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Remembering Who We A=
re
Deuteronomy 26:1-11
Luke 4:1-13
It’s not surprising that there are a variet=
y of
ways in which we characterize the nature of evil and its presence in the wo=
rld.
There are even a variety of ways by which the inspiration of evil is named:=
---
the Devil, Satan, the Tempter, Lucifer, the Evil One, the Deceiver, Voldemort and even Darth
Vader. In the Hebrew mythology of Creation, the Deceiver makes an early
appearance in the habitat of those who have been freshly made in the image =
of
God to suggest that they might become something more than they were created=
to
be, and humankind has been trying to play God --- often with disastrous
consequences --- ever since.
How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of
the morning.” That was the prophet Isaiah’s poetic description =
of the
Evil One as an angel of God who attempted a palace ‘coup,’
resulting in his exile from heaven and continuing struggle to upset the
goodness of God’s creation here on earth.
In his book Peculiar Treasures: A Biblical
Who’s Who, Frederick Buechner describes the character of this fallen
angel by saying that once he had been banished from the realm of God, Lucif=
er
was no longer called upon to love anybody except himself . . . . He was giv=
en
an office with mottoes like ‘Nobody loves you like yourself’ and
‘Nice guys finish last’ on the walls and was named to the Number
One job in charge of everybody else who both then and for all time felt the
same way, and they have been having one Hell of a time ever since.
The lectionary for this first Sunday in Lent incl=
udes
an account of Jesus being tem=
pted
by --- diabolos is the word in Greek, the Deceiver. It’s a story foun=
d in
all of the synoptic gospels. The oldest gospel’s version is most vibr=
ant
in its description of how the experience began. After Jesus had been baptiz=
ed,
Mark wrote, the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. Beyond
that dramatic beginning, however, Mark was brief in details, saying only th=
at He
was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild
beasts; and the angels waited on him.
Matthew and Luke had access to an additional comm=
on
source of stories about the life and ministry of Jesus from which their more
elaborate accounts of his temptation appear --- albeit with editorial
differences reflecting the slant from which each writer sought to tell
‘the greatest story ever told.’ In Luke’s narrative we
already know from the heavenly Voice heard at his baptism that Jesus is the=
Son
of God in some special way that differs from the way in which we are all
God’s children.
The settings of today’s story as well as the
temptations have broad symbolic meaning as to the nature of that special
Sonship. They represent, in brief, the categories of temptation Jesus would
face throughout his ministry: (1) to find fulfillment in the love of power
rather than the power of love; (2) to ‘wow’ the audience with
circus tricks just to prove to them who he was ; and (3) to get side-tracke=
d by
material things with all of the inherent dangers that has for distorting
one’s spiritual focus.
Throughout the gospel narrative, these kind of
temptations confront Jesus again and again. The Gospel of John, written a
generation later, includes no summarizing scene of those temptations such a=
s we
have in today’s gospel, but makes them explicit in the stories it tel=
ls.
The writer of Hebrews declares that Jesus was tempted in every way as we ar=
e,
but without sin. It’s that last little phrase that helps define his
difference from all the rest of God’s sons --- and daughters.
Connie Neal, in her book The Gospel According to
Harry Potter, writing about the manner in which the Evil entity confronted
Harry, uses a quote from Book 1 (p.46) that speaks to the ways in which the
temptation of evil is encountered:
“See what I have become,” the face sa=
id.
“Mere shadow and vapor . . . I have form only when I can share
another’s body . . . but there have always been those willing to let =
me
into their hearts and minds.”
Whether or not one believes in a personified Evil,
surely Evil is present in our world, and there are --- and always have been
--- those willing to let [Evi=
l] into
their hearts and minds. The world is full of those who have not resisted the
temptation to misuse power for selfish gain; to be greedy for material thin=
gs
at the expense of spiritual wholeness; to flaunt their over-abundance in the
face of an impoverished world.
And all of us, certainly, have given in to tempta=
tion
from time to time and allowed=
Evil
in its various selfish and unloving forms to share [our] body and become
present in the world through us. We acknowledged that in the “Prayer =
of
Confession” we said today.
The desert is a place where demons are faced, whe=
re
hardships are endured, where life-affirming or life-altering experiences ta=
ke
place. We can conjecture from the nature of the temptations in today’s
story, that the Spirit led Jesus there for a time of soul-searching as to w=
hat
it meant to be the Son of God. It is not the Spirit that tempts Jesus with
other options there, but rather the Spirit which sustains him through those
temptations as he spends time centering himself in relation to his heavenly
Father and to the Messianic ministry on which he is about to embark. The Sp=
irit
of God is there to remind him of who he is and what he is called to do. The
gospels tell us that there were other times throughout his ministry that he
went away by himself to get things straight with his Father in heaven.
To all three temptations, Jesus responds by quoti=
ng
scripture from the Book of Deuteronomy, the source of today’s Old
Testament lesson. Throughout Luke’s Gospel, Jesus is portrayed as one=
who
knows the scriptures and traditions of his people. He knows the character of
his Father in heaven and trusts in him.
You and I know what temptation is. We’ve fa=
ced
it. We’ve resisted it. And sometimes we haven’t. . . . It’=
;s
the lure of doing something within our power for selfish gain that is unlov=
ing
--- perhaps unjust --- to some one or thing in the creation for which God g=
ave
us responsibility. We give in to temptation when we forget who we are and w=
ho
we were created to be to one another. When we lose that frame of reference,
terrible things can happen:
We wonder, for example, how young men raised with=
the
expressed values of our culture, can rape a young girl and kill her family =
for
fun. . . . They obviously forgot who they are and who the other is. . . . T=
heir
lives became un-centered.
We wonder, for example, how young people raised w=
ith
the expressed values of our culture can torture others or old men can order
them to do it . . . . They obviously forgot who they are and who the other =
is.
. . . Their lives became un-centered.
We wonder how people claiming to act in the name =
of
the God of Abraham can spew hatred and prejudice on others and even destroy
them with suicide bombs and acts of war. . . We have obviously forgotten who we=
are
and who the other is. . . . We have become un-centered.
Jesus modeled for us the means by which those
temptations which deny our tr=
ue
identity can be resisted. His references to God’s Word, in response to
the Tempter, was a declaration of trust in a relationship that had been
nurtured through all the years of his life. You and I can stay centered on =
who
we are and whose we are if we, too, are nurtured so as to have that same mi=
nd
which was in Christ Jesus, as
Today’s text in Deuteronomy contains a
‘confession of faith’ by which the Israelites were reminded of =
who
they were, an identity formed in relationship to a God involved in human
affairs.
The Israelites had been blessed by a long history=
of
God’s
The occasion of this confession was the Festival =
of
Ingathering which took place =
at the
end of summer. The Israelites brought first fruits of the land’s harv=
est
as a gift to the priests and a ministry to the poor. More than that, they b=
rought
the first fruits as a reminder that the land and all of what they had was a
gift from God, and they had a responsibility to give some of it back becaus=
e,
rich and poor, they belonged to one another.
The wandering which Jacob, the Aramaen, is recall=
ed
as doing is a word which conveys the vulnerability and destitution of one w=
ho
doesn’t know where they’re going to spend the next night or get=
the
next meal. We have people like that at the doorstep of our church, and a
ministry to which our congregation is surely called is to walk, however imp=
erfectly,
in the footprints of God in providing for their needs.
May this Lenten season be a time for all of us to= be re-called to our true identity and re-center ourselves on the One who promi= sed that God’s Spirit would accompany us through the deserts of our lives= and uphold us against all evil. Amen.<= o:p>