George Ragsdale - Sermon Untitled (February 17, 2002)

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Female Speaker	The gospel lesson for this day comes	0:12
	from the Gospel according to St. Matthew, reading	0:15
	in the fourth chapter.	0:18
	Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness	0:21
	to be tempted by the devil.	0:24
	He fasted forty days and forty nights	0:27
	and afterwards he was famished.	0:30
	The tempter came and said to him,	0:32
	"If you are the Son of God, command these stones	0:35
	to become loaves of bread", but he answered	0:38
	"It is written, one does not live by bread alone,	0:41
	but by every word that comes from the mouth of God."	0:44
	Then the devil took him to the Holy City	0:48
	and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple saying	0:51
	to him "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down,	0:53
	for it is written he will command his angels concerning you	0:58
	and on their hands they will bear you up, so that you	1:02
	will not dash your foot against a stone.	1:05
	Jesus said to him, "Again, it is written,	1:08
	do not put the Lord your God to the test."	1:11
	Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain	1:15
	and showed him all the kingdoms of the world	1:17
	and their splendor and he said to him, "All these I	1:20
	will give to you if you will fall down and worship me".	1:23
	Jesus said to him, "Away with you Satan,	1:28
	for it is written, worship the Lord your God	1:31
	and serve only Him".	1:34
	Then the devil left him and suddenly angels came	1:37
	and waited on him.	1:41
	This is the word of the Lord.	1:44
	(crowd chants)	1:47
Male Speaker	Let us pray.	1:57
	From the cowardice that dares not face new truth,	2:01
	from the laziness that is contented with half truth,	2:06
	from the arrogance that thinks it knows all truth.	2:11
	Good Lord, deliver us.	2:15
	Amen.	2:19
	In June of 1973, the attention of most Americans	2:23
	was captivated by the ever unfolding story of Watergate.	2:27
	There had been a botched break-in and then hush money	2:32
	and abuse of power and privilege that seemed at least	2:36
	to reach to the upper echelons	2:40
	of Richard Nixon's Whitehouse.	2:42
	The Senate held hearings chaired	2:45
	by North Carolina's own Senator Sam Ervin,	2:46
	and gradually the truth began to emerge	2:50
	about just exactly what had happened.	2:53
	But the underlying question remained,	2:58
	what had Richard Nixon known himself.	3:01
	Finally, the President's chief counsel John Dean	3:05
	appeared before the committee and in the most dramatic	3:08
	moment of the entire affair, Howard Baker,	3:11
	the vice chairman of the committee, he cut through all	3:13
	of the evasive answers and the legalisms	3:16
	and he asked Dean, point blank, in words that many	3:19
	of you probably remember quite well,	3:22
	"What did the President know, and when did he know it"?	3:25
	I wasn't there obviously, but I imagine that	3:31
	when he asked the question, when he asked the question,	3:34
	it was as if all the air was sucked out	3:38
	of the committee room because there	3:40
	in that question hung the balance	3:42
	of Richard Nixon's political career.	3:45
	The fate of his administration and in many ways the fate	3:47
	of American democracy itself.	3:51
	I imagine everyone wanted to know the answer	3:56
	to that question out of curiosity,	3:59
	but I think everyone needed to know the answer	4:03
	to that question, because in some way	4:05
	what Richard Nixon knew said something about	4:09
	who we were, about who we had become	4:13
	as a nation.	4:17
	What did the President know and when did he know it?	4:20
	This morning in Matthew's Gospel, we read about Jesus	4:28
	in the wilderness.	4:31
	He goes there to fast and to pray and he stays	4:33
	for forty days and for forty nights.	4:36
	The wilderness, the desert is a forsaken place,	4:40
	there is little capacity for sustaining life.	4:44
	The two of the biggest obstacles to surviving	4:48
	are panic and hopelessness; it's desolate,	4:50
	you are alone, you're unsure of yourself	4:54
	and something goes wrong, and you start to panic.	4:56
	You start blaming yourself, you blame others,	5:01
	you make a mess of what is generally	5:04
	an already awful situation.	5:06
	And then panic gives way to hopelessness,	5:10
	you're in pain, you're hungry, you're thirsty	5:13
	and so you just give up.	5:17
	The desert, then was surely not a place	5:22
	that Jesus wanted to be.	5:24
	Matthew writes that he was led up by the Spirit.	5:27
	But in Mark we find that the Spirit actually drove Jesus	5:31
	out into the wilderness.	5:34
	And he goes there, not because he wants to see what	5:37
	it's like or because he needs to test out	5:39
	his new LL Bean sleeping bag, but because God	5:42
	through the Spirit wants Jesus to be there.	5:47
	Just before this God had appeared to Jesus	5:53
	at his baptism and had revealed, "This is my Son,	5:55
	the beloved, with whom I am well pleased".	6:00
	Through his baptism, Jesus finds out for himself	6:05
	that he is God's Son, but there are no immediate miracles.	6:08
	There is no teaching, there is no healing,	6:13
	there is only wilderness.	6:15
	The Spirit sends, the Spirit forces Jesus away	6:19
	into the desert with this new knowledge about	6:23
	who he is, to fast, to pray,	6:26
	to think things through.	6:32
	And so, we face in this passage, one of those questions	6:36
	on which everything seems to hinge.	6:39
	A question a lot like the one posed by Howard Baker	6:43
	to John Dean in 1973.	6:46
	What did Jesus know and when did he know it?	6:49
	What did Jesus know about himself	6:54
	and when did he know it?	6:57
	I mean, sure at his baptism he knew	7:01
	that he was God's Son, but what did that mean?	7:02
	What would that mean?	7:06
	How would he live?	7:09
	How would he die?	7:12
	Growing up I was a PK, a preacher's kid.	7:17
	There were all kinds of stereotypes	7:23
	about how the preacher's kid would act.	7:24
	And I sensed that there were also all kinds	7:28
	of expectations as to how the preacher's kid	7:30
	was supposed to act.	7:33
	But I must confess that beyond sitting quietly	7:36
	and attentively on the first row every Sunday morning,	7:39
	I don't think I ever quite figured out what it meant	7:43
	to be the preacher's son.	7:45
	For that matter, I don't think I've ever quite figured out	7:51
	what it means to be my father's son.	7:54
	And Jesus is God's Son?	7:59
	I can see why the Spirit led Jesus out into the wilderness.	8:05
	Jesus needed the wilderness to figure out who Jesus was.	8:08
	In the wilderness Jesus is alone.	8:16
	Henri Nouwen writes that this kind of solitude is a way	8:18
	of getting rid of the scaffolding	8:22
	so that there is nothing to distract,	8:25
	nothing to fall back on.	8:27
	In the wilderness Jesus is with Jesus,	8:30
	forced to confront the inner realities of who he is.	8:33
	And his only companion,	8:38
	his only companion is God in Heaven.	8:40
	And in his solitude he can fix his gaze on God,	8:44
	know God,	8:48
	and know himself.	8:51
	What did Jesus know?	8:54
	He knew that he was God's Son;	8:56
	at least from the time of his baptism;	8:59
	but he really knew it, he really knew it,	9:02
	after those forty days and forty nights,	9:08
	when alone, he confronts what it really means to be,	9:11
	God's Son.	9:17
	And then Satan appears.	9:20
	Now, there's little time for small talk,	9:24
	Satan gets right to the point.	9:25
	He's come to test Jesus.	9:27
	To challenge his understanding of who he even is.	9:29
	And Satan shows Jesus another way,	9:33
	a way that is much different from God's way.	9:36
	And it's very tempting,	9:41
	and it challenges something that we've pretty much	9:43
	taken for granted for the last 2000 years.	9:45
	It challenges Jesus' understanding	9:48
	of the very will of God.	9:51
	Just look at the things that Satan offers to Jesus.	9:56
	None of them sound terribly wrong, in fact,	10:00
	most of them, they sound pretty good.	10:02
	Satan's even got some scripture lessons thrown in	10:04
	to back him up.	10:07
	He says, "Look at these stones, Jesus.	10:10
	There are a lot of hungry people in the world,	10:15
	a lot of hungry people, think what you could do	10:18
	if you just turned all these stones into bread.	10:22
	Or throw yourself down off this cliff; God will save you,	10:29
	and everyone will believe in you,	10:34
	you won't ever have to preach a sermon.	10:36
	And, finally, imagine Jesus what you could do	10:42
	with power; all the kingdoms of the world,	10:48
	all the kingdoms.	10:52
	They can be yours."	10:56
	Even the most pious among us would have probably bought	11:02
	at least one of them.	11:06
	But Jesus has spent the last forty days and forty nights	11:11
	in the wilderness and he's got a pretty good idea	11:14
	of who, as God's Son, he's supposed to be.	11:17
	Stones into bread, it sounds like great economics,	11:22
	but Jesus knows that as God's Son he must be concerned	11:26
	with a lot more than just our physical well-being.	11:29
	A demonstration of power, it would have saved	11:35
	him a whole lot of time, but I think Jesus knew	11:38
	that, as God's Son,	11:42
	he would have to demonstrate a lot more than just power.	11:45
	He would have to demonstrate love.	11:50
	The kingdoms of this world would have been much easier,	11:56
	but Jesus, as God's Son,	12:02
	he knows that he must rely on God	12:05
	and on God alone.	12:08
	These temptations were about a lot more	12:12
	than just right or wrong.	12:14
	They were about who Jesus as God's Son really was.	12:17
	There in the wilderness being tempted by the devil himself,	12:22
	Jesus knew, Jesus knew who he was.	12:27
	This is the first Sunday of Lent,	12:35
	a time when the church remembers Jesus' time	12:38
	in the wilderness and all of the temptations	12:41
	that he endured.	12:44
	When I was a student in elementary school,	12:47
	I was first exposed to the idea	12:49
	of doing without something I loved during Lent.	12:51
	The idea was to remove it as a distraction in my life	12:56
	and somehow come closer to God.	13:00
	Now, I have to tell you that this was all well	13:05
	and good for a fourth grader.	13:06
	I gave up chocolate.	13:09
	But with minimal success.	13:11
	Especially on Fridays, because on Fridays	13:13
	our school cafeteria let us have chocolate milk.	13:15
	And I hated plain milk, I absolutely despised plain milk.	13:19
	And I quickly forgot my Lenten promise	13:23
	as I passed through the lunch line.	13:26
	I've been trying to give something up	13:30
	during Lent ever since.	13:32
	Last year, it was soft drinks,	13:35
	and that wasn't very successful because there seems	13:37
	to be a drink machine around every corner	13:39
	at this university.	13:42
	Thinking about theses experiences, I can't help but wonder	13:46
	if, often they do not become nothing more	13:49
	than trivial morality games,	13:52
	that reduce our concept of temptation.	13:54
	Temptation is about a lot more than morality.	14:01
	It's about a lot more than right or wrong.	14:06
	The temptations that Jesus faced in the wilderness	14:10
	are about a lot more than that	14:13
	because they are all about identity.	14:14
	"If you are the Son of God," Satan says.	14:18
	Satan is interested in a lot more	14:21
	than just making Jesus do something wrong,	14:24
	he's interested in making Jesus doubt who he is.	14:27
	When I applied to Duke in the Fall of 1997,	14:35
	I received in the mail a big blue book	14:40
	and printed on the cover	14:42
	was the question, Who's Duke?	14:44
	And inside there were all kinds of stories	14:48
	about Duke students and Duke graduates	14:50
	and all the varied things that they've done	14:53
	with their lives here and all the wonderful things	14:55
	that they'd done when they graduated.	14:58
	And just in reading through it, just in reading	15:01
	that question, I could see that Duke really wanted	15:04
	to define itself; to set itself apart	15:08
	from other universities,	15:12
	and to convince me that this was the place	15:14
	where I could find myself, where I could define	15:18
	who I am.	15:22
	For most of us that's what college is.	15:25
	We come here to find ourselves, to find out who we are.	15:27
	To find out who we want to be.	15:33
	Some of us already know the answers to these questions.	15:37
	And some of us, some of us come without a clue.	15:40
	Hoping that we'll find one along the way.	15:43
	It's hard to imagine Duke as a wilderness or a desert.	15:49
	But in many ways it is.	15:53
	We may not have the silence.	15:55
	We may not have the solitude.	15:58
	But we do have the temptations.	16:00
	And these temptations can be about a lot more	16:03
	than just right or wrong.	16:06
	These temptations can help us to find out something	16:08
	about who we are.	16:13
	When I graduated from high school, the minister	16:16
	of my church back home sent me a graduation card.	16:19
	I ripped it open, I was expecting to find a check inside,	16:24
	as most graduation cards that I had gotten contained.	16:28
	But I was sadly disappointed	16:34
	because instead I found a small wooden cross.	16:36
	And it was glued on a small card	16:40
	with some cheesy poem printed on the back.	16:42
	It said something about carrying the cross in my pocket,	16:46
	and carrying it and, that it would remind me that no matter	16:49
	where I went that I would always be God's.	16:52
	Like I said, I was hoping for a check.	16:55
	(crowd laughs)	16:58
	So I threw the card and the cross into a box.	17:00
	And I didn't think much of it again.	17:05
	When I got to Duke, I found myself faced	17:10
	with lots of new temptations.	17:13
	I was out on my own.	17:17
	And the sky was literally the limit.	17:20
	One of the first afternoons I was here,	17:27
	I was unpacking one of my boxes,	17:28
	And I found that little cross,	17:32
	that I had tossed aside just a few months before.	17:35
	And I picked it up and I read the sentiment	17:39
	that was attached, that God loved me.	17:42
	And that no matter where I went,	17:46
	no matter what I did, no matter what I didn't do,	17:48
	I would always be God's son.	17:52
	And you know, it didn't sound so cheesy anymore.	17:56
	Because I was standing there, standing here in the midst	18:01
	of this identity wilderness that college is,	18:05
	and those words, words that I'd heard many times before,	18:10
	probably for the first time at my baptism,	18:14
	and they called out to me,	18:18
	and they urged me to follow,	18:21
	where the Spirit would lead.	18:24
	It's hard to do that.	18:28
	There are so many other ways to find answers	18:30
	to these identity questions.	18:34
	Join a fraternity.	18:36
	Join a sorority.	18:38
	Play a certain sport; watch a certain sport on TV.	18:39
	Wear only certain kinds of clothes.	18:45
	Drive a fancy car.	18:48
	Become a millionaire before you're 30.	18:50
	Go to church on Sunday.	18:53
	It's hard to follow the Spirit.	18:58
	It's hard to follow the Spirit because	19:01
	it means being in the wilderness	19:05
	on God's terms.	19:08
	But this is our calling during Lent.	19:11
	To follow the Spirit.	19:15
	To be alone with God.	19:18
	And to struggle with the tough questions	19:19
	of who we are.	19:22
	Frederick Buechner suggest what some	19:24
	of these Lenten questions might be like.	19:26
	He writes,	19:32
	if you had to bet everything you have	19:35
	on whether there is a God or whether there isn't,	19:37
	which side would get your money and why?	19:42
	When you look at your face in the mirror,	19:51
	what do you see in it that you most like?	19:55
	And what do you see in it that you most deplore?	19:59
	Of all the things that you've done in life,	20:04
	which is the one you would most like to undo?	20:06
	And which is the one that makes	20:10
	you the happiest to remember?	20:12
	Is there any person in the world or any cause	20:15
	that, if circumstances called for it,	20:18
	you would be willing to die for?	20:20
	If this were the last day of your life,	20:22
	what would you do with it?	20:26
	During Lent we are asked to embrace these questions,	20:31
	and these questions that Buechner poses for us,	20:35
	and struggle with them, struggle with answers	20:40
	to them and in the struggle we will be led,	20:44
	maybe even forced out into the wilderness	20:50
	on a journey with the perfect companion,	20:55
	the perfect example in Jesus Christ.	21:00
	The great miracle of this story, of course,	21:06
	is that Jesus with the full knowledge of who he is	21:08
	and all that that entailed, he came out of the desert	21:12
	and he embarked on a journey that would forever	21:17
	be shaped by what he'd learned out there, alone,	21:20
	day in and day out.	21:24
	And his journey, his journey can speak to us on our journey.	21:29
	Reminding us of obedience.	21:36
	Even to the point of death.	21:40
	After the wilderness, in his moments of strength,	21:45
	in his moments of weakness, in his moments of doubt	21:49
	and in his moments of certainty, Jesus knew who he was.	21:53
	In the garden of Gethsemane he prays "My Father,	21:59
	my Father,	22:05
	let this cup pass from me,	22:07
	if it is possible,	22:09
	yet not what I want,	22:13
	what you want".	22:17
	What did Jesus know?	22:20
	He knew, he really knew that he was God's Son.	22:23
	And in the end, in the end, it was all he really needed.	22:30
	All we really need,	22:37
	to know.	22:40

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Title:

George Ragsdale - Sermon Untitled (February 17, 2002)

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Sermon start time: 02:23. Sermon end time: 22:41.
Jesus' time in the wilderness, and the temptations he faced from Satan, were about more than morality; they were about identity. So too, the temptations we face force us to wrestle with the tough questions of who we are. In the end, for Jesus, and so for us as well, all we need to know is that we are children of God. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)
Key quotation: “It’s hard to follow the Spirit because it means being in the wilderness on God’s terms. But this is our calling during Lent. To follow the Spirit. To be alone with God. And to struggle with the tough questions of who we are.”

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February 17, 2002

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Ragsdale, George

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George Ragsdale - Sermon Untitled (February 17, 2002)

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