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"Gotcha"
February 10, 2008: First Sunday in Lent, Year A
The Rev. Caroline K. Murphy, interim senior minister
United Church on the Green, UCC: New Haven, CT
www.UnitedChurchontheGreen.org

Scripture:

"May God take these words and make from them a holy word for us today."

Psalm 32

Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven,

whose sin is covered.

Happy are those to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity,

and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

While I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long.

For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;

my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.

Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity;

I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,"

and you forgave the guilt of my sin.

Therefore let all who are faithful offer prayer to you;

at a time of distress, the rush of mighty waters shall not reach them.

You are a hiding place for me;

you preserve me from trouble;

I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go;

I will counsel you with my eye upon you.

Do not be like a horse or a mule, without understanding,

whose temper must be curbed with bit and bridle,

else it will not stay near you.

Many are the torments of the wicked,

but steadfast love surrounds those who trust in the Lord.

Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, O righteous,

and shout for joy, all you upright in heart.

Matthew 4:1-11

NARRATOR: Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be
tempted by the devil. He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards
he was very hungry. The tempter came and said to him:
SATAN: "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread."
JESUS: "It is written, 'A person does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"
NARRATOR: Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on
the highest point of the temple,
SATAN: "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, 'He will command his angels concerning you,' and 'On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'"
JESUS : "Again it is written, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"
NARRATOR: Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor;
SATAN: "All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me."
JESUS: "Away with you, Satan! For it is written, 'Worship the Lord your
God, and serve only him.'"
NARRATOR: Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.

"Friends, God is still speaking to the world. May our hearts be open to listen and respond. Amen."

Sermon:

In some ways it's a fantastic kind of story — fantastic in a fairy tale sort of way. The three trials Jesus faces could have come straight out of Hans Christian Anderson, though in one of his stories the tests would probably have been set by a king for the potential suitors of his beautiful daughter, the fair princess with the long golden tresses. There are the forty days of fasting, which have an almost mythic ring to them. And then there's the cast of characters: a Spirit who leads the young protagonist out into the wilderness at the beginning of the tale, a band of angels who come and tend to him at the end, and in the middle of it all the great ogre named Satan. Even the Brothers Grimm might have hesitated to tell a tale with so many supernatural characters and elements in it.

But here it is in our sacred scriptures — and not only in the part written by Matthew but in the parts written by Mark and Luke as well. All three of these so-called synoptic gospels (the three accounts of Jesus' life that bear the closest relationship to one another) tell the story of how the untested young man who has just been baptized by John in the river Jordan is immediately led out into the wilderness for the express purpose of being tempted by the devil. Jesus' forty days in the wilderness are the most immediate biblical foundation for the church's observance of the season of Lent — a season that is also forty days in length and that is intended to help us confront some of the temptations that beset us. And so here we are — as always on the First Sunday in Lent — hearing this strange, fantastic story.

Let's start with the most fascinating and far-fetched character of the lot — the one who most strains our credulity, tempting us perhaps to dismiss the whole story as a childish folk tale. I am referring, of course, to the scene-stealer here, the character referred to as Satan, or the devil. The problem, I think, is that when most of hear about "the devil," we can hardly help but picture a cartoonish character with horns and a tail and a scary red face. The devil seems like someone you might dress up as for Halloween, not like someone you would meet in real life, or in a story that you intend to take seriously.

It may help if we use the old Sunday School trick of taking the "d" off of the word devil, leaving us with the word evil, or if we think of the devil as the enemy all that is life giving and joyful. Or we could go back to the Hebrew word ha-Satan, the Satan, which literally means 'the Tempter.' You may remember him from the one place where he puts in an appearance in the Hebrew Bible: the Book of Job, where he makes a bet with God that the faithful, righteous man named Job will surely turn his back on God if he is stripped of all the things that make him happy — his prosperity, his family, his health. Both in the Book of Job and in the gospels, the Satan (ha-Satan) is the personification of a malicious gadfly, of a needler, of a tempter who delights in sowing the seeds of doubt and despair, and then exclaims, "Gotcha!" when he's got you hooked. This is surely his aim in devising three temptations — three tests — for Jesus that he throws out at him at the end of the young man's forty-day sojourn in the wilderness.

The first temptation is the most straightforward of the three, the one that must have seemed most likely to grab hold of someone who had been fasting for forty days: "Command these stones to become loaves of bread." It's an appeal to the belly. "You're obviously hungry; why don't you use the power you supposedly have to whip up some food for yourself?" Next comes something of an Evel Knievel dare: "Show me that this God of yours will rescue you by throwing yourself down from the top of the temple. Doesn't it say, after all, in one of the psalms, that God will command his angels to protect you? Let's see you prove it, Jesus!" [Note that in this second temptation the devil is doing what would later become known as prooftexting: taking snippets of scripture out of context and using them as a weapon against someone else.] Finally, having failed to trip Jesus up with the first two temptations, he comes up with what may be the most seductive one of them all: "I will give you all the kingdoms of the world if only you will fall down and worship me."

Three basic temptations: food, divine rescue, and political power. He's wily, this tempter; because, after all, will Jesus not demonstrate that indeed he does have the ability to do all these things?


All this still lies in the future, however — as potential, not as track record. And so his adversary's first strategy is to use that fact against him: "Jesus, you do have the power to do these things, don't you? Let's see you show your stuff." Remember that at this point Jesus has no résumé that he can draw out of his back pocket. Sure, he thought he saw something in the form of a dove descend upon him when John baptized him, something that seemed to represent the Holy Spirit. And sure, he thought he heard a voice from heaven saying, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased." But he hasn't actually accomplished anything yet. No wonder the devil keeps using that little word "if." "If you are the Son of God, turn these stones into loaves." "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down." And then the subtlest one of them all: "If you will only worship me, you can have all the power in the world." It's got to be tempting to respond to Satan's taunts with some impressive act, to show that he truly is God's Son, that he really does have what it takes.

The Tempter is clearly trying to goad this freshly minted, wet-behind-the-ears young rabbi into proving himself, but that's not all he is doing. He is also trying to get Jesus to use his powers for the wrong purposes. "Jesus, turn these stones into bread — not so that a multitude can be fed, but simply to still the hunger of your own belly. Jesus, tap into God's ability to rescue those who are falling — not so that you can help others but so that you can stage a reckless stunt of your own. Jesus, take hold of political power — so that it can all be yours, so that you can possess it. Oh, and by the way, the condition is that you have to worship me."

Do you see what he's doing? The way he is tempting Jesus not only to prove his powers, but to use them not for the greater good — not to bring life and joy and peace into the world — but for purposes that are narrowly self-centered? This is where the Tempter becomes most cunning: by tempting him to feed his own hungers, the hungers all human beings have for food or for a sense of divine connection or for a sense of power and control. To feed his own ego — which really amounts to feeding that which seeks to destroy rather than build up, to take away life rather than give life. "Just worship me; that's all you have to do." It's the most revealing thing the devil says.

In a week when many of us have been following the primaries with a certain degree of intensity (or maybe even obsession!), the third temptation Jesus faces might make us prick up our ears. Some of us may have become particularly enthusiastic about one or another of the candidates — which is surely a healthy thing in a democracy that can thrive only if ordinary citizens become actively engaged in the political process. But in our enthusiasm, we may find it tempting to imagine that that one person will single-handedly bring salvation to our country and the world — and to become so focused on that one person or personality that we risk losing sight of a shared vision for the future. I daresay that it is tempting for the candidates themselves to fall into that kind of mindset, or to get so caught up in the exhilaration and frustration of the race that, in their all-out quest for votes, they may be tempted to set aside the higher purposes that drew them into public service. Would the term "negative campaigning" ever have entered our vocabulary if these temptations were not real?

As with politicians and the political process, so also with individuals and organizations. All of us are vulnerable to temptations of various sorts, and those temptations may be greatest for us precisely in the areas where our gifts and graces and passions are the strongest. In fact, those who have been given particularly remarkable gifts may be tempted most sorely to use them for the wrong purposes. I don't know most of you well enough at this point to be able to hazard a guess as to what sorts of temptations you may wrestle with, but you wouldn't be human if you weren't subject to them. Nor would I presume to say, on such brief acquaintance, what kinds of temptations you as a congregation may face — but again, I know there must surely be some.

Not unlike the season of Lent, this period of sabbatical may be a time for you all as a congregation to discover new truths and possibilities — a time apart from a pastor who has led you into an era of remarkable growth and vitality. By drawing a comparison between sabbatical and Lent, I don't mean to suggest that these 3½ months should be a bleak time of wilderness suffering, with no spiritual sustenance in sight! But I do hope this time apart will offer you some of the gifts that those 40 days in the wilderness offered Jesus: the gift of new discernment, the gift of new clarity, the gift of remembering viscerally that your identity as Christ's church runs far deeper than your relationship with any one pastor.

Perhaps this biblical story about Jesus and Satan and the three temptations — this ancient tale with all its fantastic, fairy-tale-like elements — can be one of our guides. For it truly is a story about you and me — about the forces of temptation that beset us on a daily basis, and about the subtle way in which these temptations can grab a hold of us, leading us to misuse our greatest gifts and graces. It is also a story about something even more important: namely, the power of God to uphold us when we come face to face with such temptations. Remember that the story starts and ends not with the devil but with the Holy Spirit and with angels — which, again, going back to the Hebrew word, is simply another way of saying "messengers": messenger-angels who came and ministered to Jesus. Friends, this is precisely what we do when we become living messengers of hope and truth for one another.

I imagine that the angels ministering to Jesus may have whispered to him the truth that the Spirit had already implanted in his heart: the truth that the love of God is stronger and deeper than even the most cunning and pernicious forces of temptation. Perhaps they whispered to him the words of the psalm we heard this morning: "You, God, are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with glad cries of deliverance." In other words, "You, God, are the one who can truly say to us, 'Gotcha! I've gotcha safe in the palm of my hand, in the cleft of the rock, in the shadow of my almighty wings.'" Or again, in the words of the psalm, "Steadfast love surrounds those who trust in the Lord." May that be living truth for you today, and in all the times of trial and rejoicing to come. Amen.

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