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The First Sunday of Lent Feb. 10, 2008In the season of Lent, which we began a few days ago with Ash Wednesday, we are invited to deal with some of the temptations in our life. The two main stories in scripture today are about temptation, of course.
Both stories offer very tempting lies, lies that we sometimes live by, lies that have harmful consequences. But by contrast, they also provide a very simple and profound truth, and it is this:
There is a spiritual dimension to life;
it will forever be mysterious and beyond our control;
but it is the only thing that satisfies.
In the first temptation of Christ in the wilderness the deceiver, as the devil is also known, offers the lie of materialism. He says to Jesus Look, you’re hungry. It’s a hungry world. Turn these stones into bread and feed everybody. You want to know how to do God’s will in this world?
Is that what you’re out here trying to discern, after your baptism? It’s easy. Use your power to make the world a better place. Food, jobs, houses, prosperity, freedom from the Romans: these are the things that matter, aren’t they? Put your energies there. You can make it all happen.
To which Jesus replies It is written, “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” The deceiver says that the material world is all that matters. Jesus says that there is a spiritual dimension to life, and it matters more than anything.
Two or three times a year I go to visit my mother, back to where I grew up: the San Francisco Bay Area. As much as I love it, I frequently feel a deep sadness when I’m there, a kind of soul-sickness. I look around and all I see is shiny, aggressive materialism.
Everything has to be the absolute best: the best coffee, food, and wine; the best car, interior design and landscaping; the best stores, culture, and entertainment; the best vacation destinations, and the best in personal grooming. And if you live in this world, if you devote yourself exclusively to it, you are promised security, peace of mind, and joy. What you get, in fact, is nothing but anxiety, and a hunger for more things to fill the emptiness inside. This is the same lie that network television promotes. It is the lie of American consumerism.
But this lie is not limited to consumerism. We really believe that if the difficult person in our office would just stop being difficult, if we had a little more free time or money, if our health were better, if things were the way we want them to be, then we could be happy.
This is a form of materialism, because it places our total trust in external realities, and it never delivers. It is a lie. Living like this, we allow ourselves to be jerked up and down, up and down, depending on how things are going for us.
To this Jesus responds One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. He says, in effect, there is a spiritual dimension to life. God is. The Spirit is. We are spiritual beings. When we open our heart in prayer, we release spiritual energy, wisdom, and love that is always there, just beneath the surface of things.
I have learned (the hard way, of course) how easy and how critical it is to pray my way through the day. When I open my mind and my heart to the Spirit and ask for guidance so that I can prepare a sermon, visit someone who is deathly ill, navigate my way through a potential mine field among staff or parishioners, or try to figure out how to raise enough money to do what we do, it is amazing what happens.
Ideas come. The right people show up. Enough money is given. I’m centered enough to handle what is before me in a more gracious way.
When we live knowing that there is a spiritual dimension to life, when we open our mind and heart to this reality, we enter the current of the Spirit, and it always takes us to good places. As Jesus said Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you (Matthew 7:7). As St. Paul said Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances (1 Thessalonians 5:16-22).
The second temptation of the deceiver was this: [He] took [Jesus] to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you.’” Essentially, the temptation was to believe only in a God who behaves according to our expectations. To this Jesus replied Again it is written, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”
In the last year, I took two graduate classes at UNM, and it was surprising to me to see just how intellectually unfashionable belief in God has become. Many times students spoke condescendingly, making fun of the fairy tale of a magic, invisible, divine being: “Nobody is going to step in and save you or make the world better. That’s a fantasy. If there were a God, he or she would be more obvious, and the world would be a different place.”
Atheists are not the only ones who demand that God behave according to our expectations in order for us to give permission for God to exist. We do it all the time.
We doubt because we can’t figure out why God allows bad things to happen; we get confused when we’re trying our best to be faithful and things don’t work out the way we want them to; we don’t know why we often feel so distant from God. We want God to behave on our terms, to be the kind of God that we want - our faith can even become contingent upon this self-centered proof when we aren’t willing to consider anything else.
Do not put the Lord your God to the test, Jesus said. Do not try to reduce God to what you can conceive or approve of. Allow God to be both very real to you and beyond your comprehension. And so the second part of the truth given to us today is this: the spiritual dimension to life will forever be mysterious, and beyond our control.
Faith asks us to trust in someone who gives no guarantees, no crystal ball, no plan. It’s like that scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark where our intrepid hero, hotly pursued by the enemy, steps out on a narrow ledge over a great chasm. The only way is forward. His secret map tells him that there is an invisible bridge there that will only appear if he steps on it. He risks it all, and escapes. We, too, are asked to place our trust in something that cannot be proven, and is beyond our control.
Which brings us, finally, to the last temptation. This one is found in both the gospel and the Hebrew story of the Garden of Eden. It is the temptation to be entirely self-sufficient, and not place our trust in the Spirit of God.
The snake in the garden - and by the way it doesn’t say that this is the devil, just a talking snake - says to Eve If you eat the fruit from the tree, you won’t die; you’ll become like God, knowing good and evil. Well, what’s so bad about knowing good and evil? Aren’t we supposed to discern between them, to seek wisdom?
The problem is when we rely only upon our own power to make every decision, to discern our own way through every problem. The problem is when we think that we are free to make up our own mind, based upon our fears, our politics, what our friends or the guy on the radio says, with no consideration of God’s higher authority, no thought about what the scriptures say.
We forget that we are marked as Christ’s own forever in baptism, and we make decisions based upon considerations that have nothing to do with what Jesus asks of us. The lie is this: If you eat the fruit from the tree, you won’t die; you’ll become like God, knowing good and evil.
In whom shall we place our trust? God wanted Adam and Eve to be naked, vulnerable, in that garden, to rely upon God for everything. Jesus said Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him. Our call is to learn how to place all our trust in God and Christ’s ways and to live accordingly.
We do this by immersing ourselves in the scriptures, in the faith community, and in prayer, listening carefully, and then acting on what we hear. As Jesus said Blessed are those who hear the word of God and obey it! If we worship God and serve Christ’s ways, we will not be disappointed. God will lead us into peace, righteousness and truth. And so the third part of scripture’s message to us today is that reliance upon God is the only thing that satisfies.
On this first Sunday of Lent, we are asked to consider what temptations, what lies we tend to believe in but which will never deliver: materialism, the demand that God be what we expect, and self-sufficiency. And by contrast, we are also reminded of the truth that will never fail us:
There is a spiritual dimension to life;
it will forever be mysterious and beyond our control;
but it is the only thing that satisfies.
End Document — St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church