| Scriptures: | Deuteronomy 26:1-11 Luke 4:1-13 |
I invite you to join me on a journey. We often like to think of the season of Lent as a spiritual journey – kind of a sub-set of the larger spiritual journey which is our whole lives. The lectionary passages from the gospel of Luke during these five Sundays take us into the steps of Jesus as he moves from the mountain of transfiguration, as we talked about last week, to the fearful mount we know as Golgotha. But, of course, as we already know, the journey does not end there.
Another way to think about the journeying that we do during Lent is to see it as a story – our story and God’s story for our lives. The story of God’s relationship with creation weaves each of our own individual stories into those of all humanity. It is a way of helping us to remember as we follow in the steps of Jesus.
When the Israelites complete their journey – which is the 40 years of wandering in the wilderness – Moses directs them to remember who they are and whose they are by telling them about where they have come from and how they are to respond to the Lord their God – a line that has become oh, so familiar to us down through the ages: “’A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous.’” Unfortunately, over the next couple of hundred years, the people do a horrible job of remembering, and the story gets muddy and diffuse – the journey gets side-tracked. Or, as we might say it more theologically, sin intrudes on their story-telling and on their journeying. The people are tempted to forget who they are and whose they are.
Ah yes, temptation. Preachers tend to love this topic, don’t they? It gives us a chance to flail away at all the things the world throws at us. It allows us to chastise and berate. It offers the opportunity for soul-searching as we are invited to look into all of those guilty little pockets of our lives.
I hope that those of you who have been around for awhile know by now that I’m not really a fan of guilt. In my theology making us feel guilty is one of the worst traits of a form of Christianity that has nothing at all to do with a God who (as the book of I John says) is love and a Christ who came to show how that love enriches and empowers our lives in order that we might act as God’s children in this world. Guilt crushes that ability and makes us cower in our corners of culpability – of shame and remorse. Is that really the way you want to live your life as a Christian? No, I didn’t think so.
So, what are we to make of this familiar story of Jesus being tempted three times by the devil with temptations that include having all the kingdoms of the world at his feet? Kinda makes our little temptations pale by comparison, doesn’t it? Kate Huey, in her usual insightful way, gives us a handle on the answer to this question when she says: “Today's lesson is more about the way, and the why, Jesus is going to go about his ministry: we might say that the ground rules are set. The Son of God is not here to grab power for himself, or to show off how much he matters to God, or to work magic for the masses. That's not how it's going to work. Jesus will leave the wilderness, filled as always with the Holy Spirit, sure that he is God's beloved, and ready for what lies ahead. As our own Lenten journey begins, we too are sure of our companion in whatever wilderness we face, and we place our trust in him.”
So, we come here to prepare to face our own wildernesses – whether we’ve been wandering in them for 40 years like the Israelites or 40 days like Jesus…..or whether we really don’t think we have any wilderness wandering to do. The wilderness is a metaphor for the confusion and the despair we encounter when the world hits us with too much overwhelming stuff all at once. When there is confusion and despair we feel like we are lost (I was never into the ABC series of that name which is now in its final season, but there is a reason for its great popularity: it tapped into feelings that each of us have had). We know the terror of that little boy who all of a sudden realizes he isn’t holding on to his mother’s hand any more, and there are nothing but huge strangers surrounding him in the mall. We know the anxiety of coming up to a crossroads and thinking that we took a wrong turn a few miles back…and our GPS is no longer working. We know what it is like to be lost.
But like Moses – like Jesus – we also know what it is like to leave the wilderness. In order to do that – just like those people on the fictional island in “Lost” – we will have to learn some survival techniques.
When Jesus goes into the wilderness, according to Luke, he is tempted there by the devil for 40 days. Can you imagine that – being constantly tempted for five-and-a-half weeks? We simulate that in a small way when we decided to give something up for Lent – eating red meat, say – and then have to be tempted whenever anyone around us is eating a juicy steak. But this is small potatoes (pun semi-intended) compared to what Jesus is going through. He is fasting, and now the devil offers him the possibility of turning stones into bread so he can eat. He is striving to find ways to do his Creator’s will, and the devil says, “you can do that in a snap with all the earthly kingdoms under your control.” He wants to be known as the Son of God, and the devil shows him how he can fly like Superman. What he could accomplish with these powers!
In Andrew Lloyd Weber’s and Tim Rice’s rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar, Simon the Zealot – basically acting as a devil-tempter – tells Jesus all that he can do with the crowd gathered there in front of them when he sings:
“There must be over fifty thousand
Screaming love and more for you.
And every one of fifty thousand
Would do whatever you asked them to.
Keep them yelling their devotion,
But add a touch of hate at Rome.
You will rise to a greater power.
We will win ourselves a home.
You'll get the power and the glory
For ever and ever and ever
For ever and ever and ever
Forever Amen! Amen! Amen!”
But Jesus responds:
“Neither you, Simon, nor the fifty thousand,
Nor the Romans, nor the Jews,
Nor Judas, nor the twelve
Nor the priests, nor the scribes,
Nor doomed Jerusalem itself
Understand what power is,
Understand what glory is,
Understand at all,
Understand at all.”
There is a reason, after all, why each and every worship service and hopefully every day of our lives we say, “For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory. Amen.” Jesus knows to whom these things really belong. He knows who he is and whose he is.
And so perhaps these temptations in the wilderness really aren’t so significant after all. Maybe it was easy for Jesus to let them all slide by, understanding what power truly is, what glory truly is. These temptations just seem too, well, familiar. They represent magic, fame, superhuman power – the kinds of things that we don’t really expect to come to us. So, if Jesus could let them go, does that mean it’s easy for us to let our temptations go, as well?
Well, if it were, there wouldn’t be much point going on with this sermon, now would there? Again, we have to dig a bit deeper to find where our temptations are coming from. Perhaps what’s going on here is not so much temptation as fantasy, illusion. You know this kind of thinking: just around the corner lies happiness, I can get rid of this losing streak with just one more roll of the dice, a new car will make me feel like a real he-man, if I just looked like one of those fashion models in the magazine the world would be my oyster.
Many a playwright has dealt with the concept of illusion and how it infests our lives: Eugene O’Neill with his concept of the masks we wear, for example; Pirandello in Six Characters in Search of an Author; or think of Shakespeare in The Tempest or A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream. Author Dan Clendenin puts it this way:
“These are the fantasies, the illusions, that suck out my vitality, that keep me from discovering my own rich reality. To come to terms with illusion is one of the great jobs of our lives: to discern what is fantasy and what is reality, what is dead and what is alive, what is a narcotic and what is food, what are stones and what is bread. It is dangerous, wrenching and unavoidable. In the desert, Jesus fought for his life.
“What was asked of Jesus is what is asked of us, that we give up illusion, its false promises and its addicting inertia, and ‘come to our senses,’ come to living bread.
“And, if you think about it, Jesus will accomplish each one of these ‘temptations,’ but by taking a different course. He will change stones into bread: a few loaves of bread and five fish will feed five thousand. He will ‘hurl himself from a tower’ and be ‘caught by angels,’ by giving up his life on the cross. He will be worshipped, by humbling himself as a servant.
“If, instead of waiting for stones to be changed to bread, we share the food we have; if, rather than waiting for the fantasy job or lover, we engage the people and work of our lives; if, rather than waiting for rescue, we lay down our lives for our friends, then we depart the world of deadly illusion for a living reality…..”
In other words, the real temptations in our lives are those that arise out of our own illusions. Fantasy is nice for escapism – and we all need a dollop of fantasy to be able to play around with – but the work of bringing in the Kingdom of God has to do with this “living reality” Dan Clendenin speaks of.
But perhaps there is one more temptation for Jesus, one with which we can identify. When I was in seminary a book that left a lasting impression on me was Nikos Kazantzakis’ novel The Last Temptation of Christ (it was made into a movie in 1988 by Martin Scorsese, which was very controversial at the time, although I thought that Scorsese had done a marvelous job of getting the gist of the story onto film). Kazantzakis’ conceit is that on the cross Jesus is tempted by the devil in the guise of a beautiful angel to reject his crucifixion, come down from the cross, marry, have a family, live out his life as a normal man, and have a peaceful death. But some 30 years later he meets Judas Iscariot (who, in this fictional rendering has not committed suicide), and in a bit of delicious irony Judas is the one who convinces Jesus that he has abandoned his duty to be crucified and thus to become the salvation of humanity. Jesus rushes into the streets of a Jerusalem in flames, begging God to return him to his crucifixion, finally rejecting Satan’s offering. At that point, he is returned to the cross as if he never left it. Jesus has now been tempted as a man, and having survived the real temptations of a man, Jesus says his dying words, “It is accomplished.”
The 30 years of a “normal” life were a fantasy – a fantasy born out of the desire not to have to go through with this terrible experience. As Jesus prays on the Mount of Olives, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me.” Yet, he goes on a moment later, “yet, not my will but yours be done.” Even the skeptic Kazantzakis found that Jesus, at the last, had to obey that will.
This is our story, too. There are many times when we don’t want to face the cost of discipleship, as we talked about it last week. There are many times when it’s so much more comfortable to take the path of least resistance. There are many times when the burden of the cross is just too much. These are the temptations we face all the time as we struggle to survive them. And survive them we will – that is the promise. There is an end to the wilderness – to the 40 days or 40 years. Those who walk in the steps of Jesus discover that they have been members of the great story all along. Along with the children of Israel we, too, can say that when we were treated harshly and were afflicted, “we cried to the Lord, the God of our ancestors; the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction…..” And so here we are, out of Egypt, offering our first fruits to God in thanksgiving.
Keep walking in the steps of Jesus as you tell the story that begins, “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor.” Next week we’ll continue the journey by “Staying the Course”.
Amen
Dave Pomeroy
First Congregational Church, United Church of Christ
Las Vegas, NV
February 21, 2010