Miss Bower, my third-grade teacher, was one of the finest teachers I’ve had. She was fair, concise, and had high standards. She was emotionally steady, friendly, and down-to-earth. There are only two times I remember her getting particularly excited with me—one was when she expressed her intense disappointment with me during a cursive lesson because my lower case “q’s” were sloppy. The other was when she was reviewing a spelling sentence in which I had written “There are sand dunes in the dessert.” My mistake tickled her. She called me up to her desk and pointed out my error. She invited me to see the humor in it instead of causing me embarrassment around it. We laughed about it together.
When considering a title for a sermon today about Jesus’ temptation in the desert, in conjunction with my Lenten effort to cut back on desserts, I was reminded of that precious interaction with a teacher who brought out the best in me.
Of course, we’re not all tempted by dessert. I’ve heard there are people who do not have a sweet tooth and while I don’t understand them, I certainly do envy them. But even if fighting back a sweet tooth is a challenge for you, dessert is, for most of us, quite the benign temptation.
Jesus wasn’t facing benign temptations in the wilderness. Jesus was faced with the temptation to assure his own physical survival through creating bread. Then he was tempted with claiming power over the kingdoms of the world. Then he was tempted with human approval and fame. Bread. Power. Fame. Powerful temptations for him, powerful temptations for us.
And yet, we are not Jesus. We don’t have the power to conjure these things. While taking more than our fair share of daily bread might tempt us, if we were in the position of famine, we’d likely be helpless to bring about manna from heaven. While we might lean into trying to claim more control and influence over others than is respectful of them, we do not have the power to overtake nations. While we might be tempted to forego our own integrity to gain the approval or appreciation of others, it’s unlikely any of us are going to achieve world-wide fame and glory. We don’t have the power Jesus had.
But that is not to say that we don’t have power. We have power. We have lots of power. I think of Miss Bower, a third-grade teacher in a rural school with fewer than thirty students a year. Hardly a position that gave her the power to usurp the might of nations, but she had power. She had power as a classroom teacher. She used it appropriately and well. She used it to empower, challenge, and teach. (Though I do think she blew that whole thing with the lower case “q’s” out of proportion. I mean really, how many of you have even seen one of my hand-written, lower case “q’s.” Probably not very many because I am so insecure about them that I actively avoid using words that include them when writing by hand!)
Of course, the nature of our power is different than that of Jesus’. But the source is the same. We have power through the gifts and abilities given to us by the grace of God through the power of the Holy Spirit. God is the source of any power we have. However, the choice about how to use that power—that choice is ours. No one else decides how we use our power. That choice is up to us.
That’s not to say there aren’t those who use the power they have to try to convince us that we are powerless. They, in the same spirit of evil Jesus faced in the desert, they will try to tempt us away from our personal integrity and empowerment. Evil tries to make us think we are less than who and what we are as beloved children of God. That’s what Satan did to Jesus, tried to get him to behave in ways that were less than who and what he could be. Satan tried to make a power play with Jesus, but Jesus refused to give his power away.
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While the situation in Ukraine—and indeed situations like it around the world in which innocent people are the target of bullying behaviors and unjust policies—while the situations in places such as these are heartbreaking, abhorrent, and hard to take in, I am edified and empowered by the stories of some of these innocents claiming their personal power in the face of tyranny. From Russians gathering to protest the actions of their own government to Ukrainian teachers gathering up their students in subway stations so they can continue to teach—people are claiming and using their power in the face of uncertainty and grave danger.
In the words of author Alan Cohen, “You give your power away when you make someone or something outside of you more important than what is inside of you.”
As followers of Christ, what is inside of us is infinite potential and possibility for using the power we have through the gifts we’ve been given to build up the Body of Christ and reach out in loving service to our neighbor. Even when our gifts and abilities don’t give us enough power to change a situation, we all have the power to choose how we will respond to it. Notice there the “respond.” Not how we will initially react, but rather how we will prayerfully and lovingly respond.
Of course, we’ll have reactions—we are human beings—we have reactions. Sometimes it is our reactions to dangerous situations that save us in terms of our fight or flight response. But when it comes to non-emergency situations in our lives, when we want to respond according to our potential as children of God following the Way of Christ, not as animals seeking to survive, we can choose not to act on our base reaction. Rather, we can have our reaction (privately if possible), take time to reflect on the situation, and then respond.
Miss Bower taught my classmates and me about the three “R’s”-reading, writing, and arithmetic. Our faith teaches us another kind of three “R’s”—react, reflect, and THEN respond. We claim our power and preserve our integrity when we refuse to respond until we’ve taken time to reflect on how best to use our power as beloved and empowered children of God. Because that is what we all are–beloved and empowered children of God. Thanks be to God.
It Wonders Me 