Decisive Moments

When you look back on your life what have been some of the decisive moments? 

I’m not asking about the routine decisions and choices we make every day. I’m asking about those decisions that have profound and lasting consequences. They are the decisions that reveal who we are and what it means to be uniquely us, decisions that ask something of us, decisions that reveal our values and priorities, decisions that sometimes involve a sacrifice or a deeper commitment to someone or something. 

They are the kind of decisions that change and shape our lives. Often they are less about what we will do and more about who we are and who we are becoming. Let me give you some examples.

When Cyndy and I decided to move to Tennessee so I could attend seminary we knew it meant that we would be apart from our boys for three years. How could we ever leave them? How could we not? It was a decisive moment in our lives. 

Several years ago I sat in the car next to the fountain downtown. I watched people protesting the murder of George Floyd. I sat there for a long time with one hand on the door handle and the other holding a sign that said, “Respect the dignity of every human being. Black lives matter.” I was scared and arguing with myself. Whether I went or stayed, I knew it was a decisive moment for me.

When I walked into Uvalde Memorial Hospital on May 24, 2022, the day of the Robb School shooting, I didn’t know what I would see and hear, who I would meet, or what would be asked of me. Showing up that day was a decisive moment in my life.

Those aren’t unique to me. What about you? What have been decisive moments in your life? 

Maybe it was a decision to go, to leave a place or a way of being yourself and move toward another. Maybe it was a decision to stay, to recommit, to go deeper into a commitment you had already made. Maybe it was a decision to start a journey toward a vision for your life or the realization of a dream. Maybe it was a decision to accept what you neither chose nor wanted, and deal with the reality of your life. Maybe it was a decision to step up to the plate even if you didn’t know what would happen or if you had what it would take. (Budde, How We Learn To be Brave, xx.) 

Some of you might be facing a decisive moment today and if you’re not, just wait, you will. We all come to decisive moments. I think that’s often how we hear today’s gospel (Luke 4:1-13). 

The Temptation of Jesus

We often see the temptations of Jesus as decisive moments in his life. Maybe they are, but I wonder if there’s more to this story than Jesus saying no three times; no to turning a stone into bread, no to worshipping the devil, and no to testing God. Decisive moments are rarely as simple as yes or no.

I think there’s more to today’s gospel than saying no to what tempts us. I may not do it, but I already know that’s what I should do, don’t you? I’ll bet Jesus knew that too.

So here’s what I’m wondering. What if Jesus’ time in the wilderness was his preparation for the decisive moments to come? After all, Luke says that “when the devil had finished every test, he departed from [Jesus] until an opportune time.” That’s how today’s gospel ends. It doesn’t end with Jesus’ no or congratulations and celebration that he said no. There’s more to come. 

The opportune time, the decisive moment, will come, for example, when his mother says, “They have no wine,” when the Pharisees say, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you,” when some of his disciples turn back and leave, when the Syrophoenician woman challenges his self-understanding, when Lazarus dies, when he cleanses the temple, when he washes feet, in the Garden of Gethsemane, when Pilate demands he speak, and on the cross. 

So I want to look beyond the no to the responses Jesus gives. I think it’s in those responses that Jesus is preparing himself and us for the decisive moments to come. Jesus doesn’t often give direct answers of what to do. Instead, he gives us something to wrestle with and that’s what I want us to do with his responses. 

“One does not live by bread alone.”

What are you filling yourself with these days? Are you eating the bread of life or are you eating day old bread? What are you consuming and taking in? Is it nourishing and growing your life or is it keeping you stuck? Is it expanding or narrowing your worldview? Is it softening and enlarging your heart or is it hardening and constricting your heart?

“Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.”

To whom or what are you giving yourself? Who or what are you serving? Is it only your self-interest, your party’s, your country’s, or are you seeking and serving Christ in all people? What values, beliefs, and opinions guide your life, priorities, and actions? What are you chasing after? Who or what matters most to you? 

“Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”

Are you taking responsibility for yourself and your life? Does your prayer ask more of God than it offers of yourself? Are you asking God to do for you and others what you can and probably should be doing for yourself and others? There’s a fine line between faith and abdication. 

The Power to Decide

My experience of the decisive moments is that they’re rarely clean, pure, or simple. They could go either way. And they never happen in a vacuum. They come in the unique and particular context of our lives. They are informed as much by our history and previous decisions as the circumstances of our present moment.  

We may not be able to decide today what we will do tomorrow, in three months, or a year from now, but we can prepare ourselves to decide. What if that’s what Jesus was doing those forty days in the wilderness? And what if that’s the opportunity the forty days of Lent is setting before us? 

I don’t know when the moment of decision will come to you or what it will be. I don’t know if it will ask you to act or to accept. I don’t know if it will be visible for others to see or be known only to you and God. (Ibid.) But I know this:

“The inexplicable, unmerited experience of God’s power working through us is real; and that we matter in the realization of all that is good and noble and true.”  (Budde, How We Learn To be Brave, xx.) 

You and I have been entrusted with the power to decide.

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Image Credit: Detail of Christ in the Wilderness by Ivan Kramskoi – Google Cultural Center, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons.