In the wilderness,
God is still God
Sermon preached at
St. Mark’s,
By The Rev. Tom Pumphrey, February 10th, 2008
The First Sunday in Lent (year C)
Matthew 4:1-11
Matthew 4:1-11 (NRSV)
Then
Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. The
tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones
to become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written, ‘One does not live
by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” Then the
devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple,
saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is
written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they
will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’” Jesus
said to him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
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.” Jesus said to him, “Away with
you, Satan! for it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only
him.’” Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.
Today is the first Sunday in Lent. In Lent, we mark the journey of Jesus in the wilderness for forty days. Jesus’ wilderness experience comes right after his baptism. This is the very beginning of his adult ministry. He is baptized and filled with the Holy Spirit. But then the Holy Spirit drives him into the wilderness. He fasts for forty days, and the Bible passage reads in grand understatement that “afterwards he was famished.” Then, when he was hungry, he was tempted. He was tempted by his needs—his hunger. He was tempted to abuse his trust of God to provide a certainty about his safety. He was tempted to seek power and glory the way the world knows power and glory rather than the glory that God the Father wanted for him.
The season of Lent is a season of self-examination and discipline to resist temptation. Lent is also a season to walk with Jesus in the wilderness. So what can we learn about resisting temptation in this part of Jesus’ story? Sometimes we feel abandoned by God and struggling in a wilderness of temptation—a wilderness of need, and insecurity and weakness. But in the wilderness, God is still God.
The first temptation that Jesus faces is the desire for food. Of course, this is a legitimate desire—he truly needed food. Most temptations draw from legitimate desires. The danger, of course, is that our legitimate desires get twisted and out of proportion. We experience need in our lives. But often, our needs take over and rule out everything else going on in and around us. Sometimes, our needs lead us away from God.
For instance, we have needs for relationships and closeness—for joy and mutuality in our friendships, in our families and certainly in marriages. But when these relationships do not fill our needs, we are tempted to betray these relationships and seek to fill our needs elsewhere. The need for relationship and social connection can draw us into destructive patterns just to be part of the group. Teens certainly face this, but adults do too—the way that alcohol can be the center of social life, but also a destructive and self-destructive force. We need money—certainly—to pay the bills. But our need for money can cause us to treat our customers or our vendors as faceless objects whose forbearance we can stretch to our own advantage.
Look how Jesus responds, however. Jesus is hungry, yes, but he quotes scripture by saying “one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Jesus seeks God’s voice and God’s presence to address his needs, rather than letting his needs dominate his choices.
In the face of our need, we can seek God’s voice and his life-giving spirit. In our need for relationship, God can restore and renew our relationships. Many can tell you their personal stories of how, in the face of financial need, God has provided even for material resources. God brings to us a lasting joy and health and wholeness that is greater than our needs.
The price of answering our hungers with seeking God’s voice first, rather than acting obsessively to just fill our bellies, is the price of living with hunger. The Lenten discipline of fasting helps us to learn to seek God’s voice even when we are hungry. The grace that we find is that God’s presence is sustaining and more precious than food—greater than the objects we crave. We feel that our hunger has the power, but in the wilderness of hunger, God is still God.
The second temptation that Jesus faces is based on the desire for safety and the desire for certainty. The Devil takes Jesus to the top of the temple and invites him to jump, testing God and God’s promise of safety. This temptation really is about certainty, and about certainty on our own terms. The Devil is crafty in this temptation. Jesus first said that one needs God’s word, so the Devil then quotes scripture about God’s promises. But rather than use scripture as an excuse to test God out of some impulse of insecurity, Jesus stays on the path that the Father set for him, willing to live with the uncertainty of his present circumstances.
In our own desire for security and certainty, we are tempted to scramble to push away any thought of risk. Prudence is a virtue of course—we should not be reckless. However, our desire for security on our own terms can drive us to places that push away the blessings that God has for us. We hoard our money in fear of the future, rather than trusting in God, and being free to be generous. In our personal relationships, we shield ourselves from hurt by guarding our vulnerability. Especially if we’ve been hurt before, we often keep others away from our inner life. But we miss the opportunity for deeper relationship and closer intimacy.
The right response to our insecurity is to trust God and to seek God’s timing. God cares for our vulnerabilities, but Jesus shows us that great redemption can come from our vulnerabilities. The price of trusting in God and God’s timing is living with insecurity. The Lenten Discipline of prayer helps us learn to seek God’s guidance on God’s terms. Prayer helps us rightly hear scriptures and to see when we might be tempted to abuse them. The grace that we find in trusting God is discovering that God is wiser than we are, and that God’s wisdom is for our benefit. Even in the wilderness of our insecurities, God is still God.
The third temptation that Jesus faces is based on the desire for power. We all need some power to manage our lives and meet the challenges we face. But we can often be tempted to use our power for ourselves or for our own glory. Jesus could have made a huge difference indeed had he claimed the earthly powers of this world—to overthrow corrupt king Herod, and the pagan Roman Empire. But this was not the power that would redeem the world, and God the Father had a different path for glory set out for Jesus.
We see politicians sacrifice their dignity and integrity for their own personal gain or personal power. But we can see this misuse of power in other places—even in the church. For instance, we say that we believe in God and trust in God’s power. But then we carry out our ministries as if it all depends on us—our finances or our evangelism or our outreach. We become the center of attention—rather than depending upon the power of God to use us and our gifts where God wants them used.
The right response to this desire is to give power and glory to God—to literally surrender to God and be submitted to him. We Americans are uncomfortable with the idea of submitting to anyone. The price of submission is living with our weakness. The Lenten discipline of self-denial—giving up our power to claim things for ourselves—helps us learn to be comfortable with our weakness and submission, and to give power and glory to God, even when we yearn for strength. The grace that we find is that we see God’s power working in our lives and working around us. We see more clearly how God has the victory and that God’s way is best and more glorious than we could imagine. In the wilderness of our weakness, God is still God.
The disciplines of Lent—fasting, prayer and self-denial—aren’t intended for pointless suffering. They remind us that God’s care is greater than our needs, our insecurity or our weakness.
We find that wilderness times are part of the broken human condition. Each of us will face times of need, of insecurity, of weakness. We so often get absorbed by our needs, but life is greater than these needs, and God is even greater, and he will address our needs. Through faith in God’s care and God’s promises, our lives are much more secure than when we try to build our own safety and security. And even when we feel our weakest and most desperate, God’s strength is greater than anything we face. He will lift us up, and as the Father did for his Son, he will send angels to wait on us, and bring us out of our wilderness into an abundance of life.
Even in the wilderness of our need, our insecurity, and our weakness, God is still God, filling our souls, protecting us from harm winning for us the victory of an abundant life.