Christ Lutheran Church

1701 Arroyo Chamiso

Santa Fe, NM 87505-4775

(505) 983-9461

church@clcsantafe.com

  

Sunday, February 21, 2010
First Sunday in Lent

 

GOSPEL: Luke 4:1-13

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, 2where 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. 3The devil said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread." 4Jesus answered him, "It is written, 'One does not live by bread alone.'"

             5Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. 6And 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. 7If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours." 8Jesus answered him, "It is written,

             'Worship the Lord your God,

             and serve only him.'"

             9Then 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, 10for it is written,

             'He will command his angels concerning you,

             to protect you,'

11and

             'On their hands they will bear you up,

             so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'"

12Jesus answered him, "It is said, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'" 13When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.

 

 

+ In nomine Domini.  Amen.

When I began to think about this morning’s Gospel portion, and gave to my Sermon the title “Temptations”, my mind – captured as it is by sounds of music so regularly – began to fill with sounds from 1965 …

I know you wanna leave me,

but I refuse to let you go

That’s right, it was the hit song by The Temptations – “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg.”

And my mind kept telling me “No, not The Temptations, but … Temptations … religious ones, the whole substance of Lent … ‘Yield not to Temptation’ and all that … giving up things, denying oneself, the disciple of the season …!”

But the beat of those words of that Motown success and genius kept pounding in my head all week long:

If I have to beg and plead for your sympathy,

I don't mind coz' you mean that much to me…

The Motown steady beat and the to-the-heart lyrics that became the background for a generation of us who went through that troubled time of conflict and change called now historically The Sixties (you remember?) … where equality and the rights of people were brought out of ignorance and denial and into the face of humanity and all human need and all human want and all human hope; where we marched and marched and marched again and spoke out against tyranny and war and hatred and bigotry and wielded not swords but words … and words not of wrath, but of peace.

Still I was headed in my sermon preparation not back to the 1960s … but rather to 2010 … this time and this place, all the while trying to find the meaning of a biblical account, this story from the Scriptures read by the followers of Jesus for nearly 2,000 year in the weeks preceding the Feast of Easter … read as a way of answering the question, “Who will Jesus be?” … the story of the Temptation of Jesus in the Wilderness …

I know you wanna leave me,

… the Temptations began to sing again as I stopped reading the passage from Luke … this story as that Gospel Writer tells it late in the 1^st Century, that Jesus of Nazareth before beginning his work in the world goes off ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ  (in the Greek in which the story was written, en tay air-ray-mo) (“into the desert, into the wilderness, into the lonely and barren place”).

Jesus was not alone in this endeavour, so many prophets and heroes before him made the same journey … it was a holy practice … one went ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ before the start of something so significant, so life-changing that the journey itself could not be trusted to fate, only to the testing of the future itself and that done in a quiet, lonely, wilderness … a holy place.

Nor was Jesus alone in the sense of being without company, says the author of Luke’s Gospel … there with was  o διαβόλοs  (ho diablos) (“the Evil One”, El Diablo, the Devil, Old Scratch, Beelzebub) … the Gospel Writer Mark, whose story precedes Luke by some 20 years calls him by his Hebrew name transliterated of course into the Greek, σαταν  (sah-than) (Satan, the Tempter).

And the temptation goes on for 40 days, reminiscent of the 40 years of Israel’s story, the Wandering in the Wilderness … the offer of bread recalls the gift of manna, the offer of power recalls Moses’ view of the holy land, the temple miracle recalls the miracles of the wilderness days … the connection between the Hebrew Scriptures and this Gospel Narrative is not coincidental nor is it incidental, the point is to put Jesus into the full history of God’s journey with God’s people.

I know you wanna leave me,

but I refuse to let you go

The Temptations (the Motown ones) came pounding back into my brain …

What if? 

What if that was part of it? 

What if that was part of what Luke was trying to get us to understand?  … that Jesus was indeed tempted, that it was no simple pious trip-to-the-wilderness, but a true search for meaning and understanding and purpose.  What if the whole point of this Gospel portion is to answer the question, “What will Jesus be‽”

What will Jesus be?  Will he be the one who follows after power and privilege … I mean after all being the Son of God is no simple thing? 

What will Jesus be?  Will he be the one who succumbs to o διαβόλοs and follows him into success and domination?  Many did, many still do …

Will he run away from God?  Remember Elijah …?

Yet another verse from The Temptations came to me …

If I have to beg and plead for your sympathy,

I don't mind coz' you mean that much to me…

Maybe it was … maybe it is … that God is the Beggar (that’s an interesting picture, isn’t it?) who pleads for Jesus in the Wilderness Place to stay with him and not be so tempted by the Tempter?  Maybe it was a real temptation‽

The Temptations’ Song and the Gospel Song spent time in my head back and forth … the 60s song of a man in love with a girl who wants to run away from him … and he will do anything to make it work …

If I have to sleep on your doorstep

all night and day just to keep you from walkin' away

let your friends laugh, even this I can stand

cause I want to keep you any way I can

 

And the God who will not let Jesus go, begs for his allegiance, his trust, his faith … that what lies ahead may indeed be quite unsuccessful … it seems that the work of the Kingdom frequently fades in grandeur when matched against the glory of so many devilish projects … the Begging God who will do just about anything to keep Jesus.

Is the story in the Gospel a love song where the Tempter comes in only to sing a verse or two or three so enchanting and enticing?

I think so. 

And there’s more.  Because the Gospel Portion called the Temptation of Jesus in the Wilderness all the while being a story that asks the question “Who will Jesus be?”

… is also in the reading, in the telling, in the re-telling of the church’s life a story that asks, especially in the season of Lent … asks the question of those who follow Jesus, “Who will you be?”

Will you let o διαβόλοs and all of its ways and devices, the power and privilege of the world, take you? 

Or … will you see and hear and even feel the Holy One who sleeps “on your doorstep all night and day just to keep you from walkin’ away …”?

It is, of course, a choice.

It was a choice for Jesus and it is a choice for the followers of Jesus.

I ask you only to listen to the God who isn’t “too proud to beg” and who refuses “to let you go.”

+++

Let us pray.

Holy Companion of our wilderness wandering, draw near to us and give us strength.  Remind us of the ways in which you have always been a God of liberation for the lost, a God of freedom for the tempted … and never, ever, ever let us go.  Amen.

You Tube link to The Temptations singing Ain't Too Proud to Beg (1966) ... click HERE.

+ Deo Gratia.  Amen.

The Rev. Benjamin Larzelere III, Pastor

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