Lead us not into temptation? Luke 4:1-13 From 2001 to 2003, the Fox network ran a horrible reality show called Temptation Island, the premise of which was that a handful of couples would go for several weeks to an island where they would live apart from each other, but with hand-selected attractive members of the opposite sex; and they were to see if their relationships could survive the test. You don t have to have actually watched the show to know the truth in one reviewer s claim that it was groundbreakingly skanky. Nor do you have to have watched the show to be influenced by it, and by our culture s takeover of the word temptation to mean either something groundbreakingly skanky or some kind of sinfully decadent desert. So it s easy to pray, in the Lord s Prayer, lead us not into temptation, and think nothing of it. We may occasionally indulge in deserts that aren t so good for us (whether they are sinful as advertised is up for debate), but most of us don t struggle with that kind of temptation on a regular basis, nor do we need a whole lot of help from God to stay away from it. 1 But when we look at Jesus temptation in the wilderness, we see that temptation is something different than our culture currently defines it: Jesus story tells us that temptation is something that is simply part of the human experience, something we ll all go through at various times of our lives, and it s less about sex or chocolate than about our identity as children of God. In this story, Jesus has just been baptized. Then, full of the Spirit, he s led by the Spirit into the wilderness for forty days of temptation, during which he eats nothing. At the end of those forty days, which call to mind the forty years of wilderness the Israelites experienced, the devil comes to him and says first, If you are the Son of God or Since you are the Son of God turn these stones into bread. Jesus is hungry, and the hungry of the earth hope he will meet the devil s challenge and feed 1 In making this contrast, I do not mean to diminish the real issues so many of us struggle with around both unhealthy food 1
them. Just think of how quickly and easily famine and starvation could have been wiped out, and how quickly Jesus bodily appetite could have been satisfied after forty days without food. Imagine Jesus thinking, I could change the world in this very instant, and be forever known as the one who feeds the masses from stones. But instead of turning stones to bread, Jesus quotes scripture from the Israelites time in the wilderness, telling the devil, Man shall not live by bread alone. Then the devil ups his game a bit. He leads Jesus up to a high place where he can see all the kingdoms of the world in an instant. And he says, Worship me, and it can all be yours. The oppressed of the earth hope Jesus will meet the devil s challenge and take authority over all the kingdoms of the world, to end all oppression. He could easily have become the most powerful man in the world, a title that was rightfully his if the angel Gabriel s announcement to his mother, Mary, was to be believed. In an instant, he could have satisfied his ambition and been known as the greatest ruler of all time. But instead, he responded to the devil with another quote from Deuteronomy: Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only. Desperate, the devil says, You want to quote Scripture? I can play that game, too. And after leading Jesus to the highest point of the temple, the devil pulls out a piece of Psalm 91 a beautiful poem (ironically) about trusting in God s faithfulness and says, Throw yourself down from here. For it is written, He will command his angels you will not strike your foot against a stone. The doubters of the world had their fingers crossed as they hoped Jesus would dive off that temple wall and be miraculously rescued, calming all their doubts, giving prestige and celebrity to this one called Messiah who, so far, looked like a pretty average guy. In an instant Jesus could have been known as one with magic powers, the invincible one whom God protected. But instead, Jesus countered the devil with scripture again, saying, Do not put the Lord your God to the test. 2
And apparently that was all the ammunition the devil had prepared, because then he left Jesus until an opportune time. ~~~ This story raises all kinds of questions for us. We might first be wondering about this devil. Are we supposed to believe that the little red guy with the pitchfork showed up to taunt Jesus in his state of weakness? Or could it have been an internal struggle, a voice in Jesus own head? Is it a fallen angel? Is it a cosmic power? The story isn t clear about the details, but it doesn t seem to matter, because whatever form it takes, Scripture agrees with our experience that there is in us and among us strong opposition to love, health, wholeness, and peace that we might call evil. 2 However we envision the tempter, we all know too well that there are forces and influences that seduce us away from our true identity and purpose as beloved children of God. 3 And the temptation we experience is far more likely to look like plausible, attractive, sensible opportunities than a little red man with a pitchfork. After all, what the devil offered Jesus was plausible, attractive and sensible: God wouldn t want his beloved son to be hungry Why not go ahead and take the power promised him Why not prove he s the one with a miraculous display? 4 The devil even quotes Scripture to Jesus or at least hurls Scripture at Jesus. It all looks pretty good. And maybe the game-changer here, what we can t overlook as just context or coincidence, is that Jesus has just been baptized. We don t know the details around his baptism in Luke s gospel, but we know that after he was baptized, the heavens broke open, and the Holy Spirit descended on him like a dove, and a voice from heaven stated, You are my son, whom I love. He d just received this declaration, this identity as the Son of God, and the Spirit that had just filled him led him out into the 2 Fred B. Craddock, Luke (Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching) (John Knox: Louisville, 1990), 55. 3 Kenneth L. Carder, Temptations and triumphs of ministry, a sermon preached at the Service of Commissioning and Ordination for the UMC s Holston Annual Conference on June 13, 2010. Accessed 01.15.2016 at www.faithandleadership.com/temptations-and-triumphs-ministry. 4 N. T. Wright, Luke for Everyone (Westminster John Knox: Louisville, 2004), 43. 3
wilderness so he could discover for himself who he really was and what his life would be about. He went into the wilderness to encounter deep internal struggle, so that he could discern his role in bringing real liberation to the world, not just from the powers of Rome, but from evil and death itself. 5 He wouldn t be the Messiah they were asking for: the social and political power, the religious celebrity. But by saying no to those expectations, he could say yes to God s kingdom, and offer the world a freedom they had never known. The wilderness wasn t about whether Jesus could hack it as God s son, or whether he really was fully human and fully divine that had already been true since before he was born. The wilderness was, as much as anything, about Jesus realizing his own identity as God s beloved and living out that identity in the world. Now, most of us have never been led into the literal wilderness by the Holy Spirit, where we ve gone 40 days without food and then met the devil face to face for a series of temptations. Because we are not the Son of God, our temptation isn t going to look like Jesus temptation. But I m willing to bet that all of us have experienced wilderness at one time or another. Maybe it s looked like a hospital waiting room, when you aren t sure what the outcome will be. Or the cheap motel where you ve spent the first night after getting kicked out of your house. Or the parking lot, where you can t find your car, because you re so distraught after losing your job. Or the half-empty closet after someone you love has left, or died. Maybe the wilderness has felt like something inside you, an internal space where you ve begged for a word from God and heard nothing. Wilderness looks different for everyone; the only way to tell you re there is to look around for whatever you normally count on to save your life and come up empty. 6 For Jesus, this meant no food, no earthly power, no special protection. For us, it might be something entirely different. 5 Carder. 6 Barbara Brown Taylor, The Wilderness Exam, February 21, 2010. Accessed on 01.15.2016 at http://day1.org/1756- the_wilderness_exam. 4
But it s in that space, that wilderness, wherever it is, that we encounter the relentless temptation that plagues us all: to doubt our identity as children of God; where we try to prove our worth; where we begin to believe that our achievements, our titles, our positions, or our possessions define us. The wilderness is where we are tempted to forget about our baptism, when the heavens broke open and a voice from above cried out, You are my child, my beloved. That is what defines you. Your identity and your worth are gifts bestowed on you, not earned achievements. That is the definition of grace. Or as Brené Brown says so often, It s not about what we know but about who we are. 7 And who we are, first and foremost, is beloved children of God. Even Jesus went through this, this wilderness temptation in which he had to rely on his identity as the beloved of God rather than the one who had achieved power and prestige. The author of Hebrews celebrates that we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are and yet he did not sin. 8 The good news out of this story is that in Jesus, the devil has no sway. And because Jesus is for us, evil doesn t have ultimate charge over us, either. 9 No wilderness, no temptation can change our identity, which is gifted to us from God himself, never achieved under our own power, which means we can never lose it, never un-earn it, never be fired from it. ~~~ It s said that whenever Martin Luther faced trials and temptations internal or external that his response was to shout into the darkness, I am baptized! I am baptized! 10 7 See Brené Brown, Darling Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead (Gotham: New York, 2012), 16 et al. 8 Hebrews 4:15 9 Kimberly M. Van Driel, Homiletical Perspective on Luke 4:1-13, Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 2 (Westminster John Knox: Louisville, 2009), 49. 10 This is referenced in Carder s sermon referenced above, but I have seen it in multiple other places, as well. 5
He may as well have shouted, You, tempter, have already lost because I know who I am and to whom I belong. He may as well have been shouting, Power and celebrity have no sway over me, even in the wilderness I find myself in, because I have been given identity from God in the waters of my baptism, and you can never take that away. It s exactly what Jesus said to the devil in the wilderness: Devil, you can t sway me: I know who I am: I. am. baptized. ~~~ When we pray together, lead us not into temptation, I don t think what we re asking is for God to protect us from the wilderness. I think what we are asking is that the Spirit that broke open the heavens at our baptism might lead us through that inevitable wilderness, that wilderness that is so a part of being human, so that in our wilderness temptation we, too, might discover who we really are and what our lives will be about, and we might come out on the other side maybe battered and bruised, maybe hungry and broken but also shouting, I know who I am! I am a child of God! And even the power of hell can never take that away. Thanks be to God. Amen. Rev. Elizabeth Ingram Schindler Faith United Methodist Church Issaquah/Sammamish, WA January 17, 2016 6