Walking With Jesus: Temptation

Reflection for 1st Sunday of Lent                               All Saints’ Church Southern Shores, N.C. March 5, 2017                                                                 Thomas E. Wilson, Rector                  Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7          Romans 5:12-19              Matthew 4:1-11           Psalm 32 Walking With Jesus: Beside Me On My Own Strength; Temptation In Celtic Christianity there is a favorite hymn called The Deer's Cry or the Lorica taken from a Prayer of St. Patrick in which Patrick and his monks call on Christ to be with them as they arise. The story that is told of that Prayer is that Patrick and his monks were warned of an ambush by the Druids and when they sang this song, their appearance was hidden from the Druids who only saw deer running. It may have come from an old Pre-Christian Druid exercise where the singers bind all the forces of nature to themselves when they arise. Each verse in the Lorica begins: “I arise today” and then describes each element to which they bind themselves. The Lorica is like a tunic which has the power to deflect slings and arrows and disease, but if anything does get through, it ensures admission to heaven.  In the 19th Century, poet and hymnist Cecil Frances Alexander did a metical version of the Prayer and called it St. Patrick's Breastplate. Charles Sanford Villiers put to music and Ralph Vaughan Williams did the music for the 6th verse, which we will be singing during the Sundays of Lent. The 6th verse goes: “Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me. Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ in quiet, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.” Our theme this Lent is “Walking with Jesus”, and for the five weeks of Lent we will look at how this Christ Jesus walks with, around, and in each of us - on the side of our strength, on the weaker side, behind us, in front of us, and inside of us. This week we begin with the idea that we need more than our own strength to make it through faithfully each day. Each of us has a dominant side of our strength and in this we usually place our trust: “I can do this.” In this first week of Lent, the Gospel lesson is always about the Temptation in the Wilderness - last year it was Luke’s account, next year it is Mark’s, and this year it is from Matthew. John does not have a temptation narrative. The three temptations in this passage begin with the suggestion to turn the stones into bread, the Temptation to meet one’s own needs as the foundation of life’s purpose. In modern day America, each of us is a targeted consumer; our worth is determined by our ability to consume food, things, time, and services. Consumers are users who make decisions as to the amounts they will pay for different goods and services. The Tempter suggests that it is normal not to give precedence to anything else as the center of your own life except entitled pointless consumption. The fasting that Jesus is doing is to cleanse himself from the habitual daily habit of consuming so that he might devote that time to moving closer to God. Yes he could, by his own power, change the stones into bread, and later in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus will perform the miracle of the loaves and fishes in order to feed someone else’s suffering. It is not about using your own strength; it is about what you do with it that is important. As T. S. Eliot notes: “The last act is the greatest treason, to do the right deed for the wrong reason.” The second temptation in Matthew, to throw himself off the pinnacle of the Temple to impress, is the temptation to impress without cost. If he tossed himself from the pinnacle of the Temple, the people who went to the Temple, the Jews, his own people, would be so impressed that they would conclude that he really was part of the divine, and it would not bring him any suffering since the angels would catch him. A miracle would be the basis of proving his divinity to all people. Jesus refuses that temptation because it would make him an exception from the human condition of suffering. Jesus enters into the entire world, including the suffering. Earlier I noted that John did not have a Temptation Narrative in that Gospel, but I think the temptation is transferred to the night in the garden when Jesus struggles with following the path that leads to the Cross and embrace the suffering of the world.     The third temptation is the power over all the kingdoms of the world, the Temptation of power to control others. The Tempter says that Power over all will be given if Jesus will serve the father of all evil, thereby losing Jesus’ moral compass.  We have this tendency to think that, because we have the power, we usually feel we need to use it. But for what purpose? Harry Truman said that the reason he approved the use of the atomic bomb in World War II was that he was sure if he did not use these weapons, since we had them, to launch terror on civilian targets to end the war, he would be condemned by history and the other party. The bomb was also a good way to frighten the Soviets into joining us in the fight against the Japanese and gain post-war leverage with our fleeting power. We ended up using the same weapons as we used to condemn, in the same way as the bombings of London were answered by the fire bombings of Dresden. We succumbed to the notion that the way to win anything is to create terror in our enemies. We live now reaping what we sowed by our enemies who have learned those lessons well.   In our daily lives we see this in our losing of a community of discourse to solve problems; rather, we become contemptuous of losers and fearful of not being classed as winners. In the early 20th Century, Grantland Rice used to say: “It is not if you won or lost; it’s how you play the game.” But that mantra was replaced in the later 20th century with “Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing.” These temptations are the temptations that all of us face on a daily basis as we walk with Jesus if we place our trust only in our own strength. If we rely only on our strength, we will be tempted to see this world as a place where our own desires rule us, and where we so fear suffering that we flee from it and thereby we cannot share the sufferings of our brothers and sisters in this broken world, and where we justify any use of our strength as long as we win. Walking with Jesus shows us that there is another way to live. Walking With Jesus: Beside Me On My Own Strength; Temptation Offered a Prayer not to be lead into temptation but here am I summoning a wish free being set. What if I conquer relying only on my own sweat, am I strong enough to do this and get an ovation? My ego longs for the thronging crowds adoring; “Oh, you are so good, you are a superior being, rising above mortal human limits!” Them seeing life is my own power and it won’t need be boring. But under the temptations is the most dangerous, the one that most allures me, of the need to affirm my own worth and prance around and not squirm with nagging fear that I'm not most glamourous. I pray I will not give into the deeper temptation to think of myself as the center of all creation. .