prophet would be the one who came in the name of the Lord?
The genius of Jesus is that he recognized something no one else did. The Messiah would not be a triumphant warrior, but a suffering servant. In the prophecies of Isaiah (52:13 – 53:12), Jesus would read of a mysterious figure, sent from God, who would offer his life for the sins of the people. The death of the servant would restore fellowship with God. Not only did Jesus make the connection between the Messiah and the suffering servant, he was coming to the agonizing conclusion that his great vocation would be to fulfill the prophecies. His mission and ministry would be to lay down his life as an offering and sacrifice to God.
We can imagine the internal, external, and ongoing voices trying to lure Jesus off his divine path, to tempt him with a different story for his life. Internally, he would wrestle with the wisdom of giving up his perfectly good life. Why not stay in the carpenter’s shop and make useful things? Or become a baker and feed people loaves of bread. Externally, the voices of his people would speak common, worldly sense: that only military might or political skill could oust the Roman occupiers and bring glory back to Israel. Why not try on the robes of worldly authority to see if they fit, and muscle the kingdom of God into being through force of will? Or, if a public death is the Messiah’s fate, why not throw yourself from the pinnacle of the Temple in a spectacular gesture no one will miss? Now that would be a death worth remembering. “If dying is what you want to do, get on with it,” is how the temptation might have run in his mind. Such were the inner and external voices that tempted Jesus. In teaching his disciples who he was, and how he came to embrace his role as the Messiah, he would ascribe the tempting voices to the devil. Yes, he would resist the wiles of the devil. But Luke implies that the temptation to take on a different – dare we say, wrong – story for his life was ongoing. The devil departed until an opportune time. The devil would return.
So, here we are on the First Sunday in Lent, once again in heart and mind going off into the wilderness with Jesus to square off against the devil and temptation. The Gospel of Luke presents us with a portrait of Jesus that is more human, more down to earth than what we see in Matthew, Mark, or John. Thus, in Luke, Jesus is not only our savior, but also our example: not only our redeemer, but also our pattern. In his struggles we see our own struggles. In his temptations, we see our own temptations.
What do you make of the devil? Well, you can make of the devil what you will, but I see our ancient foe as a worker of deception – a twister of the truth – who ruins lives with a cunning manipulation of the facts. Think of the devil as any or all of the voices that tempt you to make the wrong assumptions about yourself, and buy into the wrong story of your life. What Jesus resisted in the desert was believing the wrong story for his life. What Robert, as an eight-year old, had no power to resist was assuming that all the family strife was his fault. It was not the truth. It was a lie. Yet once it attached itself to him it worked secretly and silently to unravel his life, almost like a virus brings down a computer. In later years Robert was conflicted by an inability to trust on the one hand, and the fear of being deserted on the other hand. It was only after his own marriage failed that Robert realized he was possessed – actually possessed – by the wrong story. It was time to change the narrative and resist the devil’s deception.
All of us can fall victim to the wrong stories for our lives. What wrong stories? My guess is that from the devil’s standpoint, any old wrong story will do, just so long as it prevents you from growing into the full stature of Christ. You may think too lowly of yourself, as one unworthy of God’s love, forgiveness, or even attention. Everything is your fault. Such voices deflate any notion that we are children of God with a divine purpose and calling. You may think too highly of yourself, as one smarter, holier, and frankly just more valuable than the average garden variety sinner muddling through life. Nothing is your fault. Such voices inflate our egos, as if we ourselves arose from the dust of the earth, and may be able to cut a deal so as not to return.
How do we resist the errant voices that lead us astray? Perhaps an example from nature may prove instructive. The clam is a mollusk with two identical shells that it holds together with one, large powerful muscle. The major predator of the clam is the starfish. Muscle for muscle, the clam is the stronger of the two creatures. The starfish has no muscle as strong as the clam’s. Nevertheless, the starfish has five arms, or legs, or appendages with many smaller muscles that it alternately rests and exerts when taking hold of a clam with its suction cups. At first the clam easily resists the pressure on its one large muscle. It is low-level, but unyielding. In time, the clam grows exhausted and unable to hold its shells closed any longer. The starfish wins, merely by its constant assault. Likewise, the barrage of lies that sin, the world, and the devil tell have the tendency to exhaust the powers of truth that try resist them. We see it happening on every level of society, from international affairs to our own private spiritual struggles. The more you hear something, the more it must be true, no matter how outrageous the claim.
What the Christian faith says is that the way of the clam is not the way of Jesus. To put on the full armor of God requires something completely other than one, big muscular effort. We become conquerors not by our own strength, but only through Christ, who loves us. Jesus didn’t go out into the wilderness under his own steam, but rather “full of the Holy Spirit,” and “led by the Spirit.” We, too, have access to the Spirit, who gives us power to become children of God.
One way we encounter the Spirit of God is through the gathered community of God’s faithful people. In today’s Old Testament reading, we heard in the book the Book of Deuteronomy (26:1-11) how Israel was about to enter the Promised Land. Before proceeding, Moses had many instructions to the people for how to remember the truth of who and whose they were, and how to counter the delusions they might be tempted to believe about themselves. Tell and re-tell the true story of how you came to possess the land, charged Moses. Remember that your forebears were drifting nomads: A wandering Aramean was my ancestor. Remember that you found yourselves enslaved, oppressed, and humiliated in Egypt. Remember that it was the Lord who heard your cry, rescued you, and brought you out of there. It is not by your own strength or force of will that you have come into this place, but by the grace of God. It is a free gift. Here then, for a people much tempted to forget the Lord – much tempted in the direction of self-reliance – was a call to remember God’s version of the story. The grace of God was the story of their life.
Indeed, God’s version of my life, and your life, is what we seek to hear during Lent. We hear it in the rituals of this gathered community. We hear it in the Word spoken by the prophets in the Scriptures. We hear it in the Word made flesh, Jesus himself offered to us in the Sacrament of bread and wine. Being restored to the image of Christ doesn’t happen all at once. For us, and for Robert, it is a lifelong process. The devil does, indeed, return at opportune times. But those who call on the name of the Lord, and rely on his strength, will be saved.
Welcome to Lent. We talk about giving things up during Lent. I would suggest that a spiritual need for all of us would be to give up some of the wrong stories we carry with us – to give up the inflated views of ourselves, or perhaps the deflated views of ourselves, and allow the truth of God’s love and grace to supplant them. I read recently of a young woman who had been going to therapy for years, apparently accomplishing very little. She came to think of herself as psychologically incurable, which became a strange sort of comfort because at least it made her something. Finally she went to a new therapist who said to her, “For me, you are a new client, and I don’t believe you are as sick as you think you are. Let’s begin today.” Sadly, the woman didn’t go back because she didn’t want to give up the story of her life she’d come to believe, no matter how wrong it was.
Whoever “they” are, they say that the best time to plant a tree was twenty-five years ago. The second best time is today. Likewise, the best time to call on the name of the Lord might have been yesterday. But the second best time is today.
Let’s begin today. Let’s begin this Lent.