I brought something for show and tell this morning, everybody, and would like to play something for you today on my string bass.

Now, please. Hold your applause.

What I just played is the fugue from the beginning of the third movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. It is standard repertoire for the string bass. It is one of those passages that if one is a string bass player, one is expected to know. If one is auditioning for a seat in the bass section of the Boston Symphony, or the Richmond Symphony, you’ll probably be asked to play what I just played. I don’t know whether there are standard questions on bar exams, or CPA exams, but there are standards for music auditions, and in the world of the string bass, this is one of them.

Here is how it is supposed to sound.

If you want a seat in the Boston Symphony, you have to play it that well.

Now, I could never play it that well. But I once was good enough that I could play it clearly, and in tune, like about this. *******. Now, that isn’t professional level. But it was good enough eighteen years ago to get me into a youth symphony that toured Europe, one filled with future professionals. The oboist in that group got a job with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and that’s a plum job for a twenty-two year-old oboist. I was last chair string bass, but it was still good enough to let me hang with some of the big kids for a while.

But I can’t play it that well anymore, obviously. Now it’s not that I don’t know about the string bass. I still remember a lot about how to play. I know how I am supposed to draw the bow to get different affects, how my wrist is to move. I know how to hold a bow and position the fingers of my left hand if I want to get a D sharp or and A flat. I know how to make a fifth, know how to make a fourth, know how it is to be tuned, and even know how to tune a string bass which is a mystery to most. You use harmonics to tune a string bass, not the open strings. I know some theory, and like what I just played, can remember how I am supposed to play some of the other classic string bass passages in various pieces of classical music. So it’s not as if I don’t know about it. I can give you some verbal instructions on how to play the string bass.

I’ve thought along the way that if I just took some lessons, I’d get my chops back. (That’s music talk for fingers.) Find a string bass teacher in the area, and take a lesson once a week. And that would certainly help. Just because someone knows something doesn’t mean one doesn’t need a reminder every once in a while, and that’s what lessons do.

I’ve also thought that if I just bought some new strings for this bass, that would make me sound better. Most stringed instruments sound better with age, except if they’re made of plywood, like this one. This bass only sounds as good as the strings that are on it, so when I’ve sawed away and haven’t sounded particularly good, some new strings will always make me sound better.

But the key for me ever playing string bass better than I do isn’t knowledge, because I have that. And it really isn’t lessons. And I’m lying to myself if I think it’s the strings. The essential ingredient for me ever being able to play as well as I once did is practice. If I want to be a good string bass player, there is no way to get beyond the reality that I have to practice. Do my scales. Go over my bow techniques. And just keep playing the same pieces over and over. When I played this piece to audition for a spot in that youth orchestra, I had probably played it 300 times before I finally recorded it. I played it so often that I didn’t have to think about it when I played it. In fact, when I thought about it, I played it worse. I practiced it so often I could do it from memory, at the drop of a hat. I had worked on it so much in the quiet and loneliness of the practice rooms, that when the rubber hit the road and crunch time came, everything I needed was at my fingertips. It was right there, just waiting to come out. It came out well during that key moment of the audition not because I thought about it, not because I knew theory about the string bass, not because I had good strings. And while the lessons had helped, they would have been useless had I not prepared through practice, had I not gotten ready for crunch time before crunch time came.

Well, Lent is to the Christian life a little bit like what practice time is to playing the string bass, or the piano, or any musical instrument. Or playing golf, or tennis, or chess. Or doing our jobs as teachers, or attorneys, or bankers, or retailers, or nursers, or doctors. Practice is like focussed preparation, and that’s a little bit like what Lent is. It is the most intentionally focussed of all the church seasons. It’s when we are most likely to hear about disciplines, right? What are you giving up for Lent? How many of us have ever asked, or been asked, that question. Some people fast on certain days during Lent. Others read their Bibles more regularly, or attend worship more regularly. We give up things like chocolate, or coffee, or alcohol. It’s the time when people are more likely to give something up, or take something on for the purpose of getting focussed, as a discipline. And we don’t focus on this stuff at other times of the year. We don’t do this kind of stuff during Easter season, or Advent, or Christmas season, or Epiphany. It’s during Lent that we get really focussed.

And that’s good. Disciplines are good because they are intended to help us in our walk. The goal of a discipline is to help us to be better disciples. In other words, the goal of a discipline is to help us be better lovers of God, one another, and ourselves. That’s discipleship, and that’s the end of a discipline. If a discipline does that, it’s a good discipline. If it doesn’t, then it really may not mean very much. Fulfilling it may give us a sense of accomplishment, but that doesn’t make it a discipline. It’s more important for a discipline to be effective than it is to for a discipline to be hard. And effectiveness is determined by whether it makes us better lovers of God, one another, and ourselves.

Let me share with you one of my Lenten disciplines, and this is going to sound kind of weird. One of my Lenten disciplines is to get eight hours of sleep a night. Now that may sound more like a luxury than a discipline, but I have realized for myself that when I don’t get enough sleep, I’m a rotten person to be around. When I’m tired, I don’t do a very good job of loving God, loving other people, or loving myself. I bark at my children, I don’t have energy to work effectively, or pray effectively, or study effectively. When I don’t get enough sleep, I crawl into myself, and it’s hard to be an effective lover of others when that’s the way I feel. Enough sleep is the first discipline for me, because without it, I’m a real stinker. Without it, without enough sleep, when crunch time comes, it is extraordinarily difficult for me to live the life of discipleship.

And certainly as a Christian, crunch time will come. Every Lenten season, the first story we hear is this story we heard today about the temptation of Jesus. Crunch time.

Jesus has just been baptized by John, and the first thing that happens isn’t some great miracle, isn’t some moving parable, aren’t some beautiful words from Jesus’ mouth. The first thing that happens for him in the beginning of his ministry is temptation. He goes into the desert, and there he is confronted by Satan. We don’t know whether he went into the wilderness so that he could meet the Devil, or whether the Devil surprises him, and takes this opportunity to confront him. My sense is that it’s the latter. Jesus is hungry, he’s tired, he’s thirsty. He is sleeping on the hard ground, with no cover other than what he can find in the wilderness. He’s alone. It’s a great opportunity for the Bad Guy. So here, for the first time, the Devil faces off with him. Jesus doesn’t start out his ministry with something easy, but with the Tempter, with a capital "T," trying to lure him away from what his Father intends for him. This is not a cake walk. It’s big stuff.

The Son of God gets tempted, an essential story, because we get tempted, too. An attempt is made to lure him away from God’s intent by offering him comfort and security; renown and fame; power and authority. Each of them, in their own way, could be considered a good. A lot of stones turned into a lot of bread would feed a lot of hungry people. The spectacle of being caught by angels would certainly turn more heads than another dying person on a cross. And all the kingdoms of the world.....well, imagine how much could be accomplished for God if the full weight of the civil authority, the laws and the government and the military, were thrown behind this mission. If people didn’t want to be believers, off with their heads.

That’s the way temptation works. It looks good, so good that we may not even recognize that it’s luring us away from the life and work and mission God intends for us.

Well, we’re not Jesus. We’re just human beings. And perfection is not what God expects of us. We all sometimes succumb to temptation that draws us from what God intends for us. And if people think that the Christian life is a life where there are no temptations, they are mistaken. If it happens to Jesus, it happens to us.

But we’re not Jesus. We’re children of God, but differently than the way Jesus is the Son of God. What he is perfectly, we are formed into. He is the perfect lover of God, lover of others, and even lover of himself. And we are only human, so that those qualities are created in us, not so much through our own efforts, but through letting God’s Holy Spirit in to get the job done.

And that is the purpose of our lenten disciplines. Not to accomplish something, or to gain God’s favor, or to strengthen our will power, but to let God in and make us better lovers of God, others, and ourselves so that when crunch time comes, when the rubber hits the road, when we need to be the lovers God needs us to be, we can because we are. The purpose of Lent is not that of feeling bad about ourselves, or heroic self-denial, or doing special things. The purpose is that of focussing, with special intention, on being what God intends us to be; on being the disciples God calls us to be; on being the kind of lovers of God, others, and ourselves that makes God smile. Because sometime, when we’re not so focussed as we are during Lent, we may need to draw upon what the focus of Lent can do for us.

I practice my string bass so that I can play what needs to be played when it needs to be played. I enter into disciplines not because they are the end of the life of discipleship, but because they are the means of the life of discipleship; because they assist me to be the kind of lover of God and others and myself that God calls me to be.

I don’t know what you need to do to make this a holy Lent. I don’t know what your discipline may need to be. It may be something as rigorous as fasting, it may be something as simple as beginning each day reminding yourself that God loves you, just the way you are. Both are valid disciplines, depending on who we are. I’ve already told you, a discipline for me is sleep. It’s not earth-shattering, not particularly trying. But it’s essential for me to love God, love my neighbor, and love myself, which is the end of discipleship. When the challenge hits, when I am most susceptible to being lured away from what God intends for me, I am more likely to be the faithful lover if I am well-rested than if I am not. And that’s what a discipline is intended to do. It’s not the performance, itself. It’s the preparation for the performance. It’s end is not that of accomplishment, but that of faithfulness. It’s objective is not its completion, but its service in making us more like Jesus.

So my prayer for each one of us during this season of preparation is not that we keep our disciplines. In the end, keeping them may be irrelevant. Instead, my prayer, for you, and for me, and for us, is that we be disciples.....lovers of God, lovers of others, lovers of ourselves. For that, more than the disciplines themselves, is our end.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Jesus is these things perfectly because he is the Son of God. We just human, so that’s what our disciplines are intended to help us with.

I don’t know what you need to make this a holy Lent.
 
 
 
 

While Jesus unwaveringly stays on God’s path, loving God, loving those around him, and even loving himself, it’s not that way for us.

But what Jesus was perfectly is what we seek through our disciplines, whatever they might be.
 
 

Well, Satan’s plan doesn’t work. Jesus doesn’t fall for it.

But we’re children of God differently than the way Jesus is the Son of God,
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Last week I made the comment that we always hear the story of the Transfigurgation the Sunday before Lent begins. Well, on the first Sunday of Lent, we also always hear the same story, and it’s this one, the story of the temptation of Jesus.

Jesus has just been baptized by John, and the first thing that happens isn’t some great miracle, isn’t some great parable, aren’t some beautiful words from Jesus’ mouth. The first thing that happens for him in the beginning of his ministry is temptation. He goes into the desert, and there he is confronted by Satan. We don’t know whether he went into the wilderness so that he could meet the Devil, or whether the Devil takes this opportunity to confront him. My sense is that it is the latter. Jesus is hungry, he’s tired, he’s thirsty. He is sleeping on the hard ground, with no cover other than what he can find in the wilderness. He’s alone. It’s a great opportunity for the Bad Guy. So here, for the first time, the Devil faces off with him. Jesus doesn’t start out his ministry with something easy. This isn’t a cake walk. This is big stuff. This is the big battle.

It’s a story that has a peculiar appeal. We tell the story becasue while Lent has always been a time during which we prepare for the joy of the resurrection on Easter, we have also always paralleled it with the forty days Jesus spends in the wilderness, being tempted by Satan. It’s appeal to me, it’s appeal to many, has come from the fact that if Jesus can be tempted, then it is no surprise when we are tempted. The Devil tries to lure him away. The Devil tries to pull him from the path his Father intends for him. That’s what it means to be tempted. To be tempted is to be pulled off the track.

He is tempted to turn stones into bread. He is tempted to satisfy his belly. He is tempted to trust in the most basic of material need: food. He is tempted to be comfortable, and he is tempted to find his security in something more tangible than the will of God. And you know what, turning stones into bread isn’t such a bad idea! Turn a lot of stones into a lot of bread, and a lot of hungry people are fed. Wouldn’t God want that?

He is tempted to throw himself off the pinnacle of the Temple and be rescued by the angels. He is tempted to make a splash. He is tempted by renown and fame. How could the people not believe in him, and believe in his message, if they saw something like that happen. So that it’s not such a bad idea! I can see this working. A spectacle like that might make something like a cross unnecessary. Might be more effective, even. Do we want a God who dies on a cross, or do we want one who shows us what angels can do.

And he is tempted by the prospect of authority and power. "I’ll give you all the kingdoms of the world," the Devil promises. Jesus could say "Do it," and it would get done. Not such a bad idea. Imagine what could be accomplished for the sake of good were it to bear the teeth of the civil authority, the laws and the military. He could make a little heaven on earth with what the Satan offers him.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Well, Lent is to the Christian life a little bit like what practice time is to playing the string bass, or the piano, or any musical instrument. Or playing golf, or tennis, or chess. Or doing our jobs as teachers, or attorneys, or bankers, or retailers, or nurses, or doctors. Practice is like focussed preparation, and that’s a little bit like what Lent is.

Last week I made the comment that we always hear the story of the Transfiguration the Sunday before Lent begins. Every year we read that story the Sunday before Lent. Well, here we are at the beginning of Lent, and we hear this story of Jesus being tempted, which is always the story we hear on the first Sunday of Lent.

Jesus has just been baptized by John, and the first thing that happens isn’t some great miracle, isn’t some great parable, aren’t some beautiful words from Jesus’ mouth. The first thing that happens for him in the beginning of his ministry is temptation. He goes into the desert, and there he is confronted by Satan. We don’t know whether he went into the wilderness so that he could meet the Devil, or whether the Devil takes this opportunity to confront him. My sense is that it is the latter. Jesus is hungry, he’s tired, he’s thirsty. He is sleeping on the hard ground, with no cover other than what he can find in the wilderness. He’s alone. It’s a great opportunity for the Bad Guy. So here, for the first time, the Devil faces off with him. Jesus doesn’t start out his ministry with something easy. This isn’t a cake walk. This is big stuff. This is the big battle.

And while Lent has always been seen as a time of preparation for Easter, it has also always been associated with the forty days Jesus spends in the wilderness, facing temptation. Jesus is in the wilderness for forty days, and we’re in Lent for forty days.
 
 

Well, here we are at the beginning of Lent, and we hear this story of Jesus being tempted.

It’s a great story, that ironically has given the faithful great comfort throughout the centuries, because we all get tempted.