The Temptations

 Sermon delivered on Lent I, 2022, at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Louisville, KY

Texts: Psalm 91, Luke 4:1-13

Since the pandemic started, both my wife and I have been working from home. We have our morning routines, and hers is to frequently make toast with a fried egg on top for breakfast. When I come up from my office in our basement for a break, I walk into the wonderful smell of toasted bread. I am so tempted to make my own slice of toast with raspberry jam or orange marmalade on it, but I can’t. I have to be careful about how many carbs I eat, and I can’t have toast or jam. Being Lent, it wouldn’t do me any good to give up something that I shouldn’t have anyway. We all know well the tradition of Lent where we “fast” like Jesus did for forty days by denying ourselves something we like, or rely on, or is a regular part of our lives. We know well the tradition of self-examination, said aloud in the Ash Wednesday prayers. And we know well the confession of our sins, again from Ash Wednesday. But in this morning’s Gospel reading we hear something that isn’t emphasized during Lent, and that is dealing with the temptation to do what we know we shouldn’t do. It’s dealing with a temptation to put ourselves in the middle of our lives, instead of God, or to take our relationship with God for granted and assume that God will save us from ourselves.

Just before Jesus walked into the desert to pray and fast, he was baptized and reaffirmed by God with the words “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” He was sustained by his baptism and the Holy Spirit for forty days in the desert, maybe to be alone to think about where he was going and what he would do. But like any such plans, there’s always that guy who just has to show up and insist on you going with him to a grungy bar. And you don’t want to go. That guy in this story is the devil, similar to the satan in the story of Job. He is an adversary, a prosecutor of sorts who challenges our faith and tries to show that it isn’t real or sincere. In the desert, he challenges Jesus’ faith in God in three different ways. The first is to appeal to Jesus’ hunger and get him to choose food over being fed by God’s word in scripture. The second is to promise power from earthly sources instead of from God. The third is to take advantage of the power Jesus already has and use it for his own purposes, instead of God’s will. The adversary goes so far as to quote two verses from Psalm 91: “For he shall give his angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways. They shall bear you in their hands, lest you dash your foot against a stone.” He tries to get Jesus to betray his commitment to God, tempting him away from God more than being tempting toward something. But, it doesn’t work because Jesus has the courage to respond with God’s words in scripture to show his commitment. The remarkable thing about this story of Jesus’ temptation is that there isn’t a list of what’s right or wrong, or good or bad, or being good or bad. It’s all about choices to make, and being able to turn away from choosing to renege on that commitment. The point of the story is the choice we have to make about what is at the center of our life: our desires, or God. What is the source of our righteousness: the world, or God’s word?

Psalm 91 is a curious thing for the adversary to quote while tempting Jesus, because it is a reassuring psalm that is a call to God for protection, and then God’s response to our faith. It is one of the psalms in the Compline prayers that gives me a sense of peace when I recite it. It’s almost as if the devil cherry-picked a couple of lines from a psalm that Jesus was familiar with and knew that it didn’t say what the devil wanted it to say. The psalm speaks of God’s protection of us, especially with the words “There shall no evil happen to you, neither shall any plague come near your dwelling.” That is a strong statement about God saving us from evil and plagues. Yet, evil does happen, all of the time, and it is in fear of evil or in arrogance of our faith that we cross that line from having confidence in God’s protection to expecting it. That is the line drawn by the adversary that Jesus doesn’t cross; Jesus doesn’t test God or make demands of God to save him, and he knows that he has to turn away from that temptation. Jesus trusts God to always be present. When we expect God to save us, rather than to trust God, we cross that line and place ourselves at the center of our faith. Our righteousness shifts to a sense of entitlement instead of choosing to follow God’s will, and we take on the role of the adversary, trying to force God’s hand. That role is also taken on when political candidates say just what we want to hear with their promises to take care of what scares us. It is taken on by people who manipulate social media to create fear and then offer us an attractive solution, their solution, to that fear. So, the world becomes the center of our life, and our desire for easy reassurance and simple answers becomes the source of our righteousness. Our life and righteousness are no longer driven by our faith in God’s will for us.

It’s an easy habit to fall into, and one that we get used to way too easily. That’s why I think it’s important to be aware of temptation, especially in this season. Lent isn’t just about remembering to follow the rules and trying to do better. It isn’t just about our broken selves and broken lives. Just saying no to temptation doesn’t work well because it doesn’t address why we give in to it. If we think back to what our baptism means, we, like Jesus, are reaffirmed by God with the words from the Baptism service “Sustain them, O Lord, in your Holy Spirit. Give them an inquiring and discerning heart, the courage to will and to persevere, a spirit to know and to love you…” This is the courage and perseverance we need to resist the temptation to put ourselves and our fears at the center of our relationship with God. It’s what we need to resist the temptation to take our faith or God for granted. Cultivating a trust in God fits well with self-examination during Lent, because it is an opportunity to see why we drift away from trusting God. Lent isn’t a time to beat down on ourselves for our mistakes, faults, and bad judgment. It’s a time to honestly look at how we are tempted away from God, and end up taking our faith and its implications for granted as a result. It’s an opportunity to prepare ourselves to humbly wash the feet of others on Maundy Thursday by putting God and others in the center of our lives. So, for the next six weeks, may we all have a fruitful Lenten season, mindful of the temptations that we will face.