A Very Reasonable Man

The scripture reading for the first Sunday in Lent is traditionally the temptations of Jesus in the wilderness. This sermon focuses on those temptations. Were they just temptations that Jesus faced, or do we deal with them ourselves, too?

Matthew 6:1-4

Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

“Take care of yourself; you deserve it!” Those are words of compassion. We say them to each other, and we appreciate it when someone says them to us. But sometimes, they are words of temptation rather than of compassion. Caring for ourselves and for those we love is a very good thing. In fact, it is evidence that we are created in God’s loving image! But that love, just like everything else that we do, can be corrupted by worry or by greed. When we encourage someone to use the special powers that they have for their own benefit, then “You deserve to take care of yourself” can be a powerful temptation indeed!

What harm would it have done if Jesus had used his divine powers to change stones into bread to satisfy his own hunger? Maybe nothing. And then again, it might have set him on a very slippery slope! What if, three years later, he had hung on the cross and listened to the thief who challenged him, “If you are the Messiah, save yourself and us”? There’s the Tempter again, whispering, “Take care of yourself; you deserve it!” What would have happened if he had used his powers to come down off the cross? Where would that have left the world that was depending on him to save it?

We don’t have to be Jesus to give in to this temptation, either. Good people who embezzle funds from government agencies to take care of their families are great examples of giving in to this temptation. “I deserve this” they say, “and my family deserves this! The government has plenty of money! Why shouldn’t I have some of it? We need it more than they do!” But giving in to temptations like this, even little ones, whittle away at our character bit by bit and leave us all the more vulnerable to the Tempter’s power. It is said that the actions that define us are those that we do when no one else is watching. When we use our powers only for our own benefit, we move away, little by little, from reflecting the image of God.

The story is told of an impoverished worker who bought a raffle ticket from his company. The winner of the raffle would receive a brand-new car. His wealthy supervisor asked him to buy an additional ticket for him. The worker put each ticket into its own envelope, labeling one for himself and one for his supervisor. When the winning ticket was drawn, it was the ticket that he had tagged for his supervisor. “Change the envelopes!” his family begged. “He doesn’t need that new car, but we sure do! He’ll never know!” “No,” replied the worker, “but I will.”

Matthew 4:5-7

Then the devil took Jesus to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: “‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’” Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

“The Bible says…” How often have we heard that? How often have we said it? I preach about it on Sunday morning; we discuss it at Bible study; we run into it on Facebook; and political candidates even quote it sometimes. But just quoting scripture doesn’t always lead to a good result! In The Merchant of Venice, William Shakespeare says, “The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose. An evil soul producing holy witness Is like a goodly apple rotten at the heart. O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!”

How often have we heard someone quote scripture to justify his own prejudices? How often have we done it ourselves? Slave owners in 19^th century America quoted scripture to justify their owning the lives of other human beings. Abusive husbands quote scripture to justify their abuse of their wives. People all around us quote the Bible to justify their hatred of Jews, of Muslims, and of gays – just about anybody that they see as a threat to their own power or social position. And let’s not forget that the religious leaders of his day used the words of scripture to condemn Jesus to death.

“The Bible says…” Beware, lest we use its words for our own misguided purposes and become the Tempter instead of reflecting the light of God!

Matthew 4:8-10

Finally, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”

“Just worship me,” says the Tempter, “and I’ll give you everything that you want!” How obvious, we think. Who would fall for that line? The unfortunate answer is that most of us fall for it – and more frequently than we think we do. This temptation is to use the end to justify the means; and that’s a temptation as old as creation itself. What did the serpent say to Eve in the Garden of Eden? “You won’t die if you eat that fruit. You’ll become wise! Surely that’s a good thing!” We all know how that turned out. Wisdom is a good thing; but the wisdom that our first parents attained wasn’t at all what they expected it to be.

Whenever we yearn for lofty goals and decide that we can use whatever means we have to attain them, then we are worshiping the Tempter instead of God. A high school student who cheats on an exam so that she can get a scholarship to a good school is listening to the Tempter. A job applicant who gets a better job with higher pay by lying on his job resumé is listening, too. Now, both these folks may have very worthy goals. The high school student wants to go to college and study green energy, but doesn’t have the funds to go on her own; and the job applicant needs a bigger paycheck to support his family. Do the ends justify the means? We know what the Tempter would say; and we know what Jesus would say, too. The only answer to the temptation that the end justifies the means is, “Go away, Satan. I’m going to worship only God.”

Matthew 4:11

Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.

The Tempter still walks among us, incognito; and we need the God’s help to discern who he is. The Tempter, after all, doesn’t show up wearing a red body suit with a long forked tail and horns and carrying a pitchfork. He is much more likely to be wearing a stylish suit and carrying a briefcase; and he will be compassionate, knowledgeable, and reasonable. He might even come in the guise of a religious person, someone who is sincere, understanding, and pious. And the angels of light who are ready to minister to us look the very same way! How in the world can we tell them apart? We can’t do it by ourselves; we need God’s help. Only by staying near to Jesus can we discern the difference between the angels and the Tempter.

But here is the good news: even if we fall prey to the wiles of the Tempter (and we do, all the time), and even if we become the Tempter ourselves (and, sadly, we do sometimes), Jesus has our back. He was tempted; and he knows how hard it is to resist what the Tempter offers us. All we can do is to do our best and rely on the grace of Christ. But – thanks be to God – that’s all that we need to do!

Holy Joy

We are just finishing the season of Mardi Gras, which begins on the day after Epiphany (January 6). Although Mardi Gras is celebrated by many Christians, there are others who condemn it for being -- well, just too happy! Does God condemn joy? Read on...

Ask any random Christian how they feel about joy, and they will undoubtedly respond, “Why, joy is a blessing! It’s a gift of God!” And they would be absolutely right! Joy is one of God’s gifts. The angels sang on Christmas night that the news of Jesus’ birth was “news of great joy to all people,” and Jesus told his disciples that their relationship with him was a cause for joy. So, why do you suppose that many Christians treat joy as something to feel guilty about?

The painting American Gothic is a perfect example of what many people think that Christianity is all about. “Oh, it’s a hard way to live,” they say. “Jesus asks so much of us, and I know that we don’t measure up.” To some people, anything that smacks of merriment is suspect. We shouldn’t play cards; it’s gambling. We shouldn’t dance; we’ll be touching someone of the opposite sex. We shouldn’t drink alcohol (even though Jesus drank wine every single day); it leads to lewd behavior. And relaxing to savor the goodness of God’s earth…? Why, we should be working! No wonder that so many people feel guilty when they take time off to do what they love! That joy thing doesn’t sound like it’s Christian!

Several years ago, a very different picture made the rounds in Christian circles. It pictures Jesus laughing heartily while he grips the mast of a boat. At the time, it caused quite a ruckus. Many people were offended by it. They objected that Jesus would never laugh! Why, he came to earth to die, and there’s nothing even remotely joyful about that! Their image of Jesus seems to have been formed by 1960s religious movies in which Jesus never smiles, not even once. His face is mostly expressionless, and his eyes are focused on something beyond our world. Now, you might enjoy those movies very much – nothing wrong with that – but please realize that their idea of Jesus doesn’t really show his human side at all. If Jesus was fully human – and we confess that he was – then he laughed. He might even have laughed a lot! Why, just look at the humor of some of his parables. How can you imagine a camel trying to crawl through the eye of a needle without laughing?

The fact is that joy is woven throughout the Bible. In fact, joy is there at the very moment that creation began! The Bible starts with this text: “In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the abyss. And God said, ‘Let there be light.’ And God saw that the light was good.” That’s a very solemn account of the whole thing. We might describe it more like this: In the beginning, when God created the whole universe, everything was really dark and messy. So God said, “I’m going to change this. I need some light so I can see what I’m doing,” and suddenly, there was light. And then God laughed and said, “That’s so much better! I like that a lot!” With every step in creation, God not only thought things were getting better; God was delighted with the way that things were turning out! African-American poet James Weldon Johnson captures this joy in his poem “The Creation.”

God stepped out on space,
And he looked around and said:
I'm lonely--
I'll make me a world.

And far as the eye of God could see
Darkness covered everything,
Blacker than a hundred midnights
Down in a cypress swamp.

Then God smiled,
And the light broke,
And the darkness rolled up on one side,
And the light stood shining on the other,
And God said: That's good!

Then God reached out and took the light in his hands,
And God rolled the light around in his hands
Until he made the sun;
And he set that sun a-blazing in the heavens.
And the light that was left from making the sun
God gathered it up in a shining ball
And flung it against the darkness,
Spangling the night with the moon and stars.
Then down between
The darkness and the light
He hurled the world;
And God said: That's good!

Then God himself stepped down--
And the sun was on his right hand,
And the moon was on his left;
The stars were clustered about his head,
And the earth was under his feet.
And God walked, and where he trod
His footsteps hollowed the valleys out
And bulged the mountains up.

Then he stopped and looked and saw
That the earth was hot and barren.
So God stepped over to the edge of the world
And he spat out the seven seas--
He batted his eyes, and the lightning flashed--
He clapped his hands, and the thunders rolled--
And the waters above the earth came down,
The cooling waters came down.

Then the green grass sprouted,
And the little red flowers blossomed,
The pine tree pointed his finger to the sky,
And the oak spread out his arms,
The lakes cuddled down in the hollows of the ground,
And the rivers ran down to the sea;
And God smiled again,
And the rainbow appeared,
And curled itself around his shoulder.

Then God raised his arm and he waved his hand
Over the sea and over the land,
And he said: Bring forth! Bring forth!
And quicker than God could drop his hand,
Fishes and fowls
And beasts and birds
Swam the rivers and the seas,
Roamed the forests and the woods,
And split the air with their wings.
And God said: That's good!

Then God walked around,
And God looked around
On all that he had made.
He looked at his sun,
And he looked at his moon,
And he looked at his little stars;
He looked on his world
With all its living things,
And God said: I'm lonely still.

Then God sat down--
On the side of a hill where he could think;
By a deep, wide river he sat down;
With his head in his hands,
God thought and thought,
Till he thought: I'll make me a man!

Up from the bed of the river
God scooped the clay;
And by the bank of the river
He kneeled him down;
And there the great God Almighty
Who lit the sun and fixed it in the sky,
Who flung the stars to the most far corner of the night,
Who rounded the earth in the middle of his hand;
This great God,
Like a mammy bending over her baby,
Kneeled down in the dust
Toiling over a lump of clay
Till he shaped it in his own image.
Then into it he blew the breath of life,
And the human became a living soul.
Amen. Amen.

That, friends, is God’s joy at his creation. And if God is joyful, then we have joy built into our souls, because God made us in his image! Joy is just as much a part of us as love, and compassion, and the desire for justice. God intends for us to be joyful! This season of Mardi Gras that takes place before Lent begins is an invitation to celebrate that joy. Oh, sure, the celebration can get a little overdone at times; and we can be rightly dismayed at the excesses that take place during Mardi Gras. But let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater and get rid of every big celebration just because some folks overdo it! Joy is one of the most precious gifts that God gave us. So, before the somber season of Lent begins, let’s be joyful – and let the good times roll.

“The Creation” is from God's Trombones by James Weldon Johnson. Copyright © 1927 The Viking Press, Inc., renewed 1955 by Grace Nail Johnson.