"Jesus Gets It Right" San Williams, UPC
Matthew 4:1-11
You can tell we’re in the season of Lent, because the story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness always pops up on the first Sunday. The presumption is that Jesus’ temptation story is of direct relevance for Christians as we begin a season of penitence. The point seems to be, See? Jesus faced temptations, too. He’s just like us.
But the first thing we ordinary Christians notice about this story is that Jesus is not like us. His experience with temptation doesn’t correspond with our own. None of us has had conversations with the devil in the wilderness. (Even though once in the Weimenuche Wilderness in Colorado, my son Edward and I did meet up with an escaped convict). We read that Jesus fasted forty days and forty nights. Surely a forty-day fast lies far outside the experience of most of us here. A few years back, we encouraged the congregation to fast from Maundy Thursday to Easter morning--three whole days. Several of us tried it, and it was just a terrible experience for most of us.
So while we do face temptations, we are not tempted, as Jesus was, to turn stones into bread. We aren't about to hurl ourselves off a pinnacle. And as to power, which of us, even if we had the opportunity, would be remotely tempted to be President, CEO, Commander-in-Chief of the whole world? I know that the author of Hebrews says that in Jesus we have a high priest who “…in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” Still, Jesus’ temptations seem far removed from the kind of daily struggles we face--the constant financial pressures on the business person, the teenager who covets peer acceptance above everything, the recovering alcoholic or substance abuser, the lonely life in a nursing home, the stress on the family trying to cope as life rushes forward at great speed and in too many directions. No, Jesus’ temptation was one-of-a-kind. His experience in the wilderness doesn’t readily connect with the kinds of temptations we face in the modern world.
But maybe such an immediate connection was not Matthew’s intent in telling this story. We know that Matthew, more than the other Gospel writers, is interested in connecting Jesus with the history of Israel. Matthew wants to show how Jesus redeemed, overturned, the failures of Israel. He wants to claim that in Jesus God at last has the faithful Son God has always wanted. So everything about the story of Jesus’ temptation has a parallel to Israel’s testing in the wilderness. Jesus’ forty days and forty nights in the wilderness corresponds to Israel’s forty years in the wilderness. And the three temptations Jesus faced reflect the chronological order of the three tests faced by Israel in the wilderness.
The first test Israel faced in the wilderness was hunger. More specifically, it was trusting in God to provide. God, you will remember, made a covenant with Israel. The covenant arrangement was simple: God would provide and the people would trust in God’s providential care. The people had no trouble with that arrangement as long as there was food was plentiful. But after a couple months out in the wilderness the food supply was all gone. That’s when the grumbling began. Exodus 16: “The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. The Israelites said to them, ‘If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”
It’s interesting how trusting in God’s providential care presents no difficulty as long as there is food on the table. But when we’re without, when we don’t know where our next meal is coming from, what then? God’s covenant, tested in the wilderness, required a trust in God even before any help had arrived. That’s actually the definition of the manna God had promised. Manna means “It’s not there until it’s there.” Israel couldn’t wait, couldn’t trust once the provisions ran out and their stomachs were growling with hunger. That’s when they complained and thus revealed their lack of confidence in God to care for them.
By contrast, Jesus, even though famished, keeps faith in God. He refuses the temptation to provide himself with bread because he trusts his life to God’s providence even when he bereft, hungry and alone. Jesus trusted God’s presence to “order my steps” as the choir sang this morning, even when he was beset with outward deprivation. “One does not live by bread alone,” answers Jesus, “but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”
No the second temptation Israel faced in the wilderness arose from their fear that God, their covenant partner, had abandoned them. They came to a spot in the wilderness where there was no water to drink. Lack of water is a frightening thing, especially out in the desert. The people started to whine, complain. You brought us all the way out here just to have us die of thirst, along with our children and goats and chickens. We’re all going to die. Show yourself, the people demanded. They were beginning to doubt God’s presence and God’s goodness. The Israelites quarreled and tested the Lord, saying “Is the Lord among us, or not?”
“It’s been a bad year for God,” declared a recent essay in the New York Times Review of Books reviewing yet another book to come out recently denouncing the existence of God. This book, called Irreligion by John Allen Paulos joins recent best sellers by Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Same Harris claiming, in one way or another, that no, God is not among us. If God were among us, they argue, God should provide more evidence for God’s existence.
Interestingly, Jesus was tempted to provide just such irrefutable evidence. Put God to the test, the Tempter urged. If you’re the Son of God, hurl yourself off the pinnacle of the Temple. Let God swoop down and break your fall. Then we’ll have proof that God is with us, cares for us and able to save us. Yet unlike the Israelites, and unlike us most of the time, Jesus was able to believe and trust in God’s presence and goodness without demanding proof. “Again it is written,” Jesus said, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”
The third test of Israel’s faith involved the temptation to idolatry. You remember the story in Exodus. After Moses disappeared on Mt. Sinai, the people got tired of waiting on this elusive, demanding God, so they decided to turn to gods of their own creation. Better, they thought, to worship a god we can at least see and touch. So they made a golden calf, maybe about the size of the Bevo statue in the lot next door.
Jesus’ third temptation takes up this problem of idolatry. The Tempter's showing Jesus all the nations, and offering them to him, is analogous with Israel's temptation to worship idols. Jesus’ temptation went something like this: Since God seems so slow in coming, so difficult to discern, so hidden and inscrutable, why not--if you are the Son of God-- take the bull by the horns and take charge. Get things done the way the Romans gets things done. Bring peace the old fashioned way: by imposing your will on others. That’s the only way to change things. But Jesus will have none of it. His loyalty is undivided. He wills only one thing. He will worship and serve God only.
The discipleship of a 19th century contemplative named Charles de Foucauld was based on a prayer that echoes the single-minded devotion of Jesus.
Father, I abandon myself into your hands; do with me what you will. Whatever you may do, I thank you: I am ready for all, I accept all.
Let only your will be done in me, and in all your creatures—I wish no more than this, O Lord.
Into your hands I commend my soul: I offer it all to you with all the love of my heart, for I love you, Lord, and so need to give myself, to surrender myself into your hands without reserve, and with boundless confidence, for you are my Father.
So on this first Sunday in Lent, Matthew shows us how Jesus is the Beloved son who gets it right. What Matthew is claiming is that Jesus is the new Israel. Where the old Israel was faithless, Jesus was faithful. Where Israel failed, Jesus prevailed. In him the covenant is renewed, the world is given a fresh start. God is finally getting what God has wanted all along: a Beloved Son who gives himself to God without reserve and with boundless confidence. Jesus got it right. Let’s follow him.