February 10, 2008
(The First Sunday in Lent)

Temptation Versus Desire

by The Rev. Canon Susan Sommer

Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7  •  Psalm 32  •  Romans 5:12-19  •  Matthew 4:1-11
(From The Lectionary Page)

I put a home-made sign on my refrigerator door earlier this week. It reads, "Hey Sue, which do you really want: short term pleasure or long term goal? Love, Your Body." I'm hoping that it will help to keep me on the dietary straight and narrow, to interrupt the siren's song of the snacks that tempt me. So far so good. But hey, it's early days yet, and I'm far from complacent. What I've come to know of temptation in my life is that it is powerful.

We heard a portion of the so-called Second Creation account this morning, the one that spins the wonderful story of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden, the serpent, and the tree. There is nothing to suggest that the framers of this story ever thought they were conveying actual history. Literary objectivity is actually a far more contemporary notion. When I'm looking for the facts around the beginning of humankind, I don't generally find myself turning to the second chapter of Genesis. But when I want to know the truth about humankind, I do.

The story of the Garden of Eden reveals to us something about humankind's desires, and of our susceptibility to derailing our best and highest goals with short term expediency. The story tells me that even in paradise, where every need was anticipated and met with sheer loveliness, and where one thing and one alone was forbidden, that forbidden thing will take hold of our imaginations and turn us away. Genesis said that Eve saw that the fruit appealed to her hunger, it was a delight to her eyes, and that it would make her wise. Filling the hunger, sating the desire to possess, appealing to our need to be more than who we are. That's how temptation overtook the first humans, according to the story. Is it a historical fact? We don't know – there's no verifiable proof. Is it true? Oh my yes. We see it every day. In our crimes and in our pecadilloes, in industrial nations and in premodern cultures, temptation always hooks our hunger, our desire to possess, our need to be more than who we are.

It's an old story. It was an old story by the time Jesus appeared on the scene. As Matthew tells it, Jesus was still damp from the Jordan River when he was led into the Judean wilderness to be tempted. And what does the tempter try to hook him with? His hunger (stones into bread), his desire to possess (kingdoms of the world), his need to be more than who he was (angels to bear him up from a pinnacle free-fall). Matthew tells us that the temptation came to Jesus at the end of the 40 day fast, when he was famished, when he was most vulnerable, when he was most susceptible to the insidious blandishments of the tempter.

Kind of like us at 8:30 at night when the chocolate beckons. Kind of like us when we're burned out and bereft of spiritual resources and we lash out at someone else because it’s easier than dealing with the root problem. Kind of like us when we find ourselves backed into a corner and we take the easy way out with a fib rather than come clean. Kind of like us when an opportunity presents itself to cheat with impunity and we do because the fruits of winning are sweet, we believe, at any cost.

Hunger, the desire to possess, the need to be more than who we are. It is as though we humans are hard wired with these longings. Satisfying them with the wrong choices – sometimes even destructive choices – is something that we do all the time.

Jesus shows us another way. That's the lasting import of this story, not merely that Jesus whupped Satan in the wilderness. From the beginning, God endowed humanity with the capacity to choose how to use our creative powers, not only to create new life, but also to shape the world according to God's purpose. God calls us to use this gift to build and not to destroy. That's true whether we're talking about how we determine global policy or how we treat the only body that we’re ever gonna have this side of heaven. Jesus's encounter with the tempter in the wilderness shows us right choices.

So how did he do it? By being the Son of God? Mmmm, no. The tempter didn't go up against God masquerading as a human being in the wilderness. He went up against a human being – else the story, and frankly most of the gospel, is meaningless. Did he do it by quoting Scripture by heart? Mmmm, no. The tempter quoted Scripture first to Jesus. Jesus just answered in kind. No, I think that Jesus made the right choices because he went into the wilderness with his heart and mind firmly centered on who he was and whose he was. When we center our lives in God, then – and frankly, ONLY then – do we have the context for what to do with all that stuff that we seem to be hard-wired with. When we fully center our lives in God, we find that we have the capacity to honor our hunger in careful stewardship. We have the capacity to focus our desire for possession in terms of possessing first the love of God. We have the capacity for allowing the Holy Spirit to work within us to make us most fully the persons God intended us to be.

Is it a one-time decision? Yeah right. If only. Choosing to center our lives in God is a daily decision, sometimes even an hourly decision. Hence, the sign on my refrigerator. Hence, those invisible, indelible crosses etched on our foreheads in baptism. 

Overcoming the Bully

By The Very Rev. Terry White, Dean

Jean Shepard is the author of In God We Trust—All Others Pay Cash, a collection of stories about growing up in a town in Indiana in the 1940’s. One of his stories is the basis for the holiday movie A Christmas Story, which is told in the first person by nine-year-old Ralph who more than anything else, wants a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas.

A major figure in Ralphie’s life is the neighborhood bully Scott Farkus. He is older and bigger than Ralph and his friends, which makes them easy prey. The very sight of Farkus instills fear in Ralph, as does his wicked laugh, and the raccoon skin hat he wears. And with a name like Scott Farkus, you know the kid must be tough. He also has a henchman, who taunts Ralphie unmercifully.

Most of us have met a Scott Farkus. Bullies are a universal experience. They live to abuse others. They intimidate with threats, and exercise their greatest power by inflicting on their victims not only the occasional punch or wedgie, but self-doubt and fear. The worst bullies make us fear them even when they aren’t around.

The stereotypical childhood bully steals our lunch money on our way to school, or our favorite hat at recess, or makes cruel fun of us in front of their friends. The bullies of adulthood do different things, but the effect being bullied has on the victim is identical.

Child and adult alike must from time to time face a bully, and each time we emerge from such an encounter, we grow a little more confident about our strengths, and a little smarter about how to rob the bully of its power.

In the continuing story of how God’s people grow up in faith and love, there is a bully who reminds us of Scott Farkus, and the famous bullies from our own life. In Scripture, the Bully is called the Serpent, the Devil, and Satan, who tries to make victims of Adam and Eve, Job, and Jesus of Nazareth, to name just a few.

(In this homily I refer to the devil not as "him" but as "it.")

At times, this bully fakes a friendship, as if it could really care about you. But the bully’s real goal is to rob you of something: your self-image and your dignity. The bully Satan schemes to start a fight among ourselves so we’ll beat up on each other, while it stands back and watches the fruits of its diabolical work. This ultimate bully twists the truth, plays mind games, and never ever plays fair. The Devil will resort to any thing to get its way.

In Shepard’s story about Ralphie, the day comes when Scott Farkus and his henchman go too far. An unexpected Farkus snowball hits Ralph in the face, at the end of a bad day at school. The bully and fiend laugh at Ralphie, who begins to cry. Farkus laughs harder, mistaking the tears as a sign of total surrender. In fact, Ralph is preparing to explode with retribution. Just as a rocket is launched after counting down 3-2-1, Ralphie counts down and launches his smaller body at the bully, who falls on his back in surprise.

Ralphie sits atop his tormentor, and begins to wale on Farkus with both fists, and gives him a real old fashioned whopping. The henchman is pushed aside by Ralph, and he runs home crying, "I’m telling my daddy on you."

And when our hero is finally pulled off of the bully, Farkus is revealed to be nothing more than a whimpering kid, bleeding slightly from the nose. And most importantly, he is robbed of his power over Ralph, who from now on will not fear this bully. Farkus is not invincible. Ralph knows that he will see Farkus often, but he will never again doubt that he has a fighting chance, because he faced the bully head on, and won big time.

In reading Matthew’s account of our Lord’s temptation, note the weakness of this bully called the devil. It only comes to Jesus after a long fast—a fully nourished Jesus, surround by friends, practicing his daily communal prayers, would easily banish the bully.

And then, Jesus reacts not unlike Ralph; he has had enough. "Away with you Satan!" It is unclear if he screamed in defiance, or quietly uttered this pronouncement, but there was no mistaking its effect on the bully. In this confrontation, at his weakest, Jesus learns he can win. In the days ahead, he will meet this devil-bully often. But Satan cannot rob him of his self-image as beloved of God, and fear will not control Jesus.

The devil from now on is nothing more than a bully. For the rest of Our Lord’s life—and for ours. This season of Grace, and our Lenten journey, requires that from the outset, we confront the bullies that would spiritually change us, beat us, and rob us of who we are becoming.

Dear friends in Christ: my bully story is this: for most of my 3rd grade year, my three block walk to school grew to eight blocks in order to avoid a most effective and enormous 6th grade bully. The longer walk wasn’t all that tough—what was hard to live with was the fear which built up in the pit of my stomach every night before bed, the fear which I woke up with every school morning, and which started to grow about an hour before the school day ended. So much of my day was spent in fear—whether or not I actually met the bully as I walked. I lived so much of that school year being afraid.

Today, we are afraid of not being loved, of being alone, of having no real relationship with God, no inner peace. We fear disease, a broken bone which might end our independence, and we fear the biggest bully of all - death.

This Lent, as we travel to the Passion and Resurrection, we must begin our journey as Jesus did by confronting the bully when we are most vulnerable.

We’ve all had enough. In our communities, our beloved church, our nation and world—we see and feel the effects of the devil who wants to rob us of peace, compassion, and trust. We spiritually pummel Satan when we say, "Enough! Away with you hunger, injustice, prejudice, and greed!"

Today, Ralphie must be in his 60’s or so, I wonder if Scott Farkus is still a bully today, of if he has amended his ways, and he and Ralph play cards together! (To be safe I checked the clerical directory and there is no listing of a Scott Farkus as an Episcopal priest or deacon.) But what we know for certain is that over the years, Ralph has been able to look back at how he said, "Enough, you can’t make me afraid any longer" and took care of his bully.

Let us look back to how Jesus has confronted the Devil and Death—and won. Let us draw strength from Christ to face our bullies, for the Mother of all bullies is no more