You Can Have It All vs. It's All Already Yours

First Sunday in LentAgain, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written,‘Worship the Lord your God,and serve only him.’”Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him. Matthew 4:10-11You can have it all. Really, you can. Someone on a commercial just told me.The tragedy is that we believe it. We strive for it. Envy burns within as our coworker gets the promotion, our siblings gets the boat, our neighbor gets the in-ground pool. We are always looking for fulfillment on the outside, aren’t we?Jesus heard the words, too. You can have it all! And don’t think for a moment he didn’t pause. Let us not forget that Jesus was fully human. Jesus was not at all immune to the twinge of envy, the surge of lust, the enticement of you-can-have-it-all. Shortly before his crucifixion, he’d even agonize over his vocation: “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me” (Matthew 26:39).Perhaps, Jesus even thought to himself, “I’ve heard this story before.” Surging into his memory comes the recollection of a day when, gathered with other Jewish boys, he hears the original temptation story of Genesis 3 told. Images of the slithering snake, the promise of power and knowledge, and the sting of shame flood his mind. You, Jesus, can have it all.Consider this, too. Not only is Jesus fully human, but Jesus is also fully God. He was present at creation, in creation. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. I’m speculating here, but maybe something of his own original, Trinitarian imagination surged within the moment. Could it be that Jesus recalled the original simplicity and beauty of Eden, capturing it in words familiar to any Jew of that day:‘Worship the Lord your God,and serve only him.’”Maybe in that one crucial moment, Jesus remembered. Maybe in the midst of the you can have it all whisper, Jesus recalled – Worship the Lord and serve only him. Maybe he remembered his origins. Maybe he remembered his birthright. Maybe he remembered that humanity is born of more simple things – earth, soil, humility.  That’s it, isn’t it? You see, if God is God, then you don’t have to be. You can give up your relentless, exhausting attempt to be more than you are – richer, sexier, stronger. You can remember that “everything I have is already yours.” You don’t need anything more. God is God, you’re not, and that’s that. You can remember. You can receive. You can rest, returning the humble ground of your being.The words Jesus found in that moment were familiar ones, repeated often in his Scriptures – Deuteronomy, 1 Samuel, Isaiah, and in many other paraphrases. They are a call to remember. It was a way of saying, “Let’s get back to the basics – to who I am, who you are, to who we are together.” Worship is not some demand of a narcissistic God, but an invitation to be re-oriented rightly, to return to the ground of our beings, to accept the gift of the dust. Worship is the great return to our depths.It’s hard to remember. That’s why we need Lent. In the midst of a world that says, “You can have it all,” Jesus reminds us that we already do. We need not attain it. We need not achieve it. We, more often than not, simply fall into it.__________Prayer:Jesus, it’s hard to imagine resisting that “you can have it all” voice as you did. The security you had in being God’s beloved is remarkable. I long for this, too. In my head, I can believe that I have it all in you, but it’s a much harder journey to live it. Will you whisper it to me regularly, by your Spirit? Amenfrom Falling into Goodness