Sermon Seeds: Famished

Sunday, March 9, 2025
First Sunday in Lent Sunday | Year C
(Liturgical Color: Violet)

Lectionary Citations
Deuteronomy 26:1-11 • Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16 • Romans 10:8b-13 • Luke 4:1-13
https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts/?z=l&d=25&y=384

Focus Scripture: Luke 4:1-13
Focus Theme: Famished
Series: Sound the Alarm: Toward Good Friday (Click here for the series overview.)

Reflection
By Cheryl A. Lindsay

Have you ever really been famished? Beyond the slight hunger that comes from skipping a meal or taking one a bit later, have you experienced the pangs that come from sustained lack of food? I think of Muslim siblings who fast every day during Ramadan from sunrise to sunset. I attended an Iftar, named after the evening meal that breaks the daily fast, and the anticipation of the sun going down was palpable. This particular dinner was sponsored by an organization and there was a speaker who clearly was stretching their remarks in order to conclude at just the right moment. The table was set and food was brought out so that everyone could begin eating immediately. As a guest, I was assured that it was not impolite to begin eating in the middle of the speech as those who had been fasting all day would not wait another minute to break their fast even if the speaker who has been stretching before had not gotten into a groove and did not wind down their remarks.

Jesus, in the gospel reading, had been fasting for forty days. He did not eat when the sun went down during that time. He did not eat at all. He was famished, and we might consider what state of vulnerability that created for him.

In recent years, a new term has emerged–hangry–to reflect the impact that being hungry can have upon one’s entire being. It’s an amalgamation of the words hungry and angry that’s first known use dates back to the early 1900s and has now been officially added to the Oxford English Dictionary. It’s defined as “bad-tempered or irritable as a result of hunger.” Yet, the impact of extreme hunger extends beyond our attitude. Our physical, emotional, and spiritual selves experience the impact.

Our bodies become weak; muscles break down, and bones become brittle. Our vision may become impaired due to vitamin deficiencies. Our capacity to engage in physical activity diminishes dramatically. Mentally, we lose focus and clarity. Decision making becomes more challenging. We forget the things we normally remember. And, if our minds and bodies feel the impact of hunger, how can our spirits continue unscathed? We exist as full, integrated beings of mind, body, and spirit. In many ways, that framing of our makeup reflects one manifestation of the Trinity as Source, Body, and Spirit. We are created in the image of the divine, and just as we understand the Triune God to be distinct, yet inseparable, our nature has distinctive character integrated into our one being.

Jesus entered the world to get the body. Through his incarnation, he learns what it means to have physical needs, experiences, and limitations. Further, he would acquire direct knowledge of the cohesion of mind, body, and soul. The temptation Jesus encounters following forty days of fasting and prayer challenges him to confront his identity just as he begins to launch his public ministry following his baptism.

The ordeal of the temptation centers on the meaning of Jesus’ divine sonship. What does it mean for his life and mission? Is the enticement of the first test for Jesus to embrace a ministry of miracle? Certainly, Jesus will perceive his calling as declaring good news of God’s reign (e.g., 4:43) and summoning the lost into that realm (e.g., 5:32; 19:10), not performing miracles. Nevertheless, he will perform extraordinary acts of healing and even multiply bread for a hungry crowd (9:12–17). The focus of the first test is rather Jesus’ reliance upon God’s provision, and his refusal to order his life to serve his own need. With words borrowed from Deut 8:3, he rebuffs the tempter: “A person will not live on bread alone.” But on what will one rely for life? Luke does not use the affirmation to which Deut 8:3 proceeds: “but on every word that goes out through the mouth of God the person will live.” Even if Luke’s audience is not expected to remember this larger scriptural context of the words Jesus quotes, what is left unstated now receives explicit treatment later. Jesus will urge his followers to trust confidently in God’s provision of food, and other necessities, for those who seek God’s dominion (11:3, 9–13; 12:22–32). Jesus need not turn stones into bread because, even though famished, he chooses to trust in God’s gracious provision.
John T. Carroll

Jesus experienced human need. So much attention focuses on Jesus’ seeming ease at overcoming temptation that the reader’s temptation may be to take Jesus’ needs and desires for granted. Only what one needs or desires can tempt someone. If you hate being in nature, no one can tempt you with a walk…unless they attach that temptation to something that you do desire. Maybe the walk becomes more appealing if you can avoid a long, boring meeting at your desk. On the other hand, if you love a good hike, little coaxing will be necessary in order to get you up and moving.

In this case, the devil makes the critical error of not understanding Jesus fully. All he seems to understand is that Jesus is vulnerable due to hunger. Once Jesus passes the first test, the others have no chance at capturing him because you cannot tempt someone with something they do not want or that they already have. The devil does not grasp the fullness of who Jesus is and the completeness of the divine relationship. And, while Jesus may have been hungry for food, he had just spent forty days feasting on and in the presence of Source and Spirit. In fact, as Luke begins the narrative, Jesus was “full of the Holy Spirit.”

Details of place continue to be significant. Jesus reverses the movement that attended his participation in John’s baptism; now he withdraws from the Jordan and returns to the wilderness. There he undergoes an ordeal that recalls ancient Israel’s forty years of testing in the wilderness—a probing of its capacity for trust in, and fidelity to, God (e.g., Deut 8:2–3). Jesus, like God’s son Israel before him (e.g., Hos 11:1), now faces the same test. Although it is forty days, not forty years, the symbolic association with Israel’s wilderness journey is apparent. Moses lingered on Sinai for “forty days and forty nights” (Exod 24:18; cf. Deut 9:9, 18, 25), a protracted delay that led the people to rebellion and idolatry. (Elijah’s journey to Horeb also lasted forty days and nights [1 Kgs 19:8].) In an ordeal of testing in the wilderness that echoes that of ancient Israel, Jesus will show that he has grasped his identity and vocation as Son of God and that he will not swerve from fidelity to God’s ways.
John T. Carroll

The devil’s plot and plan never had a chance because of the preemptive work of Jesus attending to his mind and spirit so they may be strengthened to compensate for his body’s self-imposed weakness. This moment is witness, test, and testimony. It’s also training for what will come. As Jesus journeys toward Good Friday, he deliberately engages in deprivation and sacrifice. When he enters his passion, it will not be the first time he will have experienced the struggle and pain of his physical side. It will not be the same, but he will have had some practice overcoming the strain of his mind and spirit remaining true to himself when his body is tempted to succumb to their needs and desires.

Many Christians, especially in theologically progressive spaces, reject a sacrificial theology. I wonder if that speaks more to our modern culture’s rejection of sacrifice as a communal practice. Is it yet another casualty of the mythology of rugged individualism? Earlier generations understood mutual dependency…from indigenous cultures with collective leadership models to enslaved persons with networks and systems of support from the plantation to freedom to the coalition of the Civil Rights Movement and its interfaith allies. The family farms that helped one another raise barns, the neighborhoods that held block parties to pool their resources, and the corner church so that transportation would not be an impediment to worship…all have something to teach us about surviving and thriving during difficult times. Sacrifice, in the service of the common good, makes a difference.

The entire life of Jesus was a sacrifice but not a substitution. He does not live and die in place of us, but Jesus does live and die for us–so that we may experience abundant, full, flourishing, and communal life. He does live and die so that Jesus will have an experiential account of what it means to be subjected to the needs and desires of a physical body. Yes, the devil in this story does what the devil does–preys on human vulnerabilities. Jesus gives us a model for overcoming that–strengthening ourselves spiritually and mentally to be ready to sacrifice and sustain ourselves for the tests of the moment and the trials ahead.

Reflection from Voices of People of African Descent
The 33rd General Synod adopted a Resolution to Recognize the United Nations International Decade for People of African Descent (2015-2024). As part of its implementation, Sermon and Weekly Seeds offers Reflection from Voices of People of African Descent related to the season or overall theme for additional consideration in sermon preparation and for individual and congregational study.

Excerpt from “For My People” by Margaret Walker
For my people standing staring trying to fashion a better way
from confusion, from hypocrisy and misunderstanding,
trying to fashion a world that will hold all the people,
all the faces, all the adams and eves and their countless generations;

Let a new earth rise. Let another world be born. Let a
bloody peace be written in the sky. Let a second
generation full of courage issue forth; let a people
loving freedom come to growth. Let a beauty full of
healing and a strength of final clenching be the pulsing
in our spirits and our blood. Let the martial songs
be written, let the dirges disappear. Let a race of men now
rise and take control.
For the full poem: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/21850/for-my-people

For Further Reflection
“By starving the sensibility of our pupils we only make them easier prey to the propagandist when he comes. For famished nature will be avenged and a hard heart is no infallible protection against a soft head.” — C.S. Lewis
“I’ve decided the act that cannot wait / is the important will to create / But, ah, if my belly is ignored / the pantry door I shall implore / But I’ve been known to reach the bed / ideas still famished in my head.” — Roman Payne
“On these occasions I read quickly, voraciously, almost skimming, trying to get as much into my head as possible before the next long starvation. If it were eating it would be gluttony of the famished.” — Margaret Atwood

Works Cited
Carroll, John T. Luke. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2012.

Suggested Congregational Response to the Reflection
During the season of Lent, let us take on practices that strengthen our communal capacities. Consider what sacrificial commitments your faith community may make to strengthen a ministry of the church.

Worship Ways Liturgical Resources
https://www.ucc.org/worship-way/lent-1c-march-9/

The Rev. Dr. Cheryl A. Lindsay, Minister for Worship and Theology (lindsayc@ucc.org), also serves a local church pastor, public theologian, and worship scholar-practitioner with a particular interest in the proclamation of the word in gathered communities. You’re invited to share your reflections on this text in the comments on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/SermonSeeds.

A Bible study version of this reflection is at Weekly Seeds.