Sermons
25th Feb 2007 - Lent 1
Oscar Wilde said he could resist anything…except temptation, and as so often with that deeply troubled man, there is a profound truth that lies beneath the flippant words. Temptations are almost by definition attractive, difficult to resist, captivating, even consuming. Temptation offers a vision of the possible, an alternative path that could be taken but shouldn’t be taken. Temptation says, ‘here I am, go on, be a devil’. And temptations are always close at hand, well known to us, they are revisited time and again. If I ask you to bring into your mind what tempts you, there won’t be a person here who has to think for long. What are the things that tempt you, what is the captivating alternative path that you shouldn’t take but often travel down in your mind?
Today’s gospel has temptation as its central theme and it points us towards a Christian understanding of how we might decline temptation’s invitation, how we might allow ourselves to be formed by God’s call to us, even though we are surrounded by alternative visions of how we might live our lives.
The time Jesus spent in the desert was a time in which he allowed himself to be formed by God whilst surrounded by alternative visions. The devil offers him three apparently easy paths to follow, a path of physical satisfaction, a path of domination of others, and a path of pride. Most of our own temptations will fall into one of these three areas, physical satisfaction, domination, and pride.
And the devil is rather smart in this gospel story, his attacks are subtle and very well aimed. Following on from the divine voice declaring at Jesus’ baptism ‘You are my Son’, the devil begins his attack by planting a seed of doubt in Jesus’ mind…‘If you are the Son of God…then do this, and do that, prove this identity you are claiming’. And each temptation is to substitute the good for the best, each has an apparent benefit.
So, to provide bread is good, was not the Messianic age to be one of feasting? Shouldn’t the Messiah be providing bread for his people and for himself and why not add in some divine magic as well, turn this stone into bread. But Jesus replies that we do not live by bread alone, to strip a human down to his or her basic needs only, to give priority to our physical satisfaction, is to miss the point completely about what it is to be a human being, to be in the unique position within creation of being able to respond to God’s invitation, to respond to the possibilities of relationship with God. Jesus says we are more than eating and reproducing machines, more than animals.
Next, the devil offers Jesus the kingdoms of the world for the price of a little devil-worship. Wouldn’t it be easy to set up the world wide mission of the kingdom from Caesar’s throne? How simple the promotion of the kingdom would be with all the powers of the world on-side. But this kingdom that is coming in with Jesus is not one of domination, no-one will be forced into it, the ways in which power are exercised in this world are not those of the kingdom, the throne Jesus will ascend is to be the cross, where he will appear to all the world as a defeated king, mocked and scorned by those who pass by, and yet enthroned in the hearts of those who believe in him.
But if faith is everything to this King, why not compel people to believe in him by an extravagant display of divine power. Why not cast yourself from the pinnacle of the temple and force God to sweep you up at the last moment, then everyone will believe that you are the Son of God, the one with power to work wonders. And this is the most subtle attack because surely the radical obedience of the Son to the Father is rather like this blind leap, surely this would show how much Jesus trusts the Father, the devil encourages him to step out into thin air to demonstrate his own trust in God and to be a demonstration of that trust for others. But that step would be a step of pride, it would force God’s hand, it would be to test God and therefore display the opposite of trust in him.
In each of Jesus’ temptations we can learn a pattern of declining the invitation of an alternative vision and learn the ways in which we can resist pride, resist reducing ourselves to being mere consumers, and resist the desire to dominate others. If you go back to those things which tempt you will probably find that they fall into one of those categories, physical satisfaction, domination, and pride. Each time Jesus responds to temptation by saying ‘there is more to it than that’, ‘there is more to being human than that’, ‘there is more to being formed by God’. In Christian life there is always more, hold on to that when temptation comes knocking and you might find the devil defeated for a time, you might find you can resist everything, including temptation.