Rev. David Boyd

When I point to the side of my head, we all know what this part of our body is called. If I were to point to the end of my spine, we, too, would know what this part of the body is called. The part of our heads that I indicated is called our temple and the bottom part of our backbone is called our sacrum. On one level, these are just the everyday names for these parts of our anatomy. But on another level, these words point to a much deeper reality, that we are sacred and that our bodies are a temple to be cared for and nurtured appropriately. Sacrum comes from the Latin word that gives us sacred and sacrificial; the sacrum is literally the sacred bone. And the temple means just what it says, "a place of worship." As Psalm 139 says, after all, "we are fearfully and wonderfully made" and some parts of our bodies point to that fact.

A month or so ago, when I was away in January, I happened to both read Dan Brown's latest novel, The Lost Symbol, and see the movie, The Book of Eli. The novel and the movie both pointed to the lost art of reading beneath the surface of things. Dan Brown's book is all about symbols and the meanings beneath the meaning that give life a deeper dimension of meaning and a worth in living. The Book of Eli takes place in a post-Apocalyptic world; the world has gone through some kind of catastrophe and a special book was coveted by the main antagonist. The hero of the movie, Eli, played by Denzel Washington, was to protect this book and get it to people who would share it and appreciate its wisdom. Superficially, the movie is about power, but underneath, the movie is ultimately about freedom, wisdom, love, and grace. Superficially, Dan Brown's book is an adventure yarn, but underneath, it really is an invitation to see the world more fully and deeply.

After reading the book and seeing the movie, I found that I was viewing the world very differently. I was looking at things and trying to see underneath the superficial meanings. Ironically, in the last little while I've been in a little email conversation with a spiritual advisor and he suggested that I do the same thing, look for the deeper meaning in things. It's funny how life conspires to get us thinking about things more deeply.

Symbols, icons, logos and brand-names are all commonly familiar to my children and their generation. Symbols are also part of our experience, but not icons, logos and brand-names so much. I remember at Christmas time looking at an icon on my new computer and I couldn't make heads or tails of it until Alanna pointed out that it meant something very simple; it was the icon for a task on the computer. And as soon as she said what it was, it made perfect sense. But superficially and to my eye, it looked like some abstract art!

What then, should we make of the story of Jesus tempted in the wilderness? We can take this story on many levels and people over the years have done just that. Literally, it is a powerful story about Jesus resisting very human and common temptations of forgetting about God, of lusting for power, and of putting God to the test. On another level, we might say that this story is about evil personified as the devil, and how Jesus overcomes evil in the world by focusing on God's strength and love. On another level, this story is about the cosmic battle between light and shadow, between justice, love and goodness, on the one hand, and power-over, greed and arrogance on the other.

Jesus goes out to the wilderness where it was hot, dry and desolate, and where, as history would show, Elijah and Moses went to figure things out and to receive a vision of God's next steps; Israel itself was formed in the wilderness, in the 40 years of wandering after liberation from slavery in Egypt. The wilderness has long been a place to go on a vision quest to receive a message, an insight, and a revelation. In this story of Jesus in the wilderness we commonly translate the Greek word and get "temptation," but a better rendering is "testing." Jesus was tested in the desert. Just who or what is doing the testing, we aren't exactly sure. But it is clear that Jesus goes through a time of purification, of clarifying, and of cleansing out in the wilderness before he takes up his ministry in earnest; remember this story comes at the beginning of the gospel, just after John the Baptiser has baptised Jesus and before he has called his first disciples.

And what of the testings themselves? Jesus was tested to become like Moses and give bread to the people, but Jesus understood his work to involve more than bread. The second test involved paying homage to that which is evil but the return is "regime change" from the tyrannical Romans to Jesus' leadership; again, Jesus refused because he pointed to the fact that all authority belongs to God. And the third test involved the Temple in Jerusalem. Psalm 91 is quoted and Jesus was told to throw himself off the pinnacle of the Temple. This one might have tempted Jesus because it hints at the reform of the Temple where many of the elites were working hand in glove with the Romans and the fact that the Temple placed a huge burden on the poor and suffering. But again, Jesus was clear in his own self-understanding and, more importantly, in his understanding of who God was. "Do not put your sovereign God to the test!"

Having come through this time of testing, it is interesting that when we look at the whole of Luke's gospel, we in fact see Jesus after all feeding the poor with bread and challenging the status quo that punished the poor. We see Jesus proclaiming a new Commonwealth, a new regime of God's initiating and of justice and peace. We see, again after all, Jesus going to the cross trusting that God's will is life and that the world cannot put him to death.

But what is also powerful about this story, other than the story itself, is that it is about us, individually and collectively. This story is about our struggles to see through a mirror dimly, to see into the mystery of life and God the way to live fully and abundantly, to overcome the various tests and temptations that life throws our way. Just as the Spirit was with Jesus, this same Spirit is with us and empowers us to see into the heart of the matter to suss out what is happening and where meaning is found. I'm talking about more here than the temptation of eating that last piece of cake or sitting on the couch rather than going for a jog. I'm talking about issues of what gives meaning and what is life-giving. Each of us has within us and within this community of spiritual people the resources to face our own testing and walk a path of life and love, to come through the dry desert and know a new direction with a new vision.

And as a community of spiritual people, we have within us collectively, the tools to see into the heart of God a new call to us to be about God's mission for the world. For in a deeply concrete and mystical sense, we are the body of Christ. We are the raised-to-life body of Christ and are about the work of turning stones into bread and living by the Word of God; we are to be about working with others in creating a just and life-giving way of living in the world and worshipping God; and we are about sharing the life that is God's gift to all—all species, all people, all life!

What we learn when we come through times of trial, temptation, testing or struggle is that the spiritual life is a life of awakening and opening. We are on a path of being awakened to the deeper dimensions of life that make life worth living. We are about opening: opening our hearts to God's love, opening our lives to express hope for the world and love for our neighbour. We are about awakening to the deep mystery of God's presence in each of us and to the call to share that presence with integrity. With the Spirit as guide, we are cracked open to experience the love of God flooding in.

As we make our way in the world, as part of God's church in today's world, we may feel we are in a desert place, feeling that a new vision is being birthed in us and in our world. That can be an uncomfortable place to be, but it also is a place of opening and awakening and we need to be attentive to the deep meaning of things; we need to look beyond superficial meanings and discern more fully the deeper meanings and the deeper calling to share in the wonder of life.

From the desert, Jesus went to Nazareth, his home town, and proclaimed that the Spirit of God was with him and he was empowered, then to preach good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the prisoners and proclaim the year of Jubilee.

From the desert, God calls us to a renewed vision of bread and Word, of God's Commonwealth where health-care, housing, food, employment, love and compassion are hallmarks of this regime; and from the desert, God calls us to live fully and abundantly and to share fully and abundantly in the lives of others.

May our Annual General Meeting later this morning be about this seeking for deeper meanings and a way to express more fully the wonder of life—each life and our life together. And may our AGM be a renewed expression of the Spirit's leading us from a dry and barren place to a place of blossom and greenery.

Amen.