Scripture: Matthew 4:1-11 and 1John 4:16-21.
Just because I voluntarily choose certain passages of scripture to be read on a Sunday morning does not mean that I am necessarily in love with them or even find them very easy to get along with. Actually there is one verse from the John reading that I will always have good feelings about—I’ll tell you about that some other time. But the part that says that perfect love casts out fear, that part has always given me problems. It makes it sound like love and fear are incompatible, and knowing the fears that are inside me, I always hoped that was not true. I thought maybe it was more like what they say about fear and courage, that courage is not being without fear but being able to act in spite of fear. I always hoped love was like that, and I always felt this particular scripture didn’t recognize that. I’ll come back to this.
Then there is the story of Jesus being tempted by the devil in the wilderness. Each year this story is read at the beginning of Lent, and each year I find myself struggling a bit with what this might mean for me.
I think one of the reasons I find myself struggling with the story is that the temptations of Jesus don’t seem quite real to me. These may be temptations for Jesus, but they aren’t for me, at least in any way that I can easily identify with.
In order for a temptation to be a temptation, it has to have some credibility. It has to look good and it has to be within reach. Well, what does the devil offer Jesus? Actually in concrete terms, in terms of a carrot that the devil holds out as an enticement to Jesus, the only thing the devil really offers to Jesus is “all the kingdoms of the world.”
Now, I don’t know about you, but for me this is not a real temptation. Personally, I can’t think of much of anything that I’m really in control of. All the kingdoms of the earth seem just a little bit out of reach. But even beyond that, it doesn’t even sound good to me. I don’t want to be in charge of all the kingdoms of the world. I guess there are a few people around who seem like they would like to be in total control, and I guess we all feel once in a while that if anyone asked, we would know what to do about this or that, except that no one is asking. But really most of the time I think I get along pretty well without “all the kingdoms of the world.” So for me this falls short as a temptation on both counts. It’s not within reach; it’s not even appealing.
As for the other temptations, the devil does not offer Jesus any rewards in the sense of “if you do this, I’ll give you this.” What he does do is invite Jesus to perform tricks, tricks which ordinary human beings would not be able to do. Turn stones into bread. Jump down off the top of the temple and let God save you from being hurt. These are things which again are not within reach for me, and so again are not real temptations. What the devil is doing here is inviting Jesus to show that he is more than human. “Come on, Jesus, show us what it’s like to be God. Show us how you don’t have to worry about being hungry. Show us how you don’t have to worry about being hurt.” We know what Jesus did. Rather than giving in to the devil’s temptation that he show what it’s like to be God, he chose to remain human.
When I realized that this is what Jesus had chosen to do, I also realized what one of the connections might be between this story and me. The devil cannot tempt me the same way he tempted Jesus, because I am not Jesus. But what makes Jesus susceptible to temptation at all may be very much the same thing which makes me susceptible to temptation, namely the fact that we both, Jesus and I, are human. More specifically, he shares with us the anxieties, the fears, the uncertainties and insecurities that go along with being human.
This, it seems to me, is what lies at the root of this story. What the devil was tempting Jesus with was the possibility of escaping from the fears and insecurities that are a part of our living.
I don’t know what made Jesus afraid. It’s rare when we know another person, even a very good friend, well enough to really understand what it is that makes them afraid. I don’t know what made Jesus afraid, but I think I know in general some of the things that make people afraid.
Poverty, for example. Not only poverty in the literal sense of the fear of not having enough money to live on, though of course this can be a very real fear. But there is a fear of not having our needs met, which can spread throughout lives in all sorts of ways. God knows there are all sorts of ways in which we humans are needy, even though we sometimes like to pretend that we are not. In addition to the fear of not having our material needs met, or of having certain material habits and wants met that we manage to convince ourselves are needs…We may not think this is a big issue for us, but we in general spend a great deal of energy trying to provide not only for the present but for a future that can be a little scary, just on the material side of things.
And then there is the question of nonmaterial kinds of poverty, a poverty of love, for instance, or a poverty of respect or recognition. Those fears are even harder to speak of, but certainly just as real as material poverty. This sense of fear or insecurity is what the devil offered to have taken away from Jesus. Turning stones into bread would be a kind of indication that Jesus would never have to be in need, of anything. He could just snap his fingers and it would appear. He would never have to live with that kind of fear.
Or with the fear of being abandoned. To me, that’s what the jumping off the temple was all about. When we are in danger, when we are in need of support, when we need someone to bear us up, will anyone be there? Will God be there? Will we have, will we always have, the kind of support we need to get us through? When we fall, will there be angels there to catch us, or will there just be people who already have their hands full, or who simply choose to watch and maybe say “too bad.” Again, people may feel these kinds of things and express them in different ways, but I’m sure that the fear of abandonment is quite real for many of us humans.
What about the fear that we will live out our time on the earth without making some kind of a difference. Here is where the kingdoms of the world come in. We don’t think in such grandiose terms, but we do want to make a mark of some kind. And we are maybe not always so sure that we are or that someday when we look back on our lives we will do so with a sense of satisfaction about the difference we have made.
These fears, or perhaps others we could name, are part of our being human. It is also part of our being human that we must deal with them somehow. One of the things that the story of Jesus’ temptation says to us is that it is a technique of the devil to play on our fears.
It is my perception that we live today in a society that plays on our fears. The picture of the world that we are given, and that we ourselves sometimes help to create, is a pretty threatening one. It is a place of unpredictable danger. The news lets us know every day what terrible things can happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere. The world is a place filled with terrorists, muggers, and drunk drivers–if not filled, then filled enough that we are very aware of the danger. There are security checks at airports. Many people live in gated communities. Or in apartment buildings with security guards at the entrance. We are threatened even by the air we breathe, which may contain contagious disease or pollutants, which are bad for us. We are threatened by the food we eat, which may be contaminated by pesticides, or which may have too much sodium or fat or carbohydrates depending on which disease we’re worrying about.
Much of our public life, many of the things that fill our books, our newspapers, magazines, and airwaves, much of this is all about the things that threaten us and what we can do to try to protect ourselves. Don’t get me wrong. I am not suggesting that there are not real threats, real dangers in the world we live in. Nor am I suggesting that we not take sensible precautions to protect ourselves from crime or disease. I am suggesting that a way of life which is concerned excessively with trying to protect itself from danger, where self-protection becomes a way of life, however real the dangers may be, that a way of life based on fear, is not of God.
Remember that real temptations are credible and convincing. There are real things to be afraid of and try to protect ourselves against. But at some point we can slip over into excess. At some point we can become just too concerned about trying to secure our own lives, our own health or safety or happiness. At some point our tendency to focus on the dangers lurking out there in the world around us can become demonic. Fear is not something we can or should get rid of. We are not well served by the macho solution where we pretend that we are so strong, so capable, so much in charge, that we have no fears. That is simply to pretend that we are more than human.
We need as God’s people to acknowledge our fears. We sometimes need to embrace them as a necessary part of our journey of faith. What we do not need is to let them determine us, to let ourselves be consumed by the effort to somehow make our lives secure.
As people of God, we are on a journey, and one way to think about that journey is to think of ourselves as moving away from that place where we are living out of our fears, where what we are afraid of, whatever that may be, determines the way we live our lives. What we are journeying toward is the point where we are living out of love, where the way we live our lives is totally, completely determined by love.
I don’t know anyone who has arrived at that point. I don’t know anyone who has left all his or her fears behind them. But I do believe that is one of the things our journey is about. Or at least that it’s one way of looking at it. Not so much getting rid of our fears perhaps, but releasing ourselves from the hold they have on us. Putting ourselves instead into God’s hands, trusting ourselves into God’s hands.
In this sense, perhaps perfect love does cast out fear. Not that it destroys it or makes it somehow magically disappear, but that it does cast it out, the way Jesus cast out demons from people, releasing people, freeing people from the hold the demons had on them. I have always resisted that word from John about love casting out fear. I want to love, but I also want to hold on to my fears. Sometimes rather than them holding on to us, we hold on to them. So I have wanted to be able to say to myself and to others that it’s o.k. to be afraid. And in a way I still believe it is. It is such a human thing to be afraid, and it is o.k. to be human. But the irony is that the more we focus on getting rid of our fears, the more chained to them we become.
So I do also hear the word addressed to me by the letter of John. This (being awash in our fears) is not the way it’s supposed to be. I hear that word and I know that where God is leading me is toward a place where love will be all in all, and in that place there will be no fear, and I will no longer have to fight against it.
We are not there yet, not even close. But by the grace of God we are on the way. I hope, I pray, for God to give us strength so that we may keep on taking the next step. Amen.
Jim Bundy
March 12, 2000