Revised Common Lectionary Readings for Sunday, March 13, 2011, the First Sunday in Lent (Year A)
I haven't decided exactly if I am going to blog on Sunday's. I know that there are two ways to count the "40 days of Lent." If you count from Ash Wednesday to Palm Sunday there are 40 days, but you are sill a week out from Easter Sunday. If you count from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday and don't count the Sunday's in Lent (as Sabbath days) you get 40 days. Waffling between the two seems like quibbling to me (and for the record, I did walk to worship this morning - and I'm planning on walking to our evening Taize worship service tonight).
But since I have a lengthy reflection on today's lectionary readings (a.k.a. this morning's sermon), I thought I'd include it here as part of this Lenten reflection. It's a bit longer than most...and sometimes I think it's hard to read a sermon because it's meant to be spoken and I don't always stay on script. But here it is. Be blessed this Lord's Day. John C.
A sermon preached by Rev. John H.G. Curtiss
On Sunday, March 13, 2011
For the congregation at First Presbyterian Church,
Hastings, NEFirst Sunday in Lent; Also Lenten Prayer Partner Sunday
Scripture: Matthew 4:1-11
Sermon: “The Church’s Temptation”
Actions most often speak louder than words. There was a poster on the wall of my high school; I remember it because it was right next to my locker all throughout my senior year. The poster said: “Character means doing what is right even when no one is watching.” When we remember someone we have lost in our lives, we remember them for their actions. I was at the state basketball tournament this weekend and before the game started the announcer said, “Years from know, the score will have been forgotten; but they will remember how you played the game. Play with character.”
“Who are you?” and “Who am I?” are questions that most of us spend a lifetime trying to answer. These existential questions have many layers and there are many ways to answer them, but who you are is, at least in part, made up of your actions and your choices; what you do and what you don’t do.
Early in Matthew’s gospel, the author is trying to establish who Jesus is. Matthew wants us to know and to believe that Jesus is the son of God because if we know that, then we will can believe in the message – the good news – of Matthew’s gospel. Matthew’s gospel ends with the great commission, the commandment to “Go into all the world and baptize in my name. Teach them about obedience and about Jesus.” This kind of discipleship is what Matthew intends for those who read this book and the author believe that it is important to know that Jesus is the son of God. Throughout this gospel, we are reminded again and again the true nature and character of Jesus, the Messiah, the son of God. Matthew begins with the lengthy geneology. Matthew skips the stories about Jesus’ childhood. Matthew briefly includes the story of John baptizing Jesus (which emphasizes that Jesus is the son of God.. And then we have the story in chapter 4, a story that is meant to demonstrate for us who Jesus is, based on what Jesus does – and does not do. This little bit of scripture is meant to not only reinforce the notion that Jesus is God’s son, but also to give us the breadth and wideness of Jesus’ ministry, and our ministry as well.
This is an interesting story because the two main characters are Jesus and the Devil. This text is often used at the beginning of the Lenten season because it is set in the context of Jesus having fasted for forty days and forty nights. This language is intended to remind of the other characters in the bible who spend 40 days and 40 nights waiting for God to be revealed. Noah and his wife, children and the animals of creation waited through 40 days of rain. Moses waited on
Mount Sinai. The people of
Israel were led through the wilderness for 40 years looking for the promised land. The number 40 is intended to not only convey a really long time, but it also implies the promise that God is at work in a symbolic and special way.
The context of our story is this: Jesus was led away by the Spirit into the wilderness so that he could be tempted by the devil. The text says nothing about what kind of Spirit leads Jesus. To prepare for this temptation, Jesus fasts for 40 days. When people in biblical stories wait for 40 days, this is a good clue to the reader that something holy is about to happen.
Jesus is in the wilderness, after a lengthy fast, to be tempted by the devil. I don’t know if you’ve seen artist’s rendition of this scene, but so much of our Western mind and imagination has been affected by the notion of the Devil – personified evil – as the man with the red cape and the pointed beard, complete with horns and a pitchfork. Truth be told, I believe that most of our imagination about the devil and his work is influenced more by reading Dante’s Inferno than by reading scripture. The Devil is not this fallen angel who tries to lure people into service in his army of minions. The Devil is not the little man who appears on your left shoulder (next to the angel on your right shoulder) trying to tempt you into making a bad decision. (Reverend Bill made reference to the fact that he doesn’t give things up for lent because they aren’t sincere – because he knows that he will eat the Bing candy bar. I really want to have this charicture in my mind’s eye of Bill standing in the candy bar aisle with the devil on one shoulder – “eat the candy bar” and the angel on the other “don’t eat the candy bar.” But it’s just ridiculous.) I don’t think the Devil – if there really is just one spiritual entity – cares if Bill eats the candy bar or not. This is just an inaccurate description of what our scripture actually says about the Devil.
The bible describes Satan or the Devil as an adversary of God. It is simply one who opposes God or some translators say – one who serves as an obstacle in the path of God’s will. and perfect desire. That means that anytime we stand in opposition to God’s will or are an obstacle to God’s way then we could be described this way. When Jesus said to Peter “Get behind me Satan!” Jesus was telling Peter that he was an obstacle to God’s will for Jesus’ life.
The scripture says that the spirit led Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. The devil comes to Jesus and tempts Jesus three times. And each time, what Jesus does – or doesn’t do – reveals to us more clearly that Jesus is the son of God.
These three temptations are also common temptations of the church today. When the devil tells Jesus that he has the power to turn stones into bread so that he can feed himself (he is famished from his fast, after all) is the temptation to be small and inward directed. Jesus has the power to feed himself, to use his power to meet his own needs, even great needs after such a long fast. But by not doing so, Jesus tells us that his power is meant for greater, bigger, other directed missions. Whenever the church, as we her members, focus on our own internal needs and whenever we put our finite and limited resources to serving our own needs only, the church succumbs to this temptation. And the result is that the church’s witness and mission in the world are greatly diminished. We only witness to ourselves and not to the world. We only serve ourselves and not the world. We only take care of our own, and not those struggling in our midst. When this happens, the church resembles something like a country club. (Please don’t misunderstand me, I don’t have anything against the country club. I can only imagine the conversations at Lochland today at lunch; “Rev. John doesn’t like us” But Lochland exists to serve its membership – and it does a great job at that. And I know that there are inherent values to belonging. But the church exists for more, namely for God’s mission in the world. The church doesn’t exist to serve those baptized members on the books. I hope that the church can be a place where those of you can be refueled and refreshed and renewed so that you can go out and make disciples in a broken world that needs to know about the love and grace and mercy of Jesus Christ. It’s not all about developing a wide range of programs that only meet the needs of those who belong and who are already here. It’s about equipping the saints for the kingdom building work of God – and that kingdom building work takes place outside of the walls of the church edifice. Turn these stones into bread, says Satan to Jesus and feed yourself. Use your power to serve yourself. Anytime the church focuses solely on feeding herself, the church falls into this temptation and the mission of God is drastically reduced and made smaller.
For the second temptation, the devil takes Jesus to great heights and challenges Jesus to throw himself off the top – and trust that God’s angels will catch you. It’s a nice little writing trick – Jesus quotes scripture at the end of the first temptation to answer the Devil and so the Devil uses scripture – Psalm 91 – as part of the next temptation and challenge. The Devil is asking that Jesus put the promises of God to the test.
When I was a student at
Hastings College and I was taking a difficult class, sometimes I would put off studying until the last minute, and often the very, very last minute. And honestly, this strategy did not work out for me. But I found that it did improve my prayer life because I would need divine intervention to help me get through the next test. My prayer would be something like this: “Dear God, if you help me pass this test, I will never procrastinate again.” I think many of us make choices that put us in a bind. And our prayers sound very similar. Dear God, if you forgive me this one time, again, I really will repent and change my ways. Dear God, if you get me through this, I promise that I will be different. I don’t want to diminish these prayers because I know that God listens and God has compassion, even if God isn’t going to help you with that calculus exam. But the slippery slope is knowing that God’s promise is true and that God’s grace is real, and then deliberately screwing up again because you know that God is always going to forgive you.
Let me put it this way: I believe that it is true that any one person can deliberately turn away from God, live their life in whatever way they choose fit, and then on their death bed, sincerely pray to God and ask God’s forgiveness…and God will grant it. I believe that God is that gracious. But I’m not going to encourage anyone to do this because so much of life is missed out when God’s grace and sovereignty are not included. This puts God’s promises to the test. As Tom Long writes: “Testing God’s promises comes not from trust, but lack of it. Trying out the promises of God to see if they really work is a sign not of sure faith, but of fundamental doubt (Matthew, 39).”
The church fails to resist this temptation when we hedge against God’s promises. When we rely upon our own resources, instead of upon God’s goodness, we fail to believe in God’s sovereignty. When our vision of the future is based upon our skills, hopes, and dreams, instead of upon the coming of God’s kingdom, than we are not trusting in the redemptive work of God’s spirit.
In the third temptation, the Devil offers to Jesus all the kingdoms of the world. The Devil tempts Jesus with ultimate power and authority and dominion over all. It is the temptation to find a quicker and easier way to God than the suffering way of the cross. Jesus knows that in the end he will have the authority of God bought through the cross. But Jesus knows that the price is to journey the path of suffering.
At the heart of this temptation is the sin of idolatry. Whenever the church bows down to that which is not God – hoping that this will fill our hearts – we succumb to this temptation. The way of Jesus is the way of the cross. The way of Jesus is the way of suffering. The way to God is through the crucified Jesus Christ. Anything else is not truly the way. This is admittedly a difficult path. The temptation is to take an easier road. The temptation is to fill our lives with other gods, hoping that they will fill our hearts enough.
In
St. Augustine’s Confessions he writes “Our hearts are restless until they rest in thee, O God.”
When Jesus resists these three temptations, we learn that Jesus’ ministry is as broad and as wide as the love of God. Jesus has the power to feed himself, but his ministry is to provide the bread of life for all who believe. Jesus knows that God’s angels would catch him when he falls, but his mission is to reach out his arms to others, to the world. Jesus knows that the power of God, and all God’s kingdom are already his, but his life is meant for the cross, so that the power of death itself could be destroyed.
And because Jesus’ mission and ministry is so broad, other-directed, and life-giving, our mission and ministry should be as well. We are also called to resist the temptation to limit God’s grace. We are also called to trust in God’s promises of goodness and mercy. We are also called to resist the temptation to follow anything other that than God we know if Jesus Christ.
Benediction: And so, my good people of God, as you prepare to leave this place and enter into the world and your daily lives, be prepared to resist the temptation to keep God’s blessings close at hand. Instead, go out into the world with open arms, ready to enlarge God’s love and mercy and grace by your love and compassion.
In the name of our triune God – our creator, our comforter, and our Christ – one God, now and forever. Amen and amen.
