January
19, 2014
William G. Carter
Here
is a scripture passage that we often hear in the season of Lent. But it occurs
right after the baptism of Jesus, and that’s why we hear it today:
Then
Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted forty days and forty nights,
and afterwards he was famished.
The
tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones
to become loaves of bread.” But
he answered, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every
word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
Then the
devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of
God, throw yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will command his angels
concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will
not dash your foot against a stone.’”Jesus said to him, “Again it is written,
‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
Again,
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.
The
bumper sticker comes from a more Christian age than the one that we live in today.
It began with a line from the Lord’s Prayer: “Lead us not into temptation…”
Then the next line: “I can find it all by myself.” I can’t imagine those words
on a bumper sticker these days, but I certainly understand the sentiment.
There
is temptation all around us. There are people who cannot drive past the hot red
light at Krispy Kreme without pulling in for a donut. There are home shoppers who
look through every catalog when their closets are already full, declaring, “I
feel tempted.” Some car enthusiasts can’t wait to find out more about next year’s
model. And sometime around February 11, the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition
will arrive in the mailbox. “Lead us not into temptation, I can find it all by
myself.”
But
Matthew says Jesus was led right into the wilds in order to be tempted by the
devil. And he (the second person of the Trinity) was led by the Holy Spirit
(the third person of the Trinity). This was to be his test, probably the first
of many. It sounds as if the Father (the first person of the Trinity) said, “Let’s
see what you’re made of.”
Ever
think of temptation as a test? That’s actually the Greek word in the Lord’s
Prayer that Jesus taught: “Lead us not into the test.” It is what we pray to
God, some of us praying these words every day. Lead us not into the place where
our integrity is tested, where our virtue is challenged, where our fidelity is
pushed, where our eyes see something that our leaky hearts want to fill.
Jesus
teaches us to pray, “Lead us not into temptation,” precisely because the Spirit
led him into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He knew what that was
like. He also knew that our souls are at risk if we give in.
Temptation
is a test. In Matthew’s story, the angels stay off stage and all heaven
watches. Jesus, in all his humanity, in all his divinity, is given three
sinister examinations. Each one seems like the right thing to do. Each one
appears very attractive. He is not tempted to do anything that seems wrong. No,
he is tempted to do things that, on the surface, seem exactly right.
- If you are God’s Son, use your
heavenly power to feed the hungry. The world has a lot of hungry people.
- If you are God’s Son, use
your miraculous power to impress the crowds. The world needs a miracle to
believe.
- If you are God’s Son, hand
your authority to me and I will give you everything. Skip the cross and
resurrection and get it all now.
Henri
Nouwen, the spiritual writer, saw what was so tempting, both for Jesus and the
people who follow him.[1] The first temptation, to turn stones into
bread, is the temptation to be relevant. It is to put ourselves at the
center, to say, “We are the ones who can do everything that is needed.” If
there are hungry people, we will feed them. If there are problems in the world,
we will fix them. If there is something the world needs, it’s up to us. In
other words, nobody needs to wait for God to provide. Here we are to save the
day!
Now,
I don’t know about you, but I’ve never been tempted to turn stones into bread.
I don’t have the ability. About all I can do is turn peanut butter into a
sandwich. But I have been tempted to fix things that I never can fix. Two
friends refuse to talk to one another, let me try to mend that. Somebody has a
life-threatening disease, let me tell it’s always going to get better. Someone
is missing a loved one, let me offer to fill the gap.
The
truth is, we can’t do everything. The real question is whether we can do
anything. How convenient for Jesus, in all his hunger, to turn a boulder into a
sandwich! And while he’s at it, fix the problems of world hunger with a little
magic at the stone quarry! Wouldn’t that be nice? Use the magic of heaven to
fix the problems of earth!
Except
someone is always going to reach for more bread, and probably take it out of
somebody else’s hands. Or if you fix it today, it’s going to need to be fixed
again tomorrow. We can’t do it. We need God. And Jesus reaches back into his
scriptures to declare what Moses taught: “We do not live by bread alone; we
live by the words that God speaks.” And in the face of great need, if we don’t
start there, with God, we are tempted to put ourselves in the middle. We are
tempted to become over-functioning friends, hovering parents, or obsessive
do-gooders who burn ourselves out. To push God out and make ourselves relevant
rarely turns out well.
The second
temptation is to be spectacular, to be impressive, to be so amazing
that you can sway other people. “Take a swan dive from the top of the Temple,”
says the Devil to Jesus. To make the invitation, the Devil quotes Psalm 91,
where it says, “And God shall raise you up on eagle’s wings, lest you dash your
foot against the stone.” God will catch you. Call in the favors. Remind God
what he promises to do for you. And then show off, in the most public places,
at the most available time, and everybody will be impressed.
A
lot of people buy into this. What the world needs now is a lot of razzle
dazzle. Lights, camera, action. A series of ongoing fireworks displays, each
one bigger than the last. We swim in a sea of hype. The marketing people used
to tell us that we needed to hear a message seven times before it sinks in.
With all the advertising, the screens, the internet pop-ups, the commercials,
our desires have been rewired. Now we need to see a message, as well as hear
it, at least seventy times before it can sink in. Have to make it bigger,
flashier, more impressive!
The
Devil says to Jesus, “Let’s put this on TV, all 1850 channels at the same time.
Hire a great graphics team. Zoom in on your face with a hi-definition camera to
catch your smile when you jump from the top of the tower. That will get them. That
will win them over.” Make it spectacular!
Well,
wouldn’t that be nice. But if you subscribe to cable TV, you know one of the
problems. You can have 1850 channels and have nothing to watch. Or you become
weary of so much spectacle that you dismiss it all, like eating too much
chocolate cake. The first piece is fantastic, the next three pieces are tasty,
the tenth and eleventh pieces are wearing you down.
And
God has no interest in winning people’s hearts through miracle and spectacle.
Hundreds of years before Jesus, the Jewish faith almost died out, sustained
only by a small remnant. Jesus is sent to be the child of peasants, raised in a
town off the beaten path, keeps a hidden profile until he was thirty, has only
a few years to do his work, then is crucified between two thieves. And when God
raises him from the dead, nobody sees the actual event, and he appears to a
handful of loved ones, none of them important. The rest of us have to lean
forward to see if it’s true.
Nouwen
writes, “To be spectacular is so much our concern that we, who have been
spectators most of our lives, can hardly conceive that what is unknown, unspectacular,
and hidden can have any value.” The God we know in Christ is all of those
things: largely unknown, unimpressive, and hidden - - until we discover that he
is our treasure. The Christ comes quietly, rarely with a lot of pizzazz.
The third
temptation is the temptation to exert power. Power! “See all those kingdoms
out there?” says the Devil. “Say the word and they can be yours. You can be the
king of kings if you let me put you there. You can rule over it all and never
have to put on a crown of thorns.”
Wow,
what a wonderful offer! To win over the world. To use your authority to bring
everybody around you. To accomplish in one executive order all that you want to
have done! There are Christian people who think this is the way it ought to go:
tell the rest of the world we are calling the shots. Get the right people elected
to do what we tell them to do. Declare in all our authority that everybody else
is wrong and it’s time for them to get in line behind us. You can read about
this sort of thing in Time magazine, you can watch it on your favorite cable
news network, and it can even get you elected as the governor of New Jersey.
Tell everybody else what to do. Exert your power!
I
remember I had a dog years ago. I loved to bark out orders at that dog: sit
down, roll over, be quiet. That dog would do whatever I said. And then two cats
came to live in my house. When I barked, they just looked me and yawned. And
then they started influencing the dog. Pretty soon, none of them would listen
to me. It was the best preparation in the world for becoming a parent. I should
have known better; I’m a preacher.
The
first problem is that, in the process of exerting your power, you run the risk
of selling out your soul. You ascend by putting others under your feet; never a
wise long-term move. I think of the line that Thomas Beckett speaks in the T.S.
Eliot drama “Murder in the Cathedral” -- “The last temptation is the greatest
treason: to do the right deed for the wrong reason.”
The
second problem is that exerting power is not the calling for those who are
baptized. God is the authority, and Satan is not his office administrator. God rules,
not us. Like Jesus, we are always baptized to be servants, never authorities. That is the shape of our Christian conversion: to become servants. We
stand beside people, not above them. We win the right to be heard by coming
alongside those whom we first serve. We listen with a quiet heart before we
speak. And Jesus keeps all things rightly aligned with the words, “Worship the
Lord your God; it is God alone you shall serve.”
These
are three temptations after the water of baptism, and they remain: to be
relevant, to be spectacular, to exert power. Each one begins with the word “If…
If… If…” Each is a moment that decides between the hard way to heaven and the
highway to hell. Maybe it could go this way, maybe it could go like that.
Temptation is the Maybe Moment. It will reveal what we are made of.
When
that moment comes to you, the best way ahead is keep your eyes on Jesus, who went through this before we ever came along. See
what he sees, do what he does. Declare what he declares: that we are here to serve
God, not ourselves, and we serve God alone. The Devil will depart you for a
while, and suddenly the angels will come to help.
God
bless you.
(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.
[1] I am grateful for Father Nouwen’s
book, The Selfless Way of Christ: Downward Mobility and the Spiritual Life
(Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1985). His insights in pages 47-66 have influenced
this sermon.