UCC Church of Charlotte

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Telling Our Story
Deuteronomy 26:1-11
Luke 4:1-13

Grace and Peace to you this morning.  Grace and Peace.

We tell our stories every day don’t we?  At least bits and pieces.
Maybe we are catching up with co-workers about how the weekend went.
Or sharing our experience to let someone know that they are not alone
in theirs.  Maybe we start the off with “There I was…” or “That’s
nothing, the other day I….”

Telling our stories is important.  It is one of the ways we take care
of our grief, how we tend to our times of mourning – we tell the
stories.  It is how we celebrate victories and learn from our losses –
we tell the stories.

And how we tell our stories is as important as telling them.  Are we
the sole author of our story, or do we acknowledge that there is a
world of neighbors and a God who are co-authors?

Is our story told separately from the story of our family, or do we
see how they intertwine?

Do we tell it as a tragedy, a comedy, a drama, an adventure, a
romance, a research paper, or a little bit of each of these?

When Jesus is tempted in the wilderness, the temptations are for food,
for protection and for power.  And these temptations are particular to
Jesus, for he was hungry, and he was seeking to overturn the powers
that be in this world, and he was facing a life and a ministry in
which he would be persecuted and killed.

But in his hunger he does not seek his own food.  Remember, he is here
that others might be fed.  So he quotes Deuteronomy and says that man
does not live by bread alone.  Rather than tell his story as one of
seeking his own good, his own food, he tells the story of the covenant
– that God will provide, and not just food.

And in his seeking to overturn the powers that be in the world, he
does not seek his own place as the ruler, with the price of making the
adversary his god.  He is here that all would know that God is God.
So a third time he quotes Deuteronomy, and says “You shall worship the
Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.”
In his seeing a long and difficult ministry that will end in his
death, he does not seek his own protection.  He is here that others
might be saved.  So again he quotes Deuteronomy and says “thou shalt
not put the Lord thy God to the test.”  Rather than telling his story
as always being sheltered by God, he tells the story of the covenant –
that the faithful will risk themselves to be co-creators of the
community to which God calls all humanity.

We share these temptations – to seek first our own comfort, ease, and
satisfaction; to ignore the worship and following of God for our own
advancement, for our own sake; to seek out the safety of God’s
protection when we are called instead to the struggle of the Gospel.

And we have other temptations.  In each of these, we are tempted not
simply to an action, or a choice, but to tell our story differently
than how we are called to tell it.  For we know how we are called.  It
is no secret.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and soul and
strength; Love your neighbor as yourself.

And we can tell this story in myriad ways, for we have such various
gifts and so many different forms of service and so much variety of
talents and visions.

But we are always tempted to tell a story of us alone, me and mine
alone, seeking first not the kingdom, but my own good.
In those moments, I suggest we pray, we ask for prayers, we seek the
help of those who can faithfully walk with us and remind us of the
covenant and our place in it.

And we can do as Jesus did and look back to the covenant of Deuteronomy.

The passage we read this morning tells of a people who are about to
get settled in the promised land.  Any chance of forgetting the
covenant when they finally have a place of their own, can finally
rest, can finally stop wandering?  Or put another way, who is more
likely to turn to God, the one who just won the lottery or the one who
just lost a job?

So there is this reminder to the people who are about to cross into
the land of God’s promise – when you are settled, go and take a
sacrifice to the Lord.

And tell your story.  Not the story of the last twenty miles or the
last twenty years.  You will start your story further back.  Not with
Moses and God and the burning bush and the ten plagues and the flight
from Egypt.  You will start your story further back.
You will start your story with the wandering Aramean who went to Egypt.

And so when you are about to get settled, you will remember the story
of God’s salvation.  And when you are about to get your own plot of
land to farm, you are to remember the One who saved you from the
brickyards.  And when you work to build your life and tell your story
in this new place, you will recall the love of God that brought you
here.

And when we tell our story, we will remember that our story is
intertwined with God’s story.  And the story started long before we
got here.

And our job is to remember it and tell it in our own generation, so
that we don’t forget and seek our own good alone, so that we don’t
forget and seek power and prestige instead of God’s kingdom, so that
we don’t forget and seek only God’s protection rather than courage in
the struggle for justice and peace to which the Gospel calls us.

And so that our children will know the God who loves them, that they
might grow in the faith as well.

We each have stories to tell - filled with beauty and tragedy and the
richness of life.  And we have a great story to tell together.

Thanks be to God.
Amen.