First Sunday in Lent, 02/17/2013

Sermon on Luke 4:1-13, by David H. Brooks

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished. The devil said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread." Jesus answered him, "It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.'" Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said to him, "To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours." Jesus answered him, "It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'" Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,' and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'" Jesus answered him, "It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'" When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.

One of the truisms of our modern media is the salability of the failures of others. In our all-the-time news cycle, the sure fire way to ratings is to allow us to be observers and vicarious participants in the moral meltdowns of others. For instance, as I write, there is a column in the Washington Post lamenting the latest train wreck of unsupervised teenagers, cell phones and alcohol, and the need children feel today to be famous, or at least notorious. The columnist wonders what can be done to help young people resist temptation and "wrong choices" when the desire in our modern culture to be noticed is so strong.

Temptation arrives smartly dressed and suave

Yet temptation is an odd thing. I don't know about you, but rarely has temptation entered into my life with a line like "this is the absolute worse idea ever to enter a human brain," or "if you do this, you will unleash misery and woe such as the world has never seen." No, temptation tends to enter our lives looking eminently rational, sensible, logical, and preferable, often with a sheen of coolness and "it" factor that even the world's most interesting man could never hope to achieve.

Because temptation is so often cloaked in garments of sensibility and reasonableness, it is hard for us to understand what is going on with Jesus and his encounter in the wilderness. None of the things Satan presents to Jesus are "wrong" in and of themselves. What could be illogical about eating when you're starving? What could be unreasonable about someone who cares for people-like Jesus-from securing earthly power that he might do good? What is the problem with seeking and having an ecstatic religious experience?

By contrast, there is a problem with the command that God puts before the people in Deuteronomy. The instruction to put "first fruits"-whether the very first vegetables from your fields, as indicated here, or the most prolific animals from your herds as called for in other places-on the altar is dangerous. When you are a culture that depends on the health and productivity of what you can grow or raise, burning the most vigorous part of your crop or herd is ... not logical.

Trusting God's promises

What is in play here is whether or not God is trustworthy in all things. Martin Luther often talks of this issue, insisting in several places that the relationship between God and us is one where we look to God in all things, trust God in all things. This is why there is the call for the Israelites to recite a condensed version of history when they sacrifice first fruits: my ancestor was a wanderer of no account, and God chose him, had mercy on him, blessed him in all things, made and kept promises to him. This worship event that Deuteronomy describes ties history and remembering to the act of trust that such a sacrifice signifies. Notice, too, that the ancient Israelite does not talk so much in terms of me; the memory, the history is deeper, broader, more encompassing that any one individual life.

So Jesus connects to that history, that story of God at work on behalf of the people in his own encounter with temptation. All the quotes of Scripture Jesus uses in his confrontation with Satan come from Deuteronomy, that book of the Old Testament that reviews or recaps the story of God at work with and among his people: Moses, Aaron, Miriam, all of the people, good, bad and indifferent. Jesus grounds himself in this story as a reminder that he is not a solo actor but someone caught up in God's grand work; that he is not abandoned by God but being led/held by God; that he is called to trust God first-not what his senses tell him, not what reasonable people would do, not even what logic might say. Just as logic that begins apart from God's promises leads to disaster, logic that is grounded in trust of God leads to successful resisting of Satan.

Lent as training camp

Which is why this Lenten time is a time of training, of preparation for us. Our tendency-frankly, our preference-is to see Satan as the reasonable one, and God as the problem, as the one who makes unfair, even extreme demands on us. A God who truly loved us, we think, would never expect us to say no to bread and go hungry; a God who truly desired us to be free would never expect us to say no to power and abandon our plans; a God who truly wanted us to love him would never expect us to say no to religious experiences that we create ourselves and let go of our ideas about what God should do for us.

This story at the beginning of Lent is a reminder and a warning to us. It reminds us that it is God's plans and purposes that must prevail in life, not our own-no matter how right and reasonable our plans may be. It is a warning to us as well, that the Evil One regularly looks for "opportune times" to lead us away from God's ways to embrace our own. As we journey through life, Satan will find an opportune time to offer us something so right, so self-evidently good, so clearly just and equitable and sensible that there is no need to question it-only a fool would not say yes. This story is a warning to us especially-we moderns are not people who are by training or temperament inclined to deny ourselves, and even when we do, it is usually for our purposes and plans. What is more, we must remember that Satan is quite capable of quoting Scripture if we doubt the rightness of the offer. Many times we say yes to temptation because we find that we have no capacity to say no. So Lent is training, building up the capacity to say no at the right time. We look to Jesus, the pioneer, the perfecter of our faith (Heb 12:2) so that we might learn. But even more, we look to Jesus who covers us with his own garment of righteousness, who connects our lives and our stories to his greater story of faithfulness to God, of enduring the shame of the cross, of victory over the Evil one, who redeems us a great cost and gives us a name, a name of true greatness: sons and daughters of God. In every temptation, in every moment of weakness or doubt, in every moment of pride or self-deception, let us cling to our Lord, trust him, obey him, follow him come what may. We may never have the right Scripture on our lips; we may never have in our heads the right theological answer; but we can say with full conviction "I cling to the cross of Christ, and in him I will hope." Amen.

The Rev. Dr. David H. Brooks
Cary, NC USA
E-Mail: David.Brooks@ChristtheKingCary.org

Bemerkung:
From The New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. All rights reserved.

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