Years ago, in the series “Touched by
an Angel”, there was an episode where Monica, the centre of the story, loses
her faith. She has seen the destruction of the Alfred P. Murrah building in
Oklahoma City - the number of deaths and
injured, especially the children. She falters in her beliefs, suddenly
questioning why a loving God in whom she has believed can have allowed such a
thing to happen. She runs away into the “wilderness”. And into the wilderness
comes that adversary, in the form of the fallen angel who in our twisting of historical
faith has become a ‘devil’ or Satan. He
arrives in the form of the actor Mandy Patinkin, a smiling, urbane and
completely reasonable counter-voice who understands her pain – and he does,
because he’s experienced it himself – and he tries to convince her that she
doesn’t need God, that she can do all the things she needs to do on her own. He
could help her of course.
The Gospel text this morning tells
us Jesus is ‘led by the Spirit into the wilderness’ and ‘tempted by the devil’.
What does the text really tell us – it’s
not just the simplistic interpretation of a real devil, but the old biblical
understanding of ‘the adversary’. Who is the adversary? When does the adversary
appear?
(clip Movie Son of God OR Touched By An Angel Season 7 Episode23)
We don’t get told much about what happened with
Jesus. We know that he was baptised, and the text tells us the Spirit then ‘led
him into the wilderness, and that during these forty days he fasted and prayed.’
Now, did he really fast for forty days? Doubtful.
Nor do I think it’s very important how long it was. Forty is a pretty common
figure in the Bible meaning “a long time”. Noah sat stuck on the ark for forty
days and forty nights; the Israelites wandered in the wilderness for forty
years. So sufficient to say Jesus fasted and meditated. And one of the things
which happens in deep meditation and fasting, is heightened awareness of
experience and something akin to hallucinations.
For me this is one of the texts in which Jesus’
humanity is completely clear – both Matthew and Luke record the story – with
the point that Jesus *was* human – and as a human, subject to all the things
which would tempt any human. He’s just decided to be baptised, and in that
moment had a deep spiritual experience, and he is literally alive and on fire
with the power he feels. The Spirit now leads him into a wilderness, a dark
place, where he has to face himself.
Now, Jesus has a strong sense of social
justice - and in his sense of power which he can still
touch even in this dark place, he hears a little voice saying “Turn these
stones into bread”. We know he would have been famished; but the ability
to turn stones into bread has economic and social implications as well - there
were a lot of hungry people around Palestine – if he could create food for
himself, then he could do it for everyone, someone who gave free food could
become very popular very quickly with a lot of people in need. He had to
deal with the temptation of being able to respond immediately to the needs of many
people. The Adversary – the little voice in the ear saying ‘You can do this
yourself.” Jesus’ response to this little voice in his ear is simple, "One
does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of
God."(Deut. 8:3)
Now, the little Adversary voice inside him
promises to deliver all the nations of the world if he only bows down in
worship to this other part of himself. He has the power. Any one of us, being
offered all the power of Caesar – would we take it? Broad reforms, peace throughout the earth, a
truly just society - eliminate the
dishonest and greedy rulers, change the course of human history - the realm of
God in the here and now, and all done by him.
But that’s not God's way – God’s way is for real
change to begin at the grassroots and work its way up, not to come from the top
and trickle down. Jesus catches himself again, and recalls the words
"Worship God and serve God only." Note, Jesus never denies that these
things couldn’t come about, he never denies the power to do them – but he
rejects the means by which he could personally achieve these things.
The third time the Adversary comes to Jesus, he is
transported to the temple at Jerusalem. The place where his death will be
plotted, and the religious centre of the Hebrew people. He can throw himself
down from the pinnacle and the words in his ears are a direct quote from the
psalms and assurances of God's protection.
One last time, however, Jesus calls up scripture and that little voice
in his other ear says "Don’t test God!"
And then the text says that the adversary
departed from Jesus “until an opportune time”. For me this speaks even more to
the humanity of Jesus – that there could be another time, a moment of
weakness. Those moments come to us all. And that's part of the point here too. It's never just once.
Well, there are some threads I want to try to
pull together here. Working with the notion of walking in the dark – being led
into the wilderness, and having to work through some heavy spiritual
stuff. Did you know that the real
meaning of the word ‘jihad’ in Islam is the spiritual war with one’s self? The
story played out in “Touched by an Angel” depicts the same kind of entering
into a dark place – the dark places right within ourselves, where we can’t see
anything, and we have to walk in the figurative dark. The jihad inside. We talk about the ‘dark
night of the soul’. It’s something real.
Many years ago Norio and I had a friend who was
a Representative to the State Legislature in Michigan, the Rev.Lynn Jondahl,
now the Honorable Lynn Jondahl. We always thought he would be a wonderful
governor, and tried to persuade him to run for that office. His response was
that he’d thought about it, but he said “I’d have to sell off too much of
myself, in order to do that. Any political position like that comes at a huge
price. I’d rather stay here where I can do some good and where I can live with
what I’ve sold of myself already.”
Jesus was fully human. He was faced with
choices, all along the way. His great high from baptism also led him into a
dark place and he could have given in to the temptations in the
wilderness. I think the point here was that he had to wrestle with
himself, that true ‘jihad’, the internal spiritual struggle. Who he would
become was based on the choices he made, which also means that he must have
been free to choose otherwise.
In the sermon “Entering the Dark Cloud of God”
Barbara Brown Taylor says talks about entering that “cloud of unknowing” –
which I see as a kind of dark place, where all senses are changed: when you enter the
cloud of unknowing you have to slow way, way down. All those things you
prided yourself on outside the cloud—your speed, your agility, your ability to
suss things out at a single glance—they won’t do you any good inside. You
might as well crawl like a baby; at least you can’t fall down when you’re
already on the ground. The good news is that slowness has a lot going for
it. There’s time to use senses you don’t use when your eyes are working fine.
There’s time to wonder where you think you’re going and why - none of your outside
navigational tools can help you now. Good luck with that compass, that
laminated map, that guidebook, that Bible. If it’s not inside you,
then it’s of limited use to you now. The good news is that second-hand
wisdom can only get you so far. Once you enter the dark, it’s time to
find out what your primary resources are - what gyroscope, what tuning fork,
what insistent, sacred whisper you can learn to trust when you’re walking by
faith and not by sight.”
In Monica’s story, she went into that dark cloud of
unknowing, losing touch, being alone in the dark, even in broad daylight. She
had to learn to find her way all over again. Jesus had to learn to trust that
whisper which said ‘No, don’t do it.’ He had to learn to trust himself. Now,
the way the story is related, it almost makes it sound like he just did it with
no problem. But then there would be no point to telling the story at all. It
was written as a ‘temptation’ for a reason. Perhaps that’s why the story tells
us he was there forty days. Essentially
it’s telling us it was a long time, and it was a difficult time. Jesus was
walking in the dark.
And, Barbara Brown Taylor says, God
does some of God’s very best work in the dark.
Sources:
1. “Entering the Dark Cloud of God” by Barbara Brown
Taylor. Preached at the Festival of
Homiletics, Denver, Colorado, May 2014.
2. “Resisting Temptation”
a sermon on Luke 4:1-13 by Rev. Richard Gehring
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