{"id":1680,"date":"2025-03-10T09:13:56","date_gmt":"2025-03-10T13:13:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/?p=1680"},"modified":"2025-03-10T09:13:58","modified_gmt":"2025-03-10T13:13:58","slug":"remember-who-you-are","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/2025\/03\/10\/remember-who-you-are\/","title":{"rendered":"Remember Who You Are"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Remember-Who-You-Are-3725-10.56\u202fAM.mp3\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A Sermon for the Locust Grove United Church of Christ of York, PA<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">by Rev. James Eaton, Interim Pastor \u00a92025<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">First Sunday in Lent &#8211; Year C \u2022 March 9, 2025<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/bible.oremus.org\/?ql=608612119\">Deuteronomy 26:1-11<\/a> \u2022 <a href=\"https:\/\/bible.oremus.org\/?ql=608612145\">Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16<\/a> \u2022 <a href=\"https:\/\/bible.oremus.org\/?ql=608612174\">Luke 4:1-13<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">I\u2019m Nobody<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I\u2019m Nobody! Who are you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Are you \u2013 Nobody \u2013 too?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then there\u2019s a pair of us!&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Don\u2019t tell! they\u2019d advertise \u2013 you know!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">How dreary \u2013 to be \u2013 Somebody!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">How public \u2013 like a Frog \u2013&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To tell one\u2019s name \u2013 the livelong June<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To an admiring bog<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8211;<em>Emily Dickinson<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Who are you? For most of us, the first attempt to answer that comes shortly after we\u2019re born, when our mothers gave us a name. My first name was for my parents\u2019 best friend at the time, a trumpet player. We haven\u2019t seen him since about 1959. I got my last name from my dad, as most of us do. Later on I got other names: Pastor, Reverend, Parent, Husband, and so on. Who are you? It\u2019s an important question because who we are can determine who we become.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s so important that all cultures have a set of signs and signals to tell people about our identity. When we are married, most of us exchange rings.We have bumper stickers that shout political and social messages. We have hats, we have clothing, we have endless ways of saying to the whole world, \u201cThis is who I am.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That\u2019s the point of the section we read in Deuteronomy this morning. God\u2019s people have been welded together by the difficulty of the Exodus, of years in the wilderness. But what happens when that\u2019s over and things ease up? What happens in the promised land? So we have this message: when you get there, when you are living in the land of milk and honey, when things are going right, remember who you are. Go take the first fruits of your success, and give it away and say this.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous. When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labor on us, we cried to the LORD, the God of our ancestors; the LORD heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. The LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. [Deuteronomy 26:5-9]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s stunning, isn\u2019t it? \u201cOk, great, you had a good year in the fields and the olives came in just like you hoped but don\u2019t get proud: remember who you are, you\u2019re just an Aramean, an undocumented alien, and everything you\u2019ve made is the God\u2019s gift. Remember who you are.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is what scripture is meant to do: remind us of who we are because we have a tendency to forget. We get busy with what we\u2019re doing, step back and see that we\u2019ve done a good job and think, \u201cWow! I did that!\u201d There\u2019s nothing wrong with a sense of accomplishment, but we can forget in the midst of it, how we got there. A. J. Jacobs set out to thank everyone involved in providing his morning coffee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Consider this: The coffee beans are driven to my local caf\u00e9 in a van (I had to thank the driver). But he couldn\u2019t do his job without the road (thanks to the pavers). And the road would be dangerous without the yellow lines (thanks to the folks who made the paint). We\u2019re talking a boatload of people (which reminds me, the ship designers too). [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/pulse\/i-thanked-thousand-people-cup-coffee-here-what-learned-a-j-jacobs\/\">https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/pulse\/i-thanked-thousand-people-cup-coffee-here-what-learned-a-j-jacobs\/<\/a>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">My dad became a production engineer and later a lawyer; he held patents, he bought the first automated production system for cars for General Motors. He seldom talked about his life but when he did, he always began, \u201cI came from a dirt farm\u201d. That\u2019s me: whatever I become, I come from dirt farmers in Michigan, it just happens that now I\u2019m a pastor in Pennsylvania. Thanks be to God!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Scripture reminds us we are God\u2019s and whatever we do, we do with the gifts of God. That\u2019s the core of the story of Jesus\u2019 temptation that we read today. Matthew, Mark and Luke all tell a story of Jesus in the wilderness before he began his ministry. They tell us about his baptism, which we read in January. There, the tradition is that God spoke to him directly, saying \u201cYou are my beloved Son.\u201d All suggest that immediately after this, he was in the wilderness, hungry, perhaps scared, and there he was tempted.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Whenever this part is told in movies, all the focus is on the special effects: the scary wilderness, the details of the temptations. But the real point is that there, in the wilderness, Jesus is doing what we can all do: using scripture to remember who he is. He\u2019s hungry and anyone who\u2019s ever been starving can tell you that just the first whiff of food is almost overpowering. So the devil offers that, according to Luke. Jesus replies with a quotation from Deuteronomy: \u201cIt is written, \u201c&#8217;One does not live by bread alone.\u2019\u201d The devil offers him enormous power and influence; he replies, \u201cIt is written, &#8216;Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.\u2019\u201d And finally, the devil offers absolute assurance of God\u2019s presence and power: step off a pinnacle, and see if God really protects you. He simply says, \u201cIt is said, &#8216;Do not put the Lord your God to the test.\u2019\u2019\u201d. He\u2019s being tested\u2014he replies, don\u2019t do exactly what you\u2019re doing, devil! These answers are all scripture; these are all from our Bible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Aren\u2019t these the same temptations we all face?&nbsp; We think we can take care of ourselves; Jesus could have fed himself. We strive for power and influence; Jesus could have ruled. We want to be certain of God instead of having faith. These temptations run through all of life, in our lives, as they did at this moment for Jesus. They come for us, as they did for him, in the wilderness places, in the places with no signs, in the places where we aren\u2019t sure of our direction. Using our gifts only for ourselves, power and pride, tempting God: haven\u2019t we all felt these temptations, faced them in our own wildernesses?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So it\u2019s important to listen to this story because Jesus is showing us how to respond to temptation and the way he responds is by going back to God\u2019s Word. There\u2019s a reason we read scripture every Sunday, and the reason is that in that Word, we are reminded of who we are: children of God. This is God\u2019s Word over and over. To Moses, God says, \u201cI have heard the cry of my people.\u201d To the prophets, God says, \u201cHow can I give you up, O Israel?\u201d And now in Jesus Christ, God says, \u201cYou are my beloved children.\u201d Jesus is in the wilderness but he remembers who he is because he remembers his call, he remembers God\u2019s Word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Who are you? Emily Dickinson was a very quiet poet and perhaps she felt she was nobody. You are not nobody: you are God\u2019s child. Remember who you are! In this season of Lent, throughout these weeks, I want to think about that with you and what it can mean for us. I\u201dm going to suggest a Lenten discipline: take your bulletin home, look up the scriptures we read today, read them over again, and then take a moment to ask God to show you how these words can come alive in your life. You are not nobody: you are a child of God. We are not nobodies: we are children of God. Let\u2019s act like it.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scripture helps us remember who we are when facing temptation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[12,371,3,32],"tags":[82,388,5,354],"class_list":["post-1680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lent","category-luke","category-sermon","category-year-c","tag-lent","tag-scripture","tag-sermon","tag-temptation"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1680"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1680\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1684,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1680\/revisions\/1684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}