Sermon - Rev. Judith Perry
I found some funny pictures of the temptation with that red devil with his horns and long tail. I did not put them in the slides. I am not into fantasy, and I am very suspicious of the words “gospel truth”.
If that tempter had ever turned up in my life, I would have recognized him and twigged that something was up. As it is, temptation usually looked like something just a little better. And I messed up.
So, In Matthew after his baptism, Jesus realized a little more of his destiny. It seems that despite his virgin birth, maybe he wasn’t told.
And then those magi from the east with those fabulous expensive gifts, maybe they didn’t keep them, and then all those angels visiting and instructing Joseph.
He surely must have twigged that something was up. He must have known because it was all recorded earlier in Matthew’s gospel.
But it seems that the import of his situation didn’t really register until after his baptism, then he went away to give it some thought.
He is in the desert for forty days without any sustenance, and then he was very hungry. If you take that as gospel truth, then he would be dead in a great deal less than forty days.
Actually, forty days was not an accurate measurement, it just meant a long time. Forty days, forty years, a long time.
Secondly, how did the author know what happened during the time that Jesus was solitary, on retreat? Did Jesus tell his followers? This was his private time for discernment. It is not something one usually shares with everyone.
It’s very odd. Usually, preachers take this reading to talk about our personal sin and Jesus’ sinless existence or something along that line, I am not going that route this morning.
For the sake of the argument, let’s leave behind our mess ups and myriad transgressions and think about the broader picture.
With Jesus it was a little different. He realises that he has a powerful mission and wonders how he is going to exercise that power.
The temptations presented are the temptations of those in leadership. They are the sins of the rich and powerful, We do not fall into the basket. We are the ordinary folk who suffer from the decisions of the rich and powerful.
So, let’s look at these three temptations, because when we see these temptations, they are not usually countered with words of scripture, we’ll ignore Jesus’ counter arguments for the time being.
The first temptation plays out like this: The Spirit led Jesus up into a remote wilderness area so that he could be challenged and prove himself. He went without food for forty days and nights out there, and after that he was weak from hunger. Sensing his weakness, the devil tried every trick in the book to lure him off-track. Playing on his hunger, the devil said, “If you are really the Son of God, prove it! Say the word and turn these rocks into loaves of bread.”
To begin with if you could turn rocks into bread, then why be selfish about it and turn all the rocks into bread and feed the hungry of the world?
There could be problems, especially if the rocks were parts of housing or bridges, but why not be generous give an unlimited supply of bread to the needy. Put the bakeries out of business.
Seriously though, think about the rich and powerful billionaires, they could eliminate most poverty, but they don’t.
Musk builds rockets and fantasizes about colonizing Mars. While at the same time he was cutting the jobs of government employees who were serving the people.
Think about a very powerful man, turning rocks into buns is like saying that he could do anything. He has the power, for good or for ill.
He lives in public housing, a mansion. He decorates it with gold stuff. He pulls down a wing to build a humongous ballroom. Of course it will be decorated primarily in gold. He turns rocks into gold.
This , or course has happened before. It happened perhaps a little before the the time that this gospel was written.
The Roman Emperor Nero, after a convenient fire in 64 which destroyed many of the insulae, like four story apartment houses, without amenities, which housed the lower class, he used the land and began to build himself a huge palace.
He could have given the displaced poor bread and entertainment, bread and circuses, turned stones into bread, but he built himself a palace and erected a colossal statue with his likeness.
It was an amazing building. It had a large circular room for dining and entertainment with a dome roof which revolved as the guests enjoyed themselves.
He named it, coincidentally, the Domus Aurea, the Golden House. Just before it was finished, Nero met an untimely death.
A later emperor, wishing to erase Nero’s memory, had the building buried, and so it stayed until the end of the 15th century when a young man fell through a cleft in the hillside and found himself in a strange cave or grotto filled with painted figures.
Nero had the power and the funds to aid the victims of that suspicious fire. Instead, he built himself a golden palace: one of the temptations which lure the select billionaire class. They turn rocks into gold.
Let’s move on to the next temptation: Taking Jesus to the holy city and standing him on top of the Temple’s highest tower, the devil said, “If you are really the Son of God, prove it to everyone. Throw yourself down from the top of this tower so that God can fulfil the scriptures that say:
‘God will give instructions to the angels about you,’
‘They will catch you as you fall
and you won’t so much as stub your toe on the rocks below.’”
But Jesus couldn’t be budged.
When a man gets powerful enough and reaches the pinnacle, it seems that the law can’t touch him. Files are suppressed, justices are compromised, and anyone who tries to initiate court proceedings is destroyed. It’s an old ploy.
Anyone who does not court his favour or belong to his group is considered to be a nasty enemy, because he thinks that he is untouchable, and no one can challenge him.
It is as if he can climb to the top of a tall building, say Trump Tower in New York City, and jump off, and he would float down like a feather.
I know, you now are seeing this exploit in your mind’s eye.
Making another try, the devil took Jesus up onto a very high mountain with panoramic views of all the world’s nations in all their splendour, and said to him, “I can make the world your oyster. I will give you all this if you just get down on your knees and worship me. Just acknowledge me as number one – and it’s all yours.”
But Jesus was not taken in.
When you are considered the world’s most powerful man, then the temptation is to capitalise on this and claim more and more territory.
The foreign policies change, and the Donroe Doctrine is decreed. That is: all the western hemisphere must be subservient to his powerful state.
For instance, he makes a claim on a large Arctic Island, even though he already has a military base there.
Then he bombs what might be fishing boats of other nation’s coasts, then he kidnaps another national leader and his wife and takes control of another country and its oil.
Now a Caribbean island is blockaded, no oil can reach it, and is being starved, perhaps into submission.
He turns his attention to the great independent nation to the north of him which has the water, lumber, minerals and power that he wants.
He begins with ugly slurs, and then he slowly turns the economic screws in order to proceed to take over the nation and make it a state, the 51st.
Yes, he has succumbed to the devil. Evil has caught him hook line and sinker.
The temptations offered to Jesus were not the temptations that plaque most of us, and that we pray we can avoid “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”
Jesus resisted the devil’s scenarios and instead took a humble path that created such a stir that they sought to execute him.
Welcome to Lent, the most sobering time of the year.
Have a blessed season.