Wilderness Tests - 3-6-22
Wilderness Tests
Deut 26:1-11; Luke 4:1-13
Deut 26:1-11
When you have come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, and you possess it, and settle in it, you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket and go to the place that the Lord your God will choose as a dwelling for his name. You shall go to the priest who is in office at that time, and say to him, “Today I declare to the Lord your God that I have come into the land that the Lord swore to our ancestors to give us.” When the priest takes the basket from your hand and sets it down before the altar of the Lord your God, you shall make this response before the Lord your God: “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous. When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labor on us, we cried to the Lord, the God of our ancestors; the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O Lord, have given me.” You shall set it down before the Lord your God and bow down before the Lord your God. Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the Lord your God has given to you and to your house.
Luke 4:1-13
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. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished. The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’” Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said to him, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’” Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’” Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.
Prayer – Lord as we begin the season of Lent we are reminded of the multitude of temptations we encounter every day. Some of these tempting moments are subtle while others are as blatant as a neon billboard. Help us, O Lord, to overcome the temptation to worship ourselves and our desires. Give us the grace and courage to focus and follow you as the guiding force of our lives – amen.
Every year in the springtime a familiar ritual is repeated. Hundreds of grown men who have played baseball all their lives head to warmer climates in Florida and Arizona to practice the fundamentals of baseball for about six weeks. Men who grew up with a bat and glove have instructors who teach them again how to bat, throw, pitch and field the ball. Day after day, for weeks on end, these men get paid lots of money to play the game of baseball. Hitting, fielding and running the bases – all the things that would seem like second nature to the players get their renewed attention. Every phase of the game is studied all over again. To some folks, spring training seems like a waste of time. If they’ve played baseball all their lives, why don’t they just take to the field, have someone sing the National Anthem, have the umpire yell, “Play ball” and get started? Why spring training every year? If you ask the players why they head to spring training every year they will assure you it’s not because they’ve forgotten what to do. It is so they will get better at what baseball players do. It’s return to the basics to get them ready for the long season ahead; so they’ll be prepared; so they’ll be able to give their best at what they’ve devoted their lives to doing; so when the dog days of summer arrive, they can push through the wilderness of game after game.
In the church, every year as spring approaches we begin the Lenten journey to Jerusalem once again. Not because we are novices and must be taught the basics for the first time. But because whoever we are, these are the basics that will sustain us for the long season ahead. These are the same fundamentals we rehearse year after year, for they are what make us strong and prepared for the wilderness days to come.
I had never really noticed until getting ready for this morning that the same Spirit who descended upon Jesus at his baptism also drives him, not led or invited, but drives Jesus to the wilderness. As I read through this passage again for today I began to think about blessings of baptism and identity as God’s beloved and how that impacts our faith journeys, particularly as we begin our slow walk to Jerusalem as Lent begins. I wondered if receiving our identity as God’s Beloved, with no strings or conditional attached, was essential to weathering the temptations and struggles that come in our lives and faith walk and I still stand by that. But I also began to wonder why the Spirit drove Jesus to the wilderness. What did Jesus need to learn in the wilderness? Did the wilderness tests of struggle and temptation provide something essential to Jesus’ ministry or accomplish some end that isn’t immediately apparent?
I suppose we all know that in ancient times the wilderness was understood as a place outside of the control of structured society – a place where life happened to people. And still I have wondered if the Spirit’s prompting wasn’t random, that the Spirit drove Jesus to the wilderness with some purpose. One of the things I noted was the Spirit descending upon Jesus at his baptism being juxtaposed with the Spirit driving him into the wilderness. My curiosity is why then? And what does that juxtaposition have to teach us about the faith journey?
As I continued to reflect on our passage for this morning I focused on the language of the temptations Jesus experienced. But even before that I was reminded that Jesus was hungry, perhaps even vulnerable in the moment. And isn’t that when temptation seems to rear its head the most – when we are at less than our best, when we are tired, or hungry, or scared, or hurting – that is when temptation has a way of becoming quite visible and apparent.
The first temptation Jesus experienced was grounded in his being hungry and the devil said to him – If you are the Son of God, then command this stone to turn into bread. What was interesting to me was the highly conditional language used – If, then. Not only the conditional language used but creating a human expectation of if you are something special then you have to prove it. How many of us over the course of our lives have been trapped in the ‘good enough’ language of our society, of our world? How many of us have heard, or felt, that in order to receive affirmation, to receive even love, we have to jump through a particular hoop. If, then – a wilderness test.
The second temptation Jesus experienced spoke to power over everyday life. Still vulnerable, still hungry, the devil took Jesus up to the highest spot, perhaps the same mountain where Moses received the commandments, perhaps the same mountain where Jesus was betrayed, we don’t know, but it was a place where Jesus could see all the kingdoms of the world. And it was there that the devil said to him, ‘here all are all the kingdoms of the world, if you will only worship me, then they are yours to rule.’ Once again, the devil uses conditional language, if-then, to impose upon Jesus the temptation of power and politics and worldly respect. The devil is once again playing off of Jesus’ vulnerability and hunger, saying to him, and to us, if you worship anyone but God, especially me, then you can rule your very own world. How many of us like to think that we have sovereignty and dominion over our lives? How many of us think that in order to be recognized as powerful we have to rule over others? How many of us have been given privilege simply by the color of our skin, or where we were born, or by the capacity of our abilities? If, then – a wilderness test.
Now comes the third and final temptation. The devil begins by quoting scripture – perhaps an uncomfortable observation for those who regularly quote scripture. Satan quotes Ps 91 as a way of daring Jesus to jump off the very tip top of the Temple in Jerusalem, where the devil brought them both. If you are God’s Son, then prove it – throw yourself down from the tip top of the temple and thereby prove to me and all of Jerusalem that you are who the voice at your baptism said you are. Don’t the Psalms say that God takes care of God’s chosen ones? Again – if, then – a wilderness test.
The temptations are all challenges to Jesus’ Spirit-appointed vocation as God’s Beloved Son, which was realized with his baptism. In every test, the devil presents it to Jesus in an if/then statement. As if the Son of God, needs to prove himself to the devil or anyone else for that matter. And yet, how often do we pose similar questions to the Divine. O Lord, if you love me, then provide me that answers to these human trials I face. O Lord, if you love me, then make sure that my loved one doesn’t die from, pick the disease. O Lord, if you love me, then make sure I have what I need to survive this war in Ukraine. Or it could be to our children, if you want to succeed, then you need to take this class or that class, or study to be a doctor or a lawyer or a tech guru. Or it could be to our grandchildren as I heard from my grandmother too, too many times, If you love me, then you better come give me a hug or I won’t give you a birthday present. It seems that we live in a world that thinks nothing of offering us wilderness tests moment by moment, minute by minute, day by day, week by week, year by year.
So perhaps that is why Luke very astutely juxtaposes these two stories. To remind us, to encourage us, that all of those wilderness tests are overcome by the simple fact that we are God’s beloved children, with no strings, no conditions, no specific prayers or beliefs tied to God’s love. That doesn’t seem real to me and I wonder if that seems real to you. How is it that God who created you, me, all of us, creation itself can simply love us without any conditions or strings attached? And maybe that is the lesson of our passage this morning. The lesson that being God’s beloved means that we don’t have to get sucked into every single wilderness test that gets thrown in our faces. That being God’s beloved means that we are not judged nor condemned nor found wanting no matter what happens in our lives – that at the end of the day, nothing, absolutely nothing can separate us from God’s love found and grounded in Jesus Christ our Lord. Wouldn’t that be a perfect score against any wilderness test we encounter any day and every day.
I’m here to declare, promise, remind and perhaps even to convict you that there are no wilderness tests when it comes to God’s love. There are no if, then tests to see if you measure up to the divine standard. There are no specific prayers, no specific measurements that you or I, or anyone, needs to pass in order to be loved and beloved by God – that is the radically good, amazing and wilderness busting news of the gospel – thanks be to God – amen.