BESPOKE TEMPTATIONS February 17, 2013, The First Sunday in Lent Luke 4: 1-13 Michael L. Lindvall, The Brick Presbyterian Church in the City of New York Theme: Like Jesus, the temptations we face are often customized to lead us to away from whom we meant to be. Lead us not into temptation, O God. But when we do face temptation, help us to recognize it for what it is, and strengthen by your Word us to resist the wiles of the Adversary. And now may the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. Amen. The 20 th Century Greek novelist, Nikos Kazantzakis is remembered for two books. This first is Zorba the Greek, published in 1946. It was made into a successful American film starring Anthony Quinn in 1964. Kazantzakis second famous novel, perhaps more accurately, infamous novel was The Last Temptation of Christ published in Greek in 1953 and seven years later in English. Martin Scorsese made it into a movie starring Willem Dafoe in 1988. This latter novel and the Scorsese film caused a huge cultural ruckus. The novel made it onto any number of lists of banned books. Teachers were lambasted for assigning it as reading to their high school and college students. In 1988 when the Scorsese film was released, 600 angry protestors besieged Universal Studios. Several movie theater chairs declined to screen it. Most of the animus about the book and the film came for Christians, usually very conservative ones. They had a problem with the basic story, whether novel or movie, simply because it was fiction about Jesus. It departed radically from the story of Jesus in the four Gospels. Kazantzakis freely acknowledged this, admitted his dramatic narrative liberties, confessing the obvious that his Jesus story was wildly speculative fiction. It was a meditative what if designed to pose some towering questions about who Jesus was and is. In his story, Jesus is almost - 1 -
constantly being tempted; some of those temptations were sexual in nature. The very idea that Jesus faced temptations of that variety was enough to send some Christians over the edge, never mind that in both the book and the movie are clear that Jesus always successfully resists those temptations. Roger Ebert, by the way, gave it four stars out of four, adding to his Great Movies List, saying that it paid Christ the compliment of taking him and his message seriously. In Kazantzakis story, Christ is tempted with particular sharpness at two times in his life. The first is drawn from that famous passage that Margaret read to us just now. Jesus is about to begin his work and retreats to the stark Judean dessert for 40 days of fasting and prayer. Those 40 days are the model for the 40 days of Lent of course, the season we begin today 40 days of spiritual fasting and focused prayer. In the desert, he encounters a force, a reality, perhaps even a living entity that Luke names the Devil. That name, "Devil," by the way, comes from the Greek word, diabolos as in diabolical. It means I love this it means the one-who-throws-everything-around. Good name for the power of evil, if you ask me. I don t preach much about the Devil; just don't like to give him the attention. Diabolos tempts Jesus three times in this story. First he tempts him with the power that would come with an endless supply of bread at his fingertips. With bread Jesus could feed the hungry and garner their support, just as the Emperors handed out free bread in Rome to keep the rabble happy. Diabolos next tempts Jesus with the kingdoms of the world, that is to say, the power of some overarching global political position. Finally, Diabolos tempts Christ with the kind of success that would doubtless follow on a dramatic and very public miracle, namely falling from the pinnacle of the Temple in Jerusalem only to be caught by angels. Please note something intriguing about each of the three temptations in this story. None of them is exactly evil in itself. Free bread aplenty is not exactly a great evil. In the right context, free bread could be a very good thing. Political power in itself is no evil. Such power can be sore tempting, but it can also be wielded to do great good. And miracles, miracles like surviving a fall from the top of the temple, are hardly evil. Indeed, miraculously surviving a fall is a very good thing! In Luke s - 2 -
Gospel account, Jesus resists each temptation. In Kazantzakis novel, Christ resists each temptation. But in neither Luke nor Kazantzakis is diabolos done tempting Jesus. Three times Jesus rebukes temptation, and finally after three tries, the onewho-throws-everything-around leaves him alone, but not for good. At the end of this story Luke tells is, And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him And then a qualifier, the last four words of this passage: until an opportune time. In the Gospel of Luke, that opportune time doesn t come for about 18 chapters. For 18 chapters, Diabolos goes underground. The Devil bides his time until the moment comes, and he presents Jesus with one last temptation. That fourth and last temptation comes 18 chapters later in the Gospel of Luke. It s the very temptation that gave Kazantzakis novel its title. It s in Chapter 22 of Luke. It s the last night of Jesus life, just after the Last Supper. Jesus has gone to a garden on the Mount of Olives to pray with several of his disciples. Twice he tells the disciples to pray that they may not enter into temptation. And then, alone, Jesus prays his way through his last temptation. What he prays, quite simply, is that God might remove this cup from him. The cup is the cross, of course. Jesus last temptation is quite simply to pass on the cross. He is tempted to take an easier way that skirts this awful and needful depth of human experience. Jesus last temptation is to a way that would by-pass the sacrificial love that somehow saves us. Both the Kazantzakis novel and the Scorsese film present this final temptation as a dream. Instead of a cross in front of him, Jesus dreams a long and successful life. There is marriage to Mary Magdalene replete with passion. He dreams of children and the good life in the green hills of Galilee. Like the temptations back in Chapter 4, the story from today s reading, this last temptation is not in itself evil. Long life, marriage, children, a quiet village and a career, are not evil things in the least. But, here is the edge, had Jesus yielded to those temptations back in the wilderness, the temptations to win the day with free bread or political power, or an outward miracle, he would have become a Savior of a very, very different kind that he was - 3 -
called to be. Had Jesus yielded to this last temptation 18 chapters later, had he passed by the cross, he might indeed have become fine and happy carpenter. He could have become a local teacher, perhaps of some renown. He would have still been an inspiration, a sage even, but he would not have been a Savior, a Savior whose self-giving shows the depth of God s love in a way the world will never forget. Actually, those three temptations back in the desert and this fourth temptation in the garden are variations on one theme. Each of them is a temptation to a seeming good and decent thing, but one that makes us less than he was meant to be. In the desert, Diabolos tempted Christ with the influence that comes with endless bread. Diabolos tempts Christ with the power of political position. Diabolos tempts Christ with the fame that would follow on a flying act off the top of the Temple. And finally, when none of that worked, 18 chapters later, Diabolos tempts him one last time in the garden with a simpler and subtler temptation: Jesus, just be a rabbi up in Nazareth, get married, and settle down to carpentry and babies. When you and I think about temptation, which is something we are supposed to do in Lent, we usually focus in on our peccadilloes, our little sins. Our consciences offer up memories of questionable tax deductions, a business edgy deal, or some awkward passions. We remember convenient lies, unkind words, an opportunity to help that we let pass us by. All these are very real, of course, and we do well to resist them or repent them. But they re perhaps not the greatest temptation we face. The temptations that Jesus faced, both in the desert and on that last night, were temptations to take a course in life that would have him be less than he was meant to be. And they were all disguised, disguised as reasonable enough alternatives a free bread Messiah, a political Messiah, a showy miracle Messiah, or just become a carpenter husband and father up in Nazareth. The Brits use the word bespoke to mean customized for the individual, or personally tailored. My point this morning is that it s not just suits that are - 4 -
bespoke; the truth is that the temptations you and I face in life are bespoke, that is, they are custom tailored to our personal weakness, our unique fears, our individual dreams. Our bespoke temptations are shaped rather like the temptations Jesus faced in the wilderness and finally on that last night good enough alternatives, reasonable, custom made to fit just us, designed to gently lead us to be less than we are called to be. C. S. Lewis was perhaps the most influential popular Christian theologian of the last century. His masterpiece, Mere Christianity, is doubtless the most widely read argument for Christian faith of our age. He wrote a lesser-known book, an odd one, entitled The Screwtape Letters. Published during World War Two, the book consists of 31 fictitious letters written by a supervisor devil named Screwtape to and inexperienced, underling devil named Wormwood. Wormwood had direct responsibility to lead astray a single human being, a man they refer to as the Patient. The young neophyte tempter, Wormwood is forever tempting the Patients with obvious and clearly deplorable sins. But his boss, Screwtape, counsels otherwise. He suggests sins that appear reasonable, nothing spectacularly evil, but rather that Wormwood coax the Patient to a series of choices that will slowly lead him to set God to the side and to become a day at a time something less that he was called to be. In one of his letters to Wormwood, Screwtape offers this sagely diabolical strategy: The safest path to hell, Screwtape says, is a gradual one. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. - 5 -