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A Sermon Preached by

The Rev. Paul Debenport

March 14, 2010

          Temptation is my theme this Lent, and this is my third sermon on this often ignored, but critical spiritual issue.  I’ve noted that temptation to evil is real for each and every human, because evil is real, both within and without us.  So, based on the work of theologian Diogenes Allen of Princeton Seminary[1], I’m exploring the three temptations that Jesus was led to face at the beginning of his ministry as temptations we all struggle with and must seek to conquer over and over again, if we are to become more faithful followers of Jesus.  Learning better to renounce and reject them is a way of become more like who God created and calls us to be—becoming both more and more free of the burden of evil in our lives and becoming more and more full of charity and love for other as God wills.

          We’ll view these temptations on two levels:  what they uniquely mean for Jesus’ life and calling and what they mean for us in our lives and callings.  Remember that Jesus has free will here and is really tempted as we are.  But his deeper issue is “what kind of Messiah would he be?”  What kind of salvation and by what means would he accomplish it?   If Jesus had yielded to these temptations, the power of evil would not have been broken.  The Tempter would have triumphed. 

          For us, of course, the issues are not as ultimate, but are still quite critical.  For us, better identifying and renouncing these three temptations will determine to a great degree if we will hear and heed our callings from God, will determine what kind of lives we will lead, and will greatly influence our experience of the fullness of God’s kingdom on earth as in heaven.  So these temptations must be named and countered, including this first temptation to “turn stones into loaves of bread.”  Much more than bread is at stake here, our whole relationship to the physical world and its goodness is the issue.

Hear God’s Word to us from Matthew 4: 1—4:

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.  He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished.  The tempter came and said

 to him, “If you are the Son of god, command these stones to become loaves of bread.”

But Jesus answered, “It is written, `One does not live by bread alone,

but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

The Word of the Lord.  Thanks be to God.

+     +     +

          “He jumped from the Golden Gate Bridge to his death,” was the troubling lead sentence of an article in a major news magazine.  It went on to say that the man’s family was profoundly puzzled over why this man would kill himself, for he seemed to have everything:  a loving family, good friends, health, a very lucrative job—hence, all the money and the things that money could buy.  “Why?”  Why would such a successful, 53 year old do such a thing?

          Probably—the article went on to assert—because he was suffering from what some psychologists call “Winners’ Blues”—a name for what happens to some very task oriented, successful people who seem to be on top of everything, but who inwardly feel deeply dissatisfied and profoundly empty.  A side bar to the article listed the symptoms and steps a person can take to reverse the despair.  But only the very last of the dozen helpful steps listed was:  “consult a clergyperson.”  This was the only hint that that there could be a spiritual issue hiding under the depression.  We sometimes hear of similar, if less drastic outcomes, of people who win mega millions in the lottery.  Often, it seems, their lives get worse, not better.  But don’t we have to admit that when we hear these stories, there’s something in us that at least thinks, “Well, I wish I had such success problems.  I wouldn’t let it get me down”?

          But the truth is that often the same thing does get us down, for the deep down truth in all of us is that: “we can’t live by bread alone”; we can’t live by work alone; by “stuff” alone, no matter how much more and more we strive to accumulate it.  In us is a deep craving for something “more,” some deeper need in us that’s hard to recognize, thus easily diverted to the more tangible glitz and glitter dangled before us.  Often we shift our deepest hunger for “more” to craving more money, more success, more stuff, more “bread” in order to fill our emptiness.

          Jesus’ temptation was the same as our, plus some.  Would he be the kind of messiah that met his needs and the needs of others by miraculous, magical means?  That would satisfy his needs and would attract masses of fans if not followers.  And Jesus clearly cared deeply for the physical needs of people, especially the need for food, clothing and shelter of the poor and oppressed all around him.  His teachings and his actions on their behalf later attest to this.  His other temptation here was just to reject the things of this world and to withdraw completely from it.  He chose a more difficult way that both embraces our need for bread and the things of this world, but that we also have deeper needs.

          In renouncing the Tempter here, Jesus is not calling people to deny the world or to withdraw from the world or to forsake as evil material goods to become some kind of religious ascetics.  Jesus himself said, “Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.”  But in renouncing this temptation Jesus helps us recognize that all this world’s goods are not able to satisfy us, that, indeed, we “cannot live by bread alone.”

Let me quickly add that Jesus is not saying that being poor and hungry is good and being rich and successful is bad.  No, his renunciation here is to make clear the basic truth about us all:  that the very goodness of the material world causes us to underestimate and undervalue our deeper, non-material needs.  When Jesus later proclaimed that “It is more difficult for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle,” he was not condemning riches, but just warning us about a basic, human reality—that the material goods of this world are so seductive, so captivating, so capable of overtaking and perverting our time and values that they easily obscure and distract us from our deeper and more profound needs, which are to learn to trust God and God’s grace and to be more charitable and loving to other people.  This emptiness in us, this hunger for more is not really about needing more money or power or whatever, but about discovering who we really are and what we are created to be, that: we are God’s; we are God’s beloved creatures, physical being, with physical, material needs.  But that we are also “more.”

We are also spiritual creatures, created in the image of God.  And just because we have material needs—which are good needs—does not mean that material needs are all we need.  For we are also made for more—far more than the things of this world.  We are made for God and God’s love, which is sufficient, abundant, fully capable of filling our emptiness.  We hunger for righteousness, meaning rightness with God and other people.  We are created and called to trust and live from Christ’s promise that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness “will be fed.”  St. Augustine’s famous prayer says this ever so succinctly:  “Our hearts are restless until they find rest in thee.”

+     +     +

          A true story told to me late in this person’s life:  He grew up in a lower-middle class, quite pleasant household, never really lacking for anything, really, but what extra money there was went into the family business.  Except at Christmas.  At Christmas the boy received gifts upon gifts; large gifts, small gifts, always lots of gifts.  Most everything that a young boy desired.  This continued and even increased as the family’s income increased well into the boy’s adulthood.  But starting very young in this process, long before he could name it, there was always a let down on Christmas night and beyond.  Later he just called it an aching emptiness.  What more could he want?  The emptiness did point to something that the gifts didn’t satiate.  But more what?  Years later he got it and realized he didn’t need more stuff and the emptiness began to disappear.  In its place were not more things; in its place was more love:  a filling by God’s love, the unconditional love from others, and by learning better able to love others, which was and is, he learned, the love from God’s Word in Christ.  Yes, he could “not live by bread alone, but by every Word that comes from the mouth of God.”  And he did.  And does.  And shall.  And so can we.

Thanks be God.  Amen.