“Wilderness Trials” Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16; Luke 4:1-13 The Reverend Joanna M. Adams Morningside Presbyterian Church Atlanta, GA February 25, 2007

“Wilderness Trials”
Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16; Luke 4:1-13
The Reverend Joanna M. Adams
Morningside Presbyterian Church
Atlanta, GA
February 25, 2007

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. Luke 4:1-2a

Have you had it with Anna Nicole Smith or what? It sounds as if she had a sad and troubled life, but may we be spared having to hear another word about the paternity of the baby, the location of the burial, the wishes of the boyfriend, the mother, and the other boyfriend. And pardon me if I say that if I never see another photograph of Brittany Spears with a shaved head, it will be too soon. An Episcopal priest friend of mine said that when he first saw the picture he actually wondered if Brittany Spears had engaged in some sort of Lenten observance. (1) I have not checked with Entertainment Tonight, but I will go out on a limb and say that we don’t know why Brittany Spears shaved her head, but I would bet it has little to do with the season of repentance and fasting that began for the church on Ash Wednesday.

We live in a culture that is saturated with self-centeredness and a love for un-reality, and right into the middle of it, there comes this counter-cultural season of self-denial and brutal honesty about who we are. Remember that you are dust and to dust you will return. Repent and believe the gospel. These are the words that are spoken as the sign of the cross is made with ashes upon the foreheads of those of us who are brave enough to come to worship on Ash Wednesday.

I heard a Catholic priest say this past week that the ashes from the burned leaves of palm branches, which most churches save from Palm Sunday the year before, are actually too light and insubstantial to make enough of a mark on the forehead. His parish orders REALLY dark ashes to mix in with the lighter ones, so that there will be no mistake: We are deeply stained by sin. I think the priest has a good idea. Our world and our lives are marked not only by minor betrayals and small indiscretions. The truth is that dark shadows fall across our world. The truth is that dark shadows fall across our human souls. There is operative within us and beyond us, strong opposition to the love and wisdom of God. (2) Strong, formidable opposition. The gospel gives this opposition a name. In Luke, the opposition is called the devil. I think of it this way: There is the good God who created the world, but there is another player on the field, operative in the broader realms of society and culture. I confess to you as we confess together every week, there is also another player on the field of your heart and mine. I resolve to do this, but then I do that. Tomorrow I am going to change and yet, tomorrow, I am exactly the same. I harbor resentments. I think of myself first. There is another player on the field.

In the ancient church, the monks made a list of what they considered to be the seven deadliest sins, manifestations of this strong opposition to God. These sins, they believed, were lethal to community life in the monastery. I wonder if anybody can recite the old list of the seven deadlies: envy, pride, covetousness, gluttony, sloth, lust and anger. Some years ago, English author Ian Fleming (I know when I say his name you think James Bond, but he was really quite an interesting writer and philosopher.) made a list of what he considered to be seven even deadlier sins: avarice, cruelty, snobbery, hypocrisy, self-righteousness, moral cowardice, and malice. (3)

Whichever list you might prefer, or if you wish to compose your own, the season of Lent, these forty days of preparation for the resurrection of Jesus Christ on Easter morning, ask us to prepare by telling the truth about who we are. Of course, sin and darkness are not all there is to say about us. We are creatures made in God’s divine image; we are partners with God in all that is creative and generative. We are the beloved for whom Christ lived and died and rose again. But that is not all the truth about us. We are also sinners without hope save in God’s sovereign mercy, and we live in a world in which there is a battle going on between the forces of light and the forces of darkness.

I’ll be watching the Oscars tonight, and I will relish every minute. I can’t wait to see the gowns. I will wonder who has had the most recent Botox injection. But because I have spent recent days with Jesus in the wilderness, I will also be thinking that there would never be a movie made or a play or a novel written, were it not for the fact that there is a struggle going on between the forces of good and forces of evil. We watch movies because we struggle with the question of how to maintain our humanity, not within the walls of a monastery, though I understand it’s not easy to maintain your humanity there, but in what Ian Fleming called “the great pulsating ant heap” that is the human community. (4)

Our reading from Luke takes us straight to the heart of the ant heap. Though only Jesus and the devil are there, we are all there. The context of the struggle in the wilderness is important. Jesus’ paternity has just been clearly established. He’s just been baptized, and as he prayed after his baptism, the heavens opened and the Holy Spirit descended and a voice came from heaven. You are my son, the Beloved; with you I am well-pleased. Immediately after that strong affirmation of his sonship, Jesus, full of the Spirit of God, returns from the Jordan and is led by the Spirit to the wilderness forty days, where he is tempted by the devil. There is nothing more true that can be said about human existence than that it will inevitably include times of trial. If Jesus had to go through what he went through, it is a cinch that even the godliest people on earth will have dark and difficult nights of the soul. No one escapes. Does God test us? Yes, I think he does, not for divine entertainment or out of an indifferent arbitrariness, but because life in a fallen world will never be easy, and God knows we need to know that God can be trusted in every circumstance, no matter how daunting. According to Luke, it was the Holy Spirit who led Jesus into the wilderness. God had to make sure that the one on whom the whole plan depended had what it took to go the distance. I do not believe that God was looking for Jesus to manifest his own strength or his own willpower. I believe what God wanted from Jesus was faith and confidence. God wanted his only begotten son to realize that the one who created him would also sustain.

It’s a hard life, this human life. I wouldn’t lie to you about that. I think of words penned by Mary Oliver in her poem “Dogfish”. A large fish in the shallows of the ocean, a big dark ominous-looking fish that looked like a sleeve that could easily devour all the little fish in the pool was indeed about to devour three little fish. The poet writes, “Nobody gets out of it, nobody, having to swim through the fires to stay in this world . . . And look! Look! Look! I think those little fish better wake up and dash themselves away from the hopeless future that is bulging toward them. And probably, if they do not waste time looking for an easier world, they can do it.” (5)

I’ll be honest. I’m still looking for an easier world. I want to inhabit a body that doesn’t have physical problems I have to deal with. I want to be a part of a family that doesn’t have dynamics, if you know what I mean. I want to live in a state in which everybody in leadership knows that low-income children ought to have health care. I want to live in a nation that, because of the quality of its character and its actions, earns the respect of the rest of the world. I want to be in a Presbyterian denomination that is not polarized over matters of sexuality. I want to be a part of a church that is as just and inclusive as God’s grace, but I want the bickering to end! I want compassion to the strongest force on earth. I would like to live in an easier world where people I love don’t have to take radiation and chemotherapy until it just about kills them. I would banish cruelty and indifference and infidelity in a heartbeat if I had my wish, but I don’t have my wish. Life is not easy, and Jesus Christ, Son of God, fully God, fully human, came to show us how to live and how to die and how to win over all those forces that would separate us from God and from neighbor.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said that to be human is to live fully in this world, with all its hard aches and all its tragedies. Remember the 1998 movie The Truman Show? Jim Carey lived in a bubble. The sun was always shining; the house was always clean. Nobody needed to dust. It was a miserable life.
The great philosopher and humanist Simone Weil wrote: We live in a world of unreality and of dreams. To give up our imaginary position as the center, to awaken to all that is real and all that is eternal is to see the true light and to hear the true silence.” (6) What a perfect description of the blessing of the wilderness. Only in the wilderness do you see for real what can be counted on and what will not last.

The devil challenged Jesus. He had waited until Jesus was ripe for the picking. The Lord was famished. He had notched his belt up to the very last notch. He was lonely. It was a moment of deep vulnerability. You know them. Nobody is there, and you are empty, completely empty.
Satan comes and says If you are the Son of God, if you are God’s beloved, then you can turn this stone into a loaf of bread. Jesus refuses to take the bait. He turns to his faith tradition for sustenance. He quotes scripture, “It is written one does not live by bread alone.” I am going to stand on that promise and resist you.

Next was the temptation of influence and power. I will give you all the kingdoms of this world. Jesus again quoted his tradition. “Worship the Lord your God and serve only him.”

The final temptation – to do something spectacular and to assume that God would protect him. Throw yourself off the pinnacle of the temple. The angels will lift you up. You’ll be fine. Again, Jesus responded with the counsel of his faith. “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”
Beneath these three temptations is the single implication that, truly, God ought to be taking better care of God’s own son. Jesus, and we, ought to have everything we want, shouldn’t we? We ought not to have to deal with challenging things. It turns out though, that for Jesus to be the Son of God, he had to share fully our humanity with us. He chose not to exercise divine privilege, or practice magic.(7) He identified completely and fully with the human condition, revealing that there is no dark place we can go that he has not been before us, and because he triumphed, we may also triumph. Jesus said - I intend to be true to my identity as a beloved child of God, but I will never become a rival of God. (8) Any time you hear a voice tempting you to be either less or more than God created you to be, you just answer, “Sir, you are wasting you time. I’d a million times rather be a hungry child of God than a slave to a master like you.”(9)

I want you to consider that the wildernesses of your life might be the very place of the greatest spiritual blessings you will ever receive. It is only in times of trial that you discover what you are actually made of. You will realize that there are a lot worse things than not getting all your needs met, for instance, losing your soul.

Paul Tillich wrote a book entitled The Courage To Be. This is the spiritual gift the wilderness gives, the courage to be, the courage to say NO to that which will destroy, the courage to go on living as a child of God. I hope you will come to worship during these Sundays in Lent to receive strength for the journey, to receive the comfort of the angels.

The truth is that the journey is long; the desert is dry; and the devil has promised to show his face again. (10) You’ll want to be ready. You’ll want to know you will be sustained by the mercy, love and grace of God.

(1) Sam Candler, “Good Faith for the Common Good,” 2/22/07.
(2) Fred B. Craddock, Luke, John Knox Press, 1990, p.55.
(3) The Seven Deadly Sins, Quill/William Morrow, 1962, p.x.
(4) Ibid.
(5) Mary Oliver, Dream Work, The Atlantic Monthly Press, 1986, p.5.
(6) Waiting for God
(7) Barbara Brown Taylor, Bread of Angles, Boston: Cowley Publications, pp. 36- 40.
(8) Ibid.
(9) Ibid.
(10) Jon M. Walton, “Tested As We Are,” 2/25/96.