I have some friends who told me once
that in their basement they have a room full of provisions – stocked floor to
ceiling with cases of bottled water, cartons of canned and dried food. It all
started because of Y2K. Back in the year 1999 when we all wondered if the
computers that run everything would make it through the millennium safely. And
if they didn’t it would be Armageddon, for sure. The computers were okay, it
turned out, nothing terrible happened. But since that time, there have been
other reasons to stockpile. There is always, it seems, a reason to stockpile
things. But you have to maintain it, replenishing as necessary, with new items
as the older ones pass their expiration date. The old ones then get tossed in
the trash.
I thought of that recently when I was
talking with another friend about her parents. Some time ago, they built their
dream house. They built it in the perfect location, a quiet place on the water.
They outfitted it with all the things that make them happy – a room for her
art, a room for his model-building, a state-of-the-art kitchen, a garden, and
more. It is beautiful and comfortable. But unfortunately, my friend told me,
her parents are not content. They find themselves worrying way too much. It is
a lot to take care of, and a lot to worry about. A storm could destroy
everything. Burglars could break in and take their valuables. My friend wishes her
parents lived in a place that didn’t have so many wonderful things to be
worrying about.
How does that happen, that we get to
the point where we are practically enslaved by our stuff? Well, it starts out
with a real need. We all need to eat, we need shelter, a sense of security.
But sometimes our real needs get
corrupted and grow like a cancer, into something that is neither good nor
healthy. Our need for nourishment can become a need to hoard food, waste food,
or overeat. Our need for security can become grossly oversized because all we
can think of is how someone or something might harm us – or our stuff, which
for most of us is an extension of ourselves.
And then there is our need for agency,
that is, to have some control over our own lives. This can grow and extend far
beyond the boundaries of our own bodies or homes. It can become a craving, not
only for power over ourselves but over others.
How does it happen? It starts out as
something seemingly benign, even something good. But then it grows into
something harmful – to ourselves and others – something evil. And every one of
us is vulnerable to the temptations that lead us into evil.
Jesus was too. He had just been
baptized by John in the Jordan river – a baptism of repentance, John was clear
– and then the Spirit alighted on him. The voice of God was heard saying, “This
is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” No sooner had all this
occurred, but that same Spirit of God sent him out into the wilderness to be
tempted by evil. The devil, our Bible says. Satan, as he is also called. Satan
is a Hebrew word that means adversary, for the devil is God’s adversary. Satan
is the enemy of the good, the opposite of love.
Jesus is sent out to the wilderness,
freshly baptized, ready to make a new start. But this will be a test of his
readiness. He will fast, go without any food, for forty days. He will be alone,
without companionship, for forty days. He will be in the wilderness, without
security. This was Jesus’ Lent, his preparation for what would lie ahead.
At the end of the forty days Satan
came to him. You see, by this time the rosy glow of baptism would have worn
off. Whatever optimism he felt when he started out for the wilderness, he would
have lost by now. Forty days of hunger and solitude, insecurity and
powerlessness, would have left him in a pretty vulnerable place.
I say this because Jesus was human,
like us, and we know very well our own human frailties and limitations. We know
what hunger can do to us, even a little bit of hunger. Just imagine the hunger
that comes from going without food for weeks.
We know what loneliness can do to us, too;
what a lack of security and control can do to us. These things can change us.
And it is a moment like this when the
temptations of evil can draw us in. Satan seized the moment and made an offer. “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to
become loaves of bread.”
Jesus
responds by quoting scripture to the tempter.
One does not live by bread alone, but by the word of God. Not easy to say, after fasting for 40 days
and nights. He might have easily
relieved his suffering, but he declined to do so. There was purpose in this suffering.
The
tempter continued with his taunts, and he upped the ante by throwing scripture
back at Jesus. You see, he might have
said, even the Devil can play that game.
He took him to the top of the temple and said, “If you are the Son of
God, throw yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will command his angels
concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up.’”
But
Jesus made a decision that he wasn’t going to live like that. Again, he declined the offer.
So,
in a final act, the tempter takes him to a high mountain and offers to give him
all power and glory if only he will worship him. “That’s enough,” Jesus says to him. Be gone.
And
that’s it. At least for now. The time will come again for Jesus to
face off against evil, but for now he is done. And he has won.
Jesus resisted evil. He did it by
leaning on the teachings of scripture. When Satan confronted him with lies, he
confronted Satan with the truth of God’s grace and love. The only way to resist
evil, for any of us.
What are some of the lies we fall prey
to? Perhaps it is the lie that says you are unlovable and the only way to fill
up that gnawing, aching hole inside of you is to fill it with stuff – more
food, more toys, more substances that will give short-term satisfaction, but
will ultimately hurt you.
Perhaps it is the lie that says you
are alone in this world. No one cares about you, you have only yourself to rely
on. Then you need to fill that awful need by putting your self-interest first
because everyone else is your enemy.
Perhaps it is the lie that says
everyone else is doing it. That this is a dog-eat-dog world and if you want to
get ahead, or just get along, you have to play the game like everyone else
does. Lie, cheat, steal. Go for as much as you can get because, you can be
sure, someone else is trying to get everything you’ve got.
But there is another way.
This week I heard a woman named
Natalie speak about a project she has become involved in. It is called Nourish,
in Los Angeles. It is a network of volunteers that go out and gather food. Restaurants
and stores will call them and say, “We have food we can’t keep, and they go get
it.
At the end of the week, all the
volunteers come together to organize the food and pack it in bags. They take it
to distribution sites all around the city. For anyone. No questions asked, if
you want food, take it. There is more than enough.
That is the amazing thing: there is
always more than enough.
Natalie said, “The world wants to
trick you. The world wants to say, oh, you know, you’ve got to make sure that
you’re taken care of before you can take care of others. The thing is, there
are going to be times in your life that you’re going to need to lean on others
and vice versa. I think it really is in the giving that you actually receive.”
It seems to me that Natalie has chosen
the way of grace.
One of the very first things we do
when we baptize someone is to renounce evil and affirm our reliance on God’s
grace. It is grace that gives us a different way of viewing the world and all
the choices we face. It is grace that allows us to choose the different way,
and grace will carry us through each step of the way.
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