We’ve been telling this story about Jesus in the wilderness
for roughly two thousand years. Yet, in the last ten to twenty years, scholars
have been looking at this story anew. They have concluded that as God’s word
continues to be a living thing among God’s people, as it continues to draw us
into thinking about God’s words in today’s context, and as we continue to
diligently unpack the original language and sharpen our translating skills,
fresh and maybe even better ways of telling the story of Jesus’ time in the
wilderness emerge. It is not that we have been wrong, but that there are
nuances in this story that are waiting to be highlighted that help us appreciate
this testing ground story more fully.
One of our recent observations is that when we preach this
story, as preachers we need to make the stronger connection of this story to
the baptism of Jesus and disconnect it from the Mountain of Transfiguration. As
the season of Epiphany started with Jesus’ baptism, so now Lent begins with the
end of that baptism story.
For many years we have been so preoccupied with the forty
days and the forty nights in the wilderness and connecting the symbolism of the
forty days to the forty days of Lent, to the forty days and nights of Moses on
Mount Sinai and the giving of the Ten Commandments, to the forty days and forty
nights of Noah’s flood time and the restoration of the world through him and
his family, to the Israelites’ forty years in the wilderness after leaving
Egypt, that we have forgotten that this story is part of the greater account of
Jesus’ baptism.
In our preaching, the Church has forgotten to strengthen the
understanding that God, with the Holy Spirit, does not send people out into
wilderness time to create believers, but that God, with
the Holy Spirit, sends us out into the wilderness because we are believers. God sends Jesus into the
wilderness with the confidence of a Father who knows his son is equipped to
engage the wilderness.
So it is that we witness Jesus coming up out of the waters
of baptism and the Spirit coming down from heaven and alighting on him. With
Jesus, we hear God’s words, “This is my beloved son with whom I am well
pleased,” and then we witness the Holy Spirit leading Jesus into the
wilderness. This is not a time to discover if Jesus is the Son of God, but a time
of witnessing who Jesus is as the Son of God.
Recent scholars who have noticed this shift in translating
the story prefer to record this dialogue between the devil and Jesus in
statements rather than questions. The devil is not confused about who Jesus is,
and so he says, “Since you are the son of God, do this or that. Since you are
the son of God, then you were there when the world was spoken into existence,
so speak these stones into bread.”
It is like those questions we ask when we are children.
Since God is all powerful, can God create a stone that is greater than what God
can lift? Or, since angels have no substance, how many can stand on the head of
a pin? Since Jesus rose from the dead, why isn’t our world better than it is?
Since Jesus has the power to heal, why doesn’t he heal everybody?”
So, I bring this question to you today. What is the
difference between testing and tempting? I ask this question because I believe this
story is more about testing than it is about tempting. It is more about
standing up for who we are than discovering who we are. It is more about
determining what authority is rather than discovering whether Jesus has
authority. This authority is more complicated than performing a few magic acts
like speaking stones into bread or jumping over tall buildings in a single
bound and has much more to do with bowing down before the powers that defy God
in the world. It is much more about not being distracted and seduced by the
splendor of power but living in a right relationship with God.
We probably all know the proverb, “If you give a hungry person
a fish, you feed that person for a day, but if you teach hungry people to fish,
you can feed them for a lifetime.” The challenge we witness today is, “Since
you are the Son of God, solve the problem of world hunger. Speak these stones
into bread.” But the real issue is not only about whether people are being fed,
it is whether people know how to be fed and how to feed themselves.
Our challenge today is not about whether the Son of God can
throw himself from the pinnacle and not be destroyed, but it is about our faith
in God which does not depend on spectacular magic acts of entertainment for
belief; an understanding that God’s power in our midst goes beyond the
spectacular to the strength of a saving, grace-filled relationship with us. It
is not about the glory and the splendor of the kingdoms and the power and
authority that we might have within them, but it is all about God’s grace, that
is God’s undeserved love, and our ability to live with one another. It is not
always pretty; it is not the Hollywood romance; rather, it is part of what
happens in our everyday lives, in the kind word, the loving touch, or the
blessings we give and receive.
There is a difference here between test and temptation. In
the middle of a test we are sometimes tempted to take short cuts, to make quick
fixes without considering the systemic problems causing the need in the first
place. A few years ago, Dr. Craig Nessan
wrote a book called, “Give Us This Day.” In it he shows that the problem with
world hunger is not that we don’t have enough food in the world to feed all the
people of the world; the problem is being able to distribute the food we have
to the people who need it. He discusses what some of the problems we have in
organizing that distribution. The problems seem so big that one is daunted in
even considering whether or not to try to overcome the problem. Yet, in part,
because of Dr. Nessan’s book and a deep concern and commitment from our
Lutheran brothers and sisters, through organizations like Lutheran World Relief
and the Lutheran World Hunger Appeal, in part because of you supporting our
synod and our churchwide organization, and your faithful presence in the world,
policies are being changed, work is being done, and we are finding ways of
getting that indispensable food from one place to another.
I know I told you the story last year, but I am going to
tell you again. While working with some young people studying this passage, I
asked them why it was important for Jesus to not change the stones into bread.
Those young people argued about it for a while, and then one of the young women
said, “It’s sort of like when my parents have a dinner party. When the people
first arrive, they may stand around and talk with a drink, and they may take
some food from the hors d’oeuvre table, but no one takes plates and plates of
food then.”
When I asked her how that helped us understand Jesus changing
stones into bread, she said, “They don’t take a lot of food then because they
know that the dinner is coming.”
When I pushed her on that she looked at me and said, “Well,
duh! Jesus didn’t come to be an hors d’oeuvre for us, he came to be the whole
meal.”
In the systems of how we live with one another, at the
systemic level of what we need to live, there is more than food. So Jesus says,
“One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the
mouth of God.” In order to live healthy lives, in healthy relationships, we
need bread and God’s words of
forgiveness, God’s assurance of grace, that is God’s undeserved love. We need
the whole body of Christ, not just an hors d’oeuvre, to walk in the knowledge
of God’s presence with us each and every day.
The Gospel story is an account of that assurance. It tells
us that Jesus is the Son of God; even the devil recognizes this. The test is to
see whether Jesus will go for the quick fix, immediate gratification, or
whether Christ’s authority includes a longer plan that will address the
systematic problems of our world.
So we begin our Lenten season this year, remembering that we
too are being tested (not to discover whether
we believe, but because we do believe)
because together we are the Body of Christ. I know that you have heard the test
come in various words, but the test is often worded something like this. “Since
you are the body of Christ in the world, solve the world problems. Make all of
the relationships of the world beautiful and pleasing. Make peace happen.”
If we just work at the surface level without considering the
systemic problems like racism, classism, sexism, and ableism, we don’t get to
the core of the problem. The symptoms may go away for a while, but the problems
will continue to arise. It would be so nice if we could just pray everything
away, but our life involvement in Christ is required. We, with Christ, must
stand against the forces that draw us away from God and stand up for who and
whose we are.
In this Lenten season, we will continue to walk together
with the assurance of Christ’s presence. We will journey to the cross, and we
will explore the many relationships we have in Christ’s resurrection world. We
will be with Nicodemus in the night. We will be with the Syrophoenician woman
at the well. We will be with the blind man who receives sight, and we will
witness Lazarus rising from the dead. Each of these meetings have complicated
systemic problems that are raised for us to consider as we live into God’s word
and God’s world with God’s people. May you know God’s blessings in this Lenten
time.
