Lent 1 C Bread Alone?

Lent 1C March 10, 2019 Bread Alone?

I’m tempted to preach from today’s Old Testament reading about immigration, about the wandering Aramean who “went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous” and about the command to celebrate with “the aliens who reside among you . . . all the bounty that the Lord your God has given to you and to your house.” But I’ll resist the temptation. For one, the subject is too difficult for a short sermon, and second, we have today Jesus’ word to the power of evil, “'One does not live by bread alone.” 

That’s Deuteronomy 8:3. “This entire commandment that I command you today you must diligently observe, so that you may live and increase, and go in and occupy the land that the Lord promised on oath to your ancestors. Remember the long way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments. He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. The clothes on your back did not wear out and your feet did not swell these forty years. Know then in your heart that as a parent disciplines a child so the Lord your God disciplines you.”  

“One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” Genesis begins, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God said, “Let there be a firmament.” And God said, “Let the dry land appear.” And God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament” And God said, “Let the waters bring forth living creatures, and birds fly above the earth.” And God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; male and female. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. 

“One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” The Gospel according to St. John begins, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.”  “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” 

God spoke us into being. For many of us, and in the best of circumstances, we are here because one parent asked and the other said, “yes,” and it was so. For others the circumstances may not have been the best, but we are here because God spoke us into being. We are made in the image of God, male and female, and God gives his ability to give and receive love, God’s love, shared with and among us. 

And when we fall into sin, when we fall short of God’s perfect will for us, and know it, and repent, by God’s word, Jesus offers us forgiveness, redemption, and new life. On the cross, the word of Jesus, “Father, forgive them; they don’t know what they are doing.”  And then on Easter evening, Jesus in the upper room where the doors were shut for fear, Jesus’ word to the gathered disciples, “Receive the Holy Spirit, whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven!”    

“One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” In today’s gospel Jesus’ response to every temptation put before him by the lying power of evil is from the word of God as written in the Book of Deuteronomy. “You shall not live by bread alone.” (8:3) “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.” (6:13, 10:20) “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” (6:16)  

Deuteronomy is the 5^th book of the Bible. The name comes from the Greek for second law, deutero nomos. Deuteronomy repeats the 10 Commandments and other parts of the Law from Exodus. It is the last teaching of Moses, spoken just before the people moved into the promised land of Israel. Since the early 19^th century scholars have seen in it a law code for an agricultural rather than a nomad people, and we see it as the book found in the Temple in the time of King Josiah’s reformation about 620 years before Christ. Deuteronomy 6:4 is the core statement of ethical monotheism: Shema Israel Adonai elohenu Adonai echad. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God the Lord is One. We know this as the first part of Jesus’ Summary of the Law. It is the first thing observant Jews say each morning and the last thing said at night, and it is said at the hour of death. As the gas poured down in the showers of Auschwitz, they sang the Shema.

Jesus resisted the temptations of the lying power of evil by speaking God’s word from the core of God’s revelation. So let us today and this Lent, pay attention to Jesus’ words, to his words to the power of evil, to his word to us sinners and to the sin-filled world where we live and move and our earthly being.  “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”