A Demanding Life (Sermon)

“A Demanding Life”

Matthew 4:1-11

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

3/5/17

The story of Jesus’ temptation is a classic coming-of-age story. In it, a young man faces a decision between two great potentials. Choose one way, and, through a kind of shock-and-awe coercion, he will own the world. That path, however, will reveal that the cost of certainty is one’s own soul. Choose the other way, and he will live with and for all creation by living gratefully and generously with friends and enemies alike, and by living in solidarity with the poor, strangers, and the earth. He’ll have to trust God, which means trusting people he doesn’t know and outcomes he can’t see. This path will reveal that the cost of living by faith is one’s own life. As with all such stories, not choosing is not an option.

         Because absolute certainty in this life is an illusion, it must be protected at all costs. Certainty dismisses all opinions but its own. It abhors dissent. It cannot stomach selfless Love. If it gets powerful enough, certainty inevitably requires us to live by vengeance and violence. And why not? All things considered, brutality is easy. When my opponent is destroyed, I get to write the history.

Faith demands far more of us. Faith requires us to live vulnerably in a dangerous world. Living by faith and Love puts the one who trusts and loves at odds with power and the powerful. Faith doesn’t seek confrontation; it simply accepts scripture’s admonition not to be afraid. Now, fearlessness is more than a choice. It’s a spiritual discipline. Fearlessness is trust embodied. And trust begins with being trusted.

Immediately prior to today’s reading, God says of the freshly baptized Jesus, “This is my son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” In the next breath, the Spirit leads Jesus into the wilderness, alone and hungry, to face the seductive wiles of Cruella DeVil.

         “If you are the Son of God,” says the tempter, “command these stones to become loaves of bread.”

         The first temptation a starving Jesus faces isn’t really about food. It’s about allowing in himself a sense of entitlement – the entitlement not to feel want or need. He is tempted to tell himself, God’s beloved son shouldn’t have to feel the squeeze of scarcity or dependence. I deserve to have all I want and more!

         We’re watching Jesus struggle with the inconvenient demands of mutual relationship with God, with other people, and with the earth itself. Introverts and extroverts may differ in our relationship needs, but without mutuality, we starve. The bread of wholeness is available to us only through the dis-covering struggles of giving and receiving Love and forgiveness.

         So, the first temptation is the temptation to avoid the demands of relationship and agape Love.

         “If you are the Son of God,” says the tempter, “throw yourself down…” and let the angels take care of you, in front of all Jerusalem.

         To leap from a great height and land in the hands of angels, is the temptation to project oneself as uniquely and powerfully blessed. It’s the ego’s deep-seated lust for a persona based on the shiny but flimsy veneer of celebrity. In a world starving for wholeness, why do we look to mollycoddled celebrities for images of what we should be, and do, and have, and look like? The appetite for stardom is an addiction. You can never consume enough of that which is consuming you.

         It seems to me that social media has become a kind of temple pinnacle, a platform for one self-referential leap after another. Much of it has become a competitive, often vengeful, and consuming quest for attention, importance, and certainty. And I’m not claiming high ground. To get a bunch of ego-stroking “Likes” becomes a kind of drug for me. But when it’s all about me, my capacity to love and to be loved atrophies like a muscle that never gets used.

         So, the second temptation is the temptation to avoid the demands of relationship and agape Love.

         “Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; and he said to him, ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.’”

         The tempter offers not just power in the world, but over the world. It’s the temptation not only to get one’s way, but to force one’s will. This appetite leads to the institutionalizing of a system, a status quo that benefits only a specific few. No institution is immune from such Love-less arrogance – not the Church, not democracy, not corporations. An individual family can even become a dynasty that controls and consumes more resources and wields more influence than many nations.

         Institutions that refuse to think critically of themselves inevitably become parasites, life-diminishing organisms that exist only for themselves. And they depend on our worship of the many but truly devilish deities of power.

         Recognizing the unique capacities of humankind within the creation, the ancient Hebrews embraced their calling with the language of dominion. The dominion God grants, however, is not about domination. It’s about the Love of God expressed through servant-hearted stewardship of self, neighbor, and earth.

         So, the third temptation is the temptation to avoid the demands of relationship and agape Love.

         Lent began last Wednesday. And while this journey leads us to Sunday, we must pass through Friday, the day which bears witness to the defiant triumph of God, who, in Christ, lives in loving relationship with the creation. Love triumphs not because an angry, spiteful idol kills Jesus instead of us. That’s not reconciling Love. That’s just retaliation. Love triumphs and saves because the cross and the life that leads to it reveal the eternal Love of God and the ultimate impotence of brutality.

         Violence, greed, and fear remain ever-so tempting. They seem powerful and decisive, especially in the face of the relentless and terrifying consequences of human sin. But regardless of its declared purposes, violence only breeds more violence. Human history has proven over and over that, in time, even just war just leads to more war.

         Pharaoh, Caesar, and Herod have populated the world with swords and guns, coliseums and casinos, crosses and death chambers, but all of these will fail. In the end, as at the beginning, Love wins.¹

         The living Christ meets us at this table to nourish us with his fearless, redeeming Love. As the bread and cup are passed, I challenge you to resist the temptation to make this sacrament a private experience. Make it about relationship. Make it about Love. Look your neighbor in the eye and say, “The Love of Christ given to you, that it may be shared through you.”

         Regardless of the words you use, look at the brother or sister next to you, and give and receive the demanding and resurrecting Love of Christ.

¹Some years ago, Rob Bell wrote a book entitled Love Wins. Though I do not quote anything from the text of the book, I do acknowledge that the phrase “Love Wins” belongs to Mr. Bell.