Do Over (sermon Lent 1)

Lent 1A 02/10/08

Matt 4:1-11

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from God’s son, our Lord and Savior Jesus, the Christ.

How many of you here have ever played checkers? Just about all of you—great! Let me describe a checkers scenario and we’ll see if someone can name the strategy. Let’s say you’re playing your best friend—and he’s whupping you bad. In fact, it’s down to your last king versus his five kings.

So, your only option is to move around and around and around the board, hotly pursued by all five kings, until you finally end up trapped in that magic corner—you know the one I’m talking about—the one where there’s two spots you can safely be? And so you move to one, he moves to jump you, so you move back to the other, and he moves back to jump you, so you move back, and so on and so forth—back and forth, back and forth—with you just hoping he might get bored with the game and quit. (In which case you could claim forfeit!)

But in this scenario, as you move back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, it’s you who starts getting bored. And so you miss the fact that, instead of moving that threatening king this last time, he’s moved another king into striking position. And so when you move into what you believe to be your second safety position—BOOM—he jumps you!

Flabbergasted and flummoxed, you do the only thing possible in such a situation. You invoke the doctrine of _______? What? Take backs! You make a deal. “You let me take this move back, and I’ll let you take one back another time.” Depending on the largesse of your friend, the game either continues, or not.

Now, “taking it back” is similar to, but not the same as, another famous games doctrine—that being the “do over.” The “do over” plays out like this—and see if you can’t discern the subtle difference between it and take backs.

Imagine this time you’re playing wiffleball with the youth here at church. It’s the bottom of the ninth, score’s tied, your team is in the field, there’s two outs, bases are loaded, and up comes Zach Morshead. Your pitcher lets one fly and—BAM—Zach wails on it—ground ball right down the third base line.

But here’s where it gets interesting. Because the Morshead’s have brought along their dog, Ozzie, and Ozzie sees that ball a-rolling on by and can’t resist. He breaks loose, grabs the ball in his mouth, and hightails it—with you and your entire team running behind, trying to catch the little imp! In the meantime four runs score and the other team is already triumphantly making plans to go to Disneyland.

“That’s not fair,” you cry! “Yes it is,” they reply So an argument ensues back ad forth, back and forth—and eventually the only thing that keeps it from leading to a schism in the church is that all agree to a “do over.” Which effectively turns back the clock to just before the stated offense—all things as they were, except Ozzie is now tied to a lawn chair.

And therein lies the difference between the two. Take backs is a cognitive deal—the move is recalled, then made differently with guaranteed positive result. You know what you should have done, and take backs gives you the opportunity to do it right the second time. If your counterpart agrees!

In a do over the play is repeated in as close to its original form as possible—except that the stimulus that caused the problem is removed. So the outcome is open to all possibility again. Do over totally cancels out the prior play or move and provides a clean slate for a repeat.

Now, am I spending such an exorbitant amount of time on the concepts of take backs and do over because I want to make sure you can use them properly in your next checkers tournament or wiffleball game? No—you know that! It’s because I’d like to interpret God’s word for you this morning and those two concepts have a lot to do with the readings appointed for this day, believe it or not. Essentially what I’d like to propose to you is this: God does a “do over” so we can have “take backs.” Let’s look at that statement carefully…

First, God does a do over. A little Pauline theology will help explain that one, I believe. St. Paul writes in his letter to the Romans that “sin and death came into the world through one man.” That one man, he says, was Adam, who was tempted and just could not keep his hand out of the cookie jar. God trusted Adam and Eve, but they did not live up to expectations. Their disobedience opened the door to sin in the world, and its consequence—death.

But God won’t just let that lie. God’s going to do something about it. God calls for a do over, wipes the slate clean, resets the clock, and starts over. Except this time it won’t be Adam in the hot seat. Adam is Ozzie chasing the ball—the variable that is removed for the do over. And it is Jesus who takes his place.

Now, that’s a big gamble on God’s part, as the results are not guaranteed. It was unknown whether or not Jesus could withstand temptation. That’s a bit hard to grasp, but if the results were foreknown, it would not be a test. Jesus is really tempted—he faces sin as surely as did Adam, and in the gospel reading from Matthew, he faces symbolically, all the temptations that the people of God did in the wilderness. And the temptations did not stop when Jesus left the wilderness—they continue throughout his ministry

This is cleverly illustrated in the movie Jesus of Nazareth by the reappearance throughout the picture of the actor who played the devil in the temptation scene. When Peter rebukes Jesus for saying that he will be put to death—the devil stands nearby. When the crowd moves to make Jesus king, the devil is in the crowd. When the onlookers at the cross dare Jesus to come down and save himself, the devil whispers the same. Jesus is tempted by the devil continuously. And being fully human, Jesus is susceptible to it just as are you and I. So this “do over” is really very risky business.

But it proves successful. Jesus does not give in to temptation, but is obedient, even unto death. So, just as sin came into the world via one man, Adam, sin is escorted out by one man—Jesus Christ.

Now, why does God take such a risk? So we can have “take backs.” And again I’ll turn to St. Paul and Romans for the explanation. Writing to them about the seductive power of sin, Paul says that he knows what he should be doing as a follower of Christ, but instead he does the opposite. What he wants to do, he cannot do, and what he wishes most fervently not to do, is exactly what he does. He concludes with a lament, and the answer to his dilemma. “Oh wretched man that I am! Who will save me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

Sin and temptation pursue you. Like the paparazzi on Britney Spears. Like your friend’s five kings and your one. Sin and temptation bide their time until you slip up, and then you are theirs! And there’s no take backs to be negotiated with sin. Because thanks to Adam, we are predisposed to sin. Thanks to Adam, sin has got the upper hand.

But wait! The do over! Adam’s fall has been reversed, and sin no longer holds sway in the world. With Jesus, God has graciously given us a free gift, as Paul puts it. A free gift of a take back. We are forgiven and the sin that we don’t want to do but did anyway is cancelled out, and we have another chance at doing the good we want to do.

And, better still, we can call take backs again and again—it’s called repentance and confession. And it’s available to us, thanks to Jesus and the do over.

One more thing. And this has nothing to do with checkers or wiffleball, but much to do with take backs and do overs. We all experience sin directed against us at some point in our lives. We all encounter people who hurt us, either intentionally, or by mistake. Either way, it’s a struggle sometime to forgive. The temptation is to hold a grudge, or seek revenge or retribution. The way to follow Christ is to forgive (not just once or seven times, but seven times seventy said Jesus). That is something you do, independent of what they do—you can forgive even if the one who hurt you is unrepentant. And it’s like putting a heavy burden down. It can be such a relief!

Think now of someone in your life whom you have left unforgiven. Someone who hurt you. It may be painful to think about, but if you can do it, hold that person in your thoughts and lift them up to God. Say, “Father, forgive them.” Say it outloud if you can. Now comes the hard part, and I pray that God helps you. In your mind, call for a “take back” of your unforgiveness, and open your heart to the possibility of forgiving this person—think what it will mean and how it will feel.

Taking the next step—forgiving—is up to you. Maybe you’ll do it, maybe you can’t. I won’t presume that it’s something that can be done on the spur of the moment. But opening our hearts to those who have sinned against us I think, is part of what Lent is for. God does a do over, so we can have take backs—and give them to others. Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. AMEN