Ebenezer Presbyterian Church
Sermon
February 17, 2013
First Lent
Deuteronomy 26:1–11; Luke 4:1–13
The devil, more accurately the Temptor, was only trying to be
helpful. He often appears that way to
us. Here, this is the easiest way to
handle this problem. You know I’m right. If you just do this, then this will take
place. Someone once said that to every
complex human issue someone will always find an easy solution, and that
solution will most often be the wrong one.
It will be appealing, but it will be the wrong one.
We have so many ways to rationalize and even blind ourselves
to the temptations of the devil. Even
when we are offered alternatives by God, we can manage to pervert them. There’s
a story about two merchants in a small town who hated each other. Their stores were directly across the street
from one another, and each watched the other’s business very closely. Neither of them defined success by how much
money they had at the end of the day. The only thing that mattered was taking
business away from one another. That’s
the way some churches also see their mission.
One day the Lord had had about enough of their hateful foolishness
and so an angel was sent to make them an offer and try to teach them a
lesson. The angel went to one of the
merchants and said, “God has decided to give you anything that you want in all
of the universe: wealth, power, fame,
long life, wonderful children, whatever….
But God is very unhappy with the way you and your neighbor treat each
other, so here’s the lesson that you must learn. You may have anything that you
want, anything that you think will make you happy but whatever it is that you
choose for yourself, God will give a double portion to your neighbor.”
The man thought for a while.
Finally he wanted to be certain that he understood: “I can have anything
that I ask for, but my neighbor will get twice as much? Is that right?” The angel said: “Yes!” The man was a very clever man, but he was
filled with hatred and jealousy for his neighbor. Finally he said to the angel: “What I want is
that God strike me blind in one eye!”
We can even receive the promise of God’s blessings as a
temptation to curse ourselves and each other.
We seem constantly to look for ways to forget the love that God calls us
to share. We – like that merchant – fall
prey to the temptations that lead us to meanness, jealousy and hatred.
The Gospel lesson today is certainly one of the most
familiar, unless of course you’re one of those Christmas-Easter Christians who
skip Lent and Holy Week entirely. In
many ways the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness is an even stronger
demonstration of God becoming one of us than the fact that we murdered him on
the cross.
We often think of the blood and suffering of the crucifixion
as the proof positive of the incarnation, and yet it is here in the wilderness
that we are reminded that Jesus – just like us – faced temptation every moment
of his life. It is here in the
wilderness that the Temptor, the Accuser, wants to give him a helping hand.
He just wanted to help Jesus along with his ministry. He had some simple solutions to evangelism,
world hunger, recognition. If you’re
God’s son then there is no reason to complicate things and make your life more
difficult, just do what I suggest and everybody will be happy.
How often do we face those “easy solutions?” Satan just wants to help us out.
But Jesus is the Son of God.
His role is defined by God, not by Satan. His ministry is defined by his faithfulness
to the will of God. There are no
shortcuts. Not even for him.
Not even for us.
The lesson from Deuteronomy is another one of those verses
that we like to think our way around.
God has given us so many blessings, now return to God a serious portion
of the firstfruits of those blessings. The
firstfruit is your very life. And
worship God with the return of God’s blessings to God and the service of your
life as the only acceptable sacrifices.
Bring God the offerings of your treasures and your talents, and worship
the Lord.
And worship God with the service of your life as the only
acceptable sacrifice.
Jesus faced and wrestled with temptation continually. It is after all a part of being truly
human. Perhaps the biggest part. Whether
through greed or anger, we are tempted to turn even God’s blessings into
curses.
Karen and I spend a good deal of time discussing the
interface between grace and works and the excuse that some people use to ignore
our responsibility to respond to God’s grace.
It’s not a simple issue, but there are three things on which we
agree. God’s grace to us is abundant and
free. Our greatest joy comes from the
ability that God’s grace has given to us to grow closer to God, and that
growing closer to God requires an intentional effort on our parts. God’s grace calls us back to Him, but we must
turn and take the step that begins our journey.
As we begin the journey of Lent, the time in which we are
reminded that Jesus faced temptation daily, it is an appropriate time to
acknowledge the temptations that we face daily, both the obvious ones and the
more subtle ones. Living a life in faith
that brings us closer to the joy-filled life that God intends for us is not a
life in which we deny temptation, it is a life in which we try – continually –
to overcome temptation. And when we don’t, we have the opportunity to turn back
to God and again recognize God’s grace and continue that life of movement
toward our God.
Sometimes the temptations are obvious. Sometimes they just seem like the easy way to
get through. Sometimes they put us in
the position that the merchant found himself in, turning God’s blessings into a
curse on us and our neighbors.
Celebrate all the things that God has given you, and return
to God God’s share of those blessings, your money and your gifts, and worship
your God, the one who alone defines the joy of our lives and the challenge of
our ministries.
As we journey alongside our human Lord in the weeks ahead,
consider continually the grace that we have received, the temptations that
Satan would use to turn us away from a faithful and loving response to the
Lord, the logic that the Accuser uses to convince us that there must be an
easier way.
As we take our Lenten journey over the next 6 weeks we walk
with Christ knowing that the road to God’s glory has no easy paths and leads us
only through the cross.
Amen.
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