A Meditation on Matthew 4:1-11
Sunday, September 27, 2017
1.
So it’s not that
Jesus gets lost, somehow, on a hike.
It’s not that he wanders off, singing hymns and plucking daisies, and casually
loses track of time. The text says that
the Spirit leads him to the devil to be tempted. The Spirit leads Jesus to the devil to be tempted. As if the Spirit knows exactly what she’s
doing. As if she fully intends to test
him out there. As if Jesus’ faith—his GREAT
BIG LOVING FOREVER FAITH—has to be tested, tested to be effective. To be consequential. She intends to test him. Do you hear that this morning? She intends to test him.
So the tests these
days are many. And the tests these days
are brutal. This week I met a man who’s
a member of our sister church in Charlottesville, Virginia. And he was talking about armed white
supremacists in the streets of his city, and fear and despair in the black
community there. And his church has been
shaken, it’s been tested, and now they’re asking big questions, disruptive
questions, about resistance. How they
might resist racism, as a church; how they might position themselves, and even their
bodies, between bigots and their targets.
Friends, these tests are serious.
These tests are white supremacy in Charlottesville and the gutting of health
care in DC; these tests are Harvey in Houston and policymakers who still don’t
believe in science; these tests are the cost of living in Santa Cruz, the cost
of housing in Santa Cruz, the cost of staying in Santa Cruz. These tests are serious. And all that on top of the family budget you
can’t quite balance, the marriage you can’t quite fix, or maybe the depression
you can’t quite kick.
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child
A long ways from home
A long ways from home
And it’s been like
that, right? The more faith you’ve got,
the more love in your heart, the more tested you’re going to be. By the violence in Charlottesville and the
storms in the Caribbean. By attacks on
immigrants in Watsonville and leadership in DC that reeks of selfishness. But could it really be true—this is my
question—could it really be true that the Spirit knows exactly what she’s doing? It’s a strange and unsettling thought. Could it really be that your faith, my faith,
our faith has to be tested to be effective? The text says the Spirit leads Jesus to the
devil to be tempted. Is she serious
about using temptation, even temptation to shake us and wake us and maybe even
radicalize us? It’s a strange and
unsettling thought, indeed!
Now I’m not saying
that God torments us to test our devotion.
Because that’s just sick. And
that’s not God. You can’t reasonably say
God loves you and therefore God humiliates you.
But I am saying that the Holy Spirit
is committed to working through every test, that she’s committed to using every
temptation in your life, to refine your faith, to intensify your resolve, to
expand your GREAT BIG LOVING FOREVER FAITH.
She’s going to do that.
So I’m calling my
sermon this morning “Un-settling Faith.”
Because I think that’s often what happens when we’re tested, that’s
what’s supposed to happen when we’re tested.
I’m calling it “Un-settling Faith”—because un-settling faith goes
un-settling places and does un-settling things. Does that makes sense to you? It moves when the Lord says move, and it
prays when the Lord says pray, and it marches in the streets when the Lord says
march in the streets. Jesus’ faith is an
“un-settling faith.”
So the Spirit leads
Jesus to the devil, to be tempted, to be tested, to be un-settled. Just verses before, and you know this: just
verses before, this same Holy Spirit has
baptized Jesus, through John his cousin, in the Jordan River. She’s baptized him. “This is my Son,” she says. “My beloved Son,” she says. It’s a thrilling moment, an extraordinary
moment, and it sets in motion an extraordinary life.
You know, faith does
that. All faith does that. Jesus’ faith does that. He is loved by God. Like you and me, like every beautiful, crazy,
wonderful life on this planet, Jesus’s loved by God, and he’s called out into
the open by God. Bathed in sunlight and
blue water and all kinds of grace. No
more hiding for Jesus. No more closets
for Jesus. No more playing small for
Jesus. Faith does that. You know the story. “This is my Son, my beloved Son!” This is a great big faith for a great big
world.
Now we’ve got our
eyes on the wilderness this morning. And
temptation’s our destination. But this
is so important. It all begins with
baptism. You know, Matthew Fox calls all
of this—Jesus’ baptism, the voice out there, the rolling river of grace—Matthew
Fox calls it God’s “original blessing.”
Sunlight and water and grace.
Life is good. Jesus’ life is
good. Your life, my life, all life: this
life is good. And Matthew Fox is saying,
Look at Jesus! Jesus is named and
claimed and commissioned by “original blessing.” Not original sin, right? “Original blessing.” In his baptism. In the river.
And now Jesus is ready for anything, for everything, for life.
So pay close
attention now, to this text, to this
morning’s text. Because it says—at just
that moment, at the moment of his calling, at the moment of his blessing—the
Spirit leads Jesus to the devil to be tempted.
The awakening of his soul occasions the testing of his faith. Do you hear the word this morning? The awakening of his soul occasions the
testing of his faith. This Jesus is
going to be tempted; this Jesus is going to be tested. So it is
with every prophet of love. So it is with every mystic who swoons before
creation. So it is with every servant of
God. And so it is with you and with me
and with the church today.
So the Spirit leads
Jesus (and some translations say she ‘drives’ Jesus): she drives Jesus to the
wilderness—so that his faith can somehow be unsettled, unmoored, released for
the kind of radical freedom God requires.
For ministry. For
liberation. She drives him out there so
that his faith can be unsettled, unmoored, and released for ministry.
So if you’re keeping
score this morning, that’s the first point right there. If you cast your lot with the gospel, if you
cast your lot with the One Big God of Love, you will
be tested. If you bow down before God’s “original
blessing” and rise up to resist bigotry and injustice, you will be tested. And this is
big news for the church. If we take the
cross that Jesus offers us, if we love God with all our strength, and our
neighbors as ourselves, we will be
tested. To believe is to be tested. That’s how it is for Jesus. And that’s how it’s always going to be for
us. In his church. A living faith, a vibrant and vital faith, is
an un-settled and un-settling faith. Because
an un-settling faith goes un-settling places and does un-settling things.
3.
Now the second and
third points this morning pick up on the very specific temptations that Jesus
meets out there in the wilderness. Because
Matthew wants you and me to wrestle with some very specific temptations; he
wants the church to prepare itself for a very particular
kind of ministry and witness in the world.
Let’s be clear about that. It’s
about the kingdom of God. It’s about the
Great Economy of God. It’s about the
world-flipping, justice-provoking gospel of God. Where the last are first and the first are
last, and the poor are blessed and the meek inherit the earth. That
Great Economy of God. And that means a
very particular kind of ministry for the church. So Matthew’s got some very specific
temptations in mind. He’s got three
actually. But this morning, let’s look
at the first two.
In the first, Jesus
is hungry, he’s famished. Like the Israelites
long ago, refugees from Egypt, running from Pharaoh’s army, hungry in the
wilderness, looking for a better economic model. And the tempter encourages Jesus to turn all
those stones into bread, to fix the crisis with some mighty magic and create some
publicity for himself, some rather
compelling publicity for himself, and maybe a nest egg in the process.
And Jesus has to
wrestle with this. He’s supposed to
wrestle with this. Because he’s
famished. Because he’s lonely. And because you consider all kinds of
strategies, you entertain all kinds of economic models, you can get kind of
desperate, when you’re famished.
But Jesus. But Jesus remembers his scripture. He knows his bible. Remember all that manna from heaven, that
crazy leafy goofy manna from heaven? How
God provided for the Israelites in their
wilderness. How God promised to provide
from them always if they just received
God’s gifts with gratitude, if they just shared God’s bounty with justice in
mind, if they just took what they needed and no more. “One does not live by bread alone,” Jesus
says to his tempter, “but by every word, by
every instruction that comes from the mouth of God.” Jesus knows his bible. Jesus wrestles with temptation. And Jesus chooses the wisdom of his ancestors,
the radical instructions of the Liberating God, the economy of God’s love and
God’s gifts and God’s justice.
So my second point—if
you’re still keeping score—my second point. We are tempted, in the church, in America, to
turn our backs on the wisdom of our ancestors.
We are tempted to believe—because the Wall Street Journal tells us
so—that big is always beautiful, and rich is always right, and opulent is always
magnificent. We are tempted to believe that capitalism is
the only dependable religion left standing.
Because the Wall Street Journal tells us so. We are tempted to turn so many stones into
bread.
So the Spirit drives
us out, into the wilderness, to remember our stories and ponder our traditions
and develop some backbone for the struggle ahead. Because big is not
always beautiful, and rich is not always
right, and opulent is not always magnificent. And sisters and brothers, capitalism is not a
religion. Unregulated greed is not a
religion. Not even close. So you see what I mean? If we’re going preach the kingdom of God...if
we’re going to imagine the Great Economy of God...if we’re going to follow
Jesus...we’ve got wrestle with these things.
Economics and justice. Gratitude
and greed. We’ve got to wrestle with
these things. Love requires it. The Spirit insists on it.
In the next temptation,
the tempter takes Jesus to the temple and places him up there, on the pinnacle
of the temple. “You could throw yourself
down from this pinnacle,” says the devil, “and the angels of God would catch
you without hesitation, not a bump, not a bruise, not a worry in the
world.” Now this is interesting, check this out, because the devil’s starting to
throw around a little scripture. You
don’t have to suffer, says the devil, not really. After all, you’re beloved. After all, you’re the Son of God. This business about the cross is
overrated. There are easier ways to change
the world. The devil knows a little
scripture too. (Maybe you’ve got some
friends like that!)
I want to say this
temptation has something to do with protection, maybe even something to do with
privilege. We want our faith to protect us
from pain. We want our faith to
inoculate us against despair. Shouldn’t
there be some perks? We want our God to
do a little something special—for us. So
we’re tested—many of us, none more than I am—by privilege.
You know, I care
about the poor, I care about the refugee, I care about the oppressed. But I’m not sure I want to suffer with them
in the streets. I’m angry about white
supremacy, I’m angry about climate change, I’m angry about what they’re doing
to Planned Parenthood and reproductive rights and health care reform. But I’m not sure I want to stick my neck out
and get hurt. I want God to treat me
special. I’m a Christian.
And privilege creates
its own logic, right? I mean, who really
wants to suffer? And who really wants to
sacrifice hard earned progress and meritorious achievement and freedom we
deserve? However you’ve come into your
privilege, however I’ve come into mine, of course we want to protect it. This business about the cross, says the
devil. It’s overrated.
Now Jesus is always
game for a contest around scripture.
Jesus knows his bible too. And he
remembers that other story about the Israelites in the wilderness, when they
were thirsty and miserable and fed up with mediocre leadership. And he remembers how they even entertained
the possibility of turning back to Egypt,
turning back to Pharaoh’s madness, turning back to long days with heavy bricks
and food lines that went around the block.
Freedom’s hard and messy, and the wilderness is un-settling. Jesus remembers. He remembers the story and how it was taught
to him. He remembers the lesson about
being tested, and suffering out there, and trusting that God would see you
through. No matter how hard things
got. No matter how much it hurt. “You don’t put God to the test,” he
says. You don’t give up on God—and God’s
calling—when the going gets tough. You
suffer like everyone else on the planet suffers. And you trust God to see you through the
pain, to see you through the darkness, to see you through whatever it is you’re
going through. Like everyone else on the
planet.
We’ll do that last
temptation another time. So this will be
my last point this morning. And here it
is. We are tested, in the church, by the
real possibility that discipleship might mean suffering with Jesus in the
streets or the migrant camps or the county jails. Of course we want to protect our
privilege. Of course we want to protect
ourselves. I do. So we are tested, in the church, by the real
possibility that courage might mean walking with Jesus in a protest against
white supremacy or a march for reproductive rights or clean air. And there might be some kind of nasty
backlash. And of course we want to
protect our privilege. Of course we want
to protect ourselves. I do. Again, we are tested, as privileged people in
the church, by the real possibility that liberation for the poor might mean a
lifestyle of simplicity and restraint for the rest of us. Honest and just reparations for hundreds of
years of slavery might mean giving up some of that privilege, some of that
status, some of that wealth many of our families earned off the backs of slaves
on this continent. We’re tested by all
that. And we should be. To believe is to be tested.
4.
So here’s what I’m
thinking this morning. Maybe the Spirit
leads Jesus into the wilderness because she wants us out there, in the
wilderness, too. And maybe she wants us
out there in the wilderness—because she intends to test us, she intends to
un-settle us, she intends to break our hearts open wide to the Holy Presence of
God and (just as significantly) to the Great Economy of God. This isn’t a journey for the faint of
heart. And Jesus isn’t fooling
around. The Great Economy of God will
require everything we’ve got. Everything
we’ve got.
So I’m reminded of my
friend from Charlottesville. What he
needs, what his community needs isn’t an arrogant church with a settled
theology and a smug Jesus to boot. What
his community needs is a transformed (and transforming) church with an
un-settled theology and a willingness to go wherever Jesus goes. That church takes up the cross, and loves
sacrificially, and weeps and bleeds for God.
I’m reminded of other
friends in occupied Palestine and undocumented America, friends who are anxious
for their safety and terrified for their children. What they need, what they ask of you and me,
is an openness to human pain, and a readiness to listen, and a willingness to
respond in faith. Solidarity! That’s what they need. Solidarity!
I want to be that
church. I know you want to be that
church. The church that takes up the
cross, and loves sacrificially, and weeps and bleeds for God. The church that knows what pain is, and hears
the cries of its neighbors, and responds with extravagant kindness and
care. Don’t you want to be that church?
Through all these tests, in all of these temptations, we can. We can be that church. We can risk and we can receive and we can
make space: for an un-settling faith that goes un-settling places and does
un-settling things in the name of Love.
Now that’s a
wilderness I want to wander.
Amen.
