The Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser
Temptations: Seeking Worth in All the Wrong Places
Mar 1, 2020 Lent 1A
Welcome to the first Sunday in
Lent.
These weeks leading up to Holy Week
are traditionally a time of introspection, prayer, confession, examination of
our spiritual commitments to God, and pondering the obedience and self-giving
of Jesus our Christ. Traditionally, it’s
been a time of taking on a sacrifice ourselves- a partial fast, or giving up
something to experience perhaps just a little of what Jesus experienced in the
desert. Jesus’ time in the desert
reminds me of the Native American Vision Quest, where a person goes to a
deserted place to fast and pray some days, seeking a vision to guide them. I’ve seen pictures from Native American
artists showing Christ on a vision quest, with prayer flags, dream catcher and
sage. It's interesting that Buddhism
also has Sidhartta Gautama enduring three similar temptations as he sat under
the bodhi tree, before he found enlightenment and became the Buddha. There’s some good articles online about that
if you want to look them up.
According to our Holy Writings,
God’s Spirit leads Jesus into this wilderness experience between his baptism
and the beginning of his ministry. It's
this time of testing that gives Jesus the strength of his call, this vision of
who he is and what he’s to do, and the strength to endure and understand.
I see a theme of temptation in the
Scriptures of the next weeks, so we will be looking at those things that can
derail our spiritual lives in the next weeks.
So today let’s look and ponder together the nature of those temptations
or tests that Jesus faced. Like much Scripture, they sound literal, but when we
think of them, they become something much deeper.
Jesus’ first temptation, that of making
bread when he was obviously very hungry, represents the way bodily desires,
although good and made by God, can also get in the way of seeking the spiritual
life; especially when seeking them becomes our purpose instead of seeking God.
These material things become our security instead of security in God; we
mistake our security and worth as found in these things rather than finding our
security and worth in God. We wouldn’t
have to be total hedonists to have bought into the idea that the meaning of
life is found money and things, or to mistake the seeking of these things to
replace the seeking of God.
Social scientists tell us that
commercials have changed in the last decades, from telling us that their
product is good & better than other products, to telling us our lives will
be fulfilled & meaningful with their product. They’re not so much selling us a reliable car
and good service, as they are selling us a view of ourselves as cool and slick
and a babe magnet if we buy their car.
They don’t so much sell us a floor cleaner that gets up the crud in the
cracks and corners, as they do sell us a view of ourselves as a competent and
attractive woman who uses their product and has a full life, a nice house, nice
clothes, a handsome spouse and cute kids.
Otherwise we are empty losers at life, and insignificant in the
universe.
What???? And people buy it!!! That using x or y product will fill our deep
spiritual desire for worth, meaning and value.
If we think about it, we know we can’t ever satisfy spiritual hungers
with material goods. Affluence is not
the answer to spiritual desires. But
it’s all around us and we sink into this way of thinking rather
unconsciously. It's an easy answer, more
alluring than the discipline of a spiritual journey. A writer I admire went so far as to call
malls our new American temples, where we gather and do things together, and
give our money - in hopes that we will be seen as worthy and our lives seen as
important and good. It sounds ridiculous
when I put it like this, doesn’t it?
Yet, yet, how much does that cool new gadget or bigger TV or updated
computer or a new “look” in clothing, or a bigger car or house - how much have
these things taken over our brains and desires, our use of money? Even if we have to go into debt? Advertisers are good at manipulating us - it
works- it sells.
My personal opinion is that the lure
of affluence is a major failing in America. I think it has sidetracked our
culture, and led to a wider gap between the haves and the have nots, and made
it almost a moral or ethical sin to be poor.
It sidetracks much of our spiritual desire for God. Not that good food and good relationships are
bad, not that hoping for a good family and nice things is bad - God’s creation
is good. It's just not the answer to a spiritual need, and it’s not a
substitute for seeking God.
The second temptation Jesus faces, testing God by throwing
himself off a high place and forcing God to catch him, is harder to parse for
me. It has something to do with a rather
simplistic and “proof-texting” use of Scripture, like You said the angels would
catch me, so prove it! Testing God, and
with a simplistic understanding of Scripture.
Perhaps, even more, trying to manipulate God.
One of my fave stories on my
daughter is from when she was 3 or 4, and learning her powers. She came up to me and began stroking my hair,
telling me I’m such a good mommy, the best mommy, and so pretty, such nice
hair. So now can she have roller blades? I broke up laughing - she was SO obvious in her manipulation. She
got better as she got older….trying to make me do what she wanted, especially
as a way to see if I loved her more than the boys. Everything was a test. Who did I love most? I worked to make her know how much she was
loved and to trust my love - and I resisted the attempts to manipulate me. If she didn’t trust my love, I couldn’t prove
it. And my love for her didn’t mean I
would always do what she wanted.
I wonder if this temptation isn’t a
similar thing between us and God. The Tempter says to Jesus, IF you are the son
of God, make God do what this Scripture says for you! Jesus evidently sees through the ruse, and
refuses to test God’s love, or his own worth to God. Jesus rests securely in the knowledge of God’
love without framing it as a test and a manipulation. We can fall into that, though - it’s
subtle. I prayed for a bike and didn’t
get it - I’m not important to God like my friend who DID get a bike. We all went snowboarding - why was I the one
that hit a tree and have to recover for years? I prayed for my dad to live and
he died - my friend’s dad recovered from his cancer - God must love him more,
and not love me. I prayed to get that
job and didn’t. And they hired a jerk -
I was better than him! Where was God’s
justice? Like we are insecure in God’s
love unless we can cause God to do what we want. Like my daughter eventually
grew into a more mature understanding of my love, we also have to wrestle with
our misunderstanding of God’s love until we rest in it like Jesus did.
We Christ-followers are not immune
to having things happen to us. I had two
infants who were born very ill - I prayed for them both - one died, one
lived. God was with me during my grief
and anger over the loss, through the pain in my family. I asked God some hard questions at the time,
yet God didn’t leave me. We came through
it - yes I was changed, more insightful, it took a lot of wrestling, and good
friends to hear me out.
Jesus’ third temptation was the temptation of the power to
make the world as he wanted it, with his own influence and power over people
and events. The temptation to be a dictator, to establish a powerful kingdom
that could wipe out those who disagreed, the power perhaps of outlawing any
dissenting voice or calling it fake news. Taking away individual’s rights and
choices, repressing whole populations who disagree. Political power, military
power, power over - power over whatever and whoever. It’s interesting that the Tempter can promise
to give this to Jesus, IF Jesus turns aside from what he knows of God and follows after the ways of the Tempter;
instead of following the way of love, which is the way of God. Carl Jung and others after him have said that
the will to power is the opposite of love.
Not hate, but the will to power, power-over. It reminds me of the saying that power
corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Seeking to live according to God’s
power of love has so much less of the ego in it, so much less of the
recognition and acclaim. The power of love sets aside the ego. God’s power of love, that Jesus lived into,
is shown in this communion meal we partook earlier - a willingness to set aside
and not be fooled by the shallower promises of affluence, power or
manipulation. God’s power is love, and a
love that is willing to lay down its life for a friend. A love that trusts, that knows its own worth,
that willingly places its faith in God’s hands no matter what happens. A love that doesn’t insist on its own way, a
love that never loses hope.
Nobody ever said that faith was for
sissies. Living according to God, living
in faith and trust, demands a wrestling and a struggle with temptations that
are sometimes overt, yet often subtle.
We can fool ourselves so easily; it takes great strength and courage to
rightly examine our motives and incentives, and still choose the way of
God. May the Spirit of God fill us and
move us as we seek to live ever more in faith.
AMEN.
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