"The Temptation of 'If'.'" A Sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church on the First Sunday in Lent.

"The Temptation of 'If'"

Luke 4:1-13

If you were here on Baptism of the Lord Sunday, you remember that when Jesus had been baptized and was praying, heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove.  And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved.  With you I am well pleased.”

            At the age of 30, the man Jesus of Nazareth came to know that he was the beloved Son of God.

            Afterward, Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tested by the devil.  The wilderness is hot and barren.  The gospel tells us that "he was famished."

            From somewhere comes a voice-- "If you are God's Son, then command this stone, so that it becomes bread."  And Jesus remembers John...   the Jordan River...  the sky opening and a voice thundering, “You are my Son...  the beloved."

            But now there’s a different voice:  "If you are God's Son...   if you are God's Son."   A rounded stone could become a loaf of bread.   Who could it hurt?   If he is God's child-- then why shouldn't he have what he wants?  The temptation is to turn away from the way of sacrifice.

            The first temptation in the gospel story is to choose the easy life.  We end up hungry for the wrong things.  The life focused on security…  worldly success… or play...  or earthly pleasure-- is a life spent looking for substitutes for communion with God.

            We're tempted to avoid hard things like forgiveness.  Somebody says something thoughtless that makes you feel stupid...   or devalued.  Someone you thought was your friend hurts you deeply.  We should forgive. 

            Or we’re faced with a situation where someone needs to be protected, or where we need to stand up for what’s right and just.

            These are the times when it’s hard to follow Jesus. We’re tempted to do what’s easier.

            Jesus understood the temptation of the easy way.  "One cannot live by bread alone. 

            The adversary tries again.    “If you will worship me, all the kingdoms of the world will be yours.”   Jesus could have chosen success… and prominence or wealth-- instead of the way of self-giving love and redemptive suffering.  But he didn’t.

            The tempter tries again.  “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from the pinnacle of the temple…”   You know what the scriptures say, “God will protect you."

             

            As Shakespeare pointed out, “There is no error so grave but that some sober brow will not bless it with a proper text."    Even Satan quotes scripture.

            First century Jews believed that when the Messiah came, he would reveal himself from the temple roof.  Jesus could be the Messiah the people wanted-- if he would do what they expected.   

            Did you notice?  Jesus responds to all three tests with Scripture. All three responses are from Deuteronomy, the part of the Torah that details what covenant relationship looks like, that tells and retells the story of who God is…and who God’s people are… and how God works.  Jesus comes back to the faith that had formed him, the rote prayers repeated so often that didn’t leave him when he needed them the most.

               

            Knowing who you are and whose you are is essential to your wholeness as God’s child, and to your awareness of what God wants you to do with your life.    Satan’s primary objective isn’t getting you to do something wrong-- but to get you to forget who you are.  The Adversary wants you to lose your identity…  and your sense of belonging to the family of God.

            The ways Satan tries to convince us that we don’t deserve God’s love are subtle and clever.  And these temptations-- like the temptations of Christ-- are far more treacherous than an impulse to disobey one of the commandments. 

            Think about this tricky question: “If you are a child of God, then why don’t you feel more like one?   This can be deadly, because sometimes we don’t feel much like a beloved member of God’s family.  The temptation is to believe that-- if you’re not feeling like a child of God-- then maybe you aren’t.

Or about this temptation: “If you are a child of God, why don’t you act more like one? 

When we’re tempted to forget who we are, we’re in a kind of spiritual desert.  The word “wilderness” or “desert” has often been used as a symbol for being lost spiritually.  Sometimes we don’t feel or act like children of God.  Sometimes it seems as though we’re wandering around in a wilderness, not knowing who we are. 

Being in a wilderness place is an unavoidable part of the Christian walk.  We fight some of our greatest spiritual battles when we’re out in the wilderness.  It’s a time when we’re confronted with ourselves.  and we need to clarify what it is that we want or desire more than anything else.             

            When we're tempted to forget who we are...   when we're tempted to take the EASY way--   we're called to follow Jesus’ example.  Jesus went back to the scriptures that he learned as a child… the stories he’d heard at home and in the synagogue.  He remembered the things God had done for him.  He recalled the truths God had spoken. 

That’s what we’re called to do. We need to remember this story of Jesus in the wilderness. 

There were no witnesses to this event but Jesus.  So, he must have told the disciples-- in the hope that they would remember. 

            Remember that we have a savior who understands our struggle.  Remember how Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee and made it clear what his mission was in his inaugural speech in the synagogue in Nazareth:

            “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to liberate those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

            Remember who you are:  a beloved child of God, claimed by God’s grace… and called to work in partnership with Christ to embody God’s love and to work for reconciliation and justice and peace in the world. 

            Following Jesus sometimes leads us into the wilderness, where we are tested and prepared by God for ministry in this world.  It isn’t a comfortable place to be, but there, in the wilderness we come to rely more and more on God as the source of our strength.  In the stillness of the wilderness, we quiet ourselves to hear God’s voice and to meditate on God’s word.

When we’re tempted, everything is at stake.  As Christians we’re called to carry on Christ’s saving work in the world.  God has an important plan for our lives.  So, as we journey through Lent, let us seek to follow Jesus more intentionally. 

The good news is that, beginning with our baptism, God claims us and calls us and by the Holy Spirit gives us the power we need to carry Christ’s saving love into the world.

Thanks be to God!

Amen!

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

March 10, 2019

             

"God So Loves." A sermon on John 3:16 from Littlefield Presbyterian Church.

Sculpture depicting Numbers 21, on Mt Nebo in Jordan. Photo: Fran Hayes

"God So Loves"

Numbers 21; John 3:11-21

John 3:16 is one of the most quoted and most memorized verses in the Bible.  We may see it displayed for the cameras at sporting events, on banners or signs. In some parts of the country you might see it painted on big rocks by the roadside. It reads simply: “John 3:16.” 

            Depending on where you’re coming from, it’s a verse that can be used both to assure-- or to threaten.  Some invoke it to emphasize the extravagance and universality of God’s love.  Others invoke it to drive a wedge between believers and unbelievers… the “saved” from the “unsaved.” 

            “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish, but may have eternal life.” This is one of the most iconic verses of the Christian faith. It expresses the wondrous love of God, who reaches out to the world in self-emptying reconciliation. And all we have to do is “believe.”

            Some of us memorized this verse, if we when we grew up in the church. It’s a beautiful and simple expression of our Christian faith, of a God who loves and a people who respond in belief.
            And yet, it’s only when we read the verse in its context in the Gospel of John that we can understand it more fully and be transformed by it.

            James Kay, who was my preaching professor at Princeton Seminary, says that when the Christian message is reduced to a sentence, instead of heard as a story, it’s a problem.  When the sentence becomes a magic formula or a mantra or a slogan instead of a story, when the verse is so engraved in our memory and so familiar—the temptation is that we may think we already know what it means.  The gospel of God’s love has become so familiar that we are no longer amazed by its majesty or its mercy.[1]

            And so, Professor Kay says, we need startling images, obscure, bizarre metaphors—like snakes—to wake us up.  We need “strange stories” instead of “safe slogans,” to help us comprehend what’s happening in these verses.

            John 3:16 isn’t meant to stand alone. It opens with a word we translate as “for.”  In the original Greek, it has a sense of “in this manner” or “in this way,” which means that God’s loving gift of the Christ for the salvation of the world needs to be understood in light of what comes before.
            “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”

            The allusion is to one of the strangest stories in all of Scripture, from the twenty-first chapter of the Book of Numbers. 

The Israelites on the move from Egypt to the land of promise were their own worst enemies-- but then, who of us is not?  Of all of the harm inflicted upon us in life, some of it self-inflicted. Of all the judgment we encounter in life, a lot of it is self-imposed.  The people were complaining again. This is the sixth “murmuring” incident.  The people are grumbling: why had Moses brought them out into the wilderness to die?

Isn’t it also just like us humans –-- then, as now?  God brings us out of trouble… gets us safely through a time of danger.  Yet we grumble because the place God led us to isn’t as nice as we’d hoped.  What good is it to be God’s own people, if all it gets us is wandering on and on through the wilderness with nothing to eat except manna?

Then what happens next in the story?  Poisonous serpents-- lots of them, biting the people, so that many of them were dying. 

Now, I know the text says that the Lord sent the serpents.  But I have to confess that I have a hard time with that.  I don’t want to believe that the God of steadfast loving-kindness would kill people for whining.

Yes.  God gets frustrated with us.  But given the situation described, I wonder if at least some of the “serpents” could have arisen from within.  I think we poison ourselves sometimes if we get locked into complaining… selective remembering…or useless longing for good old days that weren’t really all that great.

Without even trying very hard, we can poison ourselves or one another-- with anger… bitterness…blaming…  or despair.  So, I think there may be more than one way to understand the serpents.

Now, whether the serpents are literal or metaphorical doesn’t end up mattering very much, because the people come to their senses and come to see that they themselves are responsible for the serpents coming into their midst.  They see that it was their own sinfulness that brought the serpents into their midst and caused their pain.  They repent and pray to be rescued: “Lord, the serpents are biting us!  We’re dying!  Save us!”

God hears them and makes it possible for them to survive.  Rather than making the serpents disappear, God provides an antidote to their venom.  Rebellion and sin have their consequences. God told Moses to make a serpent and set it on a pole, “and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.”  God saved them by requiring them to gaze upon a symbolic representation of the very serpents that endangered them.

            "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son...   For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world-- but that the world might be saved through him."

            God loved the world...   loved so much that God gave.  Not to condemn...  but to save, John says.

            But what does this mean?  What does it mean to be saved?  There are different ideas about what words like “savior,” “save,” and “salvation” are supposed to mean.  

            The Greek word that we often translate as “save” can mean to save, to keep safe, to rescue from danger or destruction, or it can be saving someone who is suffering from disease… to heal… to restore to health and wholeness.

           

            “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son be lifted up.” The image of the Son of Man lifted up like the serpent on a pole points to the crucifixion.
            In the Roman Empire, the cross was an instrument of state-sanctioned violence that was used to execute those who destabilized the imperial order.  As Robert Williamson suggests, Christ lifted up on the cross serves as a symbolic representation of the very real violence of the Empire, threatening death for any who refused to submit to its authority.[2]

            In John, “lifting up” has a double meaning.  In a literal sense, it’s about the physical lifting up of Jesus on the cross. But in a metaphorical sense, it’s about how Jesus is glorified on the cross, so that the whole world can see God’s great act of redemption and healing.

            Did you notice? There’s no mention of punishment or payment for sin here. The cross is the sign that reveals God’s love for the world.

            God loves this world.  God chooses not to condemn this world. God desires salvation and life eternal and abundance for this world. And if we love the light more than the darkness, we are called to desire those very things for this world, too.

            That's the call for all who have received the gift of God's Son:  to love the world God so loves, to reflect the light of Christ, and be the light that both exposes evil and reveals truth.

            The Israelites in the wilderness were told to gaze upon the serpent in order to be saved.  I think Robert Williamson is right when he says the way to salvation for us is to gaze upon the crucified Christ--to recognize the violence that has undergirded the prosperity of our own Empire. It is to remember the genocide of native peoples that accompanied the founding of our nation and to face the facts of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the inhumane exploitation of life and labor that built the wealth of our nation.
            To gaze upon the Christ is to see the Christ Child among those gunned down in Columbine and Newtown and Parkland. To gaze upon the Christ is to acknowledge how much pain has been inflicted on innocents like Jesus in the name of enriching the few and securing our own privilege.
            If we believe that salvation comes through believing in the Christ who is lifted up on the cross to save us from a life that is complicit with the violence of the Empire of our time, the claim in John 3:16 takes on a much more radical meaning. 
            Gazing upon the crucified Christ means repenting of ways in which we are complicit in systemic injustice and violence and turning away from the politics of fear.
            Believing in Christ means choosing to turn away from the violence of the Empire and to commit ourselves to the reconciling power of God’s love.  

            God loves the world so much, that God comes not to condemn or judge us, but to love and save us.  God labors constantly to give us new birth-- to push us into abundant life-- if we are willing to trust God enough to know God in a new way...to live in a new way that reflects God’s love and justice.

            And that, my friends, is good news!

            Thanks be to God!  Amen!    

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[1] James F. Kay, Seasons of Grace: Reflections from the Christian Year (Eerdmans, 1994), p. 50.

[2] Robert Williamson Jr, “Justice for Lent: Overcoming Violence (John 3:14-21), at https://robertwilliamsonjr.com/justice-lent-overcoming-violence-john-314-21/

"Wilderness Faith." A Sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church on the First Sunday in Lent.

"Wilderness Faith"

Mark 1:9-15

There’s a hymn in our hymnal that we sing sometimes, “There’s a sweet, sweet Spirit in this place. And I know that it’s the Spirit of the Lord. There are sweet expressions on each face. And I know they feel the presence of the Lord.”

            Somehow, I don’t think the “sweet holy Spirit, sweet heavenly dove” adequately describes the Spirit in Marks’ account of the gospel. As Jill Duffield says, “Mark’s Holy Spirit dove does not sit cooing on a nearby branch, placidly watching.  No. Mark’s version of the Holy Spirit was an angry bird long before the video game came on the scene. The descending dove tears apart heaven to get to earthly Jesus as he comes up out of the waters of baptism… Somehow that image of a gentle bird, branch in its mouth, doesn’t do Mark’s Holy Spirit justice.”[1]

            Jesus had come from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. Just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove upon him. A voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved. With you I am well pleased.”

            And then, immediately, the Spirit drove Jesus out into the wilderness.  Jesus was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts, and the angels waited on him.

            Now, both Matthew and Luke give us more details about those forty days. Mark’s sparse account leaves a lot more to the imagination.  We might like to fill in the gaps of Mark’s account with details from Matthew or Luke. Some of us might like to minimize the power of evil or tell ourselves there’s little we can do to resist evil. But I wonder if it isn’t more faithful to pay attention to the sparseness in the story…and spend time in the silence …and to invite the story to speak our truth to us.

            There’s a popular Sunday school curriculum for young children called “Godly Play.”  One of the key phrases teachers use in “Godly Play” teaches “The wilderness is a dangerous place. You only go there if you have to.” The children are encouraged to run their fingers through large, wooden sandboxes, and to imagine the scorched landscapes Biblical characters encountered as they sought to follow God. Fierce heat. Jagged rocks. Scarcity of water. Wild animals. Blistered feet.

            “The wilderness is a dangerous place. You only go there if you have to.”[2]

            We don’t know how Jesus spent those forty days and forty nights. Did he walk for miles each day, or camp out in one spot? Where did he sleep? Did he climb up into a cave? What was the silence like, hour after hour? As the days stretched on and on, did he fear for his survival? Did he question his sanity? Did he have visions?

            What we do know is that Jesus didn’t choose to go to the wilderness, and that it was dangerous.  “The wilderness is a dangerous place. You only go there if you have to.”

            Does that ring true for you? Most of us don’t choose to enter a wilderness place. We don’t generally seek out pain or loss or danger or terror. But sometimes we find ourselves in the wilderness anyway.  It may be in a hospital waiting room… a troubled relationship… a sudden death of a loved one… a crippling panic attack… loss of a job… a financial crisis.

            Can we bear to think it’s the Spirit that dries us into the wilderness among the wild beasts? When we’re suffering, we might wonder if this mean that God wills bad things to happen to us?

            Sometimes people will try to tell us things like this.

            I don’t think so.  But I do believe that God can redeem even the most parched and barren times in our lives   and that the dangerous places can also be holy.

            I hesitate to even say this, because I remember that at times Christians have suffered under the false teaching that God gives us human pain and suffering for some greater good. I’ve heard the old platitude that “everything happens for a reason,” and I don’t believe it.  I’ve had a hard time believing it for a long time, because of all the suffering I’ve seen and because I don’t believe the God I love and trust, the God who is love, goes around dispensing suffering and pain to teach us lessons.

           

            A few days ago, I heard part of an interview with Kate Bowler on the radio, on NPR, and I knew I needed to read her book, Everything Happens for a Reason (and Other Lies I’ve Loved).[3]

            Kate is a Duke Divinity School professor with a Christian background. She was best known, until recently, as an expert on prosperity gospel teachings and author of a book on the subject. Married in her twenties, a baby in her thirties, she got a job at her alma mater straight out of graduate school. She said she felt breathless with the possibilities. She writes, “I felt that God had a worthy plan for my life, in which every setback would also be a step forward.  I wanted God to make me good and make me faithful, with just a few shining accolades along the way. Anything would do if hardships were only detours on my long life’s journey. I believed God would make a way.” She continues, “I don’t believe that anymore.”[4]

            In 2015, at the age of 35, Kate was diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer.  

            Kate prayed the same prayer every day: “God, save me. Save me. Save me. Oh, God, remember my baby boy. Remember my son and my husband before you return me to ashes.  Before they walk this earth alone.” She says, “I pleaded with a God of Maybe, who may or may not let me collect more years. It is a God I love, and a God that breaks my heart.”

            She had so many questions. “Why?  God, are you here?  What does this suffering mean?”  Sometimes she thought she could almost make out an answer. But then it was drowned out by what by now she’s heard a thousand times. “Everything happens for a reason” or “God is writing a better story.” Apparently, she says, God is also busy going around closing doors and opening windows.

            For Kate, THE WORLD OF CERTAINTY had ended and so many people seemed to know why. Most of their explanations were reassurances that even her cancer is a secret plan to improve her. “This is a test and it will make you stronger!” Sometimes, they’d pepper their platitudes with scripture verses.

            So, what I do believe, is that sometimes our life journeys take us to desolate and dangerous places. I don’t think this is because God takes pleasure in our pain or gives it to us to teach us something-- but because we live in a broken, fragile, dangerous world that includes wilderness places. I believe God is with us in ways and through people we might experience as angels.  I believe goodness is stronger than evil and that God can take the things of death and wring from them new life.

            I believe that there aren’t as many simple or certain answers as we might want to believe.

            So that’s what I wanted to say before we go back to the story of Jesus in the wilderness, and to wondering why God’s Beloved Son Jesus needed to be tempted and what it might mean.  

            I think Nadia Bolz-Weber is right when she suggests that temptation--Jesus’ and ours-- is always about identity. It’s about who we are and whose we are.  “Identity,” Nadia says, “is always God’s first move. Before we do anything wrong and before we do anything right, God has named and claimed us as God’s own.”[5]

            But almost immediately, other forces try to tell us who we are and to whom we belong.  Forces within capitalism tell us we need to buy certain kinds of cars or houses or clothing to show we have worth.  If we’re poor, parts of society tell us we’ve made bad choices or are lazy or just haven’t tried hard enough. “The weight-loss industrial complex”[6], our parents, teachers, the kids at school all have a go at telling us who we are.

            But only God can tell us who we are.  Everything else is temptation. If we’re out in the wilderness and we hear a voice on the wind telling us that we don’t have enough, that we aren’t good enough, that we can’t keep ourselves or our loved ones safe without gates and walls and bombs and assault weapons-- that’s temptation.

            If God’s first move is to give us our identity and tell us we are Beloved, Satan’s first move is to make us doubt our identity.  As we wander in the wilderness, in dangerous and desolate places, we are tempted to doubt that we are God’s own--beloved.

            The gospel story we heard today reminds us that we will have times of doubt and temptation. The wilderness experience is not unique to Jesus.

            Our times in the wilderness can teach us more about who we really are.

            As Mark tells us, there were angels in the wilderness. They might not have glistening wings and golden halos. Our angels might not come in the form we might prefer.  And yet, somehow, help comes.  Rest comes.  Comfort comes.  Angels come and minister to us. And sometimes we are angels to others.         

            That’s we do in the church, when we are out in the wilderness.  We minister to each other. We minister to each other. We whisper “beloved” …” child of God” into each other’s ears.

            I hope and pray that when angels in various forms whisper “beloved” into our ears, that we will listen and trust in the good news.

            When we’re in the wilderness, we can trust that God is with us, and that we are not alone.  We can trust that we belong to God and that God has named us and claimed us as God’s own.  We can trust that evil will never have the last word. We can know that love wins.
            Thanks be to God!   Amen.

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

February 18, 2018

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[1] http://pres-outlook.org/2018/02/1st-sunday-lent-february-18-2018/

[2] https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/1660-into-the-wild

[3] Kate Bowler, Everything Happens for a Reason (and Other Lies I’ve Loved).  Random House, 2018.

[4] Kate Bowler, Everything Happens for a Reason, Kindle location 69.

[5] Nadia Bolz-Weber, Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint.” (Jericho Books, 2013), page 139.

[6] I like Nadia’s description of this, on page 139.

"A Crisis of Identity": A Sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church on the First Sunday in Lent

"A Crisis of Identity"

Matthew 4:1-11

         It’s no accident that Jesus is out in the wilderness. After he was baptized in the muddy waters of the Jordan, he was led out into the wilderness to be tempted—or tested.  (The Greek word in the original text can mean either.) 

            Throughout the scriptures, the wilderness represents a place of preparation… a place of learning to trust in God’s mercy.  Moses fasted for forty days on Mount Sinai as he received the words of God’s covenant with the Israelites.  Elijah fasted forty days and nights in the wilderness before he received a new commission from God.  The people of Israel wandered around in the wilderness for forty years after they were liberated from slavery in Egypt-- until they could learn how to be free people.  

            When he was baptized, Jesus heard a voice from heaven proclaim, “You are my son...  my beloved.  In you I am well pleased."  Then the Holy Spirit leads Jesus out into the middle of nowhere to decide what kind of son he's going to be. 

            Can you imagine?  The wilderness is hot and barren.  The hills are dust heaps.  The rocks are jagged.  The wind howls at night. It's been days...   weeks-- since he's eaten.  The gospel tells us that "he was famished."

            From somewhere comes a voice:  "If you are God's Son, then command this stone, so that it becomes bread." 

            The devil is tempting Jesus, suggesting that the reality of his identity is the question: “If you are the Son of God…” Are you really? Can you prove it?  But Jesus’ responses show him pondering an entirely different question: What does it mean for me to be God’s beloved son? How shall I live out that identity in the world?

            "If you are God's Son, then command this stone, so that it becomes bread.  If you are God's Son.”

            Could Jesus turn a rounded stone into a loaf of bread?   Who could it hurt?   If he is God's child-- then why shouldn't he have what he wants?  The temptation is to turn away from the way of sacrifice.

            Every day we’re besieged by advertisements and other messages that seek to touch us in our sense of insecurity and inadequacy, to undermine our God-given gift of identity with the promise that if we buy this car or use that deodorant or make our teeth brighter we will be acceptable. The message of the consumer-consumption culture is simple: you are not enough. Not skinny enough, smart enough, pretty enough, strong enough, rich enough to deserve respect, love, and acceptance. It’s a lie-- a demonic attempt at a kind of identity theft.

            Each day, we’re tempted to be less than God created us to be.  We’re tempted to choose what is easiest… or comfortable-- without thinking about how much more is possible.  We’re tempted to reject our God-given identity…  and God’s dream for us. 

            Every time we choose what seems the easiest path-- we become less.  Jesus understood the temptation of the easy way.    He was tempted to take the easy...  comfortable way too.  

            "One cannot live by bread alone.  Obedience is more important than comfort.

            The adversary tries again.   This time it's from the highest point on the temple roof:   "If you are God's son, throw yourself down.  You know what the Bible says, “God will protect you."

            As Shakespeare pointed out, “There is no error so grave but that some sober brow will not bless it with a proper text."    Even Satan quotes scripture.

            First century Jews believed that when the Messiah came, he would reveal himself from the temple roof.  Jesus could be the Messiah the people wanted-- if he would do what they expected.  

            Today, we may be tempted to follow the rules and keep up a Christian appearance...to look like good religious folk, in a conventional sense of righteousness-- even as we lower our expectations of what we can be for God.  If we take that approach, we slowly but surely choose comfort over concern...   success over sacrifice...  respectability over radical, self-giving love.

                       

            In the final temptation, the devil promises to give Jesus all the kingdoms of the world if only Jesus will worship him. The implications are stunning. The devil assumes that all authority in the world belongs to him, to give to others as he chooses. But Jesus orders Satan to leave, quoting from Deuteronomy: “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.”[1]

            The tempter’s voice comes back with promises of palaces and kingdoms:   "Compromise and it's all yours."  Jesus could have chosen success… and prominence.

            But Jesus came to proclaim and to bring the reign of God. By choosing not privilege or power but rather obedience to God, Jesus has already begun his journey to the cross.

It might be easier for us if the Evil One appeared in a red suit with a pitchfork, so he's easy to identify.  But often the tempter appears as a sensible way to meet our needs-- or at least our selfish desires.  We might hear the devil's nagging voice in our desire for success and self-sufficiency.  Or it might nag us with the fear that there isn’t enough-- worries that we need to hoard for ourselves, because there isn’t enough for everyone to have of what we need.  The temptation might be a nagging fear of how dangerous the world is and how we need to be afraid. 

            Jesus was continually tempted to make it easier for himself.  Jesus was never freed from temptation, and we won’t be either. 

             

            What’s at stake here is a question of identity.  Who is Jesus?  Who are we?  The most important thing about you-- is who you are.

            One of the saddest conditions a person can face in life is amnesia-- not remembering who you are.  It’s frightening when a person doesn’t understand what life is about…  when life has no meaning or purpose. 

            That’s what made Willy Lohman such a pathetic character in Arthur Miller’s play, "Death of a Salesman."  After Willie committed suicide, his son Biff says that the heart of his father’s problems was that he didn’t know who he was.

            Knowing who you are   and whose you are is essential to our wholeness as God’s child, and to your awareness of what God wants you to do with your life.   Satan’s primary objective isn’t getting you to do something wrong-- but getting you to forget who you are.

            The ways Satan tries to convince us that we don’t deserve God’s love are subtle and clever.  And these temptations-- like the temptations of Christ-- are far more treacherous than an impulse to disobey one of the commandments. 

            Think about this tricky question: “If you are a child of God, then why don’t you feel more like one?   This can be deadly, because sometimes we don’t feel much like a beloved member of God’s family.  The temptation is to believe that-- if you’re not feeling like a child of God-- then maybe you aren’t.

Or this temptation: “If you are a child of God, why don’t you act more like one? 

            The way Matthew tells the story of Jesus in the desert, there were no witnesses.  So, Jesus must have told the disciples in the hope that they would re-tell the story and remember.   

            Whenever Martin Luther was confronted with temptation, he would remind himself:  "I have been baptized."  He remembered whose beloved child he was.   We need to remember whose we are.

Beginning with our baptism, God claims us as God’s beloved child and calls us to carry on Christ’s saving work in the world.

            When we're tempted to forget who we are, we're called to follow Jesus’ example.  Jesus went back to the scriptures that he learned as a child… the stories he’d heard at home and in the synagogue.  He remembered the things God had done for him.  He recalled the truths God had spoken. 

That’s what we’re called to do.  We're called to remember the stories of what God has done and the truths God speaks to us.  As a community of faith, we need to hang out together and remember together. 

We need to remind one another that we are beloved children of God.  Because that’s who we are, we have value and worth and purpose.  We need to keep reminding one another that we are enough and that there is enough to go around… and that we don’t need to live in fear.

Thanks be to God!

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

March 5, 2017

 

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[1] Deuteronomy 6:13