THE TEMPTATIONS OF CHRIST

The Rev. Dr. Keith Dobyns

Lent 1, Year C       Luke 4: 1-13

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Over the last few months Kris and I have been watching episodes of the television series West Wing.  We receive a DVD from Net Flix, go through four episodes in a week or two, and get to the next disc after a few weeks. 

This week the disc that came was a surprise.  It was a collection of commentaries on the series by its cast and crew, and by prominent political figures including ex presidents Bill Clinton and Gerald Ford, Henry Kissinger, and several presidential press secretaries and aides.  It was a fascinating dialogue between drama and reality grappling with issues of prestige, authority, and the exercise of power.  A common theme was the challenge of making decisions that could alter the course of history, for good or ill.  I was impressed by the gravity expressed by the cast and crew who portray the workings of the White House, and by the genuine respect that they had developed for the political process.

I am frequently tempted to demonize politicians and to fault the political process for the manifest failures of our society.  I doubt that I am alone in this.  There are plenty of targets to criticize, of course: corruption, arrogance, negligence of true human needs, and Machiavellian manipulation of public opinion come quickly to mind. 

What would Jesus do in such a setting?  How would Jesus engage the demands of weighty political decisions?   I must admit that I am baffled by this question.  I am not at all sure that the gospel gives us clear direction for how to exercise political power.  The question “what would Jesus do” seems frivolous.

Today’s reading from the Gospel of Luke seems to suggest that Jesus might refuse even to answer political questions.  We need to pay close attention to this gospel account of Jesus’ temptation, before presuming to speak in the name of Christ.  I would like to explore this narrative more closely, before asking whether there is a way that we can apply Christian values to the exercise of political power.

What strikes me first in this gospel story, this year, is the role of the Holy Spirit.

Luke’s account of the temptation of Jesus follows almost immediately his baptism.  There is an intervening list of Jesus’ genealogy which was probably a later addition, but when you read this gospel you need to graft these stories together into one narrative:

Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove.  And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.

God’s Holy Spirit has filled Jesus and has dramatically announced to him his divine relationship to God, and the first action of this Spirit is to lead him into his temptation.  Weekly – daily – we pray “lead us not into temptation,” yet the first movement of the indwelling Spirit is to carry Jesus into a prolonged period of the deepest self examination.  What does it mean to be God’s son?  What kind of authority does that imply?  How is Jesus to live his human life as the Son of God?

My reading of this startles me all over again.  Filled with the Holy Spirit and called into deep and prolonged soul searching, what Jesus discovers is that he must abandon all divine power and live the most human life that can be lived. The Temptation of Jesus gives us a picture of God choosing to be more fully human than we are. Luke lets us look at this from the three different angles provided by the three temptations. 

The first temptation is hunger.  The gospel account tells of forty days of temptation and fasting.  Was it forty days?  Did the temptations all occur in the same window of time, or were they spread out throughout his ministry as in the Gospel of John?  It doesn’t matter.  In prayer and self examination, and after prolonged fasting, Jesus is famished.  He is tempted first to feed himself by supernatural means:  “Turn this stone to bread.” 

Jesus’ answer from scripture is pithy.  “One does not live by bread alone.”  The quote is from Deuteronomy 8: 3, where Moses reminds the Israelites that they experienced hunger in their wanderings so they could understand that God would provide their every need.  Jesus will live as a faithful Jew, in solidarity with his ancestors. He chooses to be human.

The second temptation is power.  The devil holds authority and power over all the nations.  Compromise, and the world is yours.  Think of the good that you can do with that power and authority.  It is, of course, the deal we all are offered.  Compromise, for the common good.  Give the devil his due.  Purity is a fool’s game that obstructs consensus.  But Jesus is offered a different deal than we encounter.  Filled with the spirit, adopted by God, carrying God into our midst, he must choose between the authority of God’s truth or the power of the world. Again Jesus’ answer is from Deuteronomy.  (Deut 6:13) 

When you have been given the abundant land of Israel, Moses tells the Israelites, it is the LORD your God that you shall serve, and him alone that you shall worship.  In doing so, Jesus chooses to be a faithful Jew living the ancient covenant.  Again he chooses to be human.

The third temptation is protection.  Transported to Jerusalem, to the highest parapet of the temple, Jesus is offered miraculous protection.  “All you have to do is ask God to protect you – you are his son, after all.”  Jesus answers again from Deuteronomy: “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” (Deut 6: 16).  Keep the commandments and decrees and statutes, and do what is right and good in the sight of the LORD.  The scene prefigures Jesus’ final temptation in Gethsemane, and the tragically human death he will experience.  He will be faithful to the end, choosing to live a most human life and die a most human death.

In the account of these temptations I believe that we get to see the clearest picture in the Gospels of what the incarnation actually means.  Upon discovering his most intimate relationship with God Jesus is not called out of this world.  He is not called to exercise supernatural powers.  He discovers, through prayer and fasting and soul-shaking temptations, that God wants to enter the world with all the innocence of a baby, and with all the humility of poverty, and with all the joy and sorrow of our human condition.  Through these temptations Jesus becomes more fully human.

I suspect that our temptations may be a little different than those that Jesus faced.  I am not very uniformly filled by the Holy Spirit.  Like many of you, I have rare moments where something in my soul shimmers and nudges me in the right direction, but it is so easily lost.  I guess a lot.  I get tempted 17 different directions, and have a hard time finding the difference between my self interest and careful discernment.  I compromise relentlessly, trying to find my way through what often seems a moral wilderness.

I respect the clarity of thought and judgment that I saw displayed in the video I mentioned earlier.  I respect the gravity the cast had discovered in wrestling with the realities of politics.  However, the political process can not be divorced from the corrupting temptations of personal gain and power and self protection. 

The lesson of today’s Gospel is that God yearns to share our lives.  We begin to sense that presence when we invite Jesus into the wilderness of our own temptations.  When we are tempted by hunger and power and self protection we are joined by Jesus.  With Jesus we can fast from the over-abundance and neediness of our lives.  We can acknowledge the power that beguiles us, and give that power back to God.  We can admit our fear and anxiety, and choose to live the human life we have been given.

What would Jesus do, if faced with political decisions?  Wrong question, asked in the wrong tense.  Jesus is not a subjunctive, not a conditional.  Jesus joins us in the wilderness.  We rediscover Jesus in our times of greatest need, in barren places, in fasting and in prayer.  Jesus shares with us the courage to lead the most human lives that we can lead.  In all our hunger, avarice and anxiety we are joined by Jesus, God-with-us, Immanuel, and all our life becomes an opportunity to glorify his name.