March 5, 2017

 

 

Matthew 4:1-11

1 Then Jesus was led out by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. 3 The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.”4 But He answered, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” 5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple. 6 Saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written, He will command his angels concerning you, and on their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.” 7 Jesus said to him, “Again, it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” 8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” 10 Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’” 11 Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.

 

 

In these eleven verses, a scene is described that compresses time for us—forty days and forty nights of fasting. And, within that, real issues of vocation — what kind of Messiah is our Lord going to be? And issues of identity — what kind of protection is God going to give the Beloved Son?

 

In the wilderness, between our Lord and the devil all of this has to get sorted out. And the devil — the word means the confuser — is the one who takes truth and twists it a little bit; who takes scripture and quotes it just enough; who presents choices that make just enough reasonable sense.

 

If you are the Son of God… If – a very big little word. If you are the Son of God, first of all, why are you so hungry? Why are you so alone? Can’t God’s Son take stones and make them into bread? Can’t you now eat something and become strong? Surely, it’s going to take a miracle; but miracles are within the power of God.

 

One way to look at the temptation story of our Lord is to compare it with the Magnificat by Mary, in the first chapter of Luke. In her Magnificat she says, “The Lord has filled the hungry with good things.” And there are various things that Mary says in the Magnificat that show up again here—that are part of the temptation of our Lord some thirty years later.

 

I can picture our Lord certainly tempted by this—God is a God of miracles. Yes, I am hungry. But we don’t live by bread alone, and we don’t live by miracles alone. And I think the way we face this temptation in our lives goes something like this:

 

Is the church’s task solely one of mission? In other words, does the church exist to provide for human need– feed the hungry, clothe the naked, provide shelter for the homeless? Is this the church’s primary task? Or is our primary task to glorify God, to listen God and to obey God?

 

And it sort of begs the question of whether the church is relevant? If we are the church, why aren’t we more involved with our neighbors? And I think we struggle with this question more often than we might think.

 

What as a Church are we supposed to do first? Is it mission? Is it worship? Is it singing God’s praise? Is it education? Is it nurture? Is it caring for one another? What comes first? How do all of the things that we do out of our faith and in the life of the church, how do they relate to one another?

 

Are we to turn stones into bread? In other words, the stone of our building into bread for mission? The miracle of feeding and of being fed.

 

Our Lord responded by saying, we are to live by “every word that comes from the mouth of God”. So apparently, our primary task is to hear what God is saying. And, only then, can we live by what God is saying. So prayer and song and worship and study are as important as food and clothing and shelter and response to others. But I think our temptation is to confuse the priorities. We divide the tasks based on what we want to do rather than on what God wants us to do.

 

Then the devil took our Lord to the holy city, to the pinnacle of the temple, saying, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down,” and then there is a quote from Psalm 91: and the angels “will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.”

 

And I can imagine our Lord truly tempted at this point. If he did this leap — in Jerusalem, from the temple — unhurt, then it would be obvious who he was, especially to the leadership, to the priests and to the Sanhedrin. I mean, the Messiah can do miracles like this right?

 

And I think the church faces a bit of a similar temptation—that is to be a little bit more obvious than we are, edging towards the spectacular. Thus, we become not just the church, but the best church.

[It’s always bothered me a little bit friends about our sign out front– our sign says, The Presbyterian Church. It’s kind of interesting, it’s like we’re the only Presbyterian Church.] And then the temptation to be not just to be any kind of church, but one that has real power in the community; not just a church with disciples, but a church with movers and shakers.

 

So we are tempted to advertise ourselves — but we are going to couch it in religious language, of course. The inference is that God is doing great things among us because we’re really, pretty great. This is how competition arises between churches. This is how criticism arises within a church when not enough wonderful, spectacular things are taking place—I’m really not entertained enough, thank you very much.

 

So if our Lord resisted the spectacular in his ministry, then how can we do less than that?

You know friends, sometimes the church is just resting and gathering energy—it’s okay. Sometimes the church is just praying—it’s sufficient. And, sometimes the church trusts that amazing things are going on— without its control over those amazing things.

 

Then finally, the devil took our Lord to the top of a mountain and showed him the Kingdoms and splendor of the Nations and said, interestingly enough, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Our Lord dismissed the devil at that point because God only could he worship and serve. But notice how tempting it is for the church to have the kingdoms and splendor of the world.

 

Garry Wills, the church historian, retired from Northwestern University– he’s a man who wrote a history of the Papacy entitled, Papal Sin and I think in the same year wrote a book entitled, Why I Am A Catholic… so that kind of interesting combination. And he said this temptation by the devil mirrored the Medieval Papacy – in other words, “All the Kingdoms of the world I will give you and their splendor.”

 

And so, it is tempting for the Church to have political power, to be alongside kings and presidents and prime ministers in power. And, since power is the language people understand, the church is tempted to use power. Somehow, we have forgotten that our Lord turned down this temptation: “Worship the Lord your God and serve only Him.” (Deuteronomy 6:13)

 

Each of our Lord’s responses to the temptations was from the Book of Deuteronomy. Eugene Peterson in his book, The Jesus Way, comments:

 

We give close attention to what is going on in the testing and tempting of Jesus and note that the devil does not suggest that Jesus in any way renounce his call, turn back to something simpler, avoid responsibility, deny the validity of his baptism or doubt the voice from heaven. The devil is content to leave the matter of ends — the goal, the purpose, the grand work of salvation — uncontested. His tempting is devoted exclusively to ways, to the means that are best suited to accomplish the end to which Jesus is the way.

 

And later he writes: In the three great refusals, Jesus refuses to do good things in the wrong way. Each temptation is wrapped around something good: feed a lot of people, evangelize by miracle, rule the world justly. The devil’s temptation strategy is to depersonalize the ways of Jesus but to leave the way itself intact. His strategy is the same with us. But a way that is depersonalized, carried out without love or intimacy or participation, is not, no matter how well we do it, no matter how much good is accomplished, the Jesus way. We cannot do the Lord’s work in the devil’s ways. The devil has great ideas — brilliant ideas! The devil is the consummate ideologue, but he is incapable of incarnation. He uses people to embody his projects in functional rather than personal relationships. The devil is the ultimate in disincarnation. Every time that we embrace ways other than the ways of Jesus, try to manipulate people or events in ways that short-circuit personal relationships and intimacies, we are doing the devil’s work. Vigilance is required. It has always been required. It is required still in this America where doing good work in impersonal ways is epidemic.

 

Friends, who are we officers and members and friends of the church? We are those who are tempted by a faith of miracles and mission; a faith of spectacular happenings; a faith of powerful influence. And so every week we must pray with even greater awareness: “Lord lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.”
And to God, be the Glory. Amen.