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.

Desert Joy

If you are the Son of God…

Jesus is tempted to revolt against anxiety or fear or hunger, and the tempter asks: Aren’t you hungry? Take advantage of your position, misuse your power for personal benefit. 

Remember the Garden: He who loves you wants the best for you, right? So eat the apple… turn the stones into bread… throw yourself down… worship me…

How does Jesus deal with this doubt of his identity, security, faith? of his place in the Father’s heart? By recalling the words of God by which he lives. 

 “You are my beloved Son.” You are God’s beloved child. 

Nothing can break that bond. 

And from that bond comes the good news for all of us. For we are God’s beloved children too.

There are lots of pretty good commentaries that talk about the temptations. Temptation to satisfy immediate self-interest, to a display of power, to selling out for the illusion of power over others. 

There are fewer that focus on what Jesus said. But after all, all those Scofield Reference Bibles ® with the Words of Christ in Red feature what Jesus said. And what Jesus said is what turns this around, night into day, and transforms, potentially, us. 

One does not live by bread alone,

  but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

First: Jesus reminds us that we are dependent on God, not our own merits or powers. We are not dependent on material things. Difficult as it may be to live without our daily ration of what we daily need, someday we will not have that ration, maybe for a day, a fast day or a day without, but the day will also come when we will not have it forever. Ash Wednesday, and Lent, are about more than temporary deprivation, hard as that may be, or voluntary abstinence. The fast of Lent is about more than that. It is about death.

And it is about Life. The fast of Lent does not end on Good Friday, with Jesus’ death. It does not end on Holy Saturday, with his body entombed below a stone. It ends with Easter. It ends in life. It ends in the resurrection, the hope of resurrection for all people, that began on the third day after Jesus’ execution.

Death is not the winner. But we need to take account of what happens before eternal life begins. 

In this world, in this life, there is plenty of death and pain to go around. We do not need much reminding of that. But we do need to remember that we are not dependent on this world’s bounty, this life’s abundance; we are dependent on God alone, and his Word, his Word who is Jesus.

That’s the first admonition.

Then the second. Do not put the Lord your God to the test.

This is a negative way of saying, trust in God.

God is dependable. God is reliable. God also is sovereign. We are not his judges. He is ours.

And he is our Redeemer and our Advocate. Who better? The one who made us, the one who redeems us, the one who leads us to sanctification, is the one who brings us to righteousness.

Third,

Worship the Lord your God,

  and serve only him.

You could have it all. But you don’t need any of it. And some days you do not, or will not, have any of it. God alone. That is what you will have.

Still above the gate of a monastery in Kentucky is the motto that was there long ago, perhaps in the original construction back in the 1830s, certainly by the time Thomas Merton entered that gate in 1941. 

GOD ALONE.

That is what it says. All it says. It has a special meaning for the men who passed through that gate into a contemplative, ordered, intentional life. It has a meaning for all of us. Inside the monastery or outside we are finally only confronted with our Saviour, our Lord, our Redeemer.

God alone is what we depend on, who we depend on, who is our Judge, who is the object and purpose of our devotion.

A hard school, but a true one. 

Lent helps us to remember this. We may not give up much or take anything on. But it is there, this season, not one of deprivation at its core, but one of preparation. For at the end of it we will celebrate, remembering who we depend on, who is our judge and advocate, who we worship. And we will remember, in the splendor and joy of Easter. 

All that is contained in this austere season. This is not austerity in the sense of having taken something away from us because ‘this could be the best thing that ever happens to you’ or ‘for your own good’ - this is clearing the day, clearing the desk, clearing the calendar, revealing what is really going on. Beyond and beneath the surface of our lives, underground as it were, where spring plants are gestating even long before bud break or the first sprout of green, life is stirring. 

Life is going on. Are we prepared to welcome its fullness? 

That is what this season is about. 

All of Lent, of fast, of expectant waiting, of preparation, is leading to joy.

***

When he spoke at a preaching conference in San Francisco, Desmond Tutu said that a preacher has one sermon. His was: God loves you. But the implications were tremendous.

One sermon. And I recall the words of Jesus, in response to the first temptation:

One does not live by bread alone,

  but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

And then I recall the context. Jesus had been fasting, in the desert, for forty days. 

What do we live by? Bread is in there. But much more so are the words that come from God.

And I recall what Jesus heard, ringing in his ears, just before the Spirit led him on that forty-day fast. 

‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’

These were the words that came from the mouth of God that he had forefront in his mind.

God loves you. Loves you like his own beloved child.

Sometimes in the past I’ve given my own one sermon: You are the beloved child of God.

And the implications are tremendous.

If you are God’s beloved child, and I am, and all of us are, and the people we haven’t even met, then how we treat each other - and even people far away whom we’ve never met and never will, is of paramount importance. 

Hence the words of the prophets:

Of Isaiah (58:6): Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?

Of Micah (6:8):

He has told you, O mortal, what is good;

   and what does the Lord require of you

but to do justice, and to love kindness,

   and to walk humbly with your God?

What we give up or what we take on, whatever we think we are doing to make God love us more this Lent or we God, is of secondary importance. First before anything we do, even before we are born into this world, God loves us. You are God’s beloved child. There is no way that can be taken away from you, from us, from me.

And what are you going to do about it? Everything we do comes after God’s loving action in making us, redeeming us, making us his own delight, his own joy. 

As we move through these forty days of Lent, let us remember that one thing: God loves us. We are God’s beloved children. What we do, however austere it may be, however saintly we may become, we are first of all the children in whom God delights.

JRL+

Sermon for St. Michael's Episcopal Church, Coolidge, Arizona.

       First Reading
Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7
Psalm
Psalm 32
Second Reading
Romans 5:12-19
Gospel
Matthew 4:1-11

Temptation

“Worship the Lord your God,

   and serve only him.” ’
Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.

I am tempted to show you an image of the monastery of Temptation high on the mountainside above the ancient city of Jericho, but I haven't located an image in the public domain.

This is the third temptation: to depend on something, anything, other than God.

The same temptation that the Israelites crossing the desert in Exodus confronted, time after time, and time after time they failed.

But God was faithful to them. As he is to us.

In this extended enforced Lent - or Easter as no other - we may still be stuck in thinking of our sins, even before the matzo runs out.

The people in the desert of Sinai worried that they would run out of food or water - but they never seemed to worry that they would run out of God's favor.

Not that he was always happy with them. The message was always the same: rely on the Lord your God, the one who brought you out of bondage, the one who saw Israel to the promised land. The one who redeemed through Jesus the whole of creation. The one who works through him working in us the salvation and healing and making holy of the world.

Not a tall order. Because he is with us. And he will send us a Comforter.

http://visitpalestine.ps/where-to-go/listing/jericho/sites-attractions-jericho/christian-sites-jericho/the-monastery-of-temptation-deir-quruntal/

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