[This sermon was given this morning at St. John’s Episcopal Church, Northampton, MA. Lent 1, Year A]
The Temptation in the wilderness is always the Gospel reading on the first Sunday of Lent. I brought several questions with me as I opened the lectionary to prepare this sermon. What can Jesus’ experience of temptation teach us about being human? Does temptation have a redemptive purpose in our spiritual journey? What do we do when we find ourselves on the verge of spiritual failure?
Temptation is serious business, but in our culture we use temptation to sell things in the media. Commercials show women on a diet plastered to the window of a bakery. Men and women stare at nameless bodies and grapple with sexual desire. One of the worst commercials shows a grown man hiding behind the kitchen counter on Thanksgiving because he can’t wait to taste the stuffing! All of these media vignettes do a disservice to temptation – to the pain it brings and to the power it has over us in our most vulnerable moments.
I think people who suffer from the disease of addiction could tell us a deeper truth about temptation. When my Dad came out of a detox program after 40 years of drinking scotch, I sent him this passage from The Letter to the Hebrews.
“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has similarly been tested in every way, yet without sin. So let us confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and to find grace for timely help.”
I thought it would help him to remember that Jesus gets it – Jesus gets how hard it is to be human. The truth is, it helped me, too. My Dad has been sober 14 years, 2 months and 3 days. But he lives every day with the monster under the bed. It is his complete dependence on God’s grace that keeps him strong. Back to our gospel…
I’m going to give you a biblical “spoiler alert.” This vivid narrative “telescopes” into one story many of the temptations Jesus experienced throughout his life.[1] The lure of power, the seduction of fame and the immediate satisfaction of every bodily desire – these aren’t just Jesus’ “issues.” These things are the stuff of our struggles. And, lest we take this story literally, as the Hollywood filmmakers do, New Testament scholar, William Barclay, insists that this testing was an interior experience. Isn’t that where our real battles happen – in the mind, in the soul? Professor Barclay believes we must approach this Gospel on bended knee for in the telling of this experience to his disciples, Jesus is letting is into his inner life, offering us his sufferings and struggles so that we might be strengthened in our own.[2]
So, what is it with God and temptation? It was the Spirit who led Jesus into the wilderness. No sooner had he emerged from the waters of the Jordan than he found himself engaged in a spiritual battle for 40 days and nights. [Yes, that number is powerfully symbolic here. Jesus is the new Israel. Where the Chosen rebelled in the desert, Jesus gives himself to the Father in trust.] But I still have this question about the purpose of trials and tests. It can’t be that God sends us trials for no good reason – like some divine version of the “Hunger Games.” No. William Barclay explains the purpose of our struggles. “Just as metal has to be tested far beyond any stress and strain that it will ever be called upon to bear, before it can be put to any useful purpose, so people have to be tested before God can use them for his purposes.”[3]
The real temptation for Jesus and for us is to give up on the promises of God. The real temptation is give up on ourselves – to forget that we are precious to God, loved beyond measure.
Life is so hard sometimes. The pain that comes to us just because we are human can push us over some threshold into darkness. In that vulnerable place the voices we hear are not always our own. Now, I’m not big on the devil. We personify evil to make it more understandable. The truth is we don’t understand the presence of evil in the world, but we feel it – we know that something or someone rejoices when we give up on God. So, what are we supposed to do when we feel weak, vulnerable and overwhelmed by fear or hopelessness?
The answer is right here in the gospel. It is so obvious that we can miss it. Jesus won the battle within him by using the power of the Word of God. Jesus counters every threat with a verse from Holy Scripture.
This antidote to spiritual illness has been used for centuries. The early monastic teachers – Evagrius and John Cassian – taught their followers to banish temptation with God’s Word. Evagrius of Pontus was the first to talk about the “8 thoughts” that torment the soul. John Cassian wrote about how these vices could be vanquished by practicing the opposite virtue. But prayer was the essential weapon of choice for both teachers. Cassian loved the verse from Psalm 69: “God, come to my assistance. Lord, make haste to help me.”
Here we have the pattern for victory. Pray. Pray the most powerful words you know. And tell the devil to go to Hell! It worked for Jesus and it will work for us. And, if we “fail” the test, what then? That’s when the reading from Genesis becomes a gift. God didn’t give up on “Adam” and “Eve.” Far from it! Perhaps, their failure was more of a gift to us for in it, God began the plan for our salvation in Christ. God came to us in flesh and blood so that we could know with certainty that God’s love is deeper, stronger and more powerful than any failure we can come up with. We are loved that much! St. Paul really got it.
“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has similarly been tested in every way, yet without sin. So let us confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and to find grace for timely help.”
God is Always More 