Vision First

Habakkuk 2:2-3; Mark 1:9-15

This first Sunday of Lent we generally start with the account of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness.  This year we are concentrating on the Gospel of Mark, who only writes of the occurrence and not interactions with Satan.  Mark mentions Satan three other times.  The next time is in chapter three, and refers to “Satan casting out Satan.” Jesus is making the point that even Satan doesn’t succeed split, then in chapter 4 is in the explanation of the Parable of the Sower.  The last is in chapter 8 and is actually the lectionary scripture for next Sunday.  This one is the most pertinent to today’s reading.  It is when Jesus tells Peter to get behind him, Satan.  Right after Peter answered correctly who Jesus was. 

Of course in the first chapter of Mark Satan is the tempter but what is he tempting?  In chapter 4 with Satan coming and taking the word from the one’s on the human created path.  That is not where the seeds will grow, so Satan seems to tempt the word away with the what we humans create.  This is goes right into Jesus’ use of the word “Satan” for the man who just identified Him correctly.  Jesus knows that Messiah has a connotation of an earthly king.  He realized when Peter rebuked Him about the way being the death and resurrection, Jesus knew Peter mind, “was not on divine things but on human things.”  Peter was thinking of the packed down earthly path was the way, but Jesus knows that is Satan’s temptation.  That we take the ways of the world to be the ways of the church.

So when Jesus went from His baptism, into the wilderness, driven by the Spirit.  What was the temptation according to Mark?  For Jesus to start His ministry it was important He did not sin, but the ultimate sin would have been for him to rule the earth like an earthly king.  It is clear this temptation by Satan was squashed, for as John reported in his Gospel, when Jesus feed the 5,000 they wanted to force him to be king, he slipped away.  And found the twelve in the middle of the Sea of Galilee in rough water, thus demonstrating with His power over the elements, was not a king as they know earthly kings.

Now before I was a minister I was a pastry chef in a Manhattan Restaurant.  I was thinner then and so often people would state they would not be so thin if they did what I did.  Well little did they understand it was hard physical work as well as you do get tired of the desserts.  I would encourage my workers to always try the desserts for it was important to keep things tasting their best, and they would consume the least attractive versions.  It was never an issue.

I do remember my first week as the head pastry chef, three weeks into the job (it was a surprise to me as well).  I was working on a hazelnut linzer torte with a fig filling as I had developed at a previous restaurant.  I made a small version for the chef.  This was inspired by the fact the kitchen had a plate with black mission figs, but they were not using enough.  She suggested using Madeira Wine to enhance the fig filling.  So the next morning before anyone was at the restaurant, I went to the bar to sign out my two cups of wine.  I started by searching the well and then the lower shelves.  I found no Madeira Wine until I looked about eye level (important to note I’m tall).  So I signed out the wine and made my tasty torte and served it with cardamom ice cream (it was very tasty).

So the next day when the bartender arrived he came to talk to me.  Well yell in my face, and as I took it I did realize that the numbers he mentioned would mean the 12 slices of that dessert at 12 dollars would not pay back those two cups of madeira.  I knew the chef had said Madeira and I know I did not miss any cheaper version in the bar.  When I apologized to her, she apologized to me, that I was not yet informed of the cooking madeira and red wine in the kitchen.  I never really got upset at the bartender for even today I can feel my blood boil when someone cuts off the entire top of a strawberry to remove the stem.  It is simple with a small pairing knife to remove just the green, and waste no strawberry meat.  In the kitchen I had talked to many assistants about that, even making some go back to cut the green out of the scraps for a strawberry sauce.

For in a restaurant it is really a business.  The vision may include tasty gourmet food, a wonderful dining ambiance, but it comes down to money.  It is all about making a profit. The church does need to be in the black, which is difficult for many congregations.  However the vision cannot be the worldly path.  That path seems the easiest and is the path for businesses, but the church is different.  It is not of this world.

Our path is among the good soil.  We are rooted in God’s Word and Love and yet we are running off the path that Satan tempts us with.  We need a vision that resembles the one Habakkuk writes of:

Then the Lord answered me and said:
Write the vision;
   make it plain on tablets,
   so that a runner may read it.
For there is still a vision for the appointed time;
   it speaks of the end, and does not lie.
If it seems to tarry, wait for it;
   it will surely come, it will not delay. (2:2-3)

Jesus knew the worldly path, the worldly kingship, would be our temptation as well.  Church we need to look for Jesus’ vision and get behind him and follow.

Snow, Seeds, & Soil.

Feb. 11 in The Durant Daily Democrat
At Durant Main Street & Community Theatre’s Dinner Theatre Monday Night at Roma’s, I heard an old but powerful idiom during the performance: “A mighty oak tree was once a nut that just held its ground.” Before I go on I must compliment everyone that made this night out tremendously entertaining and fun. So if you were not there, I am sorry you missed it, and I encourage you to be at one of the numerous performing arts events in town.
However, I am not writing this to persuade you about the importance of art in culture, but because of the small nut that lies below the snow and ice-covered earth. This past Sunday, my wife sung the hymn by Natalie Sleeth and the first verse goes “In the Bulb Is a Flower; in the seed, and apple tree; in cocoons, a hidden promise; butterflies will soon be free! In the cold and snow of winter there’s a spring that waits to be, unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.” We know as we look out at the cold and seemingly dead landscape, life waits beneath the ground for the season of spring.
Jesus tells us the parable of seeds, according to the 13^th chapter of Matthew. The first seeds were eaten by birds, some fell among the rocks and were scorched, some grew among the thorns that choked them “Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty” (verse 8). This parable speaks to us on many levels, and I suspect that many of you concentrate on the importance of the soil, for I usually do the same. It is clear that throwing seeds on the roadway, among the rocks, or among the thorns will not produce much yield. This is the most important lesson, I believe, of this parable, thus I am always trying to tend to the “soil” as much as I am planting “seeds.” Today, though, I noticed something that the hymn I quoted above makes clear, “God alone can see.” Each of the seeds planted in the good soil as per Jesus’ parable does not yield the same amount, as verse 8 clearly states. Clearly even when the seeds are in the same soil, there will be different outcomes and that is for God alone to see. Jesus even explains the parable in full in the next part of chapter 13 and states in verse 23 “But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.” Clearly there is no perfect formula.
We must continue to nourish seeds in the best possible soil. We know resurrection moments happen when we do that, as when someone gives their life to Christ. As Christians we are continually sharing the Good News with our friends and hopefully strangers, so they may get their roots in the good soil and turn toward the SON. We then must remember that once growing with and/or toward Jesus, their yield is in God’s domain, not ours. We can help with the soil, but God is in charge of the growth. This is a difficult part of discipleship, remembering that God is truly the only gardener and we are simply other seeds in His garden.