February 14, 2016 – Luke 4:1-13

Luke 4:1-13

The Martian – Lent at the Movies 1

1st Sunday in Lent – February 14, 2016

First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB

 

Jesus is alone in the wilderness. Alone.

He is driven into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit as the first thing that happens to him

after his baptism, as soon as he is commissioned for his public ministry.

It is some sort of preparation for his ministry, this time alone in the wilderness.

As if it will help prepare him for what is to come.

It is a time of testing, which is a better translation than “temptation.”

His trust in God will be tested here.

It says in Greek that he is tested continually throughout the forty days in the wilderness;

what we get here are just the last three tests that come at the end of that time.

The wilderness is place of testing.

Jesus is alone – does he trust that God is with him?

And that God will give him what he needs?

Those are the questions that he is tested with in the wilderness.

 

The wilderness is storied scriptural space.

It looms large in the biblical imagination because of what happened to the Hebrews there

after the Exodus from Egypt.

That time is remembered certainly as a trying one.

As a time when the people refused to trust that God would care for them.

As a time when the people bad temperedly complained about a steady diet of

manna and quail.

As a time when the people were not at their best and when their relationship with God

was adversarial.

And yet, the time is also remembered as a very very important one in

the history of the Israelites.

As a time when the people were schooled in a new way of being together and living together.

As a time when they had to unlearn the way of domination and hoarding they had learned in

Egypt and be schooled in the ways of manna sharing and mercy giving.

As a honey-moon time in their relationship with God, when it was just them and God,

and they came to learn to trust God and rely on God even in

the most trying circumstances –

where they came to learn to God really would be provide them with

everything they need in this life, and that that is enough.

It is remembered as a time when they forged their best identity,

as a people of generosity and justice and equitable sharing for the common good.

Above all they learned in the wilderness that God could be trusted,

that God’s was with them, that what God gave them was enough,

enough to live, and even enough to flourish.

Like Jesus, they were alone, and they were tested, in the wilderness.

And like Jesus, they discovered God was with them, and that God gave them what they need.

 

Well, if you’re looking for a movie that is really about being alone in the wilderness,

look no further than The Martian.

Matt Damon portrays Mark Watney, an astronaut and botanist stranded alone on Mars. Mars!

170 million miles away from earth!

Dependent for shelter on a fragile looking little building called a hab.

Dependent for air on an oxygenator.

He is stranded after a the rest of his crew must leave Mars in a hurry when they are

threatened by bad weather and they presume that Mark is dead.

But he is not.

And so he must figure out a way of surviving – possibly for four years until the next

astronauts are scheduled to reach Mars.

It’s a very basic, very compelling story, as old as Robinson Crusoe.

Will he have enough to survive? Will he figure it out?

He is alone, on an inhospitable planet, where the next bus home stops in four years.

If he manages to live that long.

He knows he will run out of food long before that in the little hab.

He knows the likelihood of something going wrong long before that is exceedingly likely.

He notes: If the oxygenator breaks down, I’ll suffocate. If the water reclaimer breaks down, I’ll die of thirst. If the hab breaches, I’ll just kind of implode. If none of those things happen, I’ll eventually run out of food and starve to death. So, yeah… Yeah…

At the beginning he does not even have communication with earth.

He has to figure out everything on his own – with very very few resources –

and that, of course, is where the charm of the picture is.

In the face of overwhelming odds, he says,

I’m left with only one option: I’m gonna have to science the [crap] out of this.

He doesn’t have much – so he works with what he does have.

A few pieces of equipment.

Duct tape – yes, duct tape.

A sense of humour; in a video blog he says, drily,

It has been seven days since I ran out of ketchup.

He has his training as a botanist: Mars will come to fear my botany powers! he declares.

And for food he has exactly four things:

sun, a few potatoes from earth for seeds,

water that he manufactures himself from burning oxygen and hydrogen,

(which, yes, is as dangerous as it sounds),

and for soil with to grow potatoes in . . . he has . . . leftover human excrement.

Sun, potatoes, and poop – just add water and hey presto, you have more potatoes!

Now there is a great – if smelly! – science fair project for all you budding scientists!

And then, finally, and most importantly, he has his brains and his ingenuity and his pluck and

his will not to give into despair.

He has what he needs, even on this seemingly godforsaken planet,

in a wilderness that makes our own earthly wildernesses look like

tropical vacation destinations by comparison.

And it turns out he has enough.

 

From the Christian perspective, we would say that he has what he needs.

That God was with him, giving him what he needs – and that that was enough.

The Hebrews learned that they had enough manna to share and enough mercy to share.

Jesus learned that he had the assurance given him in his baptism:

that he was beloved, that God would never forsake him, that God was with him,

that God could be trusted, and that that was enough – so

He didn’t need what the devil offered.

Mark Watney learned that he had enough, that he could live and even in a strange way

flourish with the meager resources he had and the minimal human contact and

even find joy in his outrageously depressing predicament,

which is what I maybe love most about the film.

In a culture that celebrates getting more and more and more,

this film is about having just enough – and finding a strange and sometimes

exhilarating joy in that, in what you do have, not in what you don’t.

 

God is good.

God can be trusted.

God has given us enough:

our work, our school our play.

our food, our friendships, our families, our fellowship.

our church: a few gracious words, a little wine, a little bread. It is enough.

It is all enough to trust that God is with us – even in the midst of depressing predicaments.

I know it is sometimes enraging to hear tired religious clichés when you are in a tough spot:

God is with you! God will give you what you need!

The thing is: those things are actually true.

But they should never, ever be said glibly, or easily, or tritely.

Those who know those things to be true have come to learn that they are true only

after the most trying circumstances imaginable –

like the Israelites, like Jesus, maybe even like Mark Watney.

And these truths, like most truths, are communicated best when we become them,

rather than simply say them.

When we become one another’s manna and mercy,

when we become one another’s bread and wine.

When we become one another’s sunlight and water.

When we become one another’s potatoes and . . . okay, poop.

Because let’s face it sometimes we can feel as worthless as poop,

but we can still bring life to those in the wilderness.

We can be somebody’s gift, so that they know they are not alone, that God is good,

and that God is with them.

So together, let us say, “Amen.”

 

Pastor Michael Kurtz

 

Sermons

If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.

Leave Comment

(required)

(required)