Matthew 4:1-11
Weakness isn’t all bad. Weakness can be perfectly innocent, like a newborn baby or ripe fruit. It can mean delicate, or soft. But something that is soft gives. When you press it, it succumbs; it’s malleable and manageable. It can be manipulated, literally handled. When we’re talking about character, not babies and fruit, weakness isn’t so appealing, is it? At its most basic, to be weak means to be affected, to be tossed around like a tennis ball. Which isn’t a quality most of us wish to embody. None of us want to be worked on. None of us want our softness, the places where we give, to be exposed or exploited. That’s why we can’t stand temptation. Temptation is a loaded truck driving across a warped bridge. It’s a china teacup in a sink full of pots and pans. Temptation is a banana in the bottom of a backpack – an irresistible force honing in on just that part of you that is vulnerable and soft.
And it’s everywhere. Temptation is one of the great experiences all people have in common. It depends on our weaknesses for its strength, it feeds on the places where we are vulnerable and soft. But its ultimate objective is our commitments. Temptation calls into question the good decisions we’ve made, the things we’ve committed ourselves to. When your dog eats anything and everything you set before him, he’s not giving in to temptation, because he never decided to take heart health seriously. But when you tell your neighbor that thing about the other neighbor that you promised you’d keep secret? Temptation. No doubt about it. Because you committed to being trustworthy. And as long as you do commit to things, and make promises, and decide for one thing over another, you will always be tempted. It won’t go away. You can be aware of yourself, resolve to be strong where you are weak, you can get really good at resisting temptation, but as long as we’re human, and we live here, we’re in it for the long haul.
The same inevitability of temptation is there for Jesus, too. Today Jesus is led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil – the Gospel suggests that this was his whole reason for being there. And there are a couple of important things to hear echoing around in there. First, Matthew, who told this story, is always presenting Jesus like a new Moses. So just as Moses and the Israelites struggled in the desert, and formed their identity in the desert, so will Jesus. But there’s something more elemental here that we’re supposed to get, something that was an earth-shattering idea for early Christians. Jesus is more than a new Moses – he’s a new Adam. Think about it: Adam was with the devil, was tempted, and gave in. And when he gave in, all of humanity gave in with him, forever and ever and ever. If Jesus can go through the same thing – go into the wilderness, be tempted by the devil, and stay strong? Well then maybe he can save us. If we all attach to Adam and die, maybe we can attach to Jesus and live. Because he has suffered – he passed through – the same things that we do.
Here’s the tricky part, though. Does Jesus really have the same experience that we do here? We pray all the time in Lent that he was tempted like us, but without sin. When we hear this story, though, it doesn’t sound like normal human temptation. I’ve never been tempted to perform a miracle, or summon angels, or take over the world. Even if we could distill Jesus’ temptations down to more relatable things, food, favors, power … they’re still so remarkably cosmic, so out of our league. In the end, it seems, Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness isn’t really a story about us. It’s a story about him, and who he was committed to being for us.
Remember, to have temptation, you’ve got to have a commitment, something that you’ve decided to do or be that you are tempted to turn from. Jesus was committed to his mission, the work he came to do. And the temptations themselves are his chance to prove that commitment, to present all of his soft places, all of his possibilities for giving in before he set out to do his work. First, the bread. Jesus is tempted to turn lots of rocks into lots of bread – not for himself, but for hungry people. Jesus, who will end his life humiliated, is given the chance to be the people’s hero. And he stays committed to his mission. What about power? Plenty of people were expecting Jesus to stage a political revolution, to inaugurate a literal kingdom. Jesus, who was put to death by an Empire, is given the chance to rule the world. But he stays committed to his mission. The worst one of all, to me, is the one about jumping off the temple, and being rescued by angels. Because you can hear in it foreshadowing of the cross, and you can imagine how afraid he must have been, and how much he must have wanted that help, to escape the event that we’ve all got in the back of our minds as we begin Lent, knowing that Good Friday is coming. Jesus, who will die a physical death, is given the chance to live. He stays committed to his mission.
The tempter, of course, is presenting him with supernatural options: miracles, angels, the kingdoms of the world. But were Jesus to choose any of them, he wouldn’t end up being a supernatural Messiah – he would end up being a weak, soft human. He would be a guy whose success depended on handouts and popularity; he’d be a dictator who would rely on force and violence to maintain the status quo; he’d be a refugee, free from death and danger, but running from the work he set out to do for all of us. Instead, he refuses the supernatural options and chooses, in fact, the only option that’s open to us, too: he remains faithful. He trusts in God. Again, he chooses his mission because that’s what we are: we are his mission. Being like us, being human, being our new Adam, is who Jesus is. He is Jesus not for himself, but for us. When he goes to be tempted, he takes us with him into the wilderness and he doesn’t give us up. Because he is like us, because he’s human, he has places that give, but he doesn’t give in. And when he makes it through, we all make it through. When he emerges, strong, we all come out, strong.
And we all come out with a mission. Our soft places are still there, we’re still vulnerable, but we’ve been handed a commitment that is bigger than anything else. We get to show the world what love looks like, we get to show the world what forgiveness means. We can go through the rest of our lives never giving up hope that our weakness will be made strong, and that like those newborns, little by little we’ll be able to hold our necks straight, and stand up, and walk. Jesus didn’t give us up in the wilderness, and won’t be giving up on us anytime soon.
Sermon preached by the Rev. Danielle Thompson at St. Chrysostom's Episcopal Church in Chicago, IL on Sunday, March 13, 2011 at 8:00am and 11:00am.
