February 21, 2010
Luke 4.1-13
In our Gospel reading for today, we find a three-fold confession that essentially gives us a frame-work for this Lenten season. We find Jesus repudiating the Devil’s temptation with some strongly worded quotes from Scripture:
“One does not live by bread alone”
“Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him”
and
“Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”
At first glance, we might find them a big vague—at least in relation to our regular day-to-day life. But let’s look more closely at each of these confessions.
First, we hear that we do not live by bread alone. One of the things I think most people find so hard to grasp—especially those of us form a more Protestant background—is this conception of fasting and abstaining from certain foods. This season of Lent is the prime time for us to look long and hard at our eating practices. For the most people, we simply eat without giving a second thought to what we’re eating and why. Certainly we have doctors who tell us this is one of the leading causes of a good many of our health problems in this country. When we realize how high the rate of obesity and related illnesses are, we know that food is a major factor in our lives.
In the face of that, this quote from Jesus resonates. In the dessert, the devil tempts him. Jesus has been fasting and is no doubt extremely hungry. Imagine, the devil seems to say to him. You have the power. Turn these stones into bread and you can eat. And Jesus could have done it. But Jesus knew that this was the time for him to abstain from food. This was the time to remind himself that what gave him sustenance was not the bread that goes into his physical body, but rather what sustained him spiritually.
When we look at issues like obesity and eating disorders, we realize that there is often a psychological reason for our abuse of food. We do eat for comfort. We do eat ph6yscailly thinking that it will sustain us emotionally. A time of fasting is a time for us to break that habit and to nudge ourselves into realizing that what should be sustaining us spiritually is the spiritual food we receive from Jesus.
“Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.” Here, Jesus, having been alone in the desert, with no one around, is feeling a certain level of loneliness no doubt. At the whim of the elements, he was feeling, no doubt, powerless. And so, the temptation—a temptation of absolute power. A power to not only worship something material, but the temptation to do amazing feast so that he could be worshipped for his “tricks,” so to speak rather than for who we really was.
Here again is a major temptation for us. We all have at times, yearned to be more than who we are. We have all fantasized about being famous, about having people fall at our feet and adore us. We have all thought about what it would be like to be noticed—truly noticed—when we enter a room. We are all susceptible to self-centeredness, to that charming belief that the world revolves me—the individual. And, to be fair, from our own perspective, it certainly seems like that’s the case, doesn’t it? I mean, after all, who knows us better than we ourselves? We are the only ones we are present with all the time. We know what our thoughts are, what our true feelings are. We know the good and the bad about ourselves, more so than anyone else.
But Jesus again nudges us away from that strange form of self-idolatry and reminds us that there is actually someone who knows us better than we know ourselves, who knows our thoughts better than we do. Rather than falling to the self-delusion of believing our worlds revolve around ourselves, we must center our lives squarely and surely on God.
Finally, we are warned not to put the Lord our God to the test. We’ve all done this as well. We have railed at God and shaken our fists at God and bargained with God. We have promised things to God we have no intention of truly keeping. We have all said to God, “If you do this for me, I promise I will [insert promise here].”
Again, like the previous temptations, this one also revolves around self-centeredness and selfishness. This one involves us controlling God, making God do what we want God to do. This one involves us treating God like a magic genie or a wishing pond.
The realization we must take away from this final temptation is that, yes, God does sometimes grant us our prayers and wishes. Sometimes God does do exactly what we wish God would do for us—even despite that fact that we more often than not do not fulfill the promises we made. Oftentimes, we forget the deal we made once we got what we asked for.
But what we fail to realize in all of this is that those moment sin which God does grant us the answer to prayer we requested, it is only purely out of God’s goodness and God’s care for the larger outcome. It has nothing to do what we do. God does not care with little acts of gratitude that only appease our own selfish understanding of why things are.
We cannot manipulate God and make God do what we want. None of us are in the position to do that. And if we had a God that we could do that to, I’m not certain I would truly want to serve that God.
These are the temptations we should be pondering during this Lenten season. When I said earlier that these confessions of Jesus are the basis for our understanding of Lent, it really is. Each of these statements by Jesus are essentially jumping off points for us as we ponder our relationship with God, with each other and with ourselves during this season.
So, let us carry these confessions of Jesus close to our heats in these days of Lent. Let them speak to each of us in our temptations. Let them nudge us out of any self-centeredness that may come upon us. And let us realize that in all things God in the person of Jesus is truly the center of our lives, dwelling there in our midst.
Luke 4.1-13
In our Gospel reading for today, we find a three-fold confession that essentially gives us a frame-work for this Lenten season. We find Jesus repudiating the Devil’s temptation with some strongly worded quotes from Scripture:
“One does not live by bread alone”
“Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him”
and
“Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”
At first glance, we might find them a big vague—at least in relation to our regular day-to-day life. But let’s look more closely at each of these confessions.
First, we hear that we do not live by bread alone. One of the things I think most people find so hard to grasp—especially those of us form a more Protestant background—is this conception of fasting and abstaining from certain foods. This season of Lent is the prime time for us to look long and hard at our eating practices. For the most people, we simply eat without giving a second thought to what we’re eating and why. Certainly we have doctors who tell us this is one of the leading causes of a good many of our health problems in this country. When we realize how high the rate of obesity and related illnesses are, we know that food is a major factor in our lives.
In the face of that, this quote from Jesus resonates. In the dessert, the devil tempts him. Jesus has been fasting and is no doubt extremely hungry. Imagine, the devil seems to say to him. You have the power. Turn these stones into bread and you can eat. And Jesus could have done it. But Jesus knew that this was the time for him to abstain from food. This was the time to remind himself that what gave him sustenance was not the bread that goes into his physical body, but rather what sustained him spiritually.
When we look at issues like obesity and eating disorders, we realize that there is often a psychological reason for our abuse of food. We do eat for comfort. We do eat ph6yscailly thinking that it will sustain us emotionally. A time of fasting is a time for us to break that habit and to nudge ourselves into realizing that what should be sustaining us spiritually is the spiritual food we receive from Jesus.
“Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.” Here, Jesus, having been alone in the desert, with no one around, is feeling a certain level of loneliness no doubt. At the whim of the elements, he was feeling, no doubt, powerless. And so, the temptation—a temptation of absolute power. A power to not only worship something material, but the temptation to do amazing feast so that he could be worshipped for his “tricks,” so to speak rather than for who we really was.
Here again is a major temptation for us. We all have at times, yearned to be more than who we are. We have all fantasized about being famous, about having people fall at our feet and adore us. We have all thought about what it would be like to be noticed—truly noticed—when we enter a room. We are all susceptible to self-centeredness, to that charming belief that the world revolves me—the individual. And, to be fair, from our own perspective, it certainly seems like that’s the case, doesn’t it? I mean, after all, who knows us better than we ourselves? We are the only ones we are present with all the time. We know what our thoughts are, what our true feelings are. We know the good and the bad about ourselves, more so than anyone else.
But Jesus again nudges us away from that strange form of self-idolatry and reminds us that there is actually someone who knows us better than we know ourselves, who knows our thoughts better than we do. Rather than falling to the self-delusion of believing our worlds revolve around ourselves, we must center our lives squarely and surely on God.
Finally, we are warned not to put the Lord our God to the test. We’ve all done this as well. We have railed at God and shaken our fists at God and bargained with God. We have promised things to God we have no intention of truly keeping. We have all said to God, “If you do this for me, I promise I will [insert promise here].”
Again, like the previous temptations, this one also revolves around self-centeredness and selfishness. This one involves us controlling God, making God do what we want God to do. This one involves us treating God like a magic genie or a wishing pond.
The realization we must take away from this final temptation is that, yes, God does sometimes grant us our prayers and wishes. Sometimes God does do exactly what we wish God would do for us—even despite that fact that we more often than not do not fulfill the promises we made. Oftentimes, we forget the deal we made once we got what we asked for.
But what we fail to realize in all of this is that those moment sin which God does grant us the answer to prayer we requested, it is only purely out of God’s goodness and God’s care for the larger outcome. It has nothing to do what we do. God does not care with little acts of gratitude that only appease our own selfish understanding of why things are.
We cannot manipulate God and make God do what we want. None of us are in the position to do that. And if we had a God that we could do that to, I’m not certain I would truly want to serve that God.
These are the temptations we should be pondering during this Lenten season. When I said earlier that these confessions of Jesus are the basis for our understanding of Lent, it really is. Each of these statements by Jesus are essentially jumping off points for us as we ponder our relationship with God, with each other and with ourselves during this season.
So, let us carry these confessions of Jesus close to our heats in these days of Lent. Let them speak to each of us in our temptations. Let them nudge us out of any self-centeredness that may come upon us. And let us realize that in all things God in the person of Jesus is truly the center of our lives, dwelling there in our midst.
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