When Temptation Comes…
Matthew 4: 1-11

March 9, 2014

Temptation…the word conjures up all manner of images, does it not?  Forbidden fruit, illicit liaisons, or maybe something as simple as another piece of pecan pie — we are all tempted — in one way or another.  Quite honestly, there is nothing wrong with being tempted, for temptation is a given with our humanity.  The question is how we handle the temptations which come our way, i.e., how we respond to them. 
In these confrontations Jesus not only encounters the Evil One, he encounters himself. What will Jesus be and do?  Will he trust Yahweh God or will he go his own way? Jesus is wrestling with his self-understanding, his calling and the focus which his life will take from this point forward.  These types of decisions must not be made suddenly, but thoughtfully and intentionally, after a period of prayer and seeking God’s guidance.
These temptations come at two levels:  the first is the level of survival, power, and identity.  Will Jesus survive physically? For what will he use his power? Who is he, anyway?  Survival, power, and identity are key issues for us all; until we come to terms with these we never begin to understand who we are, why we are here and what we are called to be and do.  These temptations contain all these questions.
The second level is that of ego, ambition, and fear.  Will Jesus live out of these — or out of selflessness, obedience, and trust?  Will Jesus believe that life is a game of “King of the Mountain?”  Or, will he live out of selflessness, obedience, and trust in God?  If he cannot trust God in life, how can he trust God in death?
The temptations of Jesus are also our temptations, i.e., the temptations of humanity, buried deep in the psyche of each and all of us. Being human we are susceptible to temptation, for temptation always aims at what appeals to us as humans.  The fruit of the tree of life appeared to be good — but appearances are never what they seem.  Rarely are we tempted to do something which appears to be raw evil; temptation always presents itself as good for us.  Most of us will never do evil willfully; it always appears as a valid option for the meeting of our needs.
Upon his arrival the Tempter immediately hits Jesus at his weakest physical link — food.  Jesus has been fasting and is famished.  Notice how the Evil One frames the challenge to turn stones into bread.  “If you are the Son of God…”  This is not merely a suggestion to Jesus that he use his power to make bread — but a challenge to his survival, his power and his self-identity which has been forged in the starkness of the desert. (First level temptation) Are you really sure about who you now understand yourself to be?  If so, use that power for self-gratification and survival.  Underneath all these temptations is the challenge for Jesus to “prove” himself — and in so doing abdicate his trust in God.  Both the first and second temptations contain this challenge — one which Jesus must repel in the depths of his soul.  Will Jesus put his physical needs/desires before his calling?  Will Jesus take the sacred power within and use it for his own personal satisfaction. 
We face this challenge to the extent that we are challenged to live at the level of human drives and desires rather than at the level of the Spirit.   The drive to live at the level of beast, putting our physical desires before anything else, is universal for us as humans.  We will fight and claw with the best of the animals to gain food, clothing, housing or whatever else our physical lives desire.  In fact, we are far more dangerous than beasts, for we can plot and organize to achieve our desires and do so all out of proportion to their need.  When a lion is full — he does not hunt.  This is not so with humankind.  Despite all the progress of education and technology we still find ourselves fighting wars again and again — with most of these have an economic basis of one kind or another.  When we put the physical ahead of the spiritual we are living at the level of beasts — and our world is indeed an asphalt jungle.
Jesus refused to live at the level of beast, of the physical.  Jesus recognized that this innocent appearing temptation was not the result of concern for his physical well-being, but was intended to side-track him from the reliance upon God that he would need as the Messiah.  If we look closely enough, we too can see where the Evil One works on us in the same manner.  Oh, we’re not tempted to turn stones into bread…rather we are tempted to focus on ourselves, on our comfort and ease rather than upon the Kingdom and God’s call to us.  Until our physical needs are met it is very difficult for us to think of following Christ. 
The second temptation seems quite odd: to jump from the steeple of the temple.  1st century Judaism believed that the Messiah would do just that as the way of proving his legitimacy.  The Evil One even quotes scripture to prove his point — stressing that the angels would rescue Jesus before he hit the ground.  However, one can quote scripture and still be wrong.  Would the angels have rescued Jesus?  Possibly — but they did not on the cross. 
This temptation hits at the level of ego, ambition and fear: use the spectacular to accomplish the mission; otherwise they might not follow.  Will Jesus trust God or will Jesus adopt spectacular methods?  Will Jesus trust that God’s will can only be done in God’s ways?  The ends never justify the means — the means must justify themselves.
As humans we are attracted to the spectacular and sensational, are we not?  We all want a shortcut to the sacred, a hotline to heaven that we might skip all this obedience and faithfulness stuff.  Sensationalism sells in the public marketplace. 
I am amazed at what people want in and from their religion.  Much of what passes for religious faith is nothing more than the religion of the spectacular, pagan magic masquerading as faith.  These psychological “shortcuts” are nothing more than attempts to avoid the demands of authentic Christian discipleship.  Are we going to believe in the God who confronts us with demands for justice, for meeting human need and for obedient love — or are we looking for the spectacular?  Are we fascinated with the “big event” or are we attuned to the still small voice that whispers in the background? 
My model for my faith journey is Elijah, who in despair stood on the brink of the cave looking for God.  God was neither in the sirocco, nor the earthquake nor the fire; God was in the voice of silence that called him back to faithfulness and responsibility.  In our faith journey we can either strive to obey the calling of God or we can focus on the spectacular, the sensational.  So often we are pushed and pulled to do the latter — I have been guilty myself, more times than I wish to admit.  Unfortunately, the spectacular rarely lasts, leaving us as nothing more than frantic people staring at each other through the dark and wondering where we will go next.  Who can have the biggest show?  Who can entertain and draw the biggest crowd?  Yet, I have found that occasionally the world knows the difference between sensationalism and genuine Christian faith better than the church.  Sometimes the Emperor is naked…
Finally, the Tempter takes Jesus up a mountain and shows him all the kingdoms of the world, promising them if Jesus will worship him.  Here is the shortcut of all shortcuts.  Why spend 3 years teaching and preaching, being rejected and dying an ugly death on an uglier cross?  Why go through all the hardship and pain that lie before him?  It’s easy, Jesus — just worship the Tempter and all will be yours. 
Here is the temptation where ego, ambition and fear come together in the pull to worship less than God.  The problem was stated clearly by Thomas Merton: “The biggest human temptation is…to settle for too little.”  In church and the Christian life we are often tempted to use short-cuts either in our spiritual growth or in growing our church. We worship less than God when we minimize the gospel that others will accept it.  We worship less than God when we set to the side the ethical demands of the gospel as extraneous to “accepting Jesus as our Savior.”  When we really get down to it the ethical demands of Jesus and the Holy Scriptures are extremely difficult for anyone to follow.  They fly in the face of our culture standards, so we either eliminate or ignore them. 
A mega-church pastor once said that he never preached anything which would make anyone uncomfortable.  How do you preach if you don’t do that?  Most of my sermons make me uncomfortable!  The Bible makes me uncomfortable and that’s alright, because I am not worshipping the god of this age but the God of eternity.  The God of all eternity is not so concerned with my happiness as with my obedience.  We must not worship what is less than God — in any form.  Either Jesus is Lord of all…or he not Lord at all.  We cannot trim the gospel as we desire — for when we do we change it at its very core. 
Temptation — it it intrinsic to human existence.  Kari Myers tells of taking her preschool-aged son to the mall to buy a birthday present for his friend. Before they entered the toy store, he dug in his heels and began to protest, “Mommy, I can’t go in there. You know I’m attracted to toys, and I’ll see something I want. Then I’ll cry, and it’s just better if I don’t go in.” Though the word temptation was not yet in his vocabulary, he sure knew what it was and what to do about it.
During these days of Lent, I want you to join me in looking at the temptations which are particular to your life: pride, greed, lust, laziness — whatever they may be — and ask yourself how they relate to the basic issue of your self-identity, power, and ego.  How do these feed these areas in one way or another?  Then you will begin to understand the nature of your temptations — and be able to not only resist, but over-come them. 
“Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. ... We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means — the only complete realist.”