Jesus returned from the Jordan River full of the Holy Spirit, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. 2 There he was tempted for forty days by the devil. He ate nothing during those days and afterward Jesus was starving. 3 The devil said to him, “Since you are God’s Son, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” 4 Jesus replied, “It’s written, People won’t live only by bread.”[a] 5 Next the devil led him to a high place and showed him in a single instant all the kingdoms of the world. 6 The devil said, “I will give you this whole domain and the glory of all these kingdoms. It’s been entrusted to me and I can give it to anyone I want. 7 Therefore, if you will worship me, it will all be yours.” 8 Jesus answered, “It’s written, You will worship the Lord your God and serve only him.”[b] 9 The devil brought him into Jerusalem and stood him at the highest point of the temple. He said to him, “Since you are God’s Son, throw yourself down from here; 10 for it’s written: He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you 11 and they will take you up in their hands so that you won’t hit your foot on a stone.[c]” 12 Jesus answered, “It’s been said, Don’t test the Lord your God.”[d] 13 After finishing every temptation, the devil departed from him until the next opportunity. (CEB)
“Your Broken Crown,” Luke 4:1-13, Ash
Wednesday 2013
I
used this story at the beginning of my Ash Wednesday sermon last year too, but
it is such a good one for setting the right balance in mood and tenor for a
service like this that I could not pass up a repeat telling of this story. The Reverend Lillian Daniel, an immensely
talented pastor in the United Church of Christ, writes in a book on pastoral
ministry that she co-authored, called “This Odd and Wondrous Calling,” about
her experience as a pastoral intern at a parish while in seminary. She says:
“I remember sitting at the back of the
sanctuary, reviewing my notes for my very first seminary-intern sermon. It was to be a mighty word from god that
would correct all the hypocrisy, greed, and faithlessness of the local church
that was, nonetheless, supporting my education as they had supported that of so
many others. As I mustered my courage to
sock it to them, I overheard one woman lean across her walker and whisper
loudly to her pew mate, “Ah, our new intern is preaching. I see it’s time for our annual
scolding.” Later, I would pastor a
church near that very divinity school, and hear for myself a few annual
scoldings.”
Now,
we have no seminary intern here to deliver us our annual scoldings—you just
have me! And it would be all too easy to
dismiss Ash Wednesday as the day when the parish pastor administers said annual
scolding. After all, we have come to a
place in the life of the church—the big church, not just our parish, but the
entire church—where it is easier to either preach exclusively about God’s love
or exclusively about God’s wrath. God is
either your chummy pal who you could always shoot some pinochle with, or God is
this perpetually infuriated son-of-a-gun with serious anger management issues. There is no in between.
And
those polarities are appealing to people—they are simple, easy to remember, and
Scriptural in the sense that in Revelation, God says to us that because we are
neither cold nor hot, that we are lukewarm, He will spit us out of His mouth. So if our faith is in a God who is not
lukewarm, maybe that lukewarm God will not spit us out of His church? But…no, that cannot be it, either. The truth is, honestly, that I think many,
perhaps most, churches are guilty of idolatry in the basest, most fundamental
sense of the term—they have gone and made God in their own image, rather than
the other way around, of trying to craft themselves in God’s image--if they are hateful people, then God must be a hateful God.Which is perhaps the most profound sin of
all…after all, the very first two commandments of the Ten Commandments are to
have no other Gods before Yahweh, and to not make for ourselves any idol or
graven image. In trying to make God like
us, we violate both commandments.
The
temptation in the wilderness, the story in Luke, and in Mark, and in Matthew,
thought not in John, is, then, the opportunity for Jesus try to create God in
His own image as well. The tempter,
Satan, Lucifer, Beelzebub, whatever you want to call him, appears, and tries
again and again and again to goad Jesus into using His Godlike powers for
selfish purposes. The things Jesus is
asked to do, to turn stones into bread, to call upon angels to save lives,
these are the powers of God in the Old Testament, the God who sends manna to
the Israelites on Sinai, and who sends down the chariot of fire to save Elijah
from earthly death. What Jesus is being
asked to do in the wilderness is to play God, to take on the role of the Father
who has, for the moment, left Him in the wilderness. The first time that Jesus is forsaken, to use
Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s language, is not upon the Cross, it is here, at the very
beginning of His ministry. Here, in the
wilderness.
In
other words, it is a bit ironic that Jesus, in the course of His ministry, is
not at the most danger in the wilderness…after all, He is sentenced and
executed in the capital city of ancient Israel.
But His first vulnerability comes in a context and setting that is 180
degrees different from where He will find Himself just several weeks from now
on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday.
And
it’s with that which Satan eventually tempts Jesus—His current location. We see it a bit in the first temptation, to
turn stones into bread, but where it really comes into play are the next two
temptations—Satan actually transports Jesus—“led up” is a close translation
from the New Testament Greek—to a place where Jesus can see everything in the
world, and then, when that isn’t good enough, Satan “takes Jesus to Jerusalem
and place(s) Him on the pinnacle of the Temple.” In other words, Satan isn’t just tempting
Jesus with the obvious—food, fame, and power—but with geography as well! He’s letting Jesus out of the prison bars of
His fast for an instant in the hopes that it will be just enough to sway the
Son of God to his side.
Of
course, it isn’t. For Jesus,
anyways. For us, though…that’s an
entirely different question. I mean,
don’t we catch a glimpse of something far away from what we currently have and
begin to long for it, almost as an escape from our current dreariness and
drudgery? We see an ad for a new car, or
an exotic vacation destination, or even a freaking Mega Millions ticket, and
our mouths start to drool just a little bit…
And
that’s what Satan is doing to Jesus here, except on steroids. He’s taking this poor chap who has been
completely shelterless for 40 days and nights and showing Him the greatest of cities
and palaces and in effect saying, “Here, take your pick. But only if you disavow God for me.”
And
that’s what temptation is, isn’t it? It
isn’t this pitched battle—I have always resisted the notion of “spiritual
warfare” not only for its overly violent imagery but for its premise that this
is somehow a fair fight or battle—instead, it is this sneaking-up on us, bit by
bit. After all, we know what an act of
war looks like, and we are kidding ourselves if we think war is meant to be
tempting. No, temptation is temptation
because it grows and grows, almost organically.
That characteristic of organic growth is something put on alarming display by Satan in Luke’s version of the
temptation. Because in this story, Satan
learns. His tactics evolve over the
course of the story. Jesus rebuffs Satan
the first two times by quoting verses from the Old Testament, so what does
Satan do the third time he tries to tempt Jesus? He quotes the Old Testament
himself, pulling out a quote from Psalms.
Which
should be one of the most telling ways that we know exactly what our sins
are—that we will come up with newer and increasingly vehement justifications
for them. We even appeal to our moral
authority—Scripture—in order to justify our sins. It is, in part, how institutionalized slavery
persisted for so long in the United States—there were Christians who used the
moral authority of Scripture to justify that particular sin. The same went for delaying women the right to
vote, for allowing child labor, and for so many other things we have done wrong
in our past.
And
so it is disingenuous for us to go to God and pray for forgiveness, for a
blanket amnesty, for all the wrongs we may have done without including the
wrongs that we know we have done. I just
rattled off some collective sins, but this is just as true for our own personal
sins as well.
And
it’s tough to admit that. I get it. We have this sort of schizophrenic reaction
to sin…in the abstract, we’re totally okay with being labeled as sinners. Because hey, we’re all sinners. We all sin, do sinful things, sin, sin
sin. But as soon as you take your
fingernail and scratch below that thin-layered surface, things get touchy and
testy in a big damn hurry. We may be
okay with calling ourselves sinners, but our egos and our sense of denial keep
us from really actually owning our own brokenness.
It’s
something that we can learn not only from Jesus, but from HOW we depict
Jesus. I honestly have not come across
many portraits of Jesus in the temptation as someone who has fasted for 40 days
would really look. Often, Jesus is in
some sort of “the thinker” pose or standing elegantly, thoughtfully turning his
gaze away from Satan, who is either hovering over Jesus or confronting Him.
How
unrealistic, though! What about the
portraits of a starving, exhausted, even emaciated Jesus in sore need of a hair
cut or a beard trim? Is it that we are
scared of ever depicting the divine Son of God in such a way, or is it that we
are that afraid of owning up to the sheer brokenness that is the human
condition?
Maybe
it’s a bit of both. But I have found at
least one portrayal—at least, I have seen it as such—that depicts the agony of
the temptation. One of my favorite bands
is the British folk quartet Mumford and Sons, and their 2012 album Babel included a song entitled, simply,
“Broken Crown.” Its lyrics, in part, go
like this:
Touch my mouth, and hold my tongue, I’ll
never be your chosen one.
I’ll be home, safe, and tucked
away. You can’t tempt me if I don’t see
the day…
So I’ll crawl on my belly til the sun
comes down, but I’ll never wear your broken crown.
I
have no idea what the band’s personal meaning was behind these words, but from
my perspective, it just feels like the perfect thing that Jesus could have said
to Satan. It acknowledges great physical
weakness, but also sheer spiritual strength.
It acknowledges light, but also the coming darkness. And it acknowledges the broken crown of sin
that we can all choose to wear, or to not wear.
What
if, this Lenten season, during these 40 days in the wilderness where we come
out the other end shouting “The tomb is empty!
He is risen!” we acknowledged the broken crowns we have chosen to wear
in our lives…and to turn them over to the one true God, the one true King, the
wearer of the one true crown?
In
doing so, may our brokenness finally, miraculously, wonderfully be made whole
once more. By the grace of God, may it
be so. Amen.
Rev.
Eric Atcheson
Longview,
Washington
February
13, 2013
No comments:
Post a Comment