Text: Deuteronomy:26:1-11; Psalm 91 (P. 810-811); I Corinthians 10:1-13; Luke 4:1-13
Title: Blindsided By Temptation
Question: What chemical element “interferes with cellular longevity by allosteric inhibition of an essential metabolic enzyme pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH) complex, which catalyzes the oxidation of pyruvate to acetyl coenzyme A (acetyl-CoA) by nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide NAD+”?
Answer: Arsenic. Arsenic can kill you slowly over a period of time, or very quickly, depending on the intensity of one’s exposure to it.
When Matthew tells us about the temptation of Jesus he says that Jesus fasted for forty days and nights, and after having done so, the tempter came to him …[1]
The way Luke tells the story, Jesus was in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil …[2]
Matthew suggests a temptation that was acute; Luke’s telling suggests the temptation was chronic.
Physically, we can die as a result of being poisoned a little bit at a time over a long period of time. Or we can die quickly for having been exposed to one lethal dose.
Our spiritual lives are not unlike our physical ones in this regard; and how we recognize and deal with spiritually poisonous temptation is not unlike how we deal with exposure to poisons physically.
Arsenic occurs naturally. So does temptation. Arsenic is in many metals. It is used to make semiconductors, car batteries and pesticides. Temptations are ubiquitous, sometimes hiding in things we’ve come to depend on.
There are three reasons offered for this story of the temptation of Jesus:
First, some say that he experienced what we all experience – temptations around issues of food, power, and the desire to have some special “in” with God.
Another reason offered has to do with Jesus and his own crystallization of his ministry. He needed to experience this time so as to prepare him and confirm within himself his call to this messianic mission.
And the third reason has to do with a demonstration – not so much for the devil’s benefit, but for ours – defining the kind of “Messiah” Jesus was going to be. There would be no magic for the purpose of self-aggrandizement. Jesus didn’t come so much to impress us as to save us.
It’s not uncommon for sermons on this text to focus on the three specific temptations – food, power, and the “in” with God. But let’s digress from that pattern, and focus instead on these three interpretive approaches to the larger story.
We can relate to the desire for power, influence, and some way to insure that we will never experience ‘want’ for life’s necessities. The author of Hebrews says that Christ had to be made like [us], even in temptation, so that he is able to help those who are being tempted.[3] In other words, Jesus can relate to our reality. And that is precisely why we can relate to his saving work. The “Temptation Story” puts Jesus squarely in our corner, vulnerable as we are.
Every commercial, every marketing ploy, every appeal to our perceived wants or needs are like the spiritual arsenic of life. If we don’t maintain some level of consciousness, of mindfulness in the midst of it all, we can be submitting to temptations of all sorts in small doses, with the spiritual result that we don’t realize how spiritually impotent we have become until a crisis hits us.
So that’s the first interpretation – that Jesus is like us in our temptation.
The second interpretation sees the temptation as being necessary for Jesus to discover his true identity, his raison d’etre. One doesn’t have to live very long before we begin to face aspects of life that require work, effort. Situations that seem to impose themselves on us whether we want them to or not can become defining moments in our self-discovery.
When I entered ministry in the United Methodist Church I learned something about myself. While this isn’t exactly a ‘temptation’, it would qualify as a ‘test’. It is understood that when one becomes an ordained “Elder” in this denomination, one enters into an agreement – a covenant – which says I will itinerate. I will move as the bishop and cabinet see fit to move me. In theory I was OK with that. But when we moved from our first parish, having served there nine years, having birthed our third child there, having become friends with the families whose children had tracked their way through elementary, middle and junior high school with our two older children, I experienced the emotional tearing that comes with uprooting one’s family, one’s life as it were, and going somewhere else to start all over. I learned that, while the spirit might have been willing, my flesh and my emotions railed against that expectation. Having lived with this system for 30 years and sunk roots and then pulled them up again four times, Jan and I have had to learn to listen hard, to recognize the truth about ourselves, to discern when to “go”, and when to say “No”, realizing that ours was not the ‘final say’ in the matter. In our hearts we wanted to say: Jesus, we will go anywhere for you. But we had to learn to be honest in realizing and accepting our desire for “Home”, friendships that could endure, a living commitment to a specific place.
Over the decades of living in this situation, I have learned important things about who I am, who I believe God has called me to be, and how to navigate the distance between the two – a distance that is sometimes a minor crack and other times a major chasm.
Paul writes to the Christians in Corinth and reminds them of the people of Israel in the wilderness. They succumbed to gluttony; they bowed to the temptation to make something other than Yahweh their God – Paul called them out for their idolatry and immorality. They gave in to every temptation, perhaps not all at once, but little by little until, over time, he says, it cost them their lives.
“Arsenic” in small, continuous doses is just as deadly as one massive infusion.
But the thrust of this second interpretation has to do with what the Children of Israel missed, according to Paul. The temptations they succumbed to have meaning in that they stand as examples to us as followers of Jesus. We are called to take heed lest our insistence on always having what we want takes us away from the identity we were created to live in to. So, writes St. Paul, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall. “Temptations” can break our pride; they can also help us discover strengths we never knew we had.
Jesus moves through the temptation, says this interpretation, such that he emerges with clarity about his identity. He will exit the wilderness certain that the Spirit of the Lord is upon him, and has anointed him to proclaim good news to the poor, freedom for prisoners, sight for the blind, liberation for the oppressed, and the arrival of the ‘year of the Lord’s favor’.[4] Temptation helped Jesus know for sure who he was. Who are you?
The third interpretation takes us into the realm of what the “Messiah” would do. Or, perhaps a better way of looking at it would be to say we get a glimpse of who the Messiah would be. Somehow, Jesus sees his ministry is to feed the hungry, not to personally eradicate world hunger. He would give sight to the blind, but more importantly he would lead people to the light of God’s love for them. In his resistance to acquire what the authority and splendor of the kingdoms of the world had to offer, he telescopes the moment he will stand before the epitome of worldly power, splendor and authority as personified in Pilate, the Roman Prefect. The Gospels tell us he was either silent, or unwilling to engage that power on its terms.
His resistance to that power manifest itself not in any particular protest; rather, he refused to worship it.
His relationship to worldly power is connected to his relationship with God, the One he referred to with the intimacy of a child relating to a parent. And here is one of the most poignant lines in the temptation narrative. When the devil entices him with the miraculous intervention of angels were he to jump off the temple tower, Jesus says: Don’t put the Lord your God to the test.
When we become angry with God because God does not save us from some grief, pain or sadness, we need to be reminded of this temptation. While Jesus encourages us to pray – for healing, for wisdom, for needs great or small – he also knows that it is not for him to presume upon his Father. God’s love for us is not rendered unfaithful when God doesn’t rush to the rescue after we have put ourselves in a compromised position.
St. Paul assures the Corinthians that whatever temptations they experience, God will provide a way out. This temptation to jump of the tower is one of those times when the “way out” is to refuse to “go in” in the first place.
“Temptation” doesn’t only confirm our identity; it clarifies our calling. There were some who expected a heavenly “coup” that would unseat the Roman oppressors. When Jesus is tempted, this is the first indication that those expectations would go unmet.
The way Jesus engages the powers of his day is to let them see how greed and oppression play out. And if we play the “power game”, we are going to have to deal with the devil.
The temptation narrative is subversive. It is a call to authentic Christian personhood. It doesn’t say that food, security, praying for our needs are bad things; it says that when those things become our life’s goals, we know we have succumbed to something other than God’s best for us.
Our common humanity – what binds us to every other human being; and our identity – that is, what makes us distinct from every other human being; and our life’s mission – that is, who God has called us to be in the midst of what God has called us to do – all of these emerge out of times of testing, seasons of tempting. It happened to Jesus. It will happen to you. Don’t be blindsided by how ubiquitous temptation is, and by how ever-present the testing can be.
But know this: We believe in a Messiah who not only was tempted, but who suffered in the midst of temptation; and that is why, says the author of Hebrews, he who was tempted then is able to be with us who are tempted now.
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