The Power and the Glory (3/5/17)
William Blake, The First Temptation: "Command that these stones be made bread."
Over the last couple months we’ve jumped around the Gospel of Matthew quite a bit. Back in January, the season of Epiphany began with the baptism of Jesus, which can be found in Chapter 3 of the Gospel of Matthew. Then a couple weeks later, we jumped forward to Chapter 5, and we heard the Sermon on the Mount, which was the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. Then last Sunday we heard the story of the Transfiguration, which marks the end of the season of Epiphany. In both the story of Christ’s baptism and the Transfiguration God says, “This is my son, the Beloved, with him I am well pleased.” These readings are presented in this order so that we don’t forget who Jesus is—the living Son of God; the Word made flesh. Matthew’s account of the Temptation occurs right after Jesus has been baptized.
Sermon
Good morning! I would like to thank all of the Boy Scouts
who joined us this morning. It is so nice to have you in worship this morning!
On a personal note, let me say a big thank you for taking on the children’s
sermon! It was really nice to leave the planning of that message to someone
else. When I first started ministry, nothing scared me more than children’s
sermons.
Fortunately, the first congregation that I served gave me
no choice: if I wasn’t willing to give the children’s sermon every week, then I
wasn’t the right person for that job. So I learned to get past my fears, but it
wasn’t easy. Many of you have told me that you enjoy my children’s sermons, and
I’m so glad to hear that. It still doesn’t feel 100% natural to me. I always
feel like I’m faking it.
I’m a single guy. I have no kids, so I have no idea how I’m
supposed to talk to kids or teach kids. I have no idea if what I’m telling them
is getting through. I don’t know what to do if a kid asks me a question and I
don’t know the answer. And that gets to my deeper fear: I’m afraid of losing
control. Up here in the pulpit, I’m in control. Or at least I think I’m in
control. That’s an important distinction. When you have to give a children’s sermon,
you have to abandon the idea of control. For me, that’s frightening.
I think power and control are at the heart of this
morning’s Gospel lesson. This is a familiar story: Some version of the Temptation
of Jesus in the wilderness appears in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
We hear this story every year, and usually on the first Sunday in Lent. It’s
very easy to oversimplify this story: Jesus fasted for forty days, he was
tempted by Satan, and he resisted temptation. The end. Now all we have to do is
give up chocolate for forty days and we’re good to go!
Remember, Jesus was led into the wilderness by the Holy
Spirit, after God declared that Jesus was the beloved Son. Then he is tempted
by the devil:
· First, Jesus is tempted
with food. He’s famished, and the tempter said to him: “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves
of bread.” It’s important to note that there is more than one stone, and thus,
more than one loaf of bread. Jesus is being tempted to “amass more than his
share of food.”[1]
Jesus is being tempted with more than his daily bread!
· Second, Jesus is placed on top of the temple, and asked to throw
himself to the ground below, knowing that angels will angels will catch him—if
he is truly the Son of God. Of course, Satan knows that Jesus is the Son of
God. But it’s quite possible that there were crowds of people at the temple;
had Jesus thrown himself to the ground, many people would have seen him fall
and then be caught by angels—it would have been a public demonstration that
Jesus was the Messiah.[2] There
would have been witnesses.
· Finally, the devil takes Jesus to a high mountain and shows him
all the kingdoms of the earth; he offers Jesus power over all the kingdoms of
the earth. Satan said: “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and
worship me.”
We need to look at these temptations as not as three
separate events, but as a complete set: Satan is offering Jesus the ability to
fulfill his earthly mission. If Jesus can turn rocks into loaves of bread, then
no one will go hungry. If Jesus has power over all the kingdoms in the world,
there will be no more wars. This also means that the Jews will not be under the
dominion of the Roman Empire. And after all that, if anyone still doubts that
Jesus is the Son of God, well, he can always jump off another tall building and
get caught by angels in full view, for everyone to see. This might be a bigger
deal than giving up chocolate or potato chips for forty days. Just sayin’.
Now I have to ask you, by a show of hands, how many of you
gave something up for Lent? You don’t have to tell me what it is. I, too, gave
something up for Lent. There is nothing
wrong with fasting during Lent. It’s a great idea, when it’s done well. Also,
there can be good reasons for giving up chocolate or potato chips. However,
it’s really easy to kid ourselves and congratulate ourselves for giving up
something trivial. When this happens, we make the fasting about us and we miss
the opportunity to enter into a deeper relationship with Christ. This is, I
think, the danger of a shallow reading of this story.
The name, Satan, is one of the few words in the English
language that comes to us directly from Hebrew. When we hear that name, I think
most of us picture a guy with red skin, horns, and a tail. He might even have
bat wings and he may or may not be holding a pitchfork. All of these images
come to us from medieval artwork and popular culture.
In fact, the Hebrew name, ha satan, simply means, the accuser. And what does Satan do? He
accuses mortals of not having faith. That’s it. He tests us; he claims that our
faith isn’t true. Think of the story of Job. Satan inflicts all sorts of
terrible suffering upon that poor man, in an attempt to get Job to renounce his
faith in God. And that’s what’s at stake in this story, too! Satan is testing
Jesus’ faith and he is testing Jesus’ calling as the beloved Son of God:
The temptation is not
Jesus’ personal test to exhibit to God that he is up to the challenge. Rather,
it gives Jesus a glimpse of what lies ahead. It confirms that being the Son of
God will be full of circumstances that try to convince you otherwise. It
suggests that doing the will of God requires going beyond your own
self-interests. It says that the kind of obedience God needs is that which
demands extraordinary vigilance.[3]
Friends, this is our
test, too! If we say that we follow the Lord, then we will be tempted to:
· Satisfy our own hunger
when millions go hungry.
· Insist that God’s
loyalty and promises need to be tested.
· Choose the power that
the world values.
· And to choose this power
over obedience to God.[4]
Satan tempted Jesus with the power to accomplish the goals
of Jesus’ earthly ministry, all while the human Jesus was alive. Jesus rejected
these temptations. By the rules of the world—the rules that we make for
ourselves—Jesus’ obedience to God doesn’t make much sense. Wouldn’t we all be
better off if Jesus just turned enough rocks into bread and fed everyone?
Wouldn’t we all be better off if everyone knew the story of Jesus and God’s
overwhelming love for humanity? Wouldn’t we all be better off if God or Jesus
micro-managed our governments and our lives?
Friends, one of my core beliefs is that God doesn’t do
things for us that we can do for ourselves. This is not an original idea. I
expect that most of you have heard this from other pastors. I certainly have.
It’s easy to forget that God has provided us with so much, that there probably
is enough food in the world to feed everyone. What keeps us from making that
reality? What keeps us from taking the message of God’s love to every corner of
the world—to say nothing of every home in this community? Jesus tells us,
“Blessed are the peacemakers,” yet we have trouble making peace with one
another after this last election.
The rules of the world tell us to look out for number one.
The rules of the world tell us to provide for ourselves first and to save for a
rainy day. The rules of the world tell us that we have to divide the
labor—someone else can spread the love of Christ, I’m busy putting food on the
table. Or I’m busy relaxing, because providing for my family is hard work. The
rules of the world tell us that we have irreconcilable differences. It’s
difficult to make peace with our neighbors, let alone our enemies, so we just
need to build bigger and better walls. The world tells us that you and I don’t
have power and control over these things, so we shouldn’t even try. We should
focus on the things we can control, and that’s it!
But Jesus doesn’t teach us to follow the rules of the
world; Jesus calls us to follow him! Jesus calls us to live into God’s
commandment to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Jesus calls us to be the
salt of the earth and the light of the world. These are not the pursuits of
self-interest, they’re the paths of righteousness.
For us to get back on the paths of righteousness, we have
to give up our own temptations for power and control. We have to work hard to
see the world as God would have it, not as it is, and we have to remember that
we are called to work toward that kingdom. We also have to remember that the
kingdom is present, but not yet here. The inbreaking of the kingdom began when
Jesus entered the created world, but we haven’t finished that work.
The world has always been broken! It is tempting to think
that there was a time in our past when the world wasn’t broken, when our
society wasn’t broken, when our church was not broken, but that just isn’t so!
We might think there was a time in our past where it felt like we were more in
control. The world wants us to believe that we can be in control—it tempts us
into believing that’s true.
In this season of Lent, we are called to look within and
ask hard questions—of ourselves and of the Church. What are the things that
prevent us from seeing the Lordship of Christ? What are the things that
challenge our faith? What are the temptations that interrupt our faithful
response to Christ’s call? Do we seek power and control because we don’t fully
believe in the Lordship of Christ or God’s overwhelming love for humanity?
These are some of the hard questions that we must ask during this season of
Lent. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Benediction
Now, beloved, as you depart from this place, remember that
we are called to be the Church, the body of Christ. We are called to
participate in His saving work. We are called to follow, even when the world
tells us to focus on our own needs and desires. Go forth and be instruments of
God’s love and peace and reconciliation. Do not return evil for evil to any
person, but know that we are all loved by God, and that we are called to
reflect that love to everyone we meet. Go forth and be the salt of the earth
and the light of the world. In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, Let all
God’s children say, Amen!
[1]
Audrey West, “Commentary on Matthew 4:1-11,” retrieved from: http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3174
[2] M.
Eugene Boring. The Gospel of Matthew:
Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections. In The New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume VIII, Nashville, TN: Abingdon
Press (1995), p. 164.
[3]
Karoline Lewis, “Choice Temptations,” retrieved from: http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=4829
[4]
This list is adapted from Karoline Lewis, “Choice Temptations.”
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