These last weeks, we have explored what it means to have hope in a wilderness setting. The wilderness is often a tough place to be but also a place of growth, of unexpected oasis, of living water that gushes out nurturing and sustaining those in the wilderness. Sometimes I imagine the Biblical figures we studied felt they might never leave the wilderness but they ultimately did finding themselves changed people ready to face the future, even as it might remain uncertain.
Do we feel like we are still in the wilderness? Still 
waiting for that living water to gush out to sustain and nurture us – for the experience to transform us? Or do we feel ourselves emerging from the desert places like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis, pumping life-giving fluid into its wings so that they can dry, spread and carry them out into the world. How might our two Bible passages be that life-giving living water filling us so that we might take those first steps on the road ahead?
Psalm 32 is often thought of as a companion to Psalm 51 – both involve David realizing his need for forgiveness after impregnating Bathsheba and arranging for her husband Uriah to be killed in battle. David, who has been wracked with guilt, is confronted by the prophet Nathan – a confrontation that leads David to divulge everything and beg for God’s forgiveness which is granted.
The slate is clean – he is given a fresh start. What might we be holding in that we even feel uncomfortable getting honest with God about? Are we angry, grieving, holding on to grudges that prevent us from moving forward? Are we sad but don’t want to admit it. To be clear, I’m not trying to make these feelings equivalent to David’s massive wrongdoing – but I wonder, if we can’t be honest with God about what we are feeling, isn’t that something we should seek forgiveness for?
Our own reluctance to come clean with God – feeling it isn’t important enough to take to God, or a feeling of I just can’t let it go? How does not clearing the air – asking for and receiving that clean slate, being reminded of our identity as one of God’s beloved children, prevent us from moving forward? Prevent us from trusting God enough to take us into an uncertain future with the certainty that God is leading us?
Now Jesus is a whole different case – no way has he been guilty of the kind of wrongdoing that David is guilty of, so why does he have to go into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil? I like how New Testament Professor Warren Carter describes it: “The scene’s function is not to proscribe the means or goals of Jesus’ ministry, but to establish its basis in Jesus’ identity. The scene affirms Jesus’ identity as God’s agent or son as the foundation for his ministry activity.”[1]
To establish Jesus’ mission and ministry in his identity as God’s agent or son. The temptations that Jesus turns away over and over are things that if he yields to, he could accomplish amazing things, but his identity then becomes an agent of the devil. He would betray his identity as God’s agent or son. Jesus says nope – beat it Satan! As God’s agent or son, I am fulfilling God’s purposes, I am living out and teaching how to follow God’s desires for this place we call Earth. For my mission and ministry in the here and now but that will extend for time immemorial.
Think of the ways Jesus did mission and ministry – the risky, prophetic, breaking tradition, experimental ministry that fed hungry and thirsty people, that defied religious and political leaders who would rather keep the ordinary people down, that challenged rules and customs that harmed people rather than helped people. The kind of mission and ministry that lifted people up reminding all how much God loves them and cares for them. The kind of mission and ministry that didn’t deny itself though many times the disciples in their misunderstanding tried to deny it, distract it, disable it.
The question for us this morning is do we believe we are God’s agents in the world we live in today? Are we God’s beloved children asked to co-create with God the kindom of heaven here on Earth? What temptations keep us from that? Do we judge ourselves and others so much so that it shuts us down from being experimental or taking risks? Do we say things like – we are too small or too old or too – and you fill in the blanks? Do we self-edit meaning before the idea leaves our head or hearts, we have already discounted it?
Do we hold onto something for far too long when God might be calling us to a different direction? What are our temptations that keep us in the wilderness clinging to whatever food and water we can find, rather than be led out of the wilderness into the future, even if it is uncertain.
How might we face those temptations out of the certainty that we are God’s agents in the world? That God is calling us to mission and ministry here in Bethlehem that might not look like what we have done before or maybe it will. We only know that if we come clean with God, embrace a fresh start, acknowledge the things that tempt us away from hearing and following God’s call, and resist those things in favor of remembering what our true identity is – God’s agents in this world – God’s beloved children.
This afternoon, we will have the opportunity to hear about our community needs and what those visioning sessions yielded. We will ask of ourselves – what does God given, temptation resisting, mission and ministry look like for us in the near and far-term. Let’s be bold. Let’s remember we are an experimental church. Let’s remember who and whose we are. May it be so. Amen.
[1] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/first-sunday-in-lent/commentary-on-matthew-41-11-7, accessed 5.15.26