Texts: Joel 2: 1-2, 12-17; Matthew 4: 1-18
“Of Man's First Disobedience, and the Fruit of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste brought Death into the world, and all our woe, with loss of Eden, till one greater Man restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,” wrote the blind Milton as he began his epic poem Paradise Lost, which presented a picture of a rebellious angel who would not bow to any greater authority, including that of God, and of the consequences for the human race. The attempt of the Apostate Angel, as Milton called him, to wrest power from God, is, of course, an old story, and is reflected in the stories and myths of other ancient Middle Eastern cultures.
As an old man tells the young Jesus searching for God in Kazantzakis' novel, The Last Temptation of Christ, “You'll find a lot more than God in the desert.” And, indeed, Jesus did. But before we examine these temptations, we should note some differences in the Synoptic accounts. Mark simply states that the Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness for forty days where he was tempted and waited upon by angels. Luke's account differs from Matthew's in several respects. In both Luke and Matthew Jesus is led by the Spirit into the wilderness, but the order of the second and third temptations differ between the two Gospels. So what do we say of the temptations? What do they mean to us today?
The first temptation concerns more than bread, or even food. Its assumption is that the satisfaction of physical needs is paramount. It does not negate the reality of our need for sustenance, but tells us that there is more to life than the satisfaction of material needs. It condemns all the “isms” in the world – capitalism as well as communism, for capitalism is also a philosophy that upholds the satisfaction of material needs. The only difference is that it uses greed rather than equality as its driving force.
We are bombarded on a daily basis by advertisements to buy, buy, buy. For those who do not have the energy to work through a newspaper, there is online shopping and that incredibly distasteful home shopping network. In fact, there are now more than six television shopping network, each one trying to sell everything from wonder knives to decorator dolls.
Our culture is material. Everything is subordinated to money and what it can buy. Our government even tried to use capitalism and its cousin consumerism as a justification for providing WTO and most favored nation status to the world's worst human rights offenders. Our esteemed leaders in Congress may claim they are Christian, but they trampled each other in their race to extend commercial benefits to China, even as bishops are still held in prison and Christians imprisoned and even executed for nothing more than worshiping together in underground churches.
Our quest for cheap has enabled us to turn a blind eye towards the oppression of women in Saudi Arabia. Look at the attempts to destroy the habitat in Alaska, and the danger of pipelines even here in New Jersey and rail spills contaminating water in West Virginia, where many people are still without potable drinking water, not to mention the recent spill in Ohio. The Adversary – el satan – must be pleased.
In Matthew's order, the second temptation is more than the preservation of self or the use of miraculous powers. It is to place oneself at the center of the universe, to make one's interest paramount before those of others. This is easy to do. We are told to satisfy our own needs first and then those of others. Most of the time, we slip into this unconsciously, especially as the demands of relationships become difficult.
Although the gospel story presents the temptation as something dramatic, it is usually more subtle. On a personal level we encounter this temptation every day. It is the easiest to justify. I hear it in many of the causes you and I support, when not just equity is demanded but a total subordination of all interests to an agenda. Look at the tragedies of our time, young people and old, caught up using opioids. It also exists on a societal level, whether in foreign policy or domestic. It says my interests come first, before all others.
The third temptation invokes the temptation of power and our loyalties. We sre loyal to God, not to the transient satisfaction of earthly power. Turn from God, we are told, and we shall be able to gain the entire world. But as Jesus said at another time, what does it matter if we gain the whole world and lose our souls.
There's a cartoon from the New Yorker showing a group of businessmen sitting at a table in hell. One of them says to the rest, “Isn't it interesting how we were all on the same board of directors?” In this way, the third temptation is connected to the first. All we need is money, right, and we can buy the world? That's certainly been the approach of certain political action committees.
And in an age of nationalism mixed with fear, it is very easy to confuse loyalties. When I was in Finland and Denmark I noticed that that there were no national flags inside the church sanctuaries. This was even the case in Denmark where the Lutheran church is the state church and the clergy are paid by the state. The flag and portrait of Queen Margrethe II were in the vestibule, not in the sanctuary. Jingoism and the “American First” mentality are scandals to the Gospel.
The power of the Gospel reading is that we experience these temptations in our personal lives, in our corporate and social lives, and in the life of the church. It is so easy to succumb to any of them, if not them all. And it is no different for a church than for any one of us individually. We are especially tempted because we are an historic church with historic properties and an historic cemetery.
In terms of this congregation, our interests are not central. The Gospel is the central interest. The Gospel is what matters. This isn't to say that we should throw away all concerns with the creation and sustenance of our community; it means that we need to approach this process by asking the question of how best to be God's servants in this world. Serving God is what counts in the end.
Jesus must have been really tempted. Ending hunger, laying out the world to your own agenda, using power for good – these seem to be temptations. But the Adversary always knows how to tempt. Tempt us with what seems to be good. Don't make the appeal to our baser instincts. And then we fall into them thinking that they are something else.
That's also the beauty of the Genesis story, the woman being tempted by the serpent: “Eat, and you will be as wise as gods.” This is also a temptation we experience in many areas today. Whether the area is genetics, medical science, or so-called national interest, we are told that we can be as gods. We can create and destroy according to our will. We can buy into the “ism” of the moment, and it will not affect us. We can remake the world in our image, and the world will be better for it. We know what's best for ourselves, our community, our nation, and the world.
The truth is, though, that such knowledge is an illusion and that we cannot be divine, for we are only human. The Gospel tells us that the temptation to be more than we are is always with us, but the Gospel also tells us it is really possible to overcome them.
Let us pray: Give us the strength to overcome the temptations, but even more, help us to discern the true temptation, even when nicely disguised. In the name of the One who shows us how to resist temptation, even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.