The World, the Flesh & the Devil
Reflections on Luke 4.1-13
RCL Lent 1C
10 March 2019
Holy Trinity Cathedral
New Westminster BC
Luke 4.1-13
4.1Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, 2where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished. 3The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” 4Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’ ”
5Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. 6And the devil said to him, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. 7If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” 8Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’ ”
9Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, 10for it is written,
‘He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,’ 11and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’ ”
12Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ” 13When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.
Every year Jim Griffiss, the professor of theology at Nashotah House, the seminary where I studied, would offer an advanced seminar in theology. He limited enrolment in the seminar to ten to twelve graduating students. It was always held in the afternoons in the seminar room Jim had added to his house and there was always good Wisconsin beer --- local brew not generic national labels.
I was fortunate enough to gain a seat in Jim’s seminar during my final year at Nashotah. The seminar was entitled simply ‘Evil’. We spent the first session discussing why Jim had chosen just the world ‘evil’ to describe the seminar. That session alone was worth the tuition fee. What Jim led us to see is that many of the ways we talk about evil assume underlying answers: Is evil a ‘problem’? Is evil a ‘question’? Is evil a ‘mystery’? Is evil a ‘symbol’? Why does God ‘allow’ evil? The list goes on and on
Evil has been a subject of Christian conversation since the earliest disciples of Jesus tried to explain to potential converts why an all-powerful God would allow humans to arrest, torture and execute Jesus if Jesus is the ‘Son of God’. Evil has been an experience all people of faith have struggled to understand even as Jesus was tempted to embrace the world, the flesh and the devil in the desert of Judea. And just like my friends in the ‘evil’ seminar thirty-eight years ago, Christians have come up with various ways of describing how in the story of Jesus of Nazareth evil finds its match.
Almost every time I’ve prepared a family for the baptism of their child, the first stumbling block in our conversation has been the three-fold renunciations that come early in the liturgy.
- Do you renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God?
- Do you renounce the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God?
- Do you renounce all sinful desires that draw you from the love of God? [1]
I can honestly say that I have struggled to find ways to respond to the questions and concerns parents and others have above these words spoken publicly and formally on the occasion of the baptism. I can also say that, in preparing for today’s sermon, I found some of the words that I’ve always wanted to say.
Evil is ‘looking for love in all the wrong places’. Embedded in the heart of every human being is the capacity to love and the desire to be loved. Think of all those cute videos on social media that show ducks that think they’re dogs, cats that adopt rabbits and chimpanzees that recognize their rescuers years later. We enjoy watching them because these videos speak to something deep within ourselves. They are parables of the world as we would like it to be, a world in which we are loved for who we are not who someone wants us to be, a world where love knows no barrier based on our looks, our possessions, our personal history, a world where we know that there is enough for everyone and we do not need to fear giving.
Evil eats into us when our desire to love and to be loved is misdirected. Evil gains a foothold in us when fear replaces hope, when self-interest blinds us to the needs and concerns of others, when we turn inward on ourselves rather than outward towards our neighbours. Evil often confuses quantity, however defined, with quality, confuses hoarding with responsible stewardship, confuses prejudice with joy in the diversity of humanity.
Evil is more about nurture than about nature. There are Christians who believe that we are inherently flawed creatures and there ‘is no health in us’. This attitude is present in some of the prayers of the Anglican tradition. I can understand this point of view. I have been to Dachau. I have seen the piles of eyeglasses, the heaps of shoes, the stacks of luggage taken from the inmates as they entered the concentration camp. I have seen the crematoria. I have few illusions about our ability to harm others and ourselves. But I find myself more sympathetic to the view that we have to be taught to hate [2]and that the glory of God is a human being fully alive. [3]
All of us are exposed to various forms of evil and, if the truth be told, all of us come away from such encounters touched by that evil and it leaves its imprint upon us like pine tar that we simply cannot wipe away. Our families, our friends, our religious communities can be the remedies that help us regain our right minds and shape us so that we ‘persevere in resisting evil and, whenever [we] fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord’. [4]
Evil is intentional and purposeful. Many years ago there was a television show character who loved to explain away every mistake, every misstep, every failing by saying, ‘the Devil made me do it.’ Here we face the real conundrum of evil. Although we wish we were in control of every aspect of our lives, we must acknowledge that we often find ourselves under the sway of powerful forces that limit the gift of free will that God has placed in our very souls. But despair is the ultimate tool of evil and leaves us believing that ‘resistance is futile’ and we are powerless to effect change in ourselves, in our communities, in our world.
Lent, however, is a time to remember that the good news of God in Christ proclaims that we can choose to love and to be loved as God has loved us in Christ, that we can grow into the image of God that already implanted within us, that we can choose to resist evil in whatever form it takes and by whatever disguise it chooses.
As I sometimes do before I preach, I looked up the meaning of ‘renounce’. Two meanings were ones I already knew: (i) to give up a claim or right and (ii) to give up some habit or pursuit voluntarily. But a third meaning grabbed my attention: (iii) to fail to follow suit because one has no cards that that suit left in one’s hand or to choose not to follow suit even if one has those cards in one’s hand. That’s something I can understand because I come from a card-playing family. Just as Jesus refused to play Satan’s game in the wilderness, so too can you and I refuse to play the game that evil tries to play in our times. We do not have to follow suit.
Just because others live in fear must we live in fear. We renounce fear. Just because others look for love in all the wrong places must we turn away from the love of God made known to us in Jesus of Nazareth. We renounce misdirected love. Just because others choose paths of self-interest and division must we silence our song of God’s generosity and unifying grace. We renounce everything that seeks to corrupt and destroy the creatures of God. Why? Because “ 4. 16bGod is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. 17Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. 18There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. “ [5]
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