Six Words

Devil’s Test? No Chance. Love prevails

Luke 4:1-11 

Lent 1                  February 10, 2013                Rev. Karla Miller

Legend has it that Hemingway was once challenged to write a story in only six words. His response? “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” 

In November 2006, The StoryTeller’s SMITH Magazine asked their readers, “Can you tell your life story in six words?”  Apparently, the six word memoir caught on like wild-fire, so much so that Smith magazine published several book collections of these memoirs.  

Here are some examples:

Cursed with cancer, blessed with friends

I still make coffee for two 

Catholic school backfired.  Sin is in!

Extremely responsible, secretly longed for spontaneity. 

The psychic said I’d be richer.

I threw away my teddy bear.  

What about you? What would be your six word memoir? Or current state of being?  Just try it--(congregation had pencils and paper to do this.)   

Tired of winter, dreaming of flowers. 

Don’t test me, drivers in Boston!

Love my family, clay, and God. 

3 dogs. 8 cats. Happy Family. 

Tenant in my own home. Pets. 

I first learned about the six word memoir in a week-long workshop presented by UCC pastor and author, Rachel Hackenberg.  She challenged us ( a room full of lay and clergy women) to capture the essence of biblical texts in six words.   

For example, 

remember the story of the prodigal son and his older brother?   The youngest son demands that his father give him his inheritance now, so that he might enjoy life. He packs his bags, lives a life of hedonism until he has squandered everything, and comes crawling back to his father.  His father is so overjoyed, he throws a party.   In the next scene, the older brother grumbles that he had done everything right in his life, had stayed home and worked hard, and his dad had never given him a party for being good!

The father replies that everything he has is his eldest’ sons--and the joy is because he thought the youngest son was gone, lost forever.  

How would you sum up that story?  My colleagues came up with two:

Where is momma in this story?

Only God is Good.  Shut up. 

Today, we find ourselves in the season of Lent.   The fourty days the early church fathers (or somebody) designated as sacred, before Easter.    Over the years, in myriad of Christian traditions, Lent has taken on a variety of meanings. 

Some people take on a spiritual practice, like writing a prayer a day, or reading through the gospels, or intentionally take five minutes of silence.

Some people “give up” something decadent, like chocolate, facebook, broccoli, or scotch.  

As a young Christian, I used to be an avid “Lent-keeper”    One year, in college, I abstained from cookies and ice cream, which was huge.   As a teen-ager, I would go to church every Lenten Wednesday that I could, and collect coupons.  At the end of Lent, if you had attended at least 5 worships, you received a lapel pin--of a cross or fish or some other Christian symbol.  

These days, I wonder what really might make a meaningful lenten discipline.  Because that is what it is about, right?  Discipline that results in some kind of growth? My friend Terri says that Lent is a season that invites us to do three things. I am going to to tell you what they are  in six words:

1. Remember You. 
2. Practice Faith. 
3. Be Grateful. 

That’s it. 

Six words to describe three simple sounding elements of spiritual discipline that are any thing but simple.  

Our text today reveals this. 

Jesus was “led” by the Spirit into the wilderness.   

He had just experienced the waters of baptism in the river of Jordan, 

and it was there that God claimed him as his own.  

Jesus remembered who he was,

a beloved, created child of God. 

It was only with this deep sense of self that he could indeed follow God into the wilderness.  

In Luke’s version of Jesus being in the wilderness, we learn that he had been fasting for fourty days.  It is only when he is at his weakest, most famished state of being that the Testing begins. 

Jesus is offered all that might be nourish him, make him powerful, and great.  And yet, in spite of the very real temptations, Jesus practices his faith, by  by drawing on the traditions and teachings of his childhood.  At that moment, I wonder if Jesus really believes what he is quoting, but the act, the practice seems to be what is important. You see, faith is not belief.  It is an action, no matter how much or little you believe.      Frederick Buechner writes that faith is “less a position on, than a movement toward, less a sure thing than a hunch.”   

And finally, the testing, the tempter goes away. Finally there is relief.  Finally, Jesus can move on and be all who he is.  

Can’t you just imagine Jesus praying these six words, “Thank God that is all over!” 

I summed up this passage as Devil’s Test? No Chance. Love prevails. 

I know. It’s fantastic, right? Strong and sure and convicted. 

However, I am not sure it truly reflects the essence of the struggle in the wilderness. 

My friend Sharon, tongue in cheek,  came up with these six words:

“For the Love of God, “No!”

and then she wrote:

“Went out. Roughed up. Left Saved.”

Have you ever just been at the end of your rope? Where your heart is blistered by the pain of circumstances, and everything is out of control?     Have you been led or pulled into the wilderness--a kind of time out of self-denial and testing so that maybe, something might change? 

Recently I read an interesting memoir by a woman named Cheryl Strayed (her real name) called Wild.  At 26, she was devastated by death and personal catastrophe.  She impulsively decided to hike 1100 miles along the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State--alone.  Never mind she had no experience as a long distance hiker--in fact, she never had backpacked before her first night on the trail.  It was an romantic idea with a promise of transformation.  

In reality, it was a stupid idea--she had far too much stuff, she couldn’t lift her pack, her feet were raw with blisters and blood because her boots didn’t fit, she almost starved, she faced rattlesnakes and black bears, intense heat and record snowfall. 

And yet she continued on her wilderness journey, 

sometimes having to change her plans and goals.

At times she barely survived. 

She made some really stupid decisions. 

Things didn’t go as she had planned.  She had to adjust and make changes.  

She had to give up a lot of stuff she thought she needed. 

She had to survive without what she really needed, but had already given away. 

She got roughed up. 

And yet, at the end of that journey, 

She did leave “saved.”  

In that journey, though...

I think she remembered who she was--

a person of worth, of value, of purpose. 

She remembered that really, all we have is right NOW, this moment, this life to live. 

She learned to practice faith--faith that she would survive the journey....

And at the end of it, in spite of the being roughed up, 

She was grateful. 

To be alive.  To have accomplished.  To really experience life. 

So, 

have you lost your way?  We all do, almost everyday. 

 (I can’t tell you how many times I day lose my way and forget that I am a beloved child of God.)

are you being led...to risk a little, to wander in the wilderness...

are you willing to look honestly inward?

Are you already there, being roughed up? 

Remember You are beloved.  or let someone else remember for you. 

practice your faith...even if that is simply hoping that your hunch is right...

and remember, 

that even flowers bloom in the desert, 

and that there are always angels that will bear you up. 

Because, in six words, or six-hundred words, 

this I know in three words:

Love prevails,

Always. 

Amen.