Sermon text - Matthew 4:1-11
"It is well … with my soul … It is well … it is well … with my soul." Such a song may have been on Jesus lips as he departed from the wilderness after successfully resisting the devil's temptations. Each of us faces temptations such as Jesus did. We will examine the text this morning to explore the ways in which we are tempted as Jesus was tempted. Unfortunately, we don't always come out as well as Jesus when we are tempted. No wonder I saw a church sign this week that said: "Try Jesus - If you don't like him, the devil will take you back." However, I disagree with that theology. I think Jesus and the devil are both inside us as different aspects of who we are.
Both the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke call the tempter "diabolos" which is translated as "devil." This is the same figure referred to as "Satan" in Mark's gospel, previously known as Lucifer in the Old Testament and subsequently referred to as Lucifer in the Rolling Stones song "Sympathy for the Devil." Matthew's Gospel uses these nouns to describe the devil: 'the enemy' (13.39), the 'evil one' (6:13), who is destined to be defeated and thrown with his angels into eternal fire (25:41). On one occasion, Jesus calls Peter "Satan" when Peter refuses to accept the necessity of the cross. That incidence is a key to my interpretation of this text whereby the temptation to deny taking up our own cross is at the bottom of all the other temptations.
We have in our story today two characters: Jesus and the Devil. The devil is the character the Rolling Stones describe as "A man of wealth and taste" who's "been around for a long long year" and "stole many a man's soul and faith." I would argue that throughout the ages the devil has had as many names and as many faces as there are human beings who have inhabited this planet. The two figures in our story today are the devil and Jesus. They are both inside us every moment vying for our will and affection. The story of the devil's temptation of Jesus symbolically describes the struggles each of us face as human beings who fly a little lower than the angels and wall a little higher than the animals.
In our story today, Jesus moves directly from his baptism in the Jordan river into the desert wilderness where he fasts for 40 days and 40 nights which is reminiscent of Israel's wandering the wilderness for 40 years. At the end of those 40 days and 40 nights Jesus' hunger becomes the basis for his first temptation by the devil, "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread."
Focus on these two nouns: Stones and Bread. Since before the time of Jesus until today stones have been used as weapons to kill people. Recall the story of the of the stoning of Steven in the Book of Acts. The Apostle Paul seems to have organized that event before his conversion when he was still named Saul. I guess he would say the devil made him do it. Today you can watch videos on YouTube or Fox News or CNN in which a young man living in Egypt or Libya or Jerusalem picks up a stone and throws it at police in riot gear. Stones make great weapons in that part of the world because they are conveniently laying around on the ground. There are nice sized throwing stones about the size of a baseball or softball all over the Middle East.
Satan suggests Jesus turn stones into bread. Bread is a word that used to mean money when I was a child. Bread symbolizes material things. As Madonna sang, "We are living in a material world and I am a material girl." I read a story this week about a man who spent his young adulthood on Wall Street and made millions of dollars there. He had it all and he was standing in an office building across from the World Trade Center watching the explosion when it happened. As he recovered from that experience he came to realize that the BMW he had bought without even looking at the sticker price was not bringing fulfillment to his life. Over time, he found his own way back into balance in his life whereby he was giving back and thus more fulfilled in his life. Charlie Sheen is another example we could use of someone who seems to need some balance in his life at this time. We are neither superstars nor Jesus but we too are tempted to focus on material objects that to us represent the good life. When we lose ourselves in pursuit of the bread symbol we may lose our soul. Jesus once said, "What will it profit someone if they gain the whole world but lose their soul?" When he was tempted, Jesus answered the devil, "It is written, 'One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'" And that settled that.
But then things are never settled when it comes to the devil because the tempter never quits. In the second temptation, Satan begins with the second most powerful word of all: "IF!" We love to play the "IF" game with God. We say, "God, IF you will help me pass this math test then I will stop cussing." Or, "God, IF you will just heal my loved one then I will attend church every Sunday." Millions of people today view God as a supernatural bargainer. We act as if God is some carnival figure selling snake oil whom we think we can out barter. We act as if we give God something then God will give us something in return. This is a childish game we play and nothing good will ever come from it. God doesn't want ANY thing from us. God wants EVERY thing from us. That is what the symbol of the cross means. When we refuse to take up our cross, Jesus will call us Satan too, just like he did with Peter.
Instead of taking up our cross and carrying it, we want to cut it back some to make it easier to handle. We take off a little off the bottom and a little off the top of our cross and even a little off the sides. We think God won't mind because after all we are incredibly busy and God should be satisfied to have SOME of our attention. We don't think God will even notice what we do with our cross what with all the trouble in the world today with revolutions in the Middle East and budget crisis in Europe and the United States. The problem is when we come to a chasm in the path before us we find our cross is too short to bride the gap between us and the other side. We sometimes unexpectedly come to a chasm like a dear Japanese grandmother who lives near the nuclear reactor plant in north-east Japan after Friday's quake and tsunami that left more than 1,000 dead. When we come to such a chasm we better hope we haven't been skimming back on our cross during the good times. We are silly if during the good times we cut back on the cross we must bear and then we wonder why it won't carry us over the chasm in the bad times.
We want to test God because it makes us feel more powerful. This is ridiculous. We may not test God. That is not our place. As God says to Job in the midst of his trials and temptations, "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?" Truth be told, we don't remember where we were when God did that. In the second temptation the devil tempts Jesus to cast himself down from the pinnacle of the temple and let the people witness God save him from death. Jesus refuses to test God. Jesus says to the devil, "Again it is written, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'" (Matt 4:7) Thus he passes temptation number two. That should be enough to make the devil flee but the devil is never in any rush to leave us.
Temptation number three is the lust for power. The devil makes Jesus an offer he thinks Jesus cannot refuse: "Bow down to me and I will give you all the kingdoms of the world." I think of the Blues song called Crossroads that talks about the singer going down to the crossroad and selling his soul to the devil so he could gain the power to be a Superstar. This is the temptation to lust for power over someone else. It is putting our feet in God's shoes as if God had feet and our feet could fill her shoes. Again, an image of the devil from the Rolling Stones: "I rode a tank - Held a general's rank - When the blitzkrieg raged - And the bodies stank … Pleased to meet you - Hope you guess my name." Power is more seductive than money. Lots of people have millions of dollars and they are not bad people but its the sociopaths who want to control society you have to worry about. The lust for power over others is the greatest seduction of the soul.
All three temptations are God substitutes and all three temptations are common experiences to us all. The purpose of the text is to help us see how we've been tempted. We all have our favorite drug. For some it is greed, for others lust, for others it is cocaine. When we give in to our drug of choice we are chopping our cross to make it lighter. If we bear our cross by dealing with the underlying issue then our cross will help us when we need it. If we've lessened the length of the cross we bear we are going to be stuck when we need it. All three temptations have to do with not wanting to be crucified. It is my soul and yours that is being challenged in this story. This is God's words to you and me about our own lives.
The devil, when finished, departed from Jesus "until an opportune time." So just because we keep our cross together and cross the chasm that doesn't mean we have arrived. There are still other chasms to forge. Even in the world to come there will be other chasms to forge.
We conclude with a final image from the Rolling Stones' description of the devil that needs to be debunked. "So if you meet me have some courtesy - Have some sympathy, and some taste. Use all your well-learned politesse - Or I'll lay your soul to waste." Oh contraire, me thinks, the devil we have to worry about is not the Flip Wilson devil of "The devil made me do it" fame. No, the devil we have to worry about is the devil inside each of us: Our shadow side that remains hidden from our conscious awareness. We need not fear the devil out there. As the hymn says, "One little word shall fell him." (A Mighty Fortress Is Our God) Instead, take heed of the devil within.
After he resisted the devil for the third time, then the devil left Jesus, and suddenly angels came and waited on him. The angels are there for us, too. They are waiting there on the other side of the chasm. We may not be able to get to them on the other side if we keep chopping off our cross little by little. Let's bear that in mind the next time we are tempted to do that.
In closing, I'm thinking of another song. It's called "Lay My Burdens Down." It says, "I'm gonna lay down my burdens, down by the riverside. Down by the riverside. Down by the riverside. I'm gonna lay down my burdens. Down by the riverside. Ain't gonna study war no more." I wonder if the message of Jesus temptation by the devil is to show us how we make war upon ourselves. We deny ourselves the opportunity for growth that comes from spiritual pain, settling instead for chopping off our cross by taking the easy way out.
We must fight the good fight within ourselves and bear our cross. In the end, it's worth all the hard work and not taking short cuts and dealing with the underlying issues and not whittling down our cross to make it easier to bear. That's what he meant when Jesus said, "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Let's explore what that statement means during this Lenten season. Let's take Jesus' yoke upon us – the cross – and bear the full weight of it and not take short cuts. Then, when it comes time to cross the chasm in this world or in the world to come, we may lay down our cross over the chasm that lies between us and the promised land and our cross will become for us a bridge over troubled waters.
