February 12, 2005                                                                 Trinity (Eugene) UMC

Lent 1                                                                                     Pamela Nelson-Munson

                                                From Know to No!

          OK…. We all know the story: Jesus gets baptized, goes into the wilderness for 40 days, gets tempted, and starts his 3-year ministry with 12 disciples, is executed and is raised from the dead.

          But that’s pretty fast… and I think this part of the story deserves a little slow motion. I don’t know about you, but when I’ve fasted or dieted, the time goes by really slowly. And although we take it for granted and say it in one breath that Jesus fasted for 40 days and was tempted… the season of Lent takes this period very seriously, and slowly, and I’d like to unpack it.

          Roll back the cameras to Jesus’ baptism. Jesus has had a full life up to now… 30 years to grow up, learn a trade, and study his religion enough to be called “Rabbi” or teacher.

          But now… for a reason that is not recorded in the gospels, Jesus goes down to the River Jordan to be baptized… an act of conversion… an act of changing his direction…. Leaving the old behind…

          So amidst the protests of John the Baptist, Jesus goes into the water, and he hears God’s voice saying “This is my beloved, my son, who has really made me happy!”

          But then we have a curious phrase… “the Spirit DROVE Jesus into the wilderness.” That’s very strong language.

          When Jesus got up that morning, I don’t believe he knew he was going out into the wilderness and starve for 40 days.

He was taking things one at a time. But events configured themselves that took him on an unexpected, but not unprepared for journey.

John had told the folks he baptized “I baptize you with water (cleansing), but the one who comes after will baptize you with fire and the spirit.”

          Did you ever realize that Jesus always went first for everything he told us to do. He was baptized with water, and then he was baptized with the Spirit. “Baptized” means totally covered, immersed,  So Jesus was totally immersed with the “fire” … the living/changing Presence of God’s Spirit.

          I believe at that moment he felt the passion and the presence and the power of God within him. So strong was that … so overwhelming … that he had to get away… had to be alone to communicate … receive ..”be”, experience. So totally immersed in this Presence, Jesus didn’t “fast”… give up food… be aesthetic… he couldn’t eat… with feet on the ground, his spirit was on a different plane.

XX    Let me tell you just a little about the wilderness. The word “desert” is a misnomer. There is not sand, but lots of sandy dirt… but more than dirt, there are rocks, little ones medium sized ones and some big ones. The ground is uneven, rolling. There is very little precipitation, very little green. And yet that “wilderness” is one of the most beautiful, peaceful places I have ever been.

          When I was there, it was probably the one place I felt was the most “authentic” of the many “Jesus” places I visited in Israel. There was ground and sky and they both stretched on and on. The wind blew and whistled. It truly was a place to be alone with your thoughts, your questions, and God.

          So as I replay this story, it is very slow and full of surprises. Jesus gets up and decides this is the day to be baptized to start the next leg of his journey, whatever God might have in store for him.

          His baptism overwhelms even Jesus in a surprising way… and following the example of generations before him, he feels “driven” to sort this overwhelming experience in the wilderness. Days melt into nights, which pass into more days.  The words of the scriptures he has memorized “by Heart”… with love and learning… take on flesh and blood and flood him with new meaning and realism. He does not think of food or drink in this rarified atmosphere of the Spirit. It’s not just an initiation…it’s a marriage … a honeymoon .. but soon to be a marathon.

          The number of days is “40” which is “Bible” code for a very long time. We remember Moses leading the Hebrew people for 40 years in their Wilderness, and Noah in the ark for 40 days in the wilderness of the flood, and now Jesus faces his time of testing… but the testing was not the 40 days… the testing came at the end of the 40 days.

          This brief scripture says that AFTER 40 days of fasting in the wilderness, Jesus was hungry.

??     What happens when you’re famished? Well, you’re weak. You’ll eat just about anything to relieve being hungry.

          What about Jesus?  Alone, famished, but “high” on his God experience, the “tempter” came to him. We are not talking about Dante’s Satan with tale and horns… we are talking about an unworldly entity coming to Jesus at his WEAKEST PHYSICAL moment, but his STRONGEST SPIRITUAL moment.

          Remember also that “tempt” is not the same sense as driving past Krispy Kremes… the meaning of “tempt” is TO TEST.  Like rope that has a “test weight” … it has been TESTED to see how much weight it can stand.

THE REASON FOR THIS “TEMPTOR” WAS TO SEE how STRONG JESUS WAS TO BEGIN HIS MINISTRY.

          Each “temptation” … each “test” will see if he is ready for this important 3 years coming up.

          Each temptation will be tailored perfectly to what he will face, and how he will deal with it.

          For each temptation, he will have to rely not on himself, but on what he has built as his foundation for these past 30 years.

Temptation #1    So what is the first temptation? It’s to eat. Remember, the wilderness is literally littered with stones. In his hungry delirium, how easy it would have been to see thousands upon thousands of rocks as little loaves of bread.

"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.'"

I notice a couple of things here. For these first two tests, there is the conditional “If you are the Son of God”… this strikes at Jesus’ identity.

Where will his sense of self and call come from…. What people will see him do?  Will he be steadfast in who he knows he is?

          The tempter knows his scripture…. Knows his Bible. What he says and how he puts it together can make perfect sense… except for the context.

          Perhaps some would think of Moses in the wilderness and God raining down manna to feed the hungry people. Certainly this exercise had merit for a would-be messiah.

          Yet as hungry, as famished as Jesus was, his spiritual senses were acute… his knowledge of what the scriptures said was well ingrained, and his first “it is written” came forth.

Physical nourishment vs. spiritual; they exist side by side. Certainly “our test” even today is the inordinate emphasis we put on satiating what we perceive as a “physical” hunger for “things” … when perhaps the “things” we fill our lives up with mask our spiritual hunger.

Jesus passes test #1.  Even starving to death, he has his priorities in order.

Test #2.

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.'"

It’s kind of a Charles Dickens’ “Christmas Carol” scene. Jesus is whisked away from the stark wilderness, to the top of the temple in Jerusalem.

          Certainly here he could make his grand entrance. All would see the miracle, and he could skip three years of explaining, teaching and quelling of doubts.

          Again the tempter uses the conditional “If you are the son of God”, and uses scripture. In other words, “prove yourself” …. And here’s scriptural back-up.

          But Jesus cuts through the dare, and simply says, “You don’t bargain with God.”  You don’t say, “if you love me God you’ll do this” … and you don’t say “If you really exist God, then answer this prayer.”

You don’t “test” God… there is NO God test… God is God.

Jesus passes test #2. His motivation is not to show people who he Jesus is, but to trust in God’s timing for every aspect of his life.

Test #3.     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.'"

The kingdoms and their splendor… how little of Jesus’ heart the tempter understood, even to us today. Jesus was never concerned with kingdoms and splendor.

He wanted hearts and minds and lives turned not only to him, but to each other. “Do you love me? Feed my sheep.”  “As you do this to the least, you do it to me.” “Build up treasures in heaven.”

          And here, the most overt test: whom will you worship… whom will you look to work out your ultimate purpose …

Jesus passes test #3.  He banishes the tempter with what sounds good and right and logical, but is probably our hardest test even today:  worship and serve only God.

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In the end of Jesus’ ministry, all of these scenarios were accomplished…. But not because Jesus wanted them or ordered them… but they came about in God’s timing, and for God’s purposes.

Temptation #1…. Jesus did feed thousands with bread, but it was not a show… only the disciples realized the miracle of the loaves and fishes.

Temptation #2….. Jesus was raised up on a cross of death and was lifted to life … but again, not as a show.. and only those who had eyes to see saw it.

Temptation #3 …..  The world has come to know Jesus. Worship him? Some times, some places. But not because of some spiritual trick or bargain, not because people are puppets to be manipulated, but because eyes are opened, and hearts are healed. 

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          This is Jesus’ story. It’s like we have an incredibly important peephole into his spiritual conditioning.

But we wrestle with whether it’s our story too, especially in this Lenten season of 40 days.  Certainly we have trials and temptations… nothing on this scale… but certainly, sometimes as real, confusing and weighty.

What are we made of? What’s our test weight? Have we made any progress over the years of our life? Is the testing ever over?  Do we ever pass?  The question is not “If you are the Son of God”… but “If are a child of God…..”

***     I believe this story is as crucially relevant today for us, as in any age. This is A RELIGIOUS TEMPTATION story.  This isn’t about secular vs. the sacred… this is about “religious” vs. “the Way of the Cross.” And they are so different…. But can appear so similar.

          I entitled this sermon “From KNOW to NO.”  Now aside from the cute Capital One commercial with the “no’s” being a part of every expression… perhaps the catch phrase could well be for this temptation story:

“WHAT’S IN YOUR BIBLE?”

          The Tempter knew scripture. But Jesus knew it better. Jesus knew it in context. I once had a colleague who used the phrase in Bible Study, “Text without context is pretext!”  How much of that is going around today? People parade their snippets of Bible as “gospel”, which is anything but “good news.”

People put words of hate in Jesus’ mouth. People put motivations of wealth and power and success and politics under the banner of Christianity …. And it has very little if anything to do with the person of Jesus whose beginning stated purpose was to “bring sight to the blind, set the prisoners free, and declare the acceptable year of the Lord.”

          The Tempter is alive and well in the Christian church of 2005. The tactics are still the same: take a spoonful of out-of-context scripture, and mix well with our human cravings for acknowledgment, belonging, and being right.

The Test continues. What is our spiritual test strength? How do we improve it?

Paul wrote that we are to have “the mind of Christ.” How does that happen? I believe the clues are right here in this passage.

          To know the scripture, to make it a part of our lives. But not to take it in to shore up our own position. To be informed and surprised and comforted and bothered and challenged by scripture, the person of Jesus Christ and his spirit speaking to our spirit, and constantly living in the tension of being a part of the Kingdom of God here in our world.

To KNOW scripture.  To KNOW who Jesus was and is and his claim on our lives. To KNOW that God has first priority and claim on our lives and world view. To KNOW who we are and to KNOW whose we are. That is how we say and live the NO as the tempter comes to test our Spirit strength.

          LIKE Jesus we’re tested. UNLIKE Jesus we rarely get it right the first time. I know that’s OK, because I remember Peter… who kept getting it wrong, but loved Jesus so much, he hung in there, and one day he stood up and got it right.

          To KNOW this Jesus; his mind and priorities is a lifetime journey … one where we say and live our NO to the tempter who will come often and when we least expect it, and have neither the time nor energy for it…. Who  will come disguised as friends or family; political or social ideology, and even the church itself.      

          We say “NO”  because we have already said “YES” to the God we KNOW.

Amen.