He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High, * abides under the shadow of the Almighty.
2 He shall say to the Lord, “You are my refuge and my stronghold, *my God in whom I put my trust.”
A young boy had gone off to his Sunday Morning class where he heard the story about the Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness that we read this morning from Luke’s Gospel. When he rejoined his family and had a moment to catch his mother’ ear, he asked her, “Hey Mom, what do you know about the devil?” The mother’s mind immediately raced to find the right response to this “teachable moment.” Should she respond with St. Augustine’s idea that evil comes when we willingly choose evil over the goodness that God intends for us? Should she answer with her own beliefs about evil and the devil? And then she gathered herself, realizing that her son was three years old.
So she asked him,” What do you know about the devil?”
“Well” he began, “the devil talks to Jesus and the devil was mean.” And then leaning in close to his mother and speaking in a loud whisper he said, “If we were in a store and you and Dad were in one aisle and I was in another aisle, and… his whisper got even lower, “there was candy…” He paused for effect. “The devil would say, “You should take some!”
The mother, surprised by how much her young son had learned from this story, then asked him, “Honey, if we were at the store and Dad and I were in one aisle and you were in another aisle and there was candy and the devil said, “You should take some!” What would you say back to the devil?”
A wide grin spread across his face and without missing a beat, he replied, “Oh! I would say thank you!”[1]
Temptation is a part of our everyday life. There are the little temptations: bread on the table, Girl Scout cookies, cell phones that give us instant access to emails and Facebook. There are the shows on TV or movies that can entice us to stay up too late or fail to do the work we planned to do after dinner.
But then there are the much bigger temptations that can capture our mind and our hearts. Consider the media barrage of advertising to which most of us are so regularly subjected. The continuous reminder that we “need” more—more money, more things, causing us to spend too much or clutter our lives with so much stuff that our freedom is held hostage as well as our pocketbook. Our culture feeds the constant presentation of temptation. Every time I sit at my computer and search for a book or an idea, sideline ads jump up with just the right things to feed my desire for diversion or consumption. When watching TV or even going to the movies, there are constant advertisements that remind us of what we “need” to have a happier life, more comfort, to fulfill everything we could possible want. Nine times out of ten the goal of such ads is to create in us a sense of lack and inadequacy, followed by the implicit promise that purchasing the advertised product will relieve our insecurity.
Or consider how many of the messages from the candidates running for president seek to create in us insecurity and fear. Terrorism, immigrants, corporations, joblessness, low wages, high taxes, the wealthy, the poor – depending on which candidate you listen to the target shifts, but the message is the same: you should be afraid because you do not and are not enough; elect me and I’ll keep you safe. These temptations of anger, fear, and distrust of the other can lead us to pull inside, to look with suspicion at those we decide are different from us, to decide who to love and who to avoid, to determine who to treat with dignity and who can be ridiculed or dismissed, to wall ourselves off, to lead with words coated with anger.Temptation is everywhere in our culture.
In our reading today from Luke’s Gospel, we hear that Jesus fresh from his baptism and receiving his identity as God’s Beloved, is “filled with the Holy Spirit” and so enters into a time of learning what it will mean to fulfill the ministry he has been given. We are told that he is met by evil, personified as the “devil,” in the wilderness. After 40 days of fasting, Jesus is hungry and so it would be easy for him to give in to the temptations the devil offers. “Turn this stone into bread so you can eat and be satisfied.” But Jesus understands that life is more than food. And so through the word of God, found in the scriptures that he has heard and ingested since his childhood, Jesus responds, quoting Deuteronomy 8:3 “one does not live by bread alone.” Bread is good, but miracles will not define Jesus’ mission.
The devil then shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and offers them to him if he will only worship or honor the devil, the authority of evil. Remembering that at the time, most of the world was under the heavy hand of Rome and its economic, administrative, and military empire, taking charge and removing the corruption and oppression would seem to be good. But Jesus recognizes the lie and refuses, responding from the She’ma Israel (Deuteronomy 6:13), authority belongs only to God. “Worship the Lord your God and serve only him.”
Finally, the devil takes Jesus to the top of the temple in Jerusalem where he is charged to throw himself to the ground to prove that God will protect the righteous, quoting a passage from our Psalm for today. “For he shall give his angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways. They shall bear you in their hands, lest you dash your foot against a stone.” (Psalm 91:11-12) Again, Jesus responds with faithfulness to God. “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” (Deut. 6:16)
Jesus filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, confident in God’s love, responds to each temptation with obedience and trust in God. This testing in the wilderness, helps Jesus know who he is and sets the stage for his ministry. From here he will go to Nazareth where he tells those gathered in the synagogue that his ministry will be to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Though the devil is far from finished with him, Jesus will be faithful to God.
What does this story offer us in our time of both small and large temptations? Like the three year old in the story, we often are likely to say, “Thank you!” when temptation is placed in our path because we may believe what is offered will fill our needs. But as we enter into these 40 days of Lent, we are invited to remember who we are and to whom we owe our lives.
God loves us completely. God loves us enough to send his Son into the world to take on our lot and life, to suffer the same temptations and wants, to be rejected as we often feel rejected and to die as we will die, all so that we may know God is with us and for us forever. And then God will lift up Jesus, giving him and us new life; showing us that God’s love is more powerful that all the hate in the world and that the life God offers is more powerful even than death. In following Jesus we are called to focus on God as the only secure source of well-being in the world.
We cannot control the temptations that are regularly thrown in our path. Our desires are researched, quantified, targeted, inflated, managed and manufactured. But we can choose our response to them. Following Jesus we listen to his choices to serve only God. By being obedient to the One who made us good, we can choose not to fill with things those empty spaces in us that only God can fill. By being obedient to the One who calls us to love God and love neighbor, we can choose to see all as God’s beloved children and refuse to be indifferent to the needs of others. By being obedient to the One who listened to the cries of his children living in slavery and led them to freedom, we can choose to leave the sidelines and to bear witness to God’s love for all. Though facing temptation and choosing to serve God alone is difficult, we, just as Jesus, do not face this test alone. Just as Jesus was accompanied from his baptism, through his time being tested in the wilderness, through his ministry, we too find support in God’s redeeming love, in Jesus’ faithful example, and in the empowerment of the Holy Spirit.
Tempted in many ways to lose our faith in God and confidence in ourselves, we also find sustenance in the company of each other. We come to church to be reminded of, and given again, our identity as beloved children of God. In the face of so many assaults on who we truly are and to whom we truly belong, we come to church to have that identity renewed and restored that we might live in the confidence of God’s abundant life and share with those around us God’s unending love. God loves us and will keep loving us no matter what, and for this reason we are enough. I need to be reminded of this again and again in the face of all the messages to the contrary.
In this first week of Lent, as we turn toward whatever this forty-day place holds for us, we would do well to remember that we too are “filled with the Holy Spirit as the beloved of God. It can be hard to resist the power that the culture loves and values. Jesus “filled with the Holy Spirit” is not an isolated incident, a temporary truth, but a promise that has been for God’s people since the beginning and will always be. And “filled with the Holy Spirit” we can witness to God’s grace and truth to the ends of the earth.
[1] Lori Brandt Hale. Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lctionary. Year C Volume 2. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009, 46-48.