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Message from March Stated Meeting
We have largely forgotten it, but Christians have a mythology, a big framing story that explains how we got here, why things are so messed up, and offering hope for deliverance. We find it in the Bible and some other sources. In that mythology, the devil, an angel who rebelled against God, gets defeated and thrown out of heaven. He and his legion of demons crash on the Earth. Realizing that he cannot overthrow God, he decides out of aggrieved, petulant, resentment, to dedicate his depraved self to the next best thing: destroying what
God loves: God's beautiful, miraculous creation.
To achieve this end he enlists and manipulates the beloved creatures God has placed in the middle of creation: human beings. He subtly convinces them, in Genesis 3, that they are "like God," individuals separate from, over and above creation, and that they can "know good and evil," which means they determine the value and meaning of everything. The devil's plan is that, over time, the humans will destroy creation and themselves, thus breaking the Creator's heart.
Luke assumes that anyone hearing this story will already know about the devil. The devil is the great cosmic Adversary, the nexus of chaos, depravity, and violence. He shows up in our lives as the voice in our heads that offers us the same deals he offers Jesus in this
story. He always pokes at our liability as conscious, sensory, mortal, thinking creatures, in the same three weak, soft, sensitive spots.
We too, when we are born, get ejected from a kind of paradise in the womb. We become suddenly aware of our separation, neediness, and vulnerability. He appeals to our reflexive, reactive feelings of anger, fear, and desire. He stokes our alienation, and provokes us to connive to get what we think we need, making us terrified that we won't and enraged if we don't.
And so, with our imaginations so perverted, we drive the Earth and her inhabitants closer to catastrophe every day. These three temptations have cosmic, planetary, and spiritual significance. Our very existence hangs on how we respond to them.
The devil’s words to Jesus work so well in all our lives because they work on our self-centeredness. As one politician recently put it, "you love your family and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens, and then after that, prioritize the rest of the world." The devil will quietly suggest just this to Jesus: feed yourself, get some power for yourself, attract some attention to yourself. Then after that, after you get what you want you can do some good in the world, starting with your own people.
The Adversary's path always looks considerably more appealing and reasonable than the usually pretty counter-intuitive and annoyingly demanding words we get from God who says to love enemies and strangers, to love those who can't love us back, to associate with, welcome, and serve the outcast, weak, and poor.
The Adversary knows that our love rarely gets beyond ourselves and our kind because we never feel like we have enough. Even the richest man in the world whines about needing a tax break, and more power, less regulation, more data, and more attention.
As long as we only want what we perceive as good for us personally, we invariably do things that destroy the Earth. Our lust for money, power, and attention have spawned an economy of exploitation, destruction, degradation, and defilement. All creation suffers for it.
II. The devil first suggests that Jesus make a loaf of bread out of a stone, which seems reasonable for someone who has just fasted for a month and a half. He can’t do any good for anyone if he starves to death in the desert. He will have a lot of people depending on him. He needs to keep his strength up for their sake, doesn't he? Think of all the hungry people Jesus could feed!
Should he let them stay hungry because of a dispute over a theological point? Caesar maintained his power by doling out bread; Jesus could become the provider of actual bread for the whole hungry world.
Over the course of time we have made bread into a metaphor for all kinds of wealth. We even talk like this, referring to money as "bread" or "dough." So the wider meaning of this temptation concerns our desire for wealth and to consume.
In the second of the temptations the devil offers Jesus the glory and authority of all the kingdoms of the world: political, military, judiciary, executive power.
This kind of coercive power gets enforced by bosses, armies, police, and courts. Think of all the good Jesus could do with this kind of power! He could fine, or imprison, or even legally execute all the bad guys! He could enforce laws to help and protect people. Almost all of humanity considers this the only kind of power that matters.
With the third temptation, the devil plays on the human desire for attention, attractiveness, popularity, admiration, and even fame. To achieve these benefits we will gladly put on a little show to win someone over.
Like birds and animals in mating season, or like rock stars and athletes put on a spectacle, or how we might spruce ourselves up a bit for a dinner or a party or work or church [or a presbytery meeting].
The Adversary bids Jesus put on a show, publicly taking a swan dive off the top of the Temple in Jerusalem. Then God will have to send angels to keep him from getting smashed on the pavement. Satan even helpfully quotes Psalm 91, in support of this plan.
Think what Jesus could do if people only paid attention to him! He would win their imaginations and hearts. He could say that God saved him so he can make everyone great!
Jesus overcomes the satanic egocentricity that causes us to do so much damage to ourselves, each other, and the planet. His example is to say "no" to the three basic, self-serving motivations our egos produce for doing just about anything. We need to say no to the question, "What do I get out of it?" and to measuring our own value by how much we gain, our "bottom line?" as we say.
III. Jesus' responses to these three temptations form the foundation of his ethical teachings and of Christian spirituality going forward. From here on he would have us always examine our motivations, asking ourselves: Is this about the money? Do we merely want power? Do we just want more attention?
To what degree do these three considerations motivate us? Do we only live for what we can get for ourselves?
As Christians we confess and affirm that it really is all about Jesus. But it's only all about Jesus because Jesus himself here recognizes that it's not all about him as an individual mortal human. It's not all about what he can personally gain, acquire, keep, own, and save. Even the Son of God has to become nobody, poor and powerless, he has to empty himself for the goodness and blessing of God to flow through him. He comes to us as the perfect, flawless conduit through whom the Creator pours grace and love into our hearts and into the world.
In his ministry, the One who here refuses to conjure bread to feed himself, spends most of his career feeding, healing, liberating, educating others. He will later feed five-thousand hungry people from apparently nothing! As his final act he gives his disciples himself as sacramental food and drink. Jesus renounces worldly power, yet his non-violent, persecuted followers eventually bring down the Roman Empire. The One who assiduously deflects attention has become the most famous human in history.
He says that whatever we do, we need to do it in obedience to God, not to our own will, or reason, or desires, or fears. We need to act primarily for others, not ourselves. That makes all the difference. Left up to us, we invariably make decisions in a completely self- interested way. We do things because we reason that we will gain some benefit. But Jesus says to do what God wills: seek Kingdom of God first, without worrying about how we personally profit. Indeed, he has us avoiding personal profit.
Unfortunately, Christians and the Church have caved to all three of these temptations repeatedly and often, right up until now. We convince ourselves of all the good we could do if only we had more wealth, power, and fame. We continue to measure success by the classic 3- B's: "bricks, butts, and bucks" (buildings, members, and money).
And all our misguided attempts to compromise with or rationalize our caving to these temptations separates us from the Creator and rightly discredits us in the eyes of the world. The Church as an agent, defender, or beneficiary of economic growth, political power, or marketing strategy does not follow Jesus Christ. People correctly see us as hypocrites at best, and at worst a nasty detriment to a healthy society. We ask "How can we get more people?" "How can we get more money?" "How can we get more attention?" when the only question for a church is: "How can we follow Jesus?" How can God's love flow through us? How can we reject those three temptations, and encourage others to do so as well?
IV. Look: the Church's whole job in the world is to follow Jesus, and to model and advocate for his spirituality of repentance and self-giving, selfless service, and simplicity. He even describes it as a kind of dying of our old self, the small, false self that craves money, power, and attention. Jesus wants first to change us, our own hearts and minds, our own behavior, and our own communities and relationships. Then, as our influence and example radiates outward, infusing the world like leaven in a lump of dough, the world changes for the better.
And the urgency -- which the Church has known since the beginning -- centers on the personal, social, and ecological consequences of our continuing to live in slavery to these three constant and perennial demands. Because our habitual succumbing to them, and the way we do that as a whole civilization, has pushed us into a deepening climate crisis, and a whole pile of exploding economic and political crises stacked on top of it.
The only way to stop this nihilistic momentum -- the only way to save the planet and the human community -- necessarily involves following Jesus and his example of not giving in to these impulses, and obeying his teachings instead. Hence, in this season of Lent, the Church historically resets itself in preparation for receiving the central saving mystery of our faith, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Christians deliberately renounce self-centered consumption by taking on disciplines of abstinence, relinquishing at least for 40 days our mindless fixation on consumption. The fasting disciplines of Lent do not concern punishing the body; they help us to stop punishing the Earth. We extricate ourselves from the devil's agenda.
With the resurrection, God accomplishes the comprehensive defeat of the Adversary, the Evil One, the one stoking our desire and fear. And we celebrate the preservation and restoration of creation. This is the way God saves the Earth. The resurrection life of Jesus that we receive in the Spirit spreads through us, by our acts of generosity and advocacy, humility and forgiveness, solidarity, compassion, and inclusion, across the whole diverse human community and all creation, liberating us all in love, glory, and joy.
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