Memorial United Methodist Church

A child’s view of temptation
A child, just short of 4 years, learned the story of Jesus facing temptation in Sunday school from a very creative, compelling teacher, with really good story telling skills. At lunch that day the child wanted to make sure her parents knew the story. “Hey mom, do you and dad know anything about the devil?”  Mom, a bit bewildered, responded, “A little bit, but what do you know about the devil?” “Well,” the child responded, “the devil had a really long talk with Jesus and the devil is mean.” Mom, thinking the story was about evil rather than meanness, thought quite a bit about this exegesis by her child. The child wasn’t done and had another question, “If we were at a store and you and dad were in one aisle and I was in another aisle and my aisle was the candy aisle and the mean devil showed up and said, “I think you should eat some of this candy – what should I do?” The mom, not having any idea what to say, again turned the question back to her daughter, “I’m not sure but I wonder if Dad and I were in one aisle at the store and you were in candy aisle, and the devil said you should have some of this candy – what would you say back to the devil?” The daughter responded without any hesitation, “Oh, I would say thank you!”
    What are the temptations we face in life to which our first response is to just say, “Thank you.”

Jesus and temptation
Jesus is about 30 years old and he is making some pretty important decisions. He has decided to change his work and no longer work in his family’s business, carpentry. He is leaving Nazareth but is setting out without a clear destination. He heads to the wilderness where his cousin, John, has a ministry that is attracting a lot of people. Jesus decides to join this new movement and asks John to baptize him the next time he is doing some baptisms. John agrees and Jesus goes down into the Jordan River with others joining the movement that day. When he comes up a dove lands on him, a cloud covers over him and a voice speaks from the cloud saying, “This is my child. I love him. Listen to him.”
   Jesus heads from the river to spend 40 days in the wilderness. We will look at this time in the wilderness in a few moments, but now we skip to the time immediately after his wilderness experience.
   Jesus goes back to his home temple and is warmly welcomed. They ask him to read from the scrolls on a Sabbath morning. He chooses Isaiah and reads about the spirit being upon someone nudging the person to live among poor persons ways that are good news for poor persons, to bring sight to people who can’t or don’t want to see, to set free any one who is oppressed, to release captives and to make clear to people that it is the year when all debt is to be forgiven, all land returned to its original people and all slaves set free. He turns to his hometown friends and neighbors and says, “This is the mandate of my life. I am going to do these things.” What in the world happened in the wilderness that gave Jesus so much clarity about his life.
   Jesus and the tempter, or the “mean one,” according to our earlier child interpreter, have three encounters. In one, the tempter knows that Jesus is really hungry and so he offers Jesus the power to turn stones into bread. Jesus says, “No, thank you.” In the next the tempter offers Jesus the opportunity to be the boss of the world. Evidently the tempter didn’t know about Springsteen from New Jersey. Again, Jesus says, “No, thank you.” The tempter tries a third time and offers Jesus the prestige of one who can jump from the highest place around and live. Jesus says, “No, thank you.” Jesus comes out of this exhausting 40 days with clarity about what he is going to do in his life, which he tells his hometown people as soon as he gets back to Nazareth.

Some possible meanings to this temptation story
I don’t want to pretend to know what this story might mean to each of you. I suspect it has special meaning to people facing or wanting change in their lives: 
*Someone just about to finish school and everyone is saying what are you going to do. 
*Someone whose children have finally finished college and are no longer at home. 
*Someone who has just gone through a divorce and is moving to a new community.
*Someone who has just lost a job. 
*Someone who is uncomfortable with her life and wants to make some changes.
*Someone about to retire.
   What is it that Jesus is clear about? In the conversations with Satan in the wilderness, we can see that Jesus considered using his abilities to feed himself. He wondered if he might have some possibilities as a political leader. He wonders if he needed to attract attention to himself by doing something spectacular. Jesus rejects all of these possibilities and decides his calling is to a person for others, with others and not over others. In other words, Jesus decides his life is not just about meeting his own needs, or having power over others or even prestige or celebrity. He decides that life is most fulfilling if it is lived for others and with others. Jesus understands that life is blessed when we live in beloved community, using the phrase later used by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It is not about “me.” It is about “us,” and the “us” always larger than any of us imagine. Jesus would often say, “I came to serve, not be served.”
   No movement is just about one person. It is about community. Diane Nash, one of the leaders of SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) in the 1960s recently suggested that people are mistaken when they call the civil rights movement, “Dr. King’s movement.” It also included Ella Baker, James Lawson, Fannie Lou Hamer, Bernard Lafayette, Wyatt Tee Walker, Viola Liuzzo, James Chaney, James Reeb, and so many other people, known and unknown, in so many places. The Jesus movement was about Mary Magdalene, Lydia, Peter, James, Judas, John, Martha, Mary, Lazarus, Jairus’ daughter, an unnamed Samaritan women, and so many more people, adding more each day.
   Getting back to the youngest theologian mentioned today, the devil is “mean” if the devil tells us that what we need in life is merely to meet our own needs, or power over others or prestige and celebrity. All of these are enticing but not life-giving. When we are offered these things, we need to learn to respond as Jesus did, “No, thank you.” Going it alone leaves us alone. Beloved community offers life with the deepest meaning. Jesus figured this out in the wilderness. In this Lenten wilderness, we can do the same.