There is a delicious irony and a certain dissonance in the juxtaposition
of today’s Gospel story and the beautiful anthem our Chancel
Choir just sang. The anthem says that love will lead us home. But
the Scripture story tells us that the Holy Spirit has led Jesus into
the wilderness in order that he might be tempted by the devil. So
as Lent begins, we might ask: why would the Holy Spirit lead Jesus
into the wilderness? The answer, perhaps, is in order to lead us home.
Seems like a strange way home, or put another way, a trip we’d
really rather not take.
I
think it’s because the truth of our faith is that we’re
tempted all the time to fall away from the path of discipleship, that
temptation of all different kinds is so central to the life of every
disciple that we simply must address it front and center over and
over and over again. In making sure that Jesus himself was tempted,
God through the Holy Spirit shows us what it takes to not give in,
to refuse to give our lives over to being less than fully human. The
Spirit leads Jesus into temptation in order to show us how to find
our own way home.
What
will we need to find our way? You may recall that a few weeks ago
on Scouting Sunday, Brad talked about the Scout motto: be prepared.
And in the Children’s Message that day, one of our wonderful
Scout leaders, Michael McCreight, got the kids to think about what
scouts take when they go out into the wilderness hiking or camping
in order to be prepared and get home safely: a flashlight, water,
some food, a sweater, a pen knife, some matches…. All that creates
a strong contrast to what Jesus needed in order to survive his wilderness
experience. Not camping gear, but Scripture, the word of God. Because
what happened out there was a big-time war of words with the devil.
The devil sought to beat Jesus at his own game. Scripture for scripture.
Verse for verse. A great chess match between masters.
Three
times the devil tempts Jesus with the Word of God to turn his back
on what will be the heart and soul of his mission. He tempts Jesus
to tweak things ever so slightly but in ways that the purpose of his
life would be no longer God’s but his own.
The
first: you’ve been out here for fasting for forty days and you’re
hungry, Jesus. Use your power to turn these stones into bread. Just
do it. Jesus deflects the blow. I will not place my own self-interest
before the work of God, he says. People need to trust God’s
Word. Check.
OK,
the devil says. You know people want power, they want freedom, they
want a messiah. Just worship me and I’ll give all that power
and authority to you and you can give them what they want, not only
the Roman Empire but all the kingdoms of this world. No, says Jesus.
I will not place my own self-advancement above the work of God. The
Word of God says to worship God and God alone. Check.
Ok,
then. Let’s see just how great your God really is, says the
devil. I’ll take you up to the highest place in all Jerusalem
and you can wow the people by throwing yourself off from there because
your God has said that he will save you from all harm. No, says Jesus
for the third time. The Word of God says not to put God to the test.
Check mate. Game over. The devil leaves. But not forever. Only to
await an opportune time to try again.
In
the wilderness, three times, Jesus refused to be satisfied with anything
less than the kingdom of God and he grounded his choice in the Word
of God.
If
you were at one of the Ash Wednesday services last week, you heard
me read the traditional invitation to the church into the observance
of Lent. It first reminds us of Jesus’ own forty day time of
testing in the wilderness and then it says: “I invite you, in
the name of the Church, to observe a holy Lent: by self-examination
and repentance; by prayer, fasting and self-denial; and reading and
meditating on God’s Holy Word.”
We
observe Lent for 40 days because the Scripture tells us that Jesus
was tested for 40 days. We fast because Jesus fasted. We practice
self-denial because Jesus practiced self-denial. We pray because Jesus
prayed. And we read and meditate on God’s Holy Word because,
in the wilderness, in his time of trial, Jesus put all his trust in
that Word.
What
do we need to be prepared for all the temptation this world can bring
on? What do we need to refuse to be satisfied with anything less than
the kingdom of God? Prayer, self-discipline and a solid grounding
in the Word of God, to which we return again and again for guidance
and for truth.
Surely
there are all kinds of temptations that beset us. Some are admittedly
trivial. Used to be that giving up donuts or chocolate for Lent was
about the most self-sacrificial thing people could come up with. We
tend to trivialize sin, too, and make it petty. We focus in on little
things that don’t matter too much and close our eyes to the
really big thing that matter very much in the eyes of God.
Learning
to resist temptation was central to Jesus’ spiritual life. But
it was not the temptation of little things—personal choices
about smoking and diet and lifestyle. Jesus came to teach us about
the fundamental values of the kingdom of God—peace, justice,
righteousness--and he knew that the biggest temptation would always
be to turn away from them.
Remember
what Jesus said when his closest disciples and best friends asked
him how to pray? “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us
from evil.” Of all the things he might have had them pray for,
he said: pray God to not lead you into temptation, like he did me.
Because, as Jesus well knew, the world itself would lead them into
temptation, the world and its values. He knew that we would be tempted
by greed and self-indulgence, by willful ignorance and denial. He
knew that we would be tempted by apathy and fear, by selfish gain
and heartless judgmentalism. He knew that we would be tempted to put
ourselves at the center of our lives in place of the Lord of Life.
Temptation
and repentance can happen, often in quite unexpected ways. Many of
you here are old enough to remember the ignoble and very public fall
of televangelist Jim Bakker in the late 1980’s. Bakker, who
had preached the gospel of prosperity, was sent to prison for bilking
millions from his TV viewers. What you might not remember is what
happened next. From prison, Bakker wrote his autobiography entitled
I Was Wrong. Writing of his transformation, Bakker said: “God
does not promise that we will all be rich and prosperous, as I once
preached. When I finally studied the Bible while in prison, it became
clear to me that not one man or woman—not even the prophets
of God—led a life without pain.” He confessed to the “temptation
to have more, do more, earn more, build bigger, protect the image
regardless of the cost, look the other way rather than confront wrongs…In
retrospect, one of the main reasons I slipped into believing and preaching
a distorted doctrine was because of my lack of understanding of what
it really means to allow Jesus to be Lord of your life. I had accepted
Jesus as my Savior and with my lips I had called Him ‘Lord,’
but in my heart and lifestyle, I now realized that He was not the
Lord of my life; I was.”
As
we see from the tug of war between Jesus and the devil in the wilderness,
the work of true repentance is going to take every ounce of strength
our minds and souls can muster. Even the church, you see, is tempted
to turn away from what is most important and critical to the kingdom
values of Jesus Christ.
In
recent weeks, as the Anglican church worldwide has been struggling
with the questions of homosexuality and women’s leadership in
the church, many of its most prominent African leaders, including
Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the current Anglican archbishop of Cape
Town, Cardinal Ndungane, have pleaded with the church to not get detoured
by what they say should be second-level, internal pastoral issues,
but instead to focus on the more fundamental and real life-threatening
issues facing Africans of education, conflict and war, HIV/AIDS and
poverty.
It
seems to me that the reason we are so easily tempted to turn away
from the big issues is because this is some of the hardest and most
painful work there is. James Morris, retiring after five years as
Director of the UN World Food Program, recently said, reflecting on
his job: “You get quickly emotionally overwhelmed to see so
many children, so many orphans, so women at risk," he said. "Women
who are 35 years old and look like they are 80. Children who are 15
and look like they are 7. You have to have emotional strength and
courage to deal with all of this.” Morris, an American business
man from the farming state of Indiana, and former president of the
Lilly Endowment, said that “there are 400 million hungry children
in the world. Every single day 18,000 children die of malnutrition
and hunger.” He called for students and young people, faith-based
groups, the business community and governments to join forces in a
global movement to alleviate and eliminate hunger — especially
among children.
"The
little girl in Malawi who's fed, and goes to school: 50 percent less
likely to be HIV-positive, 50 percent less likely to give birth to
a low birth weight baby," he said. "Everything about her
life changes for the better and it's the most important, significant,
humanitarian, political, or economic investment the world can make
in its future…. These are issues we know how to solve. The world
simply has to be more generous," he said. "We all have to
do a better job." And he himself has pledged the remainder of
his life to this work.
This
level-headed, thoughtful, compassionate, faithful public servant is
giving us here a window into a part of our world we would rather not
see, rather not pay attention to. And he’s calling us to repentance,
to a change of heart, and to committed action for the sake of what
we call kingdom values.
Part
of what Lent is designed to do is to look at our world, the hardest
things, with honesty and face into its biggest challenges and the
ways we’ve fallen short.
It’s
not easy and often what we see is horrifying. But it must be done,
in order that we seek repentance and the re-ordering of our lives
and the world in accordance with Kingdom values. It’s why our
Social Concerns Council is bringing us opportunities this Lent to
look at peace in the Middle East and global warming. It’s why
we will be hosting the Keiskamma Altarpiece here in our sanctuary
for 10 days, a powerful work of folk art created by grandmothers in
South Africa, women raising their grandchildren because their parents
have died of AIDS. This is art that names the devastation and the
sorrow and points us to seeds of hope.
In
the wilderness, the devil tempted Jesus to let the purpose of his
life become his own and not God’s, to place himself at the center
of his life instead of God. Had Jesus given in, all would have been
lost. And the kingdom values for which he lived and died would have
been buried along with him. We go into the wilderness with him in
the season of Lent to let him become more and more the Lord of our
heart, to let the Word of God be the center and plumb-line of our
life, and to let his kingdom values shape our choices and our priorities.
Like him, with him, we seek to center ourselves in the Word of God,
so that it shapes us and forms us into the disciples Jesus calls us
to become.
And
only by taking this detour with him into the wilderness can we know
what we need to know and see all that we need to see in order for
his love to lead us home. “After wind, after rain, when the
dark is done, as I wake from a dream in the gold of day, through the
air there’s a calling from far away, there’s a voice I
can hear that will lead me home.”
May
your Lenten journey through the windy, rainy and dark places of your
soul and of this world bring you into the golden light of Easter morn,
reoriented and renewed, led by the voice of God towards that home
where you and all God’s children will find true peace and joy.
AMEN.
Notes:
Anthem:
“Prospectus” from Southern Harmony, 1835, adapted by Stephen
Paulus.
Bishops
Tutu and Ndungane quoted in “The Christian Century”, February
20, 2007.
James Morris
interviewed on NPR, “Morning Edition”, February 22, 2007.
Jim Bakker
story from James Mulholland, Praying Like Jesus: The Lord’s
Prayer in a Culture of Prosperity. New York: HarperCollins, 2001.
©Patricia
Farris, 2007. Permission is given for brief quotation with attribution.
All other rights reserved.
First
United Methodist Church
1008 Eleventh Street
Santa Monica, CA 90403
www.santamonicaumc.org
(310) 393-8258
Are
We Putting the Lord to the Test?