Sermon: Walk With Me Into Temptation
Text: Luke 4:1-13
Date: Feb. 21, 2010
Rev. Dee Eisenhauer, Eagle Harbor Congregational Church
The Evil Spirit once came dejected before God and wailed, "Almighty God -- I want you to know that I am bored -- bored to tears! I go around doing nothing all day long. There isn't a stitch of work for me to do!"
"I can't understand you," replied God. There's plenty of work to be done only you've got to have more initiative. Why don't you try to lead people into sin? That's your job!"
"Lead people into sin!" muttered the Evil Spirit contemptuously. "Why Lord, even before I can get a chance to say a blessed word to anyone he has already gone and sinned!"If there is any truth in that funny little folk tale from Jewish tradition, it must have been a great day for the devil when Jesus wandered into the wilderness. Finally, a worthy opponent! Someone upon whom the devil could sharpen those rusty temptation skills, so little needed by the rest of humanity, who tumble into sin with no luring necessary.
Well, now, I’ve gone and made it sound like I believe that Jesus physically faced off in the desert with some pointy-horned mustachioed fellow wearing red long johns and a wicked smile. And I don’t really believe in an individual physical incarnation of Evil Spirit resembling Tim Curry or anyone else. But I do believe in temptation and testing. And I do believe Jesus was tempted and tested as part of his earthly journey. Temptation is part of what shaped him.
If there was no physical being leaving cloven-hoofed footprints in the desert sand, how did temptation come to Jesus? We can easily imagine a voice playing in his head—because most of us had heard voices, ideas that seem to come from nowhere and worm their way into our brains. Suppose Jesus’ tempter was a sort of seductive voice offering very "good" things to him, an attractive strategic plan for his ministry. More than one writer suggests that the tests come from deep within Jesus himself, hungry and alone and wondering: "The story," biblical scholar N.T. Wright tells us, "does not envisage Jesus engaged in conversation with a visible figure to whom he could talk as one to another: the devil's voice appears as a string of natural ideas in his own head. They are plausible, attractive, and make, as we would say, a lot of sense." This is a very personal and terrible struggle for Jesus (remember, he was fully human as well as fully divine), and "he must begin by defeating [the devil] at the most personal and intimate level.”
Jesus’ temptation is personal, yet we could generalize about these temptations and categorize them as cross-human temptations to opt for material comfort, political power, and personal security. Right? The devil suggests that a hungry Jesus make some bread to eat; he offers Jesus authority over all kingdoms of the world; he urges Jesus to prove that God is looking out for him by throwing himself off the pinnacle of the temple, summoning the angels to swoop in and catch him. Comfort, power, security. Most all of us want these things by virtue of being human.
Another angle on a universal understanding of Jesus’ temptations is proposed by Mary Gordon, who sees in this story a common human urge to prove ourselves. She writes, "One of the rare human achievements is to be so sure of oneself that one resists the temptation to prove one's own worth to someone else." Maybe, in your own way, you face the temptation to "prove you are effective, prove you are beloved, try authority on for size, and on top of it, glory….Authority. Glory. What are they but the signs that the world recognizes our worth?" What really "proves" our value, our effectiveness, our belovedness?
There is a wide-angle way to look at Jesus’ temptations and see a thread that runs throughout human experience. We may find temptations to comfort, power, security, and proving our worth cropping up in many human stories, including our own. There is a common story here. But I also believe that temptation is tailored for every individual. Everyone wears clothes (most of the time), but some clothes are tailor-made, cut for one figure. Everyone is tempted, but some temptations are shaped just for each of us. Our personalities and environments contour what tempts us. I said a moment ago that Jesus’ journey was shaped by his temptations. If the tempter’s voice is one rising up from deep within Jesus, we would have to say that Jesus shaped his temptations. I mean, what tempted him would fit his personality. His temptations would be, to some degree, unique.
When the devil talks to Jesus, he zeroes in on his unfolding identity and mission. Did you notice how he says pointedly a couple of times, “If you are the Son of God …” If a voice spoke to any of us in such a way, we’d be more likely to go see a therapist than seriously consider the offer being made. But Jesus is in all likelihood struggling with his identity and his relationship to God, so he has a tender spot there ol’ Beelzebub takes careful aim at.
The devil also quotes Hebrew Scripture rather freely when addressing Jesus, wrapping his lure in an attractive holy-ish package. A more secular person or a person of a different faith would be put immediately on guard upon hearing such quotations. But Jesus would have been drawn to something that echoed the religious tradition that meant everything to him. We don’t know, really, very much about the intensely personal struggle Jesus might have undergone in his forty day period of testing in the wilderness. I expect there are some things that would have tested and tempted Jesus that are entirely beyond my capacity to comprehend. And I probably wouldn’t understand a lot of what tempts any of you, either. Human temptations are in many ways as individual as a finger-print.
I suppose that’s why struggles with sin can seem so very lonely. I may be struggling with temptation, but because what tempts me would mean nothing to my neighbor, or because the voice that is trying to seduce me is so tailored to my own weaknesses, I may think no one else could understand. And to a certain degree I would be right about that. Throw in the fact that the temptation to sin is shameful--too mortifying to talk about---and what we have are a bunch of folk having an excruciatingly private battle with temptation.
I understand why struggling with temptation is often an individual’s battle to wage. But I’m not sure it has to be as top secret as it often is. I got to thinking a little more about that after hearing Pastor Paul Stumme-Diers’ sermon on Ash Wednesday. He taught us about a practice of the 4th Century church that I had not heard of before. In those days, Lent was a season of discipline for Christians. The church disciplined people who had given in to the temptation to sin. The members of the congregation being disciplined were divided into four categories according to the seriousness of the sin that had been committed. If you had done something really beyond the pale, you would be assigned to the Weepers. The weepers weren’t even allowed to come into the church building. They were directed to stand out in the parking lot and weep for their sin, and beg people going into the church to pray for them.
Then there were the Hearers. They could come in the front door, but had to stay out in the hallway or narthex. From there they might be able to hear the gospel, listen to the liturgy, but they were not allowed to come in and participate.
The third category was the Kneelers. They were admitted to the sanctuary, but they were required to kneel while the rest of the congregation stood or sat. Other worshipers were encouraged to lay hands on them and pray for them while they knelt through the liturgy.
The last group being disciplined was the Standers. They could stand with the other worshipers in the service, but they had to leave when the communion was served. They weren’t welcome at the Table.
The Weepers, Hearers, Kneelers and Standers were effectively “quarantined” during the season of Lent. And the discipline could go on for more than one season of Lent. It might be several years of discipline before one got back into full fellowship with the church. For example, Basil the Great condemned adulterers to four years as Weepers, five years as Hearers, four years as Kneelers, and two years as Standers before they could be restored to full fellowship. He ordered perjurers to two years as Weepers, three years as Hearers, four years as Kneelers, and one year as a Stander.
Harsh, huh? Are you glad you are not in the fourth-century church with Basil the Great keeping a close watch on you? I am. On the other hand, there is something very appealing about the way the people’s sin was out in the open and the fellowship was pulling for those who were on the outside. Those in full fellowship are asked to pray for the Weepers and the Hearers, lay hands on the Kneelers and the Standers, praying for them, accompanying them while they make the long journey back into full Eucharistic fellowship with the church. The sinners’ struggle is anything but private and secret in this tradition. It may be arduous, but it’s not lonely. The trouble with our clandestine struggles with temptation is that our fellow travelers on this spiritual journey don’t necessarily know what we are going through. We might have among us all of these folks: Weepers who don’t feel worthy even to cross the threshold, Hearers who are drawn to the gospel community but don’t feel a part of it, Kneelers brought low by burdens kept tightly under wraps, Standers who blend in but are not reconciled to God and neighbor…they may all be here, but well disguised under tightly controlled smiling faces.
We might not be ready to share all of our inner struggles with other members of the church, and it probably wouldn’t be appropriate to bare our souls indiscriminately to whoever is standing in front of us at coffee hour. Yet it seems to me that temptation might have less power if we were not completely isolated in our spiritual wrangling. I recall talking with a close friend a few months ago over dinner. The topic of drinking came up, and we found ourselves telling each other that we both really enjoyed wine. We each have an alcoholic parent. We both recognize that dependence on alcohol could be especially tempting, given the genetics of addiction, not to mention the family and cultural traditions that surround drinking. I have to tell you, it was such a relief to put that temptation out on the table between the two of us, and to pledge keeping an eye on the other and intervening if we thought drinking was becoming too important to either of us. Later, I was thinking, why didn’t we have that conversation ten years ago? We are very close friends, and yet we have shielded our temptations from each other.
Everyone is tempted by something. John Steinbeck once wrote, “Man is the only kind of varmint that sets his own trap, baits it, then steps in it.” Ain’t that the truth? It’s no secret that we are drawn to actions that aren’t good for us or anybody else. We have all sinned, and we are all more or less continuously tempted to sin again, and sin in new and creative ways, or in the good old favorite ways. That’s no secret. It’s curious that we generally seem so zealous about keeping the specific nature of the temptations that call to us totally hush-hush.
In the gospel story, Jesus went through his spiritual struggle with temptation alone, albeit filled with the Holy Spirit and armed with Scripture he had studied and committed to memory. That was the journey he had to, or chose to make. We don’t necessarily have to make the same choice, to wrestle with what tempts us alone and lonely. We have spiritual friends and companions we can call on. In a congregation we serve as vessels of the Holy Spirit for each other; we act as servants to each other, reflecting the love of Christ. Would it be so hard to reach out to a trusted companion and share our private battles? We ask God every week in the Lord’s Prayer not to lead us into temptation. Is it such wild idea that we could ask our trusted companions on the faith journey to walk with us into temptation? Not to lure another into temptation, but to ask for them to help us, to give us strength and perspective and wisdom as we wrestle with our own demons. Perhaps another who loves us will know just the right answer to the voice that bedevils us. I hope you’ll consider being a bit vulnerable within a trusted and trusting community of faith.
If it seems too scary to reveal ourselves to another actual human being, we may still unveil our struggles to Jesus, who has gone down this road before us and yearns to accompany us through our lives with strength and wisdom. We may find union with all that is holy as we walk with him through birth, blessing, wilderness, miracle, trial, suffering, death, renewed life, rising.
I want Jesus to walk with me. In all my trials, Lord, walk with me. And you, too, my friends, I want you to walk with me. In my trials, in my temptations, in my triumphs, beloved, walk with me.