Temptation

The Temptations of Christ. Maestro Bartolomé and workshop, after 1493.

Three temptations. And Jesus passes up on all of them. But they would be so easy to succumb to - and who could blame the old Adam if the new Adam did not partake?

First of all there is security - and there is power. What a temptation! If I could turn this stone into bread, think what else I could do. I could be like Midas only better. And one hopes, gluten-free.

After all, bread goes stale. Gold, however. That is bankable. Or perhaps you would prefer bitcoin? Conjure all you want! You won’t be alone.

Power - power to make one mad, or rich. Security - any time I want I can have plenty to eat. 

“Give us this daily bread” - for we do not depend on bread, or the baker, but on God, and on the Word that comes forth from his mouth. In that Word is life. Ironically, that Word is Jesus himself.

How about Door number Two? Dominion. Subordination. Just worship me and all is yours. Of course that allegiance belongs to God alone. But what has he done for you lately? All the kingdoms of the world. Wealth, power, prestige. And what would you do with them?

Such a temptation was presented to, of all people, Sancho Panza, right-hand man of Don Quixote himself.

The dolorous knight Don Quixote had long assured his faithful squire Sancho Panza that he would some day reward him with governorship of an island, since being a knight errant such gifts would surely be within his power to bestow before much longer in the course of their adventures. And then they met a noble lord who promised to award the island governorship straight away - but before Sancho could go, the knight gave him some astonishingly sound and sober advice, enough to make him as wise as Solomon, as impartial as the judge of the Caucasian Chalk Circle, and as knowing of human nature as the Wife of Bath. 

Judge fairly. Would this be likely, given the provenance of the gift? Worship me - and rule all the kingdoms of the world. Or dispose of them to the highest bidder. Then retire, and play golf. Entertain your buddies, if you think that is what they are, those people who gather around you.

No thanks. Jesus is not interested. “Worship the Lord and him only.” Another opportunity passed by.

At last: come on if you really are - if you really have faith - would not God save you, from whatever scrape you get yourself into? But to be sure - best put him to the test. Put God in the untenable position of saving you - or letting the one he calls Beloved plunge needlessly to his death. Test him. Prove it. Look how well it worked out for Adam and Eve. Take a bite. Or a leap.

But that is not the blind faith, the leap of faith, that persuades Jesus. Nothing does. He sends away all these opportunities, bread, kingdoms, and test, and is left alone. He has nothing but God. 

And that is all he needs.

If that does not prove he is the son of God, what would?

What we see from then on, is Jesus acts of compassion, words of truth to power, and ability to give from apparently nothing but faith a greater abundance, suzerainty, and self-confidence, than any tempter could provide. Strength in faith. 

Give us this daily our daily bread. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done. The power, the kingdom, the glory: all are yours O God. 

Those are the three temptations in reverse. Power, Kingdom. Glory. All of which belong to God.

And Jesus is content to rest in the same hands that hold those three realities. 

How do we in our world acknowledge that the power, the kingdom, and the glory belong to God? How do we see that kingdom come in our lives? Our world? Our community? Our church? 

How do we reveal our dependence on God for our daily sustenance, thank him, and share it? How do we share the gifts of providence, thinly spread or overwhelmingly abundant, that we have received?

How do we acknowledge that all things come from him, and in that knowledge offer our gifts?

And do we stop, look at the sunset, or the smile on the face of a neighbor, or the happy sound of a confident child, or the shape of a rose, and remember, that all these reflect the glory of God? How do we render our praise in the face of his majesty, his gentleness, his care, his share in our sorrow and our joys? In little things and big ways, how do we give God the glory?

Finally there is the extra-biblical last Temptation, as imagined by the novelist Nikos Kazantzakis, which Jesus meets with obedience. In the garden of Gethsemane, when he was sweating blood in fearful supplication, let this cup pass from me - but what thou wilt not I - what if, offered an ordinary life, a wife, a family, just some simple things, Jesus had said, yes. But he did not. In fearful obedience, frightening to contemplate, he stood his ground. He kept the faith. 

It goes way back to that first temptation. Because he lived not for himself but for us. He did not betray us for a crust of bread. He did not sell us out to rule as the dominant megalo-monarch. He did not need to prove anything, for himself or for us, and in that he showed the strength of faith that he gave us. He did not surrender to temptation. And he kept the faith to the end. 

God of the desert, as we follow Jesus into the unknown, may we recognize the tempter when he comes; let it be your bread we eat, your world we serve, and you alone we worship. Amen.

(New Zealand Prayer Book, 573)

First Sunday in Lent

• Deuteronomy 26:1-11

• Romans 10:8b-13

• Luke 4:1-13

• Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16

He did not betray us for a crust of bread.

--Ladislaus Boros, In Time of Temptation (translated by Simon and Erika Young)

http://edgeofenclosure.org/lent1c.html

https://ctktucson.org/sermons/

https://stmatthewtucson.org/

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote, Part 2, Chapter 52 (?).

An image of Don Quixote in Cordoba, Spain.

(c) John Leech. 2024.

dig out the muck

If leaf trash chokes the stream-bed,
reach for rock-bottom as you rake
the muck out.
- Marie Ponsot b. 1921 Springing: New and Select Poems

http://www.edgeofenclosure.org/lent1c.html

The summer of "Stairway to Heaven" I worked at Gaithersburg Car Wash and I'd hear that song over and over on the radio playing as I greased the fittings inside the machines. We had a particularly gritty chore once. The (primary) owner backed his old jeep up one day to the front end of the track (the belt that pulled the cars through the washing machines) with a little trailer attached. The muck and filth from the cars washed down into a pit at that end of the car wash - a pit about the size of a gas-station rest room, 6x8x8 or so, and we'd clean it out once in awhile. The owner, Bobby T. Lee, would haul it away in his jeep trailer to dump it out at his farm on some waste land. But how it got there - how the filth got out of the pit - was hands on and up to us. One of us would jump down into the pit and stand upon a piece of plywood board supplied for the purpose, and shovel the muck (on which the plywood - and you - balanced) into a bucket to be hauled up and away (by rope at first, held by a watching companion) and off to the farm, ultimately. You had to dig deep to get to the real filth. I suppose the farther you'd go, the more toxic it became.

March
10
First Sunday in Lent

Year C
RCL

• Deuteronomy 26:1-11
• Romans 10:8b-13
• Luke 4:1-13
• Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16

 

the fundamental illusion of the human condition

In the name of God, source of all being, eternal Word and Holy Spirit.

Lent is a journey into the desert but it is not a journey we take alone. God is with us.

“The notion that God is absent is the fundamental illusion of the human condition.”—Thomas Keating

The temptation of Jesus in the desert takes three aspects.

First comes a temptation to rescue, to take upon himself the role of deliverer from distress, from scarcity, from despair, without reference or resort to God.

Turn these stones into bread, if you’re so holy. If you’re so holy, you don’t need God. You can do it on your own. You have powers! You don’t need anybody. And besides, where are they?

Lent means length of days, and forty days means a lot of days. It has been a long time, and Jesus is hungry. Forty days is a long time to go without food. Imagine it. Try it as a thought experiment. For four seconds, don’t think about food, don’t think about food, don’t think about food, don’t think about food… easy? Now forty seconds! Minutes! Hours! Days!

And yet Jesus replies, citing the words of Deuteronomy (8:3), which says:

“He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”

He is in the wilderness, now. If there is anything to eat, it is nothing he has seen before.

And besides, he is fasting. He is waiting on the word of God. He is, led by the Spirit. He is the servant of God, not his commander, out here in the wilderness, and so he will be the servant and not the commander in Galilee, in Jerusalem, and in the world.

He will eat, and break, and share the bread of Faith.

Worship me, and all this can be yours! Temptation two: Rule the Domination System, cooperate with – control – the powers of this world, to best the Emperor at his own game.

That’s set your people free! Won’t it? Will it ever set them free? Or is power, power over others, just another form of slavery?

This power over others is one he can set aside. He chooses the service that is perfect freedom. He will challenge the powers that be. He will be the challenger of the system. He will be the one who speaks truth in the face of power. And he will not despair.

God’s kingdom will come. And his power is the power of obedience – and of Love.

Number three. But Jesus surely God loves you enough to save you. If you play the victim, the spectacular victim, he will rescue you, won’t he? Don’t do anything. You sit back and receive. He will come and save you. After all there is nothing, really, that you can do. You might as well make a spectacular end of it – go out in a blaze of glory – then they’ll know that you really were the son of God, Elijah returned, the prophet of the ages, and they missed it! But Jesus says no. God is not to be tested, not even by Despair.

Even if there is only just a little you can do, you can do that little. And keep hope alive. And his salvation is the salvation not of fear or despair or the avoidance of suffering. It is the saving Hope that God is with us even in despair, even through the path of suffering, even through the valley of death.

And so Jesus (1) confronted by the temptation to be the hero, the rescuer, chooses to be the servant. Tempted (2) to take control of his destiny, to sell out, to be in the driver’s seat, he says no. And challenges the powers that be. Tempted (3) to be in despair or to indulge in spectacular victim-hood, he says no, a third time, and does not play the victim. He will not accept the role of passive recipient of fate. He chooses to take an active part. He will be a servant, a challenger, and an active participant in God’s work in the world.

And so he is ready to come in from the wilderness. Faith, hope and love: these three, are beside him, and with him comes the ever-present glory of God.

The challenge for us is this: are we ready to be servants, not rescuers, challengers, not power-seekers, actors, not victims? Are we ready to live, not by bread alone, but in hope, and faith, and love, by the sure and certain promise, and presence, and challenge, of the word of God?

Are we ready to be transformed? To be servants of God? Proclaimers of his word?

To trust God, serve him only, and become bread for the world?

Lent is a call to conversion, to taking responsibility for our own behavior, as individuals, and as a community, for emotional, intellectual, moral, religious, social and political, and economic aspects of our lives. That is our challenge, and our calling.

God is the source of all blessing.

Blessed are you, O Lord our God, ruler of the universe, who brings forth bread from the earth. You guide us through the wilderness, to the land of your abundance. You guide us through times of trial, and lead us into the place of peace. You refresh us when we are weak, or lonely, or in despair, and give us strength to bear good news into your world.

May the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts and the deeds of our hands, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer.

Conversations with Paul Mitchell, Susanne Kromberg, and John Forman, and with the St Alban's Men's Group, Lee Forsberg, Ron Sodetani, Jim Nichols, and Al Walker, were helpful and informative in preparing this sermon. JRL+

http://www.integraldevelopment.com/Management.html

The Rich Man and Lazarus

Back in 1980 I worked in Washington, D.C., and I walked to work.

I started out in Georgetown on Que Street, crossing the Buffalo Bridge walking east to Dupont Circle, then down Connecticut Avenue to the corner of Lafayette Park, past Decatur House and Blair House, crossing at the light, then along Pennsylvania Avenue down to 13th Street N.W. As I crossed at that stop light I came onto the sidewalk in front of the White House.

There was an old lady who wore purple, who needed a safe place. She found it in front of the White House. As I walked by each morning on my way to work farther downtown, I would see her there, huddled against the fence, in the corner between it and the guards' station. She was there every morning that fall (1980).

I checked once, with the guard, an eye check, just a nod: yes, he knew she was there, and yes, they looked out for her, every night. And every morning I would walk by. She was cold but she was safe.

Lazarus lay at the gate of a big house too - but he was starving. He would have gladly gathered up the scraps discarded by the rich man's guests.

He was invisible - or more truthfully, ignored.

The day came when that rich man died - and discovered that he wasn't safe.

Fortunes were reversed. All of his life was built on the pleasure principle - he lived well and trusted to his wealth to bring him safety. But that was all gone now.

"Let goods and kindred go; this mortal life also" - he wasn't ready for that.

All that was left was what he could have always counted on - the justice and mercy of God - but he'd counted on something else: Mammon, that is, worldly wealth or power or status - any one of those things that people place between themselves and reality, themselves and the true God, themselves and the reality of the life that is really life - the life of obedience ot God.

Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, he says - did he still not get it?

His next request: send him to my brothers, my closest kindred, so they may be spared this agony. At least give me that.

But the estate tax is 100% - it's all gone and worthless now.

What lasts? What lasts but the promise of God?

Jeremiah discovered the promise held in the most desperate circumstances. Jerusalem was under siege - the mighty army of Babylon was encamped beneath its crumbling walls.

He had told the leaders of Israel there was no point - they had no chance to defeat this army. God would remold Israel, remake it - break it if need be - and only in God would they find safety. Certainly they would not find it in their own prowess.

Jeremiah relied on nothing less than God's promise when he insisted on buying a plot of land for full price, in full public view - when he could have driven a hard bargain, or just forgotten about it.

His city was under siege and he knew there was no hope to be found in the walls and troops defending those walls - the mighty army around them was bound to come in - and sure enough they did. (Jerusalem fell, and its leaders went into exile in Babylon for seventy years.)

But before that day the Lord sent a message to Jeremiah and through the prophet to the people: there will come a day beyond that day. Beyond defeat, the death of your hopes in common defenses, there will be a new era - and houses and vineyards, and fields will once again be valued and purchased here.

Bury that pot for now - it contains what must be preserved: the due dull formula of commerce of course but now commerce serves a holy purpose - not for its own sake but for something beyond human striving - it points, a sign of God's eternal faithfulness: there will come a time when all will be made right and all will be well.

Paul tells Timothy start living now like that day is almost here: anticipate the return from exile, the coming of the true king, the day of the Lord.

All things will be set right - put your trust in God.

What fouls people up is not wealth or poverty - what fouls people up is the eager striving, the craving, the wanton desire, the desperate need, to get more and then more again, that leads to destruction.

What you have - what you have been given - you have been given in trust, to use to the glory of God.

If you must pursue anything seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness, seek godliness, faith, love, and gentle endurance - it is in these that the path to true riches lies.

What you have before you is imperishable - take the transitory things as a way to work good in the world, be rich in good works, generously sharing God's abundance, so that you may grasp at last the true inheritance: the life that is really life, in God's presence.

Jeremiah bought the field his kinsman offered to show that the land of promise was going to see the fulfillment of God's purpose. You can live that way - it's not safe but it's good.

There is an old woman who lives in the desert - she sold her house in the foothills and moved far away from the city to a ranch outside a small mining town. It's near the border - the southern border.

Sometimes people come to her house out of the desert - they are sick, they are tired, they are poor, they are hungry, they are old - or young; and she takes care of them.

Lady, please, the Border Patrol says, don't - they are worried about her safety.

But she does - so far, safely.

But I think she know that it may not always be safe for her, but that is not what she is thinking about: it is not safe for them now. - and so she goes on loving, unstintingly.

It's a careless, reckless love - like the love of God for his people.

For we are the ones in the desert, crossing from desolation to hope.

We are the strangers who are welcomed, that are welcomed by God.

May God bless us in careless, reckless ways, in the abundant love of his Son, who gave his all for us - who, having more in his possession than the richest of rich men ever had, gave up his seat at the side of God and took on our humanity, and came to us, God in the flesh, that we could have life and have it abundantly.

Good and gracious God, all that we have comes from you; make us sensible of your grace in all our dealings with each other and with your whole creation.

Grant that we may reflect your generosity in our lives and do your will here on earth that we may come to rejoice in your heavenly kingdom,

through Jesus Christ our Lord who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.

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Do good, be rich in good works, generous and ready to share, live in peace with all. The peace of the Lord be always with you...


Grace, mercy, and peace be yours from God who abounds in love for you and all people; and the blessing of God almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be among you and remain with you always.

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Prayer, peace, and blessing by David Adam, from Glimpses of Glory: Prayers for the Church Year, Year C (SPCK, 2000).

Insights gleaned from Herbert O'Driscoll, Fred Craddock, Sharon Ringe, Tom Wright, and other sources.

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