One of our contemporary nightmares is identity theft. We panic when someone steals our personal information and spends money in our name; or when they steal the actual documents which allow us to drive a car, or to fly to and from this country. Sinister forces threaten our community identities as well-those voices which claim that we're not real Christians, if we disagree with other Christians; or we're not real Americans, if we don't fear other nationalities.

Today's reading from Deuteronomy teaches a community how to claim their identity. Deuteronomy connects the Hebrews' wilderness experience during their Exodus with the behavior God requires of them in the new Promised Land. Here, Moses prescribes a ritual offering of first fruits to God, and a declaration of identity, in terms of the community's experience. The worshiper is to identify as the descendant of a wandering alien; as a former slave, liberated by a powerful God; as the recipient of God's generous gifts. Later verses will command sharing their tithe with Levites--who had no property rights--as well as aliens, orphans, and widows. When we define our identity in terms of how God guides our community and frees us and gifts us, we trust enough to offer our best for God's poor. No fear can take away that identity.

Today's Gospel tells another tale of identity, the devil's attempt to highjack the identity of the Son of God. IF you are the Son of God, manipulate nature to create more food. IF you're one of my worshipers, you'll be able to manipulate humanity. And again, IF you are the Son of God, deny your mortality; abuse the gift of life, to manipulate God. These temptations question WHO Jesus is, by questioning WHOSE he is. The devil--which means malicious liar--wants to make Jesus over, in his own image, as a trickster. But Jesus quotes passages from Deuteronomy which identify him as one who trusts God: first, last, and always.

Jesus--in between the baptism where God identified him as God's son, and the beginnings of a demanding and risky ministry-is led by the Spirit in the wilderness, to claim his identity. And the devil can't highjack this identity--though his attempts are clever. He doesn't tempt Jesus to cheat on his taxes, or give way to road rage. His temptations are about MINISTRY. First: feed the hungry-by perverting creation. Second: transform human institutions --by trusting the devil, the Father of lies, who has such great power over humanity. Third: prove how much God loves you-by profoundly disrespecting God's gift of life.

But Jesus keeps affirming his identity as one who trusts God, without needing showy shortcuts. After forty days in the wilderness, letting go of luxuries, and what most of us consider necessities, he will carry that identity into the preaching and healing and praying and forming of disciples recounted subsequently by Luke. Some of us today learn about who we are through our Scout troop's adventure camping, or two years in the Peace Corps, or a week of silent retreat. And we carry our wilderness experiences with us. Just as the devil leaves Jesus till an opportune time--not forever!--so the devil also tempts us throughout our discipleship. But discipleship also offers the deep joy of experiencing: who we are, and whose we are.

Being present to others who are learning to let go, lets us in on who they most deeply are. The crew members whom Seafarers' Center volunteers and I visit, have let go of so much, in order to support themselves and their families, during their 8 to 14 months at sea. To some extent, seafarers have let go of their safety. Violent storms, as well as physically dangerous work, can cause injuries. Ruthless pirates are not a movie fiction, but a fact, around parts of Indonesia and Africa. But the scariest story I've heard recently took place in Baltimore. A ship had docked at 10 P.M.; and a crew member, anxious to phone home, called our Center in search of telephone cards. We're closed at that hour, so he began walking into the city alone--and got lost. Around 2 A.M., two men tried to hold him up. He'd just been paid $900 in cash, which he was planning to wire home to a sister who needed cancer surgery--so he ran away. Eventually, the two men were arrested, and they proved to have both a knife and a gun. You and I would probably have handed over the money, but this man had to choose in a heartbeat: and he chose his sister's health over his own safety.

Many seafarers also let go of aspects of their self-image. Most take these jobs to support their families--in the Philippines, or Russia, or China, or elsewhere. But they're away from home so long that their image as father suffers profoundly. Their younger children may not recognize their face or their voice; their older children may be embittered by their absence; and some families identify the fathers primarily as wallets. One seafarer I spoke with recently spent every precious minute off duty trying to reach his wife, and convince her why he had to work so many months. We do what we can to help them identify themselves as fathers, not perfect, but trusting that they're doing their best in a global economy, they didn't create.

And we not only witness the depth of seafarers letting go: we grow in letting go ourselves. Volunteers may know their way around their own professional worlds--but they develop a sense of humor attempting to navigate the maze of our Port's numerous terminals, which many of you saw from the water during our Center's harbor cruise. Acting like we know our way perfectly doesn't work. So we ask directions!: from security guards and longshoremen and shipping agents. And then, we develop relationships--which is much more joyful than clinging to identities of perfect competence.

More profoundly: we let go, of the temptation, to need to feel helpful. In discipleship, we can sometimes bake bread, but we can't turn stones into bread. In seafaring ministry, we can sometimes drive crew members to phone booths, or facilitate cell phone loans, but we can't magically generate enough volunteers for every request. Even when we can arrange phone calls, we have no short-cut solutions, when a seafarer returns from a telephone, heartsick because of family problems. We can listen; we can pray, when asked: but often we can't fix. I have to keep learning to trust, like Jesus: that the seafarer's profound pain, and my profound helplessness, do NOT mean we're not God's sons and daughters. That's a lie of the devil.

Discipleship is no magic shield, but an invitation to trust our identities into God's loving arms, as we follow Christ through the wilderness. If you're not yet working through these temptations in discipleship, Lent is the time to pray: about what's really going on in your current ministry, or about what new ministry the Spirit is calling you to--whether forming new disciples in Sunday School, or advocating for Millennium Development Goals.

My final story of trust goes back to today's first reading. Last summer, I was sitting in Baltimore's new cruise ship terminal, offering reading matter and phone cards and conversation to hundreds of seafarers, with just a few hours' break. A young seafarer came up to me and said, "You go to church, right?" "Yes, I do." He handed me a small fat white envelope and said, "This is my tithe. Would you give it to the church?" I asked him: what kind of church--and he said it didn't matter, any church. He must have seen my jaw dropping through the floor, because he kept smiling and saying: it's all right. And he brought me several more tithes that summer when the passenger ship returned, each in an envelope, labeled: "assistant waiter." Judging by the combination of larger and smaller bills, as well as coins, I believe this was a carefully calculated tithe.

In the U.S., tithing is considered abnormal. The norm is to withhold even small pledges if we don't like the building program, the new service schedule, the sermons. We use money to control. This assistant waiter, far from home, had let go of that control. He probably wasn't accustomed to women clergy, he didn't know what church I served; but he was living into Deuteronomy, which tells us that God is always with us, and we can trust our first fruits back to God. And I was letting go of my self-image as a calm, competent, I've-seen-everything pastor: because I continued to gape, every time he brought me another fat white envelope.

During this Lent, may we rejoice in our identity as God's children, and let go of whatever hinders that joy. May we rejoice in our identity as "assistant waiters," as servants following our servant Lord. And may we rejoice in every opportunity to trust the first fruits of our time, talent, and treasure, back to God. Amen.