This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Texas on Sunday March 13, 2011, the 1st Sunday in Lent.
Podcast of "God's Hunger" (MP3)
Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7
Psalm 32
Romans 5:12-19
Matthew 4:1-11
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
When I was a boy, I stuttered. After seeing eye doctors and school psychologists it was determined that I was dyslexic. They said it was mild and I should be able to grow out of it. By grow out of it they meant learn some tricks and after years and years the tricks become second nature. Still, to this day, reading a manuscript presents difficulty.
This makes worship its own challenge since I use a manuscript for liturgy. Despite the trouble there are several reasons why I use a manuscript. Among them is if I have a manuscript I am less likely to lose my place completely during worship. Sure, a word or two gets mangled, but it does keep me from misplacing the offertory in the middle of the confession of sin.
The second reason I use a manuscript is to stay on point. I can find rabbit trails a plenty if I don’t have the manuscript. Just as much, with a manuscript what I want to say remains a well thought out piece of scripture, interpretation, and worship, all very important things. Also if I go out on the range chasing rabbits you might wonder if I will ever make it back.
Still, a manuscript does not prevent goofs.
One Sunday morning a few years ago, I was standing at the table presiding at the Lord’s Supper. My intention was to follow the manuscript and say, “Jesus said ‘Come to me all who are hungry.’” Well, between not being in the moment, looking ahead in the manuscript, and suffering from mild dyslexia; this wasn’t what I said. What I said was, “Jesus said, ‘I am hungry’ No he didn’t!” The congregation burst out laughing. For the rest of the service there was one woman I couldn’t make eye contact with, when I did she would just start giggling and so would I.
So imagine my laughter earlier in the week when I read this morning’s gospel, “After forty days and forty nights he was hungry.” So I guess in truth I wasn’t wrong, but since I didn’t say this on this First Sunday of Lent, I was speaking out of context. Or that’s my new story.
Jesus was hungry, after forty days and forty nights he surely must have been. I don’t know how he was fasting, and as I said on Ash Wednesday there are several different ways to fast, but being swept into the desert to be tempted by the devil, I don’t imagine there was much of anything at all for him to eat or drink.
After forty days and forty nights, Jesus was hungry, so the first thing Jesus gets tempted with is what he would desire the most, bread. The tempter says, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” He offered the temptation to take what God provides, in this case stone, and convert it into food. I love the way the tempter doesn’t go overboard either. Surely Jesus could make a fine dinner of bread, fish, and wine from the rock, sand, and dust that were available. He could surely make what ever he wanted.
But Jesus answers this temptation with what truly feeds, “Man does not live by bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Jesus tells us that nothing made from stone will ever be filling. The Word of God alone is filling.
So the devil takes Jesus to the Holy City, a place he has felt at home since his youth. From atop the highest point of the temple, the devil offers this temptation, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”
The devil is sneaky here, very sneaky, Jesus says we live on every word that comes from the mouth of God and the devil uses the Word of God to frame this temptation. It’s very close to how Adam and Eve were tempted in Genesis, very close indeed. But Jesus is not so easily duped, even by the most cunning of tempters.
Jesus returns word for word the Word of God saying, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” Jesus knows more about righteous relationship with the Lord than Adam and Eve did and was able to resist. Quickly and effectively, this temptation is dispatched.
Again, the devil gives another try, and this time it’s something dramatic. Surveying this world with all its splendor and riches, the devil offers it all to Jesus, if he will bow down and worship him. Worship Satan, the accuser, the deceiver, the tempter, and it’s all his.
From this vantage point, it would have been the most thrilling temptation in the world to any man. They were atop a high mountain, able to see all of the wonders of the world, all of the kingdoms and all of the splendor.
Now, I imagine the devil only showed Jesus what he wanted seen. Scripture says he didn’t show Jesus the pain the strife that exists in the world, only the kingdoms and their splendor. But Jesus wouldn’t have been fooled; he would know and remember the suffering. This might have actually made it even more tempting to Jesus. It would all be his and he could make it better. He could evict sin from the world, like God the Father evicted sin from the garden. Now that would be a temptation.
But Jesus isn’t falling for it, he’s done with the devil, he’s done with the tempter, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’” This might be tempting to a human, and Jesus is human, but being fully human and fully divine Jesus knows that what the devil offers is only fleeting.
Jesus is offered some very tempting things. He is offered food when he is hungry, forty days hungry. He is offered the opportunity to confirm the faithfulness of God. Finally he is offered the opportunity to rule the world now.
But Jesus has his priorities in order. Bread is not as important as the one who makes it. Testing God’s faithfulness is not as important as knowing God is faithful. Power is not as important as the one who creates and gives it.
Yet, right under the surface, there are a couple of other temptations that Jesus is offered that don’t make the list. The first is the temptation to doubt. The devil prefaces the first two temptations with this phrase, “If you are the Son of God…” So while it is easy to say that the temptations are about bread and faithfulness, there is something more sinister happening.
The greater, more subtle temptation the devil tries to place in Jesus’ mind is the doubt that he is the Son of God. Yes, on the surface the devil asks Jesus if God will do what God has promised the Son. But it is far more devastating if Jesus doubts that he is the Son. If the devil can plant this seed, then everything is lost.
But this seed has no purchase either. Jesus will not allow the devil to define what being the Son of God means. The devil will not define what kind of Messiah Jesus will be, that is between Father and Son.
Jesus reminds us that being children of God is more important than anything else and as soon as we doubt that we are the children of God we are lost.
Jesus is also tempted with something else just as sinister. If he can’t get Jesus to doubt that he is the Son of God, maybe Jesus can be tempted to make himself like God on earth. The devil was replaying his gambit with Eve, if you do this, you will be like God. Not you will be God, but you will be like God. This is another way to look at the temptations.
The temptation about creating bread from stone is about setting aside the natural order, and creating all things anew. This is a way to reframe creation from the perspective of a hungry Nazarene carpenter, not the Christ. Falling to this temptation would end hunger, but to what end. He would be hungry again. Further, it would redefine God’s good creation in a way that did not glorify the Father. When Jesus turns water to wine in John’s gospel, it is for the glory of God, not for himself or the groom who didn’t get enough wine at the liquor store.
The second is a temptation to create spectacle. Our world awaits entertainment without patience. Our world cries out “What have you done for me lately?” Our world wants to see everything first hand and Jesus being carried to the ground by the hand of God from the top of the temple would certainly fill those bills.
People love to see miracles. Kurt Vonnegut wrote that people probably wanted to see Lazarus more than Jesus after he was raised from the dead. According to scriptural witness, Vonnegut is wrong about that. But, I believe if he had been talking about people today he would have been on target.
We live in a world where nobody believes what they haven’t seen for themselves. And we live in a world where the media is trying to do just that, show everybody everything. Then too, we live in a world where pundits will spin every piece of information to make their point; not God’s point, but their own point.
So to see Jesus float from the top of the temple and land safely on the ground would have created a cult of personality that could overshadow his own true deity. He would be like God instead of being God. I can hear the devil say, “That’s my point exactly.”
The final temptation is the biggest of all. Jesus is tempted with the prospect of creating his kingdom without the cross. He is tempted to do it all by himself without suffering, pain, and humiliation. He is tempted to take the cult of personality I mentioned and take it to the ultimate level; Jesus could be given kingdom, dominion over all of the earth. He could make it better. He could eliminate the horrors of sin. He could do whatever he wanted, and being fully divine it would be good stuff too.
Of course, Jesus would have to worship the tempter, the accuser, the devil, the Satan. That one little catch could make it tricky, but if you have power over all creation that’s small potatoes, right? It’s been that way for everyone who has ever tried to rule the world, whether politically, economically, or militarily; and history is filled with men (no political correctness hedging here, they were men) who have given this a shot. Ancient and modern history will show that men like these will continue to give this form of personal deity their best shot.
These temptations have been around forever. Scripture even tells us this. Temptation leading to sin was with us since the beginning.
Jesus is hungry, but not for anything with a shelf life. He isn’t hungry for anything that Satan has to tempt him with, whether the temptations are obvious or sly. Matthew’s gospel tells us that Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. The devil was there all along waiting for a moment of weakness. After forty days and forty nights, Satan thought that when Jesus was hungry it would be a good time to sprung these fates on him.
So too it is with us today. We are hungry in a world that wants to give us stone instead of bread, despair instead of faithfulness, and weakness instead of power. We are tempted with the same sins that have been available for 2,000 years. We’re just bigger, stronger, and faster; and that brings temptations of its own. Our chore is to know God’s hunger for us, hunger that is not rooted in sin.
Fortunately, while we wander this wilderness of life, we have Jesus with us. Jesus also gives us a gift he didn’t have, Jesus gives us the church. For us, because of the particular way Presbyterians look at the church, Jesus gives us the community to help each and every one of us with what tempts us and what feeds us. Not just me either, I am not a priest who stands between you and God. Presbyterians ordain not only Ministers of Word and Sacrament, but Elders to do the work God calls the church to do.
This part of the Body of Christ is filled with people who have walked all stripes of life. This part of the Body of Christ is loaded with people who love you and want to help you seek the life God wants for you. This part of the Body of Christ is even loaded with people who can help navigate what the wild, wild world has in store. These people are like angels who come not unlike the angels who attended Jesus.
So never doubt that we are the children of the one true God, and never fall to the temptation to do it all yourself. It’s God’s role to lead us in this life and our role to seek life in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit who is with us in our desert just as the Spirit was with Jesus. When we try to do it by ourselves we are doing what Adam, Eve, and Jesus are tempted with, trying to be like God. That never satisfies God’s hunger or God’s hunger for us.
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