Sermon (February 21, 2010)

“Land and Shelter” Deuteronomy 26:1-11; Luke 4:1-13 2/21/10


The scriptural theme today is most clearly “temptation.” Deuteronomy, as always, is clear that once the people get out of the desert and into the promised land, they'll lose sight of God. The giving of tithes and the first produce of the land, along with the liturgical repetition that means, “I once was a foreigner in a foreign land, it is only by God's grace that I now can grow food on land God entrusts to me” is an attempt to resist temptation. Even in Hebrew Bible times, people were tempted to believe they'd gotten to a good place by their own doing, and could forget to thank God for God's help. Even back then, 4 thousand years ago, there was a temptation to forget God.

There are three named temptations in the Gospel lesson this morning. First, to transform stones into bread; second to have power over the whole world; third to test God.

After a long fast, there is reasonable fear. Mortality itself is faced. Additionally, there is hunger and pain and delusion. The temptation Jesus faced was to use his power to respond to the fear. That should sound more familiar than the temptation to make stones into bread! To use power to respond to fear. Now that's a common temptation in human life. We are so afraid of fear that we'll do just about anything to make it go away. Including, I'm convinced, keeping our lives busy and our ears full of gibberish to avoid having time to think (or pray.) When face to face with fear, we most often use our power to throw things at it, and or ignore it with all our might.

Jesus, instead, stayed face to face with the Tempter and the Temptation. Throughout this passage, take note, the temptations come from Scripture itself! Its always good to remember that the large themes of the Bible take precedence over any individual passage. There are many stories of God speaking to people through words/phrases/verses/stories from the Bible, and they have been great blessings. BUT, its easy to get pulled aside by a passage that seems to tell us what we want to hear. In the United Methodist tradition we learn to read scripture with our church tradition, all of our reason and logic, and the experiences we've had in life informing it. We try NOT to be pulled aside by one bit of Scripture. Like Jesus does, we can find responses in the Scripture itself to temptation. He responds to the Tempter from the same text that the Tempter tempts him.

So, he stays face to face with temptation, and says NO while looking at the temptation. He refuses us to use his power to reduce his body's fear of death. He maintains that life and death are not the most important thing. He asserts that God is more than bread, and God is what he needs, and God will provide – or not – and he'll stick with what he is given.

Temptation one: fear and responding to it with our own power, eliminated. Jesus faces down fear with God-trust.

Temptation two, to take over all the kingdoms of earth, is the temptation of power. For Jesus it is in the most extreme case. He is offered power over the whole world. Our power temptations tend to be a bit smaller in comparison. Sort of like, “I am tempted to have the power over the blue crayon” in comparison. But they're the same temptation. Do we take power that will harm people? Do we take what will harm ourselves? Do we take what isn't ours? Do we want to!?!?!?!

Or, can we respond as our life-example does, and say in the face of any temptation to be in power over others “All Power is God's. It is not mine to take.” Phew. Good for him on that one!

The final temptation, in a distorted way, is idolatry. Brueggmann has said that idolatry is an attempt to control God. He points out that when little idols are made, a person can move them around! Any form of trying to contain God into something smaller than God is (i.e. anything) or to be more controllable than God is (i.e. any control at all) is an extension of the idea of making a little idol to worship. That makes a WHOLE LOT of sense to me. In the third temptation, the Tempter suggests that Jesus fling himself off the tower because God will take care of him. That is, to fling himself off the tower with the expectation of what God's response will be. To jump, and thus MAKE GOD catch him. That is, to control God's action in the world!!!! To jump would be to try to control God. Controlling God, that's a form of idolatry. Jesus' answer is deceptively simple. He simply says its wrong to test God. But the underlying truth is that its wrong to try to control God. (We can ASK, but that's about it.)

Others have faced these temptations as well. In concentration camps during the Holocaust, people were being slowly killed off by starvation as well as everything else. There was not enough bread to survive. Yet, there were people in the camps who took their own bread and shared it with the more sick or more hungry. They choose not to focus on the fear of their own death, to focus on the goodness of every bite EVEN WHEN STARVING, but choose live on God and share their bread.

In occupied France at the same time, a group of French Protestants in a border village, chose to refuse the power offered to them. They were told to comply, to name the Jews among them, and to report any they met. In their faith conviction, they refused what protection they could have received by complying. Instead they worked quietly and quickly and saved THOUSANDS of Jewish children and adults. They paid prices too, the death of the child of their leader and others, and imprisonment for many. They were all threatened with death and destruction. They could have yielded, and taken the “kingdom” of peace. They refused, saying that only God had power over them, and only God would the yield to. They saved others at risk of themselves because they believed it was God's will, and they needed to follow God's power.

Like Jesus at the pinnacle of the temple refusing to test God, there are many who have chosen NOT to test God. Specifically I think of St. Francis, and Mother Teresa, and Sam Dixon (the UMCOR leader who died in Haiti). There is a temptation, in response to the pain of the world, and especially to extreme poverty, to TEST GOD by saying, “God will provide.” Yet people have chosen, over and over again, not to test God, but to offer themselves as Gods hands and feet and hearts in the world. They care for the uncared for and love the unloved and feed the unfed because they're not testing God to do it for them. They act for God, instead of asking God to act for them.

There are real temptations in life. We face them throughout our days. Many fit well into these categories: fear that motivates us to self-protect; power that tempts us towards self-importance; and idolatry that makes us try to control God. We are much like the people who have entered the land -we need the reminders that we are not alive or well by our own power. We need God to be our shelter. We seek God to counter our fear. We need God to be in control. We need to offer ourselves to God rather than ask God to act for us.

May we, as we face our Tempters, be brave enough to stand face to face and trust in God to guide us through.