First Sunday in Lent (Year C) - March 10, 2019

First Sunday in Lent
Year C
March 10, 2019

Each year, the season of Lent begins with the Temptation of Christ. This year, we get the Temptation of Christ as remembered by the Gospel of Luke. What do you think of when you think about “temptation”? Usually, when I think of being tempted, I think of being pulled into doing something that is bad, wrong, or at very least “less than good” for me. I think of temptation as the push to do something I shouldn’t. When I think of temptations, I think of the tray of desserts brought out at the end of a nice Italian dinner in which I already feasted on a big plate of pasta. It is hard to pass up the NY style cheesecake with a raspberry sauce drizzled over it. When I think of temptation, I think of the lure of TV and Netflix curled up with the Ginger pup when I should be doing housework. When I think of temptation, I think of buying that cute dress that I really don’t “need” but catches my eye through an online ad. For those of you who practice giving something up for lent, maybe it’s that very thing that you gave up that tempts you. At least in the way presented in TV, Movies, advertisements, temptation often portrayed as sexual. There’s a reason that, for instance, advertisers tend to use women, dressed in bikinis, in advertisements for beer or other types of alcohol. Temptation, we’re told is sexy.

Jesus’ temptation today couldn’t be further from these images of temptation. Jesus has just spent 40 days in the wilderness, fasting from all food, and was “famished.” The devil hopes that he can capitalize on Jesus’ moment of vulnerability and woo him into the devil’s vision for the world, recruiting him for the work of the devil and away from the work of God. The devil pokes and prods to try to get Jesus to give in “If you are the Son of God...” show me by turning bread into stones, show me by throwing yourself from here. It is reminiscent of how the crowds will mock him on the cross, “if you are the Son of God, save yourself.”

We don’t talk much about the devil in current ELCA circles. Maybe we think the devil is outdated. Maybe we’re too concerned about sounding like fire and brimstone preachers. Maybe we’re too concerned about giving the Devil too much power. Luther talked about the devil - a lot- in his writings. He talked about the devil as the great tempter - the one pushing us to do the wrong thing. David Lose reframes that a bit - asking us to consider the devil not so much as the great tempter but the one who tries to sow mistrust among God’s people - and by encouraging God’s people to put their trust elsewhere. Today, it is as if the Devil says, “You’re hungry - you have no food. How do you know God is trustworthy?” “You’re on the path to death on a cross… I can give you power and authority without the pains of death.” “Your own people will reject you. Let’s sew up your fame right here and now.”

The odd thing about the Temptation of Christ is that everything that the devil pushes Jesus to do is - on its own - good - at least on the surface. Think about it: turning stones to bread could not only end his own hunger after 40 days of fasting in the wilderness, but turning stones to bread could end world hunger. Jesus gaining authority and power in this world would change the world as we know it. Jesus showing his power by throwing himself off a cliff and saving himself would get himself quite the following. At the surface, there’s nothing wrong with what the devil tempts Jesus to do. In short, that which the devil tempts Jesus with, are the very things that Jesus came in order to do. Jesus comes to lift up the lowly in part by ending hunger (as we heard a few weeks ago in the sermon on the plain). Jesus comes to bring God’s kingdom into this world and to usher in Jesus’ own reign in this world. Jesus comes to draw all into his embrace as the reign of God spreads throughout the world. Here it is. All placed in front of him.

The temptation for Jesus this morning, then, is this. Give into temptation, and at least on the surface, it seems Jesus can complete all that he came to complete. And it would be completed without being kicked out of his hometown (and nearly thrown off a cliff, as will happen at the end of this chapter), without the journey to Jerusalem, and without Jesus’ own death on a cross. Sounds nice, doesn’t it? Yet as Jesus well knows, the problem is: by creating bread for himself, by turning to the devil for earthly authority, by “testing” God’s word by throwing himself off the pinnacle of the Temple, Jesus would put his trust in the wrong places. He would be putting his trust, not just in the devil, but in earthly conceptions of power, wrapped up in domination and control.

Today, Jesus clearly rejects the devil’s temptation and, thus, he rejects the idea that Jesus’ work in the world is easy. Today, Jesus rejects that the ways of this world are the means for Christ’s work in the world. It is a strong and powerful “no” to the ways of the world and to the kind of power and authority of this world. It is a “no” to dominating power, “no” controlling power, “no” to power given by anyone but God. In short, it is a rejection of the theology of glory. It is a tempting path to go down. It sounds good. It promises power, riches, and might. The way of the theology of glory is a way paved with empty promises and self-serving ways of moving about the world. Yet, Jesus knows that these promises made by the devil are not the way that leads to God’s glory. Jesus trusts that God’s plan is one of faithful, humble, service not one of self-serving and self-preserving power.

The difficult thing today is how to bring today’s text into something that means something for us today. It is all too easy to turn this text into a moralistic sermon: “you ought to follow Jesus’ example and not fall into temptation.” But is that really the point? Is that the point of Jesus? Is Jesus just a really great guy that we are to mimic? We know that we cannot meet Jesus’ example today. Every Sunday (and hopefully more often throughout the week) we pray together, asking God to “lead us not into temptation.” As Luther tells us in the Small Catechism, when we pray this part of the prayer we acknowledge that “It is true that God tempts no one, but we ask in this prayer that God would preserve and keep us, so that the devil, the world, and our flesh may not deceive us or mislead us into false belief, despair, and other great shame and vice, and that, although we may be attacked by them, we may finally prevail and gain the victory.” This is well, good, and necessary. But if that’s all this text is pointing to, I’m left a bit frustrated, if I’m honest. Because I know that I cannot match Jesus, I’m confronted only by the law and only by my sin. While we all have trust in God, while we all have times when we’re wooed into God’s vision of the Kingdom, we all, at times, are wooed into the ways of the world, and I would guess that none of us fully trust God with everything as we should.

So where can we go from here? The good news today, beyond that the Devil’s attempts to foster mistrust fail today, is that Jesus isn’t satisfied with the easy answers or the easy path. How could we proclaim a God in Christ that is in solidarity with humanity if he chose to avoid the difficulties of human life? How could we proclaim a God in Christ that brings about a new Kingdom of God, if Jesus fell into the kinds of power and rule that marks this world as it is? Today, we see that, instead of separating himself, Jesus is committed to dwelling with us and walking among us. Today, we see that Jesus is called to take the hard road for the sake of humanity. Today, we see power marked, not by dominating over, but by resisting the temptations of this world as it is. Today, we see that Jesus will risk anything - even the journey to Jerusalem and to the cross - to show God’s love to humanity.

Thanks be to God for that.

Amen.