Episcopal Church of the
Incarnation
The First Sunday in Lent (A)
Genesis
2.15-17; 3.1-7 Psalm 32 Romans
5.12-19 Matthew 4.1-11
May the Lord be in my mind, on my lips, and in my heart, that
I may rightly and truly proclaim His holy Word. Amen.
Temptation. Now there’s a word we’re all familiar
with. More importantly, we’re all
familiar with how temptation feels.
To be tempted is an internal, personal phenomenon.
In Matthew’s account of the devil’s
temptation of Jesus, Matthew tries to let us experience what is going on. He tries to do this by describing what Satan
offers and how Jesus replies to each offer.
This doesn’t really tell us if Jesus is tempted; simply how He
dismisses each temptation.
What Satan offers first is for Jesus
to turn stones into bread; in other words, for Him to ignore the order of
Creation to satisfy His own immediate hunger.
Then he tempts Him to demonstrate greatness, and finally he offers the
power and glory of the world. Now, you
would think that Satan, who is familiar with the heavenly court, would
understand that the glory of the world is as
nothing compared to the glory of heaven, but what is really interesting
here is that the devil acts as though worldly power and splendor is his to
give. “All these I will give you, if you
fall down and worship me.” That’s enough
for Jesus, who at this point dismisses the devil, “Away with you, Satan!”
Jesus knows what temptation is. He knows the feeling that rises when He is
hungry and offered bread, but in each case He replies to the devil by quoting
Scripture; by quoting Scripture which describes God’s will. In other words, Jesus addresses temptation by
identifying the difference between what is offered or desired and what God
wills.
In effect the exchange between the
devil and Jesus is a study in the Great Command-ment. You remember the Great Commandment: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul,
and with all your mind ...” When Satan
tempts Jesus with bread, he’s saying, “Ignore God’s will”–in other words, don’t
love God with all your heart. When he
tempts Jesus with greatness, he’s saying “Make God prove Himself”–in other
words, don’t give your soul to God. And
when he offers the riches of the world in exchange for worship, he’s saying
“Worship me. Let your mind exchange the
infinite greatness of God for something that your mind can grasp.”
The devil still offers these
temptations to every one of us, every day.
The devil still offers something that may be good in itself–bread, for
example–and still makes all offers sound both attractive and reasonable
(quoting Scripture when he needs to).
The temptation is to not love God with a unified being–heart and
soul and mind–even at the risk of life or cost of wealth. In striving against this temptation we can do
no better than to remember what our Lord did.
He didn’t argue with Satan, telling him how and why he was wrong. He certainly didn’t bargain, questioning what
was really on offer and what strings might be attached. He simply pointed to God’s will, and in doing
so pointed to the difference between what was on offer and what God intends.
So here we are in Lent, a season in
which we call to mind our own fallenness.
We call to mind our sins and our sinfulness, and seek–with God’s help–to
make a pilgrimage back to the relationship with God to which He calls us. This pilgrimage involves recognizing the gaps
in our own lives between what we grasp after and what God calls us to; of
walking in the Way of Jesus to find our way back to the Lord. We do this in worship, in how we follow
Jesus’ own walk to the consummation of God’s will on the Cross. We do this in our daily lives, by focusing on
some personal discipline that will allow us to put some of the temptations on
offer in perspective.
It
used to be common to give something up for Lent; now it is equally common that
we take on an additional devotion.
Either works, although I personally think that the old idea of
renunciation, of spiritual fasting, is more useful, because it allows us to
focus on the temptation to ignore our fast and satisfy the desire we otherwise
have. Renunciation involves denial of
self; it involves taking up our cross daily, to follow Jesus. Regardless of which approach you take, take
one. Make Lent something more than just
a season where we act a little more solemn.
Focus on the fact that in all things we are dependent of God, in all the
ways in which we pray His protection in The Great Litany with which we
began this service and this season.
Focus on God’s will, and how you
can align your own will with His.
God’s
will. That’s what Jesus focused on, even
when faced with the Cross. He didn’t
argue with the devil in the wilderness.
He didn’t say how or why what Satan had on offer was not the supreme
good. He simply pointed to the supreme
good, what God wills, and the devil had no real answer to that. You see, the devil will always offer
something which in and of itself is not a bad thing. Money and power are not in themselves evil,
but when we desire them more than God, when we desire to satisfy our own
hungers–even when a hunger is legitimate–at the expense of our hunger for God,
then we violate God’s will.
In
Lent we try to focus more on God’s will.
We try to identify all the ways in which we stray from His will, repent
of this wandering, and fix ourselves again on His path. In giving something up we allow temptation to
be an issue. And why would we do
this? Let’s look again at what Jesus is
up to in the wilderness. He’s led
into the wilderness by the Spirit, and what for? Matthew tells us that the Spirit leads Jesus
into the wilderness “to be tempted by the devil.” To be tempted. Having been baptized, Jesus is now given a
time in which to prepare for His public ministry, His doing of the work the
Father has given Him to do.
We
have work to do as well. In all that God
calls us to do in this world, in all the ways in which He seeks to work His
will using us as His hands, strong backs, eyes and ears, we need to be able to
do His will rather than substitute our own.
We need to be able to deny ourselves, that in this denial we can seek
always to align ourselves with God’s will, and to do that we need a time in
which we can be honest with ourselves and with God, calling to mind where we
have failed and asking God to help us to serve Him better. That’s what Lent is about: self-examination, repentance, penitence.
Notice
that in all the temptations offered by Satan to Jesus there’s always the element
of self-justification. “If you
are the Son of God ...;” in other words, “assert yourself.” In all of the temptations which we are
offered today there is the same element, the element which subtly pleads that
we are somehow special, that our own self-actualization is part of the plan of
creation. And our answer has to be the
same: not what we want, not even
protestations of our love of God, but simply to point to what God wills.
And
how do we determine what God wills?
Well, He’s given us many forms of guidance. In Lent we focus again upon the study of
Scripture, that God’s will can be better revealed to us. In Lent we focus again on prayer, seeking
that the Holy Spirit may guide us. In
Lent we focus on trying to get ourselves out of the way, that our path may be
made clear to us by the Lord. In Lent we
focus on our failures and pray God’s forgiveness, and that He may strengthen us
to better identify and follow His way, to do His will. In other words, if we keep our focus on
trying to see what God wants and then trying to do it, we’ll best deal with the
temptations offered us each day by the tempter.
We won’t try to wrestle with temptation, trying to pick out the good in
what is on offer. Instead, we’ll know
that the answer to temptation is as simple as the answers given by Jesus to
Satan. It’s not about what’s on
offer. It’s not about what I want or
dream about. It’s not about what I can
argue is going to make me a better person.
It’s about what God wills; what He wants me to do. If I accept what’s on offer and do it, does
my action express my love of God and my neighbor? If it does, then–thanks be to God–I should do
it; I’m called to do it. But if it
doesn’t, then I need to say “Away with you!” and pray to God to guide me and to
give me the strength to do His will.
That’s
Lent. That’s all our pilgrimage. It’s focusing on the love of God, to say
“Away with you!” to all else, that in the words of the Collect we may each find
our Lord “mighty to save”.
In the Name of
the Father, and of the Son,
and of the Holy
Ghost. Amen.