I Pledge Allegiance

“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Sound familiar? For some of us it brings back distant memories from childhood, standing at the start of each school day, hand to heart, pledging allegiance to the flag of our country and all that that means.

For some of us, it may reflect what we do every day, in school as a student or teacher, as a scout leader or any other vocation where we regularly pledge allegiance to our country.

Pledging allegiance. This is the topic of our text today. Pledging allegiance.

Now I know that, so often, as we’ve heard this story of Jesus being tempted (or tested, which is another translation of the word), so much of our focus has been on sin and on the devil. On resisting temptation and the forces of evil.  

Traditionally, this text has always come during Lent, those 40 days when we are so focused on giving up our vices. Whether it’s chocolate, Facebook, failing to work out. Whatever it is. Lent is the time it seems to try to give something up, to deprive ourselves.  And a time, if you’re like me, when we fail. Inevitably.

I think we’ve really misunderstood and, perhaps, even misused this text as an example from Jesus of how to resist temptation. How to resist sin. (As though this is something we can even do.)

No, instead, I think this text speaks to us about allegiance. About pledging allegiance. About to whom or to what we pledge our allegiance.

So, let’s look at it. 

During the past season of Epiphany we’ve jumped around a bit in our Matthew gospel. We moved from Jesus’ baptism and fast forwarded to his ministry of healing and teaching and proclaiming the coming of God’s kingdom. We ended last Sunday on the mountaintop and witnessed God affirming both Jesus as God’s Son and the path chosen for him.

Today’s text pushes us backwards in time, to the period just after Jesus’ baptism. The Holy Spirit has led Jesus into the wilderness to be tested. To see if he is ready for the task that God has sent him for. Jesus has fasted - a widespread and valued act of devotion in his time. He has done this over 40 days (Hmmm. Does that number sound familiar?) And now Jesus is ready to face the Devil. 

It is no accident that Jesus is here. He is not lost. He is not being punished for something wrong he has done.

No, Jesus, has been led by the Holy Spirit to this very place for a purpose. To be tested. The debate he is about to enter into with the Devil, or Diabolos in the Greek, is really an assessment tool. A threefold test, or more rather, proof, of his readiness as God’s beloved Son for the mission that God has entrusted to him.

This past Wednesday, we talked briefly about the history of the 40 days of Lent. Traditionally, it was a time of learning for those newer to the faith. A time to devote themselves to the traditional disciplines of Lent-- caring for the poor, fasting, and immersion in Scripture and prayer. It was 40 days of devotion and fasting - very much like Jesus’ period of 40 days in the wilderness. And, also, like that of Jesus, it was a time of preparation for their own test, the assessment of their own readiness to embark upon the mission that God had called them to and entrusted them with. 

That test, for these early believers, would come on the eve of Easter, at the Easter Vigil, when they would be baptized. Early in the baptismal rite, they would be asked three questions. Tests, really. Just as the Devil tested Jesus with three questions, so, too, these new believers would be tested, or questioned, as part of their baptism. 

We take the same test. The same assessment. The same pledge of allegiance. If you open your hymnals to page 229 you will see these three questions. We call them the three renunciations:

Do you renounce the devil and all the forces that defy God?

Do you renounce the powers of this world that rebel against God?

Do you renounce the ways of sin that draw you from God?

These three questions are the same ones that have been asked for thousands of years in the church. These are the same questions asked of Jesus in the wilderness. To whom will you pledge allegiance? Who will you follow? In whom will you put your trust?

Will you pledge allegiance to the forces of darkness that defy God? Will you follow the powers of this world or of our culture that rebel from and seek to deny God? Will you trust yourself instead of putting your trust in God?

Like Jesus in the wilderness, we take the test. And in our baptisms we pledge our allegiance to God. To follow God. To trust God.

Yet, unlike Jesus, we have miserably failed in our own pledge of allegiance to God. Our pledge to follow God. To trust God. 

And, yet, this is the promise of the Gospel: God with us. Jesus has gone before us, even to the most forsaken places of the wilderness. He meets us in the most difficult tests of our lives. There is no place so desolate, so distant, so challenging, the Jesus has not already been there. There is no test so great that Jesus has not overcome it. 

All of this, Jesus has done for us. So that, even in our failure, we pass the test.

Over these next 40 days, we will be looking at our baptismal promises. We will be studying them, what they mean for us as individuals and what they mean for us as a community. We tell this amazing story of how God is with us in Jesus--the one who passed the test for us. As we look more deeply at our baptismal promises, I pray that we will become more of that story that we tell. That we will become the story we tell so we may more fully share that story in word and deed.

And, so, during these 40 days of Lent, I have a reminder of this for you. It is a wilderness stone, of sorts. A stone for you to carry with you each day. 

When those moments come when you are tested, you might hold it in your hand and remember that Jesus has passed the test for you and for me. That Jesus knows all of the difficulties and the heartaches and the challenges we face. And that, in Jesus, God has promised to be with us as we go about our work of sharing this Good News in the work we do and in the words we say…

”I pledge allegiance to my God.”

May God help us to all live more fully into this pledge. Amen.