One of my mentors in ministry said that her class was maybe the
last one taught at Columbia Seminary that there is only one interpretation of
any given scripture passage . . . and if you think about it, we knew it all
along . . . each generation interprets scripture in fresh and surprising new
ways, every racial/ethnic group in every socio-economic location in every
physical location colors the gospel in its unique palette . . . we can no more
apply every word of Paul's – written almost 2000 years ago to churches in
Corinth and Philippi – we can no more apply those words uncritically and
whole-clothed to our own situation than we can suppose they have no
application at all. And there may be no
deeper interpretive well, no passage that illustrates my teacher's comment more
than the tale of Jesus in the wilderness.
It gets preached every year on the first Sunday in Lent, and it never
gets old, it never fails to surprise me with its capacity for revelation which,
of course, is the whole point of scripture, the revelation of the mind and will
and heart of the divine.
We preach it at Lent because during this season's forty days we
are to mimic Christ's wilderness experience, we are to enter a wilderness of
our own, embedded in the framework of our everyday lives . . . and so a valid
question might be—what did Jesus do in the wilderness? Matthew says he fasted forty days and forty
nights, and afterwards he was famished.
I know I would be . . . forty days without food, forty days without a
bath, forty days with no human contact?
Jesus was bedraggled and wan, and here comes the devil in the robes of
an old desert wanderer . . . "here, eat a little, have a little chicken
soup . . . or maybe command these stones here to become loaves of
bread." Fragrant, hot, steaming
bread . . . it makes my mouth water just standing here, and I'm nothing if not
well fed. And what the devil is saying
to Jesus is "You know you want it, you know you're hungry, you know
you've got the power . . . just do it." And that wily old devil's tempting him
with instant gratification, with taking matters in his own hands, and not
waiting for God to take care of him in God's own time.
And Jesus' says: "One doesn't live by bread alone, but by
every word that comes from God's mouth."
And I used to think "Yeah, right . . . the Word's a good thing and
all, nice to have on the bedside table, but you gotta have a little something
to eat as well, gotta get those old building blocks of life into you
somehow . . .” but of course he's not talking quite so literally here . . .
he’s talking about the word that blew across the waters at creation, God’s
creative force, that makes our lives anew and afresh every day. Everything we have, and I mean everything,
our homes, our livelihoods, our lives, comes from every Word that
breathes from the mouth of the Divine, who will take care of Jesus in God's own
time . . . or not. Whatever, it's
not up to Jesus to do it for himself, he will be sustained by the Word of God.
And this story ought to sound familiar . . . it’s the same trap
the serpent set in the Garden, isn't it?
Grab that fruit, take matters into your own hands . . . use your own powers,
your own intellect, your own competent, problem-solving self to transform that church—oops, I mean turn those stones into
bread . . .
And maybe that's the point, that it’s the primal temptation,
the mother of all temptations, to put
yourself in the place of God, to do it all yourself, to not rely on the
providential grace of the Almighty. It’s
idolatry with a capital “I”, as in me, myself and, as in self-worship, putting ourselves in the place of God . .
. But wait a minute . . . aren't we promised, ultimately, just
that? Aren't we promised that we will
rest in perfect union with God, that we will at last – as Paul put it – know
fully, even as we have been fully known?
If we want complete knowledge, if we want complete power,
don't we just have to wait?
Scholar Gil Bailie picks up on this when he says "The Fall
is simply our impatience with God's gift. Adam and Eve . . . want God-likeness
right now. They don't want to receive it over time. They don't want to grow in
faith and love. They want it right now, and so they grasp at it." When
Satan tempts Jesus to provide his own food, the temptation is to satisfy his
hunger now, to not wait for God's own good time . . . and you might be
thinking "Right. Impatience . . .
isn't that kind of trivial? Isn't it
kind of banal? How does something as trivial as impatience stack up with pride,
power and avarice as major temptation topics?”
Well, look at all the harm it does . . . you're sitting at a
stop-light, and you're so impatient that the minute it turns green, you're out
of there . . . so you fail to see the guy who runs the light and broadsides
you, who in turn was too impatient to get where he was going to stop at the
light. I suspect impatience is the
major cause of traffic accidents, which cost more lives in the U.S. in a year
than did the entire Viet Nam war. And
what about the child – or co-worker – that you brush aside in your hurry, what
damage does it do to their sense of worth, their sense of self to have some
screaming speed freak take over that which they were getting done,
albeit at a snail's pace? And what about
the lives and families sacrificed everyday to the need to scramble up as many
of the rungs of the old corporate ladder as you can before you retire or,
worse, kick the bucket
For Christians, impatience is a refusal to let God do it in
God's own good time, to place the matter in God's loving hands . . . and if
that's true, then patience, for a Christian, is akin to . . .
faith. Faith that God's time is good
enough, faith that God will get it done, faith that it is definitely not
all up to you. And when the Devil – who
must have been grinding his fangs by that time – takes Jesus up to the pinnacle
of the Temple, in full view of all of Jerusalem, and more importantly of all
the Temple authorities below, he says "If you are the Son God, throw
yourself off, my pretty, for it's written God will command his angels and on
their hands they'll catch you"
and this must have been really tempting, because as soon as that
happened, the jig would be up, and all the thronging hordes and
temple-authority types below and indeed all the world would know who he is, and
the world – not to mention Jesus himself – would be saved a lot of pain
and heartache and time . . . it would sure speed up the coming of God's
holy reign, all right . . . but Jesus refuses again, he refuses once again to
take into his own hands that which is in God's, he refuses to force an issue
that will come to fulfillment in God's own time, he continues to have faith, he
continues to be patient.
Why are we impatient?
Why do we not rest in the arms of God, content to leave it all up to
God, content to let go and let God, as the saying goes? There's a silly country music song-title that
might give us some insight . . . "The Girls Get Prettier at Closing
Time." Knowing there's a deadline,
knowing there is a time limit, the song-writer implies that he'll "lower
his standards," maybe go home with a not-so-desirable woman, rather than
not go home with one at all. Now, I hope
you'll forgive me for being so sexist, but you can see the point: when you know
you've got limited time, a certain desperation can set in . . . and of course,
what's more of a final deadline than death itself? Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we
die. Get what you can, what you need
before it's too late, for soon – all too soon – you're going to kick the bucket.
Gil Bailie calls this "nihilism passing itself off as
cheerfulness," and says that the world we live in is saturated with this
sort of thinking . . . in the shopping mall, we're urged to spend, spend,
spend, like there's no tomorrow, because you can't take it with you, because
tomorrow you die . . . at the health club, we're caught between putting off the
inevitable – so we can spend, spend, spend some more – and our fear of
leaving behind a pretty corpse. How to
get ahead in business, the Art of War by Sun Tzu, business as mortal combat . .
. our whole culture is founded on it, soaked in it, competition raised to the
level of a God . . . hurry, hurry, hurry, acquire, acquire, acquire, stab in
the back, 'ack, 'ack, for tomorrow we die.
And finally, ol' Scratch takes Jesus up on the highest
mountain, even higher than the pinnacle of the Temple, and he shows him all the
kingdoms below . . . he looked South and saw herdsmen on the plains of Africa,
great ships, plying the Indian Ocean . . . over to the East, Asian warlords,
sweeping across the steppes . . . and in the West, the towers of New York City
and the crashing California coast . . . all the kingdoms of the world, past,
present and future, spread out before his eyes, and the devil says "All
these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me" And once
again we know that all the kingdoms of the world will be Christ's,
sooner or later, in the fullness of time, in God's good kairos time . . . he
doesn't have to make a Faustian bargain with the Devil, he doesn't have to take
it upon himself to bring God's loving kingdom into being just at that
moment, he has all the time in the world . . . and so he resists the final
temptation, he turns the devil down, and his wilderness days are over.
We asked this question at the outset: what did Jesus do in the
wilderness? The answer is that he fasted
and prayed, and that's what a lot of traditions encourage, first, that we
"give up something for Lent," if not a day or so of food, then maybe
alcohol or tobacco or meat or caffeine . . . and we use the six weeks to deepen
our spiritual journeys, to contemplate our place in God's salvation history . .
. but Jesus did another thing in the wilderness, didn't he? In addition to fasting and praying he
demonstrated patience, as well . . . he demonstrated trust in God – whom he
called Abba – he demonstrated leaving everything in God's capable hands.
We often treat patience as a quality, like either we
have it or we don't . . . we say "I don't have a lot of patience, pastor,
I just want to get on with it" or "I ran out of patience with
you a long time ago" as if there's a finite amount, and if it's gone it's
gone . . . but I don't think that's how it works, and in our passage we see
Jesus practicing patience, just like he practiced prayer and fasting . .
. I think we can practice it as well, we can practice leaving it
up to God, we can practice putting it all into God's hands, we can practice
letting go and letting God. And you know
what? Practice makes perfect . . . the
more you do something the easier it becomes.
And
what better time to practice it than right now, as we are seeking a new path,
seeking to let God re-invent us, seeking God’s preferred future? It’s our inclination to want to do something right
now, to start a new program, or tweak the worship service,
start leafleting the neighborhoods, do something, but you know
what? That’s ol’ scratch talking, that’s
our propensity to idolatry, to set ourselves up as God, as the one who provides
all things. And so, during this blessed season of Lent, sit back, chill,
and let the Spirit work. Amen.
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