| March 01, 2009
You are welcome to reflect on this message The First Sunday of Lent - March 1, 2009 “Will It Matter What I Was?” (Matthew 4:1-11)
Today’s topic is familiar to all of us, temptation: Jesus’ and ours. Everybody knows what it means to be tempted. Or do we? Most folks trivialize temptation, thinking it’s the urge to misbehave or do something we know we shouldn’t or wish we hadn’t, especially if we get caught. It hangs in our environment like a virus, constantly threatening our resistance. It can be anything from one more for the road to finessing the IRS. Temptation is a daily companion.
Matthew’s story of Jesus’ temptation experience in the wilderness is not literal but it’s real, or else it’s just a game. They came in three’s, and represented the current messianic models of the day. I don’t want the way it’s told to disarm you. It’s not a cartoon. This is big-time. The devil and Jesus are going at it here. If you were filming it, what would we see? Jesus over here. The devil with “pitchfork and tail” over there? Nah. This is the real McCoy because it has world-changing consequences. Somebody like me, who gives-in to temptation to be funny or misbehave all the time, if the devil came up to me, looking like the devil? Even I could handle that: “Bring it on ol’ devil, gimme your best shot!” That’s not temptation. That’s having a brilliant knack for the obvious.
Real temptation is when I don’t know the difference between what I’m thinking and what the devil’s saying. Jesus is the only one on the camcorder. He’s not by himself, but the only one we’d see. And don’t let the fact that it’s Jesus bother you. The thought of him being tempted makes some squirm. The Bible says he was “tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin.” He was up to it, because he made no deals with the devil. Real temptation is not about our weakness but our strength. The stronger you are, the more capable you are, the more opportunity you have, the more power and influence you have the greater will be your temptation. You can’t encounter a hurricane in a roadside puddle. But Jesus’ is a tornado! 40 days and nights in the bleak, barren, howling desert. Fasting. This is not what we normally think of as temptation: gaining extra hell-time, lusting after some brushed up centerfold. This is Jesus and it’s huge.
Listen to it: “Why don’t you turn the stones into bread?” Work a little magic. That’s reasonable enough. You know he’s hungry. Why should God’s Boy starve to death, right out of the starting gate? Or how ‘bout jumping off the pinnacle of the temple? You get a special exemption from gravity. The angels will catch you. That’s what the scripture says. It would make a lot of people believe. Makes sense to me. Then, not literally, but in his imagination, they go up to a high mountain, where you could see the kingdoms of the world. “All this will be yours...” You can start picking your Cabinet to be the new president of the world.
Man if Jesus had just said “yes,” think of what it would be like to have him as President! A guy like Jesus having control over Congress, the White House, Wall St., the Pentagon! I can only wish for it: a little more justice and compassion and unity and...hope. Jesus is being tested at the point of what’s reasonable, what’s helpful, and good. It’s not “How would you like to do something wrong?” Adam and Eve were tempted in the garden not to be like the devil, but to be like God. What’s wrong with being good like God?
Jesus is being seriously tempted ... to deny his baptism; to disparage his identity; to forget who he is. Mark says Jesus was driven into the wilderness immediately following his baptism, by the Spirit. When the skies opened and a dove descended and a voice said: “You are my beloved Son in whom I am well-pleased.” Jesus proves his identity by what he doesn’t do: by not seizing power, by refusing to practice sorcery, and by not expecting special exemptions. When have you ever heard anybody do something like that? This Child of God makes God smile not by rising out of his humanity but by sinking deeper into it. He has the integrity to consider three good reasons for becoming God’s rival and yet he remains God’s son. That’s who he is and that’s who he’ll be. It’s when his identity is most clear that he faces his fiercest temptation. It’s our core existence, our soul, our character that the devil always seeks to deflate.
“If you are the son of God...” The attack is not obvious: “You’re not the son of God!” Always oblique, creating self-doubt, the cancer that erodes our confidence about who we are. Real temptation is not to get us to do bad things, but an invitation to be somebody else; to live a life...other than the one God intends for us. Evil assaults us by offering shortcuts – the lure of growth without sacrifice, something-for-nothing. It creates a physical hunger from within and a “what’s-it-gonna-hurt” mentality.
Matthew’s Gospel is the most scripted. From the genealogy in Chapter One through the drama of redemption, Jesus has been assigned a narrative to follow. The devil wants him to change the script. But Jesus resists the urge not with brilliant theological depth, or intelligent counter arguments, he simply sticks to the script, quoting from the Book of Deuteronomy. He remembered his baptism, so he knows who he is. “It is written, it is written,” Jesus told the devil to go back to hell. These were Jesus’ first words in the Gospel of Matthew and they show how hard it is to be a Christian, but too dull to be anything else.
So you have to have something that a lot of people lack: enough of a self to say “no.” He said ‘no’ to the devil by saying ‘yes’ to God. The necessary-no can’t be invoked without the affirming-yes. What we say “yes” to ahead of time, enables us to say “no” at temptation time. Jesus said no to the devil because his life was one big yes to God. “Thy will be done,” he prayed in the Garden. Jesus said no to the tempter’s seductive questions because he already submitted to the authority of the scriptures.
Wise people say no to drugs because they said yes to self-control. We say no to vindictiveness because we said yes to forgiveness. We say no to unfairness because we said yes to justice. We say no to cheating because we said yes to fidelity. Necessary no’s come from planned-for yes’s. We are susceptible to trickery, especially if it satisfies our desires; the deception of protection and always the lust for getting our way. The Tempter’s role is to convince us that we deserve bigger and better than what we have, never content with what we’ve been given by God.
And then there’s that other biblical number “40.” So a long time ago the church announced the season of Lent, an old English word meaning “spring.” It was not only a reference to the season before Easter, but also an invitation to a springtime for the soul. 40 days to clean out the system and open our eyes to what’s left when all our familiar comforts are gone. 40 days to remember what it’s like to live solely by the grace of God and not what we can supply for ourselves.
Let us ask ourselves at the beginning of the Season that leads to the cross, what Jesus pondered for himself in the desert. “How will I spend my life? Will it matter what I was?” After 40 days, he decided to take the hard road, namely, that his life’s goal would be to please God. What would he stand for and oppose? Would he have special powers? Or be like us and have to make-do with the standard human equipment package? But what he wouldn’t do is stoop to voodoo or miracle or might. Nobody knew any of that yet, not even Jesus. That’s why he was in the wilderness: to sort it all out. That’s the thing about God, he lets us decide.
So I’m tempting ya’ll this morning, to be who you are; like the Best of the Breed, with one suggestion: during the next 40 days, you might want to ask yourself, “What is my life? How will I go about making the most of whatever time I have left of it? Will it matter what I was?” And what if it did? My guess is, like Jesus, you too will hear that ol’ familiar voice, saying “Why waste your time on a dumb exercise like fasting? Grab all the gusto you can, while you can. Who cares what you were?” Don’t listen to that voice. Tell the Devil to go to hell and listen to the Voice that says “Expect great things from God and yourself. Rely on God’s grace and serve somebody.”
A man died and went to heaven. He’s met at the golden gate by St. Peter who gave him the skinny: “You need 100 points to get in here. Tell me the good things you’ve done. When you reach 100, I’ll open the door.” “OK I was married to the same woman for 50 years and never cheated on her.” “Great, that’s 3 points.” “And I attended church all my life and gave my tithe.” “Terrific!” “That’s worth 2 points.” “Two?” “What about that time I started up a soup kitchen and worked in a homeless shelter.” “Right on! That’s 1 point.” Exasperated, the man complains, “At this rate the only way I’ll get into heaven is by the grace of God!” “Bingo! That alone is worth a hundred! “Enter into the joy of thy Lord.’”Lent shows us how often we try to fix the problems of life with glue and duct tape. Jesus did it with nails. Get the point?
Pastoral Prayer: 3/1/09
Encourage all of us who live and work in a world of complex systems and distorted values as we flail away in our puny efforts to try to make it work. How sad that you taught us long ago, but we still won’t listen. We thank Thee for staying busy with each one of us, believing in us more than we believe in ourselves, grant us what we need to be more like Jesus: a focused life; a forgiving spirit; indifference to wealth; a rejection of power; a humbler estimate of ourselves; a readiness to pray; the ability to laugh; a clearer vision of Thy purpose; the courage to do the right we know. May this hour challenge us and encourage us, for we need both direction and consolation. Only then shall our seemingly ordered lives confess the beauty of Thy peace. Amen. |
