The first temptations of Christ Psalm 91:9-12 Matthew 4:1-17

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Lindsay Crawford
5 years ago
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1 The first temptations of Christ Psalm 91:9-12 Matthew 4:1-17 Many have studied and preached about the meaning of the specific temptations Jesus faced in the Wilderness. Some have suggested that the three temptations explain one large temptation about how Jesus will use his power to lead. Will he be a welfare leader offering food? Will he be a spectacular leader offering crowd-pleasing miracles? Will he be a political leader overthrowing unjust leaders and governing the nations? Other commentators suggest that the three temptations are a test of priorities, a test of confidence and a test of allegiance respectively. Still others suggest that these are all about Jesus' temptation to use his power for personal gain tempting him with materialism, security and prestige. I believe there is something true in each of these interpretations. Whichever interpretation is chosen, the conclusion is often then that the lesson for us is that these are also the temptations we share either as individuals or as a church. I could easily imagine myself making such a case for any one of these interpretations in a sermon. It is interesting to think about the specific meanings of the specific temptations and how they relate to us, but that is not what I want to talk about today. I find it equally interesting to think about how this scene of Jesus in the wilderness fits into the larger story. I find it interesting that immediately after he had this mountaintop experience affirming his identity and call in his baptism, the Holy Spirit leads him to the devil to be tempted. And I find it interesting that although Jesus was alone, we know this story. In other words, he must have talked about this experience with others. He did not pretend that he was above temptation. He did not pretend that he did not struggle. He did not even seem to believe that temptation was something to be avoided so much as something to be faced and overcome. We each have demons to overcome if we are honest. Sometimes we are most confronted by them when we spend long

2 periods of time alone and in silence, that is if we have the courage and will to ever spend long periods of time alone and in silence. The less alone and silent time we allow in our lives, I suspect the more we are able to deny or minimize our demons and therefore integrate them comfortably into our busy lives. A year and a half ago I did one of the things on my bucket list. No, I'm not talking about jumping out of an airplane, although that was one of the things on my bucket list and I also did that the same month. It was a good month. What I am talking about is that I went on a silent retreat. It was glorious. I loved it! But I have to admit that it was cushy compared to the spiritual retreat Jesus experienced. I went to a retreat center where a group of us met briefly the first night and did speak then. We were each assigned a spiritual director who we met with once a day for an hour during which we broke our silence. We had a cafeteria where we ate in silence but in a room with others and there we enjoyed good food prepared for us. I remember the supplies I took: a notebook, a Bible, some other books, some art supplies. There was even a room with art supplies I frequented. And, another breaking of silence happened if and when we chose to join the nuns in morning and evening prayer. This mostly involved singing scripture together. My experience of a silent retreat involved a spare but comfortable room with a bed and pillow, not the hard ground. My experience involved food prepared for me, not fasting. Perhaps the most important difference was that my experience lasted 4 not 40 days. I had a spiritual director offering guidance to me, but then, I suppose Jesus did as well. But though the Holy Spirit seemed to lead him to this retreat, he also tells of his spiritual adversary or tempter. He tells of facing temptation as something that was important for him to do before he began his ministry. Oh that we would all give ourselves that honest reflection before we embark on our career path. Last week a dozen of us from this congregation went to see the movie Selma together. This is a movie chronicling the work Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and others did that ultimately lead to a march from Selma to Montgomery and the passing of the voting

3 rights bill. This is a very honest movie about Dr. King both recognizing the gifts of his tenacious leadership, his deep faith in the God of love and justice and the temptations he struggled with. These temptations ranged from fidelity to his wife to the temptation to give in to exhaustion and uncertainty about his work. He was tempted to give in and to give up. He was tempted to abuse his power and to walk away from it. He was not a perfect man and yet his deep desire was to do right by God and by all those who walked the journey with him. On this Martin Luther King weekend we are often tempted to simplify the hero. He accomplished much. We like him. We are less willing to recall the violence, the controversy and the hard words he spoke. We are less often willing to acknowledge that he was neither perfect, nor always easy to be around. Those who do are usually advocating an agenda of bitterness and racism. It is not easy to admit that our heroes have to contend with their own demons. It is not easy to admit that we have to contend with our own demons. One of the things I loved in the movie was how it got it right that Dr. King was first and foremost Rev King. He was a pastor surrounded by other pastors. They truly turned to scripture and to one another in times of doubt both for comfort and for accountability. They buoyed one another through the tough times. They were community. Jesus, on the other hand, faced his greatest temptations alone. Even when he tried to involve his community for support at Gethsemane, they fell asleep leaving him to struggle on his own, or at least without human companionship. But Jesus did take time away and was not afraid to face things alone. Whether alone or with others, we read throughout the gospels about Jesus going away for a time in the midst of the demands he faced in his work. This is something I don't remember hearing about King. In fairness to King, it is much harder to get away when one is constantly followed by everyone from the FBI to the media. Still, one wonders if he would have been even stronger in the face of his temptations if he would have allowed himself wilderness times.

4 The New Testament passage for today does not end where we generally end this reading. It goes on to tell us about what happened when Jesus returned from his wilderness. He returns to find that John, the man with whom he shared this significant religious experience right before he left for the wilderness, has been arrested. We saw plenty of arrested in the film last week. But knowing that does not seem to discourage Jesus. Jesus has just come to grips with deprivation and challenge. It is as though John's arrest, rather than discouraging him from his similar call, actually demands that he pick up where John left things. We are told that he continues John's call to preach repentance. The major difference that is noted here is that he does so in a different region. No longer does he stand by the Jordan stirring up feelings of nationalistic longing. This time he moves to a border region where Roman soldiers have an outpost and tax collectors have an office. Jesus moves beyond the centers of the past to open the door of the future to new faces along side the old ones. It is interesting that the devil showed Jesus all the nations of the earth, not just Israel. Even this tempter seemed to know that the whole earth was the endgame for God. The difference was that the tempter tried to get Jesus to force God's hand. Perhaps that was the real overarching temptation: To demand that God do what we really want now. We all try to put God to that test don't we? If the Bible says your angels will protect me, here is the way I expect that to look and if it doesn't, I withdraw my belief in you. You see the devil did not present a ridiculous agenda. Jesus did eat, feed others miraculously, perform other miracles including the saving of life and even (and this one is still unfolding) introduce God to the whole earth. But Jesus did not allow his human desires or impatience to run the show. Jesus was at times the classic challenger of injustice by the powerful, and at other times the servant who overcame violence with dignified passive resistance. If repentance means to turn our lives away from all that gets in the way of our devotion and submission to God as we learned last week, I wonder what that means for us today. After all, this

5 story really ends with the beginning of Jesus preaching and his preaching really begins with a call to repentance. I wonder if repentance for us means a return to silence with God and the willingness not to minimize or deny our own demons but rather to face them. This would necessarily mean time away from smart phones and computers and even good books. This would necessarily mean the willingness to let our minds wonder for extended periods of time until they let go of some of the noise. This would necessarily mean facing our own desire for power or popularity and rebuking our own demons of insecurity and it's close cousin self-aggrandizement. But this would also open up the possibility of experiencing the nearness of the kingdom of heaven. This would also open up the possibility that in our courage to heal, our wounds would be tended by angels. These are not actions from God that we can control nor are their absence in our lives a confirmation that we have done something wrong. These are simply gifts. I might even say that they are gifts being given to each of us even now. It is just that we may not stop long enough to notice. One of my favorite scenes in the movie Selma was when King and others were in jail. They were struggling to know what to do next and worrying about the people in the movement. Then Ralph Abernathy, another pastor and friend, quotes the words of Matthew to King admonishing him not to worry because if God clothes even the lilies of the field and cares even for the birds of the air, how much more will God care for him. This kind of community that helps us keep our focus on God is another avenue to help us notice the caring God is doing for us each day even in our temptations and trials. Jesus, too, functioned deeply in a community of people also desiring to follow and to know God. I believe both the community of faith and the individual time alone with God and without other distractions are the bread and wine that sustain us throughout our walk with God. They both teach us of our own vulnerability and smallness, and they both teach us of our value and significance as well. On this weekend we remember Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. We remember his fidelity to his call to seek justice and his call to

6 model nonviolence. We remember his deep faith and his deep temptations. But what we must remember most is something I believe Rev. King would want us to remember. We must remember the one whose life inspired that of King's; the one who is our true model as we journey for justice and practice peace; the one who not only died because his work and his words were so threatening to the power structures of his day but who also rose again so that he could enliven us with his presence. I began this sermon by tossing out several different interpretations of the meaning of the temptations Jesus faced. Our inclination is to learn from his experience and to take meaning about ourselves. But perhaps the interpretation I found that intrigued me most was this one: Matthew's story of the temptation is maddeningly unavailable for moral exhortation and spiritual encouragement. It is simply about Jesus: who he is and what sort of character he shows. The temptations are about Jesus, not about us. In this respect our frustration replicates the aggravation that the tempter/devil/satan knew in ever ascending heights: Jesus refuses to be who we want him to be. He will not turn our stones to bread; he will not prove God to us; he will not turn from God to embrace the kinds of success we would recognize and applaud. He remains maddeningly himself. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say he remains steadfastly God's.Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary - Feasting on the Word Year A, Volume 2: Lent through Eastertide. I suggest that being our true selves is all we can really hope to be. I also suggest that our true selves are always rooted in our creator, God. Let not the temptations, whatever they may be for each of us, frighten us into avoiding ourselves in the silence or avoiding the accountability and support of our communities of faith.

Week 1. Number of candles lit prior to service: 6. Introduction: Scripture reading: Matthew Reflection: Prayer:

Week 1. Number of candles lit prior to service: 6. Introduction: Scripture reading: Matthew Reflection: Prayer: Week 1 Number of candles lit prior to service: 6 Scripture reading: Matthew 4.-11 We extinguish the first candle (EXTINGUISH CANDLE), as we remember Jesus lonely trial in the desert. This account reveals