March 9, 2014 – Matthew 4:1-11
Matthew 4:1-11
Identity Theft
First Sunday in Lent [New Member Sunday] – March 9, 2014
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
Last year’s film Identity Theft tries to explore in a funny way something we have all heard about:
the theft of another’s person’s identity in order to profit by it.
A male account processor named Sandy has his identity stolen by
a woman played by Melissa McCarthy.
She easily steals his identity by phoning him and telling him that she works for
an identity protection service.
She says there has recently been an attempt to steal his identity.
So she asks for his name, date of birth, and social security number.
He gives it to her – little knowing that his identity has just been stolen – by her!
She uses the information to apply for credit cards and identity cards in his name,
and then wracks up huge debts on the credit cards.
Sandy soon gets calls from collection agencies and realizes that someone has gone wrong,
and so he goes in search of the person who has stolen his identity –
and attempts to get it back.
You don’t need to bother seeing this picture: it’s not that great!
But the idea behind it is very relevant to us today.
Especially the ease with which Sandy’s identity is stolen.
Maybe that is the biggest joke in the movie, but really it is no joke at all.
Today, in the Gospel reading, the devil tries to steal Jesus’s identity from him.
Okay: here’s the context.
Jesus hasn’t even begun his public ministry yet.
Just a short time before, he was baptized by his cousin John.
And at that baptism, an identity was given to him:
God’s voice said, “You are my beloved Son.”
As if to say, “You are my beloved apprentice in the world, apprenticing to my work of
blessing healing feeding and restoring this whole world and every person in it.”
That’s his identity: God’s beloved Son or beloved apprentice in the world.
That’s who Jesus is.
Then, before he transitions into public ministry, Jesus goes into the desert to pray and to fast and
to focus and to think about what this identity will mean for him in his life.
He goes for 40 days.
40 is a number associated with times of transition in the Bible.
The Israelites wandered in the wilderness for 40 years,
transitioning from being a people of slavery to a people of freedom.
Noah and his family were in the ark for 40 days,
transitioning from an old world to a new one.
Here, Jesus transitions from private to public life.
And just at the end of his time, when he is vulnerable and weak with hunger,
the devil comes along to tempt him or, a better translation, to test him.
To test his new identity.
To try and take the one that has just been given away from him.
To steal his true identity.
Notice how every single time the devil tests Jesus, he begins with the phrase,
If you are the Son of God.
See how he calls into question Jesus’s true identity – and seeks to steal it from him.
If you are the Son of God, feed yourself.
If you are the Son of God,
prove it to everyone by being a miraculous show-off by jumping off this tower.
If you are the Son of God, take the power that is yours and subject the whole world to yourself.
Hmmmmm, though – that just doesn’t sound like what it means to apprentice to God’s work of
healing and blessing and feeding and forgiving.
Each time, Jesus remains firm in his God-given identity.
He chooses solidarity with the hungry rather than satisfying himself.
He chooses deprivation over power.
He chooses vulnerability over rescue.
He chooses obscurity over honor.
At every instance, writes Debie Thomas,in which he could have reached for the certain, the extraordinary, and the miraculous, he reached instead for the precarious, the quiet, and the mundane.
It kind of reminds me of that moment in The Lord of the Rings where
Galadriel chooses not to take the ring of power from Frodo,
but chooses instead to let him take it to its destruction.
Although Galadriel fantasizes about the power that could be hers with the ring,
she relinquishes her claim to that power and then says, “I passed the test.”
Today, Jesus too passes the test.
Wouldn’t it be grand if it were only Jesus who were tested all those years ago?
The thing is, though, our own identities in Christ are tested every single day.
Like Jesus we too are granted a beautiful identity in our baptisms, just like he was:
We too are named beloved children or apprentices of God in the world.
But, like Sandy in Identity Theft,
there are things that seek to steal our God-given identity all the time.
And so we need reminders of who we truly are – regular, steady reminders.
Lent is just such a time.
Each day we are besieged by messages telling us that we are not beloved just the way we are.
Each day we are bombarded by things that tell us we are not useful and dignified just as we are.
That we are not enough: not skinny enough, or smart enough, or pretty enough, or strong enough,
or rich enough.
And so we need reminders of who we truly are.
You reminded me a few weeks ago when it was my baptismal birthday.
You gave me this nice card, and inside the card this was written:
You are a precious child of God. You are making this day special by just being you.
And you all signed it – to remind me of who I truly am,
and to remind me to choose every day to be that.
I love this and treasure this – it sits on my desk beside me where I can see it all the time.
The fact that many of you signed this card is significant.
It’s significant because Christian community is one of the most significant ways we are
reminded of who we are.
God brings us together so that we can remind one another of who we truly are.
We are better together.
When we gather together, we gather together to remember that we are worth dying for:
we remember that God in Christ thinks so much of us that we are worth dying for.
When we gather together, we remember that for Jesus God’s mission to love and bless and
heal this world is worth dying for.
And when we gather together, we affirm that for us too that mission is worth dying for.
Our identity as children or apprentices of this God: that is an identity worth dying for.
The thing is, we don’t need a new identity.
We don’t need to manufacture one.
Unlike the woman in Identity Theft, we don’t need to steal a new one.
And we can’t let anything else take away the one we’ve been given.
All we need to do is grow into the one we have.
And together, new members and longer-term members – together, we can grow into it.
Into the very likeness of Christ together.
Brothers and sisters: that is an amazing and miraculous thing.
But to do it, we need each other.
The truth is that this community helps you remember who you are.
These new members will help you remember.
And you will help them.
You will be a blessing to them – and they will be a blessing to you.
When we interact in ways that reflect that we are infinitely precious to our maker –
and so infinitely precious to one another –
when we love one another just as we are, we remind one another.
When we participate together in our common mission to love and bless and heal this world and
every person in it, we actually affirm one another’s dignity and worth and usefulness –
and so we remind one another of who we truly are.
Participation in this community is one of the key ways we guard against identity theft.
This is a day for great rejoicing.
We rejoice in the identity we have been given in baptism as children or apprentices of God.
We rejoice in the enlarging of our community by the welcome of these new members.
And we rejoice in the mission we share as a community of the baptized – an identity and
a mission worth dying for and that is worth giving our lives to.
Together let us pass the test.
Together let us reach not for the certain, the extraordinary, and the miraculous.
Rather, together let us reach for the precarious, the quiet, and the mundane,
Knowing that when we do so, we do so with Jesus.
So together let us say, Amen.
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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