Turning Point

Robert E. Hall
Tarrytown United Methodist Church

February 10, 2008

Text: Matthew 4: 1-11

There are turning points in any endeavor. The crucial moment is not when you first start; it is when you are first seriously tempted to lay it aside. A trivial example: I bought my first guitar when I was in college. I envisioned myself as the third Everly Brother or the second incarnation of Chet Atkins. (Parents will explain who these persons were later to their children!) I got a chord book and began to learn. After a few weeks of practice, my fingers were so sore that I could not practice at all. So I succumbed to the temptation to put my guitar back into its case----and never really took guitar-playing up again. It was a decision to turn away from my dream.

Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist and God’s voice was heard saying, “This is my Son, chosen and marked by my love, delight of my life.” (3:17, The Message). You cannot imagine a more auspicious endeavor than being the apple of God’s eye! Talk about a purpose-driven life! Think how this will look on your resume!

It is the voice of heaven.

The story continues with the transition word, “Then,” as in “here is what happens next.”

You know what this is like. You go to a workshop on self-discovery. You learn who you really are. Then you go back as this newly-created leader to make a difference in your family/workplace/church/world!

And the next day you are home, you are met with fourteen obstacles to your new-found vocation. First, no one can tell that you are different---except that you are rested and they are not. Second, you are using new jargon that they don’t know. Third, you recognize that the same behaviors that have gotten you nowhere are awfully easy to fall back into. You are tempted to lay aside your new-found way of being and doing.

You get the picture.

Jesus, we are told, was “led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” What is this? The same God who has pronounced him beloved is leading him where? To meet up with whom?!

Jesus is not sent to begin his ministry, but for testing, to see if he really was committed to being God’s beloved Son.

It would be like this: You get back to work after your self-discovery seminar. And a wise boss says, “Now, go off by yourself for a 4 days and let this new self meet your old self. Let’s see what this really means for you and for us.”

After hearing Father Kelly at Lebh Shomea speak with authority on matters spiritual, he told us to go off by ourselves alone and read our notes and wrestle with the ideas that in our heads and let them go deeper, into our hearts. Sweep your heart clean and see who shows up, what voices you hear in your head and heart.

Time alone: how little of it we get. And how we avoid it when it is possible. Who else will show up in our lonely places?

Jesus is led into the wilderness to be tempted (or tested) by the devil. Don’t immediately imagine a Halloween devil, a little man (or woman) in a red suit with pitchfork and pointed tail. Think of evil personified in some attractive form and voice.
I found this rabbinic definition of Satan’s objective: “Satan stirs up the evil impulse, seduces us into sin, denounces us before God and then punishes us with death.” The devil doesn’t play fair! “Individuals are not the ultimate enemy Why? Because “they and we [all human beings] are victimized by the power of evil.”  (M. Eugene Boring, New Interpreters Bible, Volume VIII, 1995)

We humans are fascinated by evil. We are like a mouse hypnotized by a snake looking for lunch.

Evil is a force beyond any person or group of people. It won’t do to identify evil as only inhabiting some hated enemy. Evil is no respecter of persons. Especially vulnerable are those who think they are immune, for they are naïve about their own hearts. There is a reason Jesus taught us to pray, “Deliver us from evil,” or “Keep us safe from ourselves and the devil.” (The Message, 6:7-13)

So Jesus, with God’s powerful blessing of tender love in him, goes into the wilderness.

You and I may have different pictures of the wild: thickets or forests for some the view looking west from McCamey, Texas for others. The common feature is: no other humans are there.

You remember the story of Jesus’ temptations. Forty days of fasting (intentionally not eating), and he is famished. The Gospel of Mark says almost nothing about the nature of the temptations, but Matthew and Luke fill in the blanks with their own interpretations.

The Trickster knows how cleverly to play to our vulnerabilities. “If (or since) you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” (I had never noticed the word “command” before.) Nothing wrong with eating when you are hungry. God knows, there are many hungry people in this world, those who are unintentionally fasting. But Satan is asking Jesus to use his God-given powers for the satisfaction of his own immediate hunger. Jesus replies, quoting from Torah: “It takes more than bread to stay alive. It takes a steady stream of words from God’s mouth.” (The Message)

Then the devil takes the weakened but resolute Jesus to a higher place, to Jerusalem, and sets him on the pinnacle of the temple, with these tempting words. “Since you are the Son of God, throw yourself down….” (Then the devil quotes scripture, too. A sobering thought!) “God will make sure you don’t get hurt by this stunt.” (A kind of Evel Knivel show of foolish bravado is what the devil is calling for.)

Jesus quotes back to Satan, “Don’t you dare test your God!” The temptation is turned aside.

The devil takes him as high as a human can go, to a mountain high enough to see all the kingdoms of the world in all of their beauty. “All of these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” (There is reason why we humans like to live on mountains with a beautiful view. It is exhilarating to feel the power of being “above it all.”)

But Jesus stands his ground. “Beat it, Satan!” And he quotes from Torah again, “Worship the Lord God and him only. Serve him with absolute single-heartedness.” (The Message)

All three temptations are tempting offers. Bread, circus and political power; “I need, I can, I get,” ---- these all have their place in our tool kit of making the world more just and merciful. Jesus is being tempted to use God’s power to feed people, to impress people with God’s miraculous ability in intervene and protect, and to have the power to make all of the kingdoms of the world into God’s kingdom. (Richard Carlson, Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg) He will not be “relevant” in the ordinary ways of the world; he will not win people over by becoming a latest “Hebrew Idol or Survivor;” and he will not use coercive force to set the world right. (See Henri Nouwen, In the Name of Jesus, 1996)

This is what was at stake in the desert after Jesus’ baptism. This is why Jesus decides (a crucial word: this was no play-acting) to do the will of God and say no to other gods and to Satan. “Before he could be the true Messiah, he had to discover the sort of Messiah he would not be….” (Richard Lischer, Christian Century, February, 1999) And “it was this serving, suffering dying Jesus whom God vindicated by raising him from the dead.” (Craddock

So why does Jesus reject these paths of action? Because they all boil down to the same temptation: “To treat God as less than God, and to mistrust God’s readiness to empower us to face our trials.” Jesus was “tempted to question God’s helpfulness when things go awry; we forget, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness’ (2 Corinthians 12:9).” (Douglas R.A. Hare, Matthew, 1993)

It is a “contest about the shape and nature of his ministry. Jesus will soon preach good news to the poor and release to the captives, relieve the bruised, cleanse the lepers, and heal the blind and crippled.” (Fred Craddock, Christian Century, February 28, 1990)

Jesus will “open himself to the worst the world can do, for the sake of the best the world can be….” (Frederick Buechner, “The Two Stories,” in Secrets in the Dark, 2006, page 89) He will be the “Suffering Servant” who enters fully into human life. Athanasius wrote: “Now thy ask, Why did Jesus not appear by means of some nobler instrument, as the sun, or moon, or stars, or fire, or air, instead of a human merely? Let them know that the Lord came not to make a display, but to heal and teach those who were suffering.”

The Letter to the Hebrews speaks of Jesus being the “pioneer and perfecter of our faith.” This means, I believe that

 Jesus will walk through life as we do.
 He will suffer because we suffer.
 He will laugh and tell stories which delight because we do.
 He will die because he knows we must die, too.
 He will face temptations throughout his life because he knows that we do.
 He will be God’s Chosen One because, in the flesh, he will show us God’s heart of forgiveness, mercy and strength.

We are knocked down by events beyond our control. We are sabotaged by the inward battles with moods and feelings which are deeply lodged. God is with us in these wildernesses. Can we trust that this is so?

In fact, the season of Lent is the time of year when we can consent to be “led” into the wilderness ourselves for a time of saying no and saying yes----a time of self-examination. As Richard Lischer wrote of the season of Lent, “We could all use a little incongruity” at least once a year.

We cannot go, of course geographically, most of us. And we cannot go unless we, like Jesus, have been blessed by God with the cleansing waters of baptism and the gift of God’s indwelling Spirit.

Can we say no to the other gods and seek to know God’s will for our lives?

No to winning, succeeding as generally understood?
No to gaining at others’ expense?
No to pridefulness?
You and I have our own tempting options.

In other words, Can we ask the vocational question that Jesus wrestles with. What kind of person shall I be? Jesus chose to remain obedient to his calling. Will we? If it was God’s agenda that drove Jesus, what agenda drives us? Can we determine what kind of person we will not be, in order to say yes to the kind of persons God wants us to be?

Too often we are tempted to answer the question of identity---who am I--- without reference to God. But Jesus teaches and demonstrates to us that we have no genuine self apart from God. We are dependent upon God for our gifts, our talents, our opportunities, our obligations, our purpose in life. We are Abba’s children by the mercy of God in Christ Jesus. To whom shall we turn? For in Jesus we have seen God. (See John 14) Whom can we trust in life and death but this One?

And how will we live and act as God’s children? Will we believe that love is the most powerful force for good in our world, or will we decide to try tricks, magic and force?

Will we take matters into our own hands or trust that God has the whole world in his hands?

I do not say these choices are easy. To the contrary. Every day the world, with its fascination with evil in all its forms, tries to squeeze us into its own mold.

Fred Craddock was right when he wrote that “forces that traffic in human misery and reap huge profits from the poverty of others will try any means to turn [us] from [Christ’s] ministry….Every church engaged in the ministry of Jesus knows painfully well that there is another team on the field and it is often surprising and disappointing to learn who their members are.” (Fred Craddock, Christian Century, February 28, 1990)

Only one among many possible examples: I heard on the radio that, even though health organizations can predict that millions of people across the globe, especially in developing and poor countries, will die of diseases related to tobacco use, tobacco companies are now focusing their efforts to get children and youth  in these countries to use tobacco early so they will be hooked before know any better. All to increase the bottom line. Too often, the profit motive without conscience trumps all other values.

Will we travel the road less traveled? “Testing never ceases.” (Craddock) And we are not left alone to battle evil and choose the good. It is not only for survival that we choose to follow Christ into the wilderness and beyond. For we have greatness within us. “Greater things than these will you do,” Jesus tells us in John’s accounting.

There is much at stake in how we choose to spend our time, live our lives.

Will this Lenten season be a turning point?  Will you sort, sift, reflect and pray, face your own demons? Will you ask, “Who am I, really? Am I saying no to my false selves? Am I saying yes to the person God is calling me to be? Am I worshipping God with my whole heart, and trusting in Jesus as my mediator and pioneer?”

The apostle Paul wrote, “Our old nature has no claim on us now…..And the whole universe is waiting for eager expectation [longing] for God’s sons and daughters to be revealed.” (Romans 8)

 In Buechner’s words,

“We have it in us to be Christs to each other….

We have it in us to work miracles of love and healing as well as to have them worked upon us.

We have it in us to bless with him and forgive with him and heal with him;
 and once in a while maybe even to grieve with some measure of his grief at another’s pain and to rejoice with some measure of his rejoicing at another’s joy almost as if it were our own.

 And who knows but that in the end, by God’s mercy, the two stories [Jesus’ and ours] will converge for good and all

….And in the meantime, this side of Paradise, it is our business….to speak with our hearts….

and to bear witness to, and to live out of, and live toward, and live by the true word of this holy story [of Jesus our Immanuel ]as it seek to stammer itself forth through the holy stories of us all.” (Buechner, page 89)