A Sermon for the First Sunday in Lent
The Rev. Patricia A. Gillespie
Genesis 2:4b-9,15-17,25--3:7
Psalm 51
Romans 5:12-21
Matthew 4:1-11
"The devil made me do it!"
Have you ever been in the desert where you can hear the voice of temptation testing you? Satan's tempting voice sometimes seems so much louder than the angel's voices; and so often, as in today's gospel, the angel voices only come later. You know how it goes ... like the cartoon character with the devil on one shoulder whispering temptation and the angel on the other shoulder offering encouragement.
But ultimately you have to choose. The voices and the choices all struggle within ourselves, whether we name them with psychological terms or theological ones. We see Jesus in the wilderness, being tested by the spirit and tempted by Satan, but the real struggle for Jesus, as for us, is in his own heart, mind, and soul. Jesus's argument is not with Satan but with himself, with human self-centeredness.
The argument is about Jesus's identity. At his baptism, he's just been told that he is God's "beloved son" who is well pleasing to God. Since he's God's special son, surely he gets some special treatment. The temptation is to test that identity: What good is it to be God's son, to be able to turn stones into bread and leap from temple tops or rule the world, if you never get to do it?
This is a test. You probably know that the Greek word used for ‘temptation' in this story means both to tempt and to test. It's the same word Jesus uses when he teaches us to pray -- "lead us not into temptation: do not put us to the test." God does this kind of testing-tempting with Adam and Eve in the garden. Satan does this kind of testing with Jesus in the desert.
Instead of saying "the tempter" we could say "the one who tests." So, if I were to ask any kid, "Who is the one who tests?" what would the answer be? Probably not "Satan" or "God" but "My teacher." God does it. Serpents do it. Satan does it. Teachers do it. Why? Because testing increases knowledge and understanding. Because testing causes people to grow. And good teachers know that.
|
In a small rural school, deep in the South,
there was to be the performance of a play at the high school.
Nothing like this had been done in this school before.
There was never enough money and not enough interest.
But a new English teacher had been hired,
who was bright and enthusiastic,
and she rallied students and parents to pull together this production. On opening night, one particular young man was exceptionally nervous. When he made his entrance his mind went blank and he could not remember any of his lines. He blurted something out that, just by coincidence, happened to fit right in with the dialogue, and also by coincidence was very funny. The audience laughed and then broke into spontaneous applause. Unfortunately, this went to the young actor's head. He began to throw out other lines, that were irrelevant and not funny, but he didn't quit. He kept going until the whole scene was a mess and the curtain came down with no one knowing what to do. If this young man had turned and looked off to the side, he would have seen this English teacher with the script in her hand ready to give him his line. At the end of the scene she was still standing there with tears running down her cheeks.
|
In all three temptations in today's gospel, Satan is saying, "You are in charge. You can do whatever you want. So why don't you? Go ahead... ad lib a little bit." Jesus keeps coming back with, "That is not in the script." So what was the script?
We've got one. Here it is: The Bible. There are days in my life when I know that God stands just offstage waiting to prompt me, while the tears run down her cheeks, because I don't look that way.
There was the test. And I gave in to the temptation to say "I can do it on my own." I didn't look to God for help. That's what Satan's talking about. Go ahead, Jesus, Satan says, you can do it on your own: make bread, jump from rooftops, rule the world... just ad lib a bit, forget the script.
But there's a trick here, isn't there? Satan is holding the script too. Satan argues so smoothly from the Bible: Go ahead, Jesus. It says so right here: the angels will catch you. Go ahead, Pat. It says so right here: repent because the friends you love are an abomination.
Jesus argues right back with another part of the Bible. O God, I think, why don't you tell ME which parts of this complicated book are right to quote? This script is too hard. The Bible seems to say one thing one place and the opposite on another page. What a dangerous book you've given us, that Satan is able to use it against even Jesus.
This Bible test is just too difficult. I'm certain to fail again. Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and we live with the consequences, but we still have trouble telling the difference between good and evil -- especially when the Bible seems to be on both sides of the choice.
The real temptation for us is to pick and choose among scripture passages those parts that support what we have decided anyway. It's called proof texting. And if you look hard enough in a book as comprehensive as the Bible you can find a verse to support almost anything -- even verses to argue with God's own son, as Satan did.
But look again at today's gospel. Look at how the Bible is used by Satan and by Jesus.
Satan quotes Psalm 91 ... or rather only a piece of Psalm 91. Look at the whole thing (beginning on page 719 of your prayer book). The psalm isn't about jumping off rooftops so angels catch you. It's about trusting God, about making God your safe place, about being bound to God in love. Satan quotes the bits he likes out of context and it is literally misleading: It leads the hearer away from the bigger picture, from the real meaning.
But then Jesus quotes picks and chooses bits of scripture too. The quotations are from Deuteronomy, chapters 6 & 8. The context is the Hebrew great commandment: "The LORD our God is one LORD; and you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might."
Jesus's quotations are not misleading -- in fact they lead us to and support the big picture: the fundamental faith statement of the Hebrew people. Jesus was not proof texting in response to these temptations. He was going back to the basics, back to his earliest training by Mary and Joseph. He was going back to theology of the bigger picture: that foundational biblical theme: "[God] loves me. This I know, for the Bible tells me so." Jesus was sticking with the script.
The basics are there:
The difference between God's story and the story of the high school play is that when we forget our lines, or ad lib on our own, or ignore the prompter, and we know that we've failed the test, Jesus, the Teacher who loves us, speaks our lines for us. And our Father, who loves us, breaks into spontaneous applause.
Return to The Living Waters Main Page
Go to The Living Waters Sermon Index