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February 25, 2007 |
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TEMPTATION ON THE WAY
Luke 4.1-13
February 25, 2007
First Sunday in Lent
Rev. Jonathan E. Carroll, Th.M.
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I once heard a Presbyterian Pastor recount a discussion held at a session meeting in Western Pennsylvania. The agenda item has to do with stewardship, mission, and…the budget. Apparently some elders were concerned that the proposed budget was too generous in the percentage that was being given outside the walls of the church. Some were convinced the pastor was being too bold and a bit presumptuous in her stewardship preaching and her claim that Presbyterians still believed in tithing. They flat out told her that they were offended that she would offer an indictment of their giving, using statistics that indicated that the majority in the church gave less than ten dollars a week, and that that was a problem.
Those who tried to justify their frustration with the church budget and the preaching made the attempt to turn to Scripture. One elder reminded everyone that the Bible said that the love of money was the root of all evil. He said it again with emphasis to insure those around the table got the point; not money, just the love of money. Another elder profoundly quoted that God helps those who helps themselves. The first elder, buoyed by the encouragement of his colleague, went another step; “Yes, let us not forget: charity begins at home!” And one more elder around the table tossed in another, “Yes, the Bible says ‘to thine own self be true.’”
The pastor, trying to stay calm, lost her patience. “You can try to argue the Bible using quotes – even with chapter and verse,” she said, “but if you’re going to try that approach when it comes to stewardship and giving, your position will lose every time. “Charity begins at home,” that was Terrence, a century and a half before Christ. “God helps those who help themselves.” That was Ben Franklin. “To thine own self be true.” That’s William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act. I, scene 3.” She finished with the old affirmation that even the devil can quote Scripture but then added to it, “Unlike you,” she said, “the devil gets it right.” She was referring, of course, to the quoting of Scripture.
Psalm 91, vs. 11-12, the verses Marna read a moment ago. That’s what the devil quoted to Jesus when they stood on top of the temple overlooking Jerusalem. “Go ahead, take the leap if you are the Son of God. Won’t God protect you?” God will command the angels concerning you, to protect you. On their hands they will hear you up so that you will not dash your foot against a stone. I can imagine that the devil did, in fact, provide Jesus with the chapter and verse to lend credibility; Psalm 91, vs. 11-12. The gospels don’t, however, record that part.
William Sloan Coffin, the legendary preacher for peace at Yale University and Manhattan’s Riverside Church, expressed his frustration at those who toss scripture around like after dinner mints in the midst of the most painful of human experiences. For coffin, the frustration welled up after his son’s death in a car accident. He later published a sermon in which he lamented how some of the clergy types who offered him quotations instead of comfort. “I felt some…were using comforting words of scripture for self-protection, to pretty-up a situation whose bleakness they simply couldn’t face. but like God, scripture is not around for anyone’s protection, just for everyone’s unending support.” Coffin gave thanks for those who come to the rescue and don’t quote anybody. They just come to hold your hand, or bring some food, and don’t say anything at all.
The story of Jesus being led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil most often comes with a traditional interpretation. Forty days of preparation that preceded a public ministry of preaching, teaching, and healing. The devil offers personal, physical temptation: you can turn these stones into bread to satisfy your hunger. The next temptation comes with political power: I will give you authority over all these kingdoms of the world. And the last temptation has religious overtones as the battlegrounds shifts to the roof of the temple and the devil questions the relationship with and the protection of God.
You will rarely, if ever, hear a three point sermon from me. However, this text certainly supports three points and I could come up with a poem for the end. The dare of temptation: physical, political, spiritual. Each time the response comes from Jesus in the form of a reference to scripture, each time from the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy. Not bread alone. Worship the Lord your God. Don’t test the Lord. Three temptations. Three biblical citations. And the conversation stops.
But in those forty days in the wilderness there had to be more tests from the devil involved. The gospels only record three. The Book of Hebrews concludes that Jesus was tempted in every way. I bet there was much more to that story of Jesus and the devil. Beware of limiting the extent of temptation with a three point sermon. This encounter had more! The conversation finally stopped with the devil started quoting scripture. At least in Luke, the conversation ends when the devil dares to utter the words of Psalm 91.
Have you ever thought about starting a list in your mind of all the odd places, or the inappropriate places, where you have heard scripture being quoted? In a Disney movie, for instance. The movie is “The Jungle Book.” The big old bear lies wounded on the ground and his friends mourn and the quotation comes, “No greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for his friends.” that comes from Jesus in the Gospel of John. If you hear – which we all do –a scripture quotation in a political speech, you better run to your Bible and read it in context. And you may join me in despair the next time you hear someone trying to offer comfort to a hurting soul by grasping for those words from Romans, “All things work for good for those who love God.”
The account of the temptation of Jesus is told in all three of the synoptic gospels. However, Luke provides a unique twist that is worth pondering. Mark barely takes time to mention the encounter at all. But he does write about how the angels waited on Jesus there in the wilderness as he was tempted by the devil and lived with the wild beast. Matthew, like Luke, unpacks the story a bit more, including three temptations, the responses from Jesus, and the presence of angels. After the devil departed, Matthew reports that the angels came suddenly and waited on him. The presence of angels seems to provide the actual fulfillment of that psalm quoted by the devil, that verse from Psalm 91 that implies God will see to it that the angels will protect you, which is at least place from which we get that idea.
There are no angels in Luke. Here in the temptation story as told by Luke there are no angels. You know Luke is not averse to angels; he has them both pronouncing the Lord’s birth and his resurrection. But here, in the wilderness, nothing. The devil quotes from the Psalter, and Jesus ends the conversation. “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” Of course, we think the test comes in breaking the fast or jumping from the temple roof. Maybe the test Jesus objects to is the going head – to – head with devil who wants a go a quoting chapter and verse.
And Luke tells us “when the devil had finished every test, he departed until an opportune time.” No angels. No miraculous comfort from heaven. Just a foreshadowing of what is yet to come. Luke offers veiled reference to the ongoing battle with the presence of evil. An allusion to that night in the garden when he was betrayed by someone he loved, when his friends fell asleep and sweat oozed from his brow in drops of blood. That opportune time when he hung from a cross, when he went willingly to his death while people stood below and dared him to save himself. those three days in total separation from God, that is where he – as the Apostles’ Creed has it – descended into hell. In that opportune time the devil must have come back. Luke ends the conversation and offers a note that indicates “to be continued.” A word that tells the reader there is more to the story yet to come. An invitation to sit back and look at the whole picture of the gospel. The devil wants to dare Jesus by quoting Scripture. Luke invites the reader to encounter the truth of the suffering, the betrayal, the denial, and the death of the son of God.
I have decided to give up something for Lent – this season of penitence, forgiveness, and healing – in order to make space in me for something else. That’s not a typical spiritual discipline for me. I think I will give up those confrontations with people who want to argue by quoting chapter and verse from scripture. Like my childhood friend who wants to argue about creationism by citing chapter and verse over and over again while I want to have an out of body experience and leave the room. Like the well-to-do, self-made man who says we ought not try to eradicate poverty, because Jesus says we’ll always have the poor with us. Like the 18th century bureaucrats who argued straight from scripture both for and against slavery, and the 21st century Presbyterians who argue for and against every other socially hot topic from the same source from which we learn that once all of us were blind, and now we can see.
Of course, as a church full of Presbyterians, we’re at a disadvantage when we’re still trying to figure out what comes from the Bible and what comes from Ben Franklin. So instead of leafing for chapter and verse, why not be intentional in a community that yearns to dwell in the Book of Psalms? Instead of grabbing for the highlighter on your desk, why not seek to explore a depth to this word that surely comes by the power of the Holy Spirit in the texts of scripture, in the event of preaching in the context of worship, and in the person and work of Jesus Christ? And instead of choosing to play truth or dare with scripture with one another on the way toward the cross, why not hope to have eyes to see the gospel of Jesus Christ?
Which means, of course, in this season especially, that we are called to ponder again the truth of the suffering, the betrayal, the denial, and the death of the Son of God. A professor of mine in seminary once told me that if he were going back to parish ministry, he would look for a congregation that was looking to share in Communion more often, not less. I always assumed that he was talking only about the worship life of the church. And he was, in part. The Table does sit at the center of our life together along with the font and pulpit in Word and Sacrament. But he meant that we need to eat together around this Table as often as we can to look at the whole story and to remember anew the Lord’s death and resurrection. The Table should sit at the center when we think about faith, when we struggle to grow, when we want to learn, and when we want to see and experience the truth of God.
Like Luke, I don’t see many angels waiting to serve us in our wildernesses. That’s a topic for another day. but I do know and I do hear an invitation that comes from a Savior, who bids us come and eat and drink. Lent is a perfectly good time to do that as together we are on our way, on the way, to a healing place. A healing place.
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