Baskets full or empty

Written by Marv Thiessen

Pastor Marv Thiessen

Calgary First Mennonite Church

February 21, 2010

 

BASKETS FULL OR EMPTY

Deuteronomy 26:1-11; Luke 4:1-13

I. Introduction

The text from Deuteronomy for this morning’s worship told of a significant ritual that God instructed for the people of Israel as they prepared to live in the land God would give them after forty years of wandering in the wilderness as a nomadic, homeless people. In this ritual, the people of Israel would go to the place that God would designate as a worship center in Israel and bring baskets full of the first harvest of their crops in the first year that they would inhabit the land. The full baskets would remind them of the blessing that God had given them and the contents of those full baskets would be given to God in a response of gratitude for what God had done. It would be an act of worship.

Our other text for this morning describes a time of an empty basket. While there are no actual baskets mentioned in the telling of the story, we easily recognize the contrast that was presented in the reader’s theater piece that brought these two texts together. In the story from the Gospel of Luke, Jesus came to the end of a period of time in the wilderness: not forty years, but forty days. For forty days, he had not eaten food and he was hungry. His basket was empty. We don’t know whether he expected that his basket would soon be full or not, but at that point in time his basket was empty.

Both the full and the empty baskets created an opportunity for temptation. The people of Israel and Jesus found themselves tempted to go in a direction different than what God wanted for them. As we go on in this sermon, we’ll think about the temptations that came to them and their responses to those temptations and then what we can learn from them. Before we move on to those ideas, I invite you to consider whether your basket feels full or empty to you. Are you at a place of spiritual fulfillment? Are you in a place where God seems very present? Are you in a place where you sense deeply a life full of blessing? Or are you in a place of spiritual emptiness? Are you in a place where you feel God’s absence more than his presence? Do you feel like life has come up short in its promises of joy and happiness?

No matter how we feel about life, God continues to care about us deeply and wants us to move in the direction that he desires for us. But, whether we feel like our baskets are full or empty, we will face temptation in life to move in a direction different from God’s desire for us.

II. Full baskets

Let’s think about the full baskets of the people of Israel for a moment. In the story we read in Deuteronomy, the people of Israel were ready to enter the land of Canaan and to live there as God would make possible. As we already noted, God instructed them about what they were to do when they gathered their first harvest.

Now, why was their first act at harvest to be a trip to God’s worship center to present a basket full of their crops to the priest? The answer to that question is found in what God told the Israelites they were to declare when they brought their full baskets to the priest. They were to declare first of all that they had come to the land the Lord had sworn He would give to their forefathers. It seems to me that in that declaration, they were to recognize two things, that God had kept his promises and that their residence in Canaan was due to the work of God. Then they were to continue on and declare their history before God as they presented their full baskets. They were to talk about their ancestor, Jacob, who took his family to live in Egypt where they eventually became a large clan that was treated harshly by the Egyptians. They were to talk about how God brought them out of Egypt to this land where the crops were plentiful. I think that in that declaration, they were to recognize how good their life was in comparison to what it had been and that God was the one responsible. They had not done this themselves. God had made it possible.

I think that, in giving this instruction, God was indicating to the people of Israel what one of their temptations would be. When they would finally be living in security in Canaan and would be enjoying the abundant fruit of their labour, they would be tempted to forget that what they had came from God. They would be tempted to think that they didn’t need God; that they could manage their lives very well without God.

We have the benefit of history that allows us to see that the people of Israel did indeed succumb to that temptation. Time and time again, they determined that they would make up their own minds about how to live. They didn’t need to follow the guidance that God gave them. We also know that the biblical history tells us that this didn’t work out well for the people of Israel. They suffered greatly because of the mistakes they made as they rejected God’s direction for their living.

Now, let’s reflect on our own lives. Are we people with full baskets? In some ways, I think we are. We generally live in security and have adequate food and shelter in a community that supports us. We commune with God. Our baskets are full. Can we, as people with full baskets, identify with the people of Israel who found themselves inclined to deny their dependence on God? Do we hold on to notions of autonomy and independence, causing us to turn against the direction of God or to resist the nudging of the Holy Spirit in our lives? If so, we need to let go of that. We need to let go of our idea that we don’t truly need God to live joyfully and fully.

III. Empty baskets

We move next to the story of an empty basket. As we noted earlier, Jesus had gone through an emptying experience, living forty days in the wilderness without food as the devil tempted him to forsake his ideals and to turn against the direction that God had set out for him. The devil tried to prey on Jesus’ low state in order to turn him in a wrong direction. It seems that his temptations to Jesus were an attempt to encourage Jesus to pursue fame and power. Jesus should think about himself first and make choices that would stroke his own ego. He could do things that would impress people. He could be known as a great worldwide authority. Fame, power and adulation would be his.

Jesus withstood the temptation. Jesus resisted the devil’s advances by quoting Scripture. He grounded himself in what God had set out for humanity and was able to turn against temptations that must have felt quite strong. He was in a place of weakness and emptiness and was being offered remarkable fullness in a sense. He knew, however, that this was not the fullness that God had for him.

Now, let’s reflect on our own lives. Are we people with empty baskets? I suggested earlier that we are all people with full baskets. But let’s face it, our baskets feel rather empty sometimes. We may well affirm that we have adequate living needs and that God is present with us, but we feel that life has come up short and has given us some pretty hard times. We’re not receiving enough. We don’t find joy, happiness and fulfillment in life. It doesn’t feel very much like God is on our side. Our baskets seem quite empty to us.

We need to be careful in this situation, too. Just as Jesus found himself tempted in his time of weakness, we too will experience temptation in our time of perceived emptiness. What will the devil say to us? Of course, it won’t be the same for each of us who struggles with emptiness, but somehow the devil will encourage us to reject the ways of God in order to get more out of life. He’ll tell us that we’re worth more than we’re getting. We might be tempted to cheat others. We might be tempted to defame others in order to make ourselves look better. We might be tempted in some way to steal what isn’t ours to have in order to have more. We might be tempted to strive for the adulation and affirmation of others, even if it means compromising our understanding of what God wants. We’ll be told, in a sense, that if we pursue these things that God says are not right for us to pursue, our baskets will become fuller.

What do we do to withstand that temptation? I suggest we draw on the example of Jesus. Just as Jesus used God’s word to be certain for himself about what God would want him to do, we need to respond to temptation with remembrance of what God reveals as his intentions for us in his Word. In order to do that, we need to immerse ourselves in the study of God’s Word. Jesus knew quickly what biblical principles to draw on in order to withstand the temptation. We will find ourselves better able to withstand temptation as we know Scripture more and more.

But here’s an interesting accompanying idea. The devil in the story also used the Scripture. He quoted from the Old Testament about God providing angels to guard people as he tempted Jesus to a spectacular stunt that would awe the people who saw it. That invites us to ask ourselves how we use the Scripture. Do we use it in a manner in which we hold on to it in order to use it to our own advantage? Do we use it to defend the actions we have already taken and the opinions we have already formed? Or do we let go in a way to allow the Scripture freedom to work in our lives? Do we allow the Holy Spirit freedom to propel us toward the way that God wants us to think and live?

IV. Conclusion

Whether we think of our baskets as full or empty, we recognize that we are challenged. In either case, we are tempted to not trust God and his Word. As we let go of the ideas and actions that stand against God and embrace and hold on to the ideas and actions that God inspires by his Spirit, we learn to live "in the wonder of the God who is our refuge" and who loves us fully and deeply.