Temptations.

Matthew 4:1-11

March 5, 2017

I.

After his baptism, with the spectacular appearance of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, Jesus feels the need to reflect.  So he goes into the desert on what the Native Americans might call a vision quest.  He fasts for 40 days, and in the end the devil himself appears to him, dishing out three difficult temptations.

These temptations ratify Jesus’ identity as Son of God and promised Messiah of Israel.  They are also issues that have tested every follower of Jesus, and the church as a whole, ever since.  How we respond to these questions determines the integrity of our discipleship and mission.  In each case, we may follow Jesus’ example; or we may cave in to the devil’s appeal to the lower, ego-centric, selfish, fearful side of our nature.  In each case we may do either what God wants, or what we want for ourselves.

In the first one, the devil suggests that Jesus make bread from stone in order to feed himself after his long fast.  Jesus says no; people don’t live on bread alone.  People live by God’s Word.  

I take that literally.  In the beginning, God creates everything by speaking.  The whole universe is like a condensation of God’s Word.  And God makes this whole planet as a place of abundance and goodness, with more than enough for all.  It is not made to feed just us, but all.  In this sense, everyone lives by God’s Word. 

But the devil is not concerned about everyone.  He just tempts Jesus to use his power to feed himself.  This is the temptation to focus mainly if not exclusively on what I lack, what I need, what I want.  It wants us to dwell on scarcity; we are afraid there won’t be enough.  It darkly ruminates on what we don’t have.

The Evil One always builds us up.  He wants to convince us that we are substantial, separate, independent individuals.  He wants us as little knots of personal growth, like cancer cells, that suck up all the energy around us, and grow perversely for the sake of growing.  He wants us to block the light of God so we cast a nice big shadow of darkness in the world. 

Bread also represents money and wealth.  Applied to the church, which is Christ’s Body in the world now, the devil presents the same temptation.  The church is tempted to “make bread,” that is, get rich, or at least acquire resources.  The theory is that then we can spread the wealth around and feed people!  It is as if the Evil One says, “You’re no good to anyone poor and hungry; eat!  Turn this creation into bread!  That’s why God put it here.  Then, when you’re fed, you can feed others!”  He knows that people never think they have enough, and very little will make to the others.   

Jesus himself makes bread when he feeds the 5000 later in the gospel.  He is certainly not averse to feeding and healing people; he ministers to people’s needs all the time.      

But he doesn’t do it by taking or getting or acquiring or keeping anything for himself.  Jesus does not feed himself, then turn and give others what is leftover.  He lets what he has received flow through him to where the need is.  He is radically other-centered, not self-centered.

By pointing to God’s Word in Scripture, and then enacting it in his own ministry, Jesus models for us an economy of sharing and giving, as opposed to one of buying and selling.  Jesus assumes not scarcity but abundance.  His is the economy of enough, where resources flow to those in need, and are not regulated, blocked, priced, or hoarded by people with the power to do so.

II.

In the second temptation, the devil concocts a somewhat bizarre scene in which Jesus would gain popularity by doing something publicly spectacular, in the process forcing God’s hand to do a miracle.  He is supposed to jump from the top of the Temple and since he is the Messiah God will send angels to save him.  The Bible says so.

So Jesus is to wow people with a miracle, again centered on himself.  And then, when everyone is gathered around, he can teach them.  But what is he supposed to teach after he does this circus act?  Can he deliver his gospel teachings about how we need to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow him?  How is that going to work?  Wouldn’t following him mean… jumping off of buildings?  Doing whatever you want and imagining God will save you?  Drawing as much attention to yourself as possible? 

The first temptation was about wealth; the second is about fame, popularity, glamour, being a star, being attractive and a celebrity.  Instead of gaining money, this has to do with gaining attention, adulation, admiration, and even a shallow kind of love.  But it is still about gaining, which is what the devil is always about. 

What does this say about us if we reduce the church’s mission to snazzy worship and elaborate marketing strategies?  We say it’s all about Jesus, but Jesus himself does everything he can not to be popular.  He heals people, but tells them to keep quiet about it.  He deliberately says things that drive people away.  In the middle of a successful rally, he disappears to go off and pray.  At one point the people want to proclaim him king; but he proceeds to deliver such difficult teaching that all but his disciples desert him.

“Do not put the Lord your God to the test,” means don’t expect God to bail you out when your plan flops.  And it will.  Maybe not right away.  We can force growth and success according to the world’s standards; we know what makes for popularity.  But eventually, if you tie yourself to human values and standards, reality sets in and you start to lose.  Eventually your special effects wear off and you hit the pavement.  

But Jesus’ message is about repentance, change, and transformation; it is about letting go of your old self; it is about following God’s plan and living in the truth.  Taking up a cross is not an attractive message.  

The church is the church when it does the unpopular thing.  When it stands with hated and rejected people.  When it is, like light or wind, invisible, seen indirectly, only by its good effects.  When it points beyond itself to God.    

III.

In the third and final temptation, the devil offers Jesus the glory and power of secular government: kings, princes, police, armies, prisons, judges.  The first temptation was about money, the second about fame, and the third?  Power.

The church is not supposed to have any money; what it has it gives away.  The church is not supposed to have any fame; it is supposed to be subtle and almost invisible like salt, light, or leaven.  And the church is not supposed to have any coercive, dominating power.  It is a vessel or channel of God’s power, which is revealed in apparent weakness and service.  God’s is the inside-out power of continual self-emptying.  God’s power is the awesome torrent of goodness and blessing constantly emanating from on high and cascading into the world.

The church has repeatedly caved in on these temptations.  In this case we have with nauseating consistency turned to violence to impose our will, and supposedly our faith, on others.  Christians have used torture, slavery, war, and genocide, but the faith that gets spread by such means is not that of Jesus, but of the devil, as we see here.  For to grasp the splendor and the power of the kingdoms of this world is to give in to the temptation of the Evil One.

Bob Dylan once sang that we all have to serve somebody: “it may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but your gonna have to serve somebody.”  In every case, when we serve the devil we are serving ourselves and our own agenda for existence.  We are grasping for worldly success in terms of wealth, popularity, power.  We are reacting out of our fear of scarcity, our shame about not being loved enough, and our anger about being powerless.

But when the church serves Jesus Christ it becomes a vessel for God’s love which is always about reversal.  The poor are made rich, the last are made first, and the powerful have their power diminished or taken away.  Which means that we do provide bread to others in an alternative economy of sharing.  And we do act publicly in obedience of God in expression of God’s will in solidarity with the least, not as a temptation of God.  And we do advocate politically for God’s Kingdom of equality, peace, and justice.  This last thing is particularly essential in a democratic system in which the people are the rulers.

In other words, Jesus, in rejecting these temptations, is not saying that he and his followers will have nothing to do with these areas of life.  He is saying that in them we follow God, who directs us to serve others, and we do not follow the devil, who tempts us to follow ourselves and do what we think is best for us and ours.

IV.

The devil represents our own ego-centric, selfish, extractive, consuming nature.  The devil usually appeals to our sense of what we want, what we need, what would make us feel good.  The devil is the one whispering in your ear about getting something for yourself.  The devil is all about us, me, you as an individual.  He continually posits a world of enmity, competition, separation, hostility, and necessary violence.

The Lord, however, always — even in his extremely debilitated state after a long fast — rests on the word of God… because he is the Word of God.  And as God’s Word he is always about love, justice, peace, unity, and equality.  He comes to show us that we are one in him.  We share a common humanity and a common createdness in which our separate little self, what Paul calls the old self or the flesh, is subsumed under the new self in Christ and the Spirit.  In Christ and in the Spirit we know we are not isolated and independent entities who have to be out for ourselves in order to survive.  In Christ and the Spirit we know that we are all participants in each other, sharing in the same nature, children of the same God.

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