02/18/2024

Save Us from the Time of Trial

Mark 1:9-15

Rev. Loren McGrail

Holmdel Community UCC

February 18, 2024

 

Jesus ministered to by angels Tissot

 

 

It’s the season of Lent--- a word that usually means fasting or giving up something. I used to give up cauliflower. I thought I had beaten the system---give up something you could do without. Later I tried the usual---chewing gum or chocolate. Once I decided I should give up saying mean things to my younger sister.

She didn’t even notice.

Over the years, I have come to really appreciate Lent---this wilderness time of withdrawal and prayer.  And I have been to the desert a few times myself. I have been led or forced into a place of deep pain where God seemed to be absent or where my usual crutches for security were missing or not working. I understand why the wonderfully compassionate Mother Theresa addressed her prayers to the “Absent One” or why St. John of the Cross calls this time “the dark night of the soul.” I know what it’s like to wander hungry and thirsty, to give myself over to anything to stop the pain.

My wilderness experience happened around physical illness, fibromyalgia to be exact, and a muscle skeletal joint chronic immune disorder, whose constant pain brought me to my knees and bed for a year. As I wandered from doctor to doctor, diet to diet, one faith healer to another, I discovered that even though I was in the grip of deep pain, despair, lost, and no longer knew who I was, I was still myself. And if I could allow it or see it, there were angels all around waiting to provide nourishment and love or accompany me. And though it seems almost trite to say Jesus re-introduced himself to me in this place and showed me a way through, indeed this is what happened. I became an energy healer, literally a wounded healer, which later led me to seminary and ordained ministry and now here with you.

Now Lent is a welcome season, a familiar season. It is no longer about giving up things but about accepting the invitation to go into the unknown and face the temptations that are mine alone.

And so now I enter this season of Lent interested in the whole business of temptations. The first time I heard about Jesus’ Temptations I was around 8 years old. I had an illustrated children’s Bible and there was this picture of Jesus standing on a cliff with the devil. I was irresistibly attracted to this picture because the devil was just as I imagined him all dressed in red with little horns, but his pitchfork looked more like a shepherd’s staff and he seemed to be showing Jesus something nice, a valley of cities with sparkling lights.

The picture was confusing because I was attracted to the cities below and the devil looked like a “nice devil”. And I dare say he looked a wee bit like God if God every changed from his white robes.

Fast forward to living in Jerusalem on the edge of the desert, able to drive to Jericho and take a cable car up the Mount of Temptations, I find myself still drawn to this mixed up childhood picture of “a nice devil.” I am still fascinated by what the Tempter offers Jesus, offers us.

His temptations seem to center around different forms of power. Methodist minister Bill Wylie Kellermann says the temptations are around economic, military/political, and religious power. They are personal but also corporate. “Lead us not into temptation is a private matter” while “Save us from the time of trial” suggests that we as a collective body are also tempted or on trial.  Furthermore, the temptation is not between good and evil but between various shades of good or evil that can disguise itself as good. The Devil is literate and knows his sacred texts and knows our weaknesses or soft spots even better.

The question that Jesus needed to answer when he went off for 40 days into the desert after his baptism, still wet behind his ears, is what does it mean to be Jesus? What does it mean to be loved so dearly? What does it mean to live as a Beloved Son? What does it mean to live as a human?

These are Jesus’ questions and aren’t they our questions too?

Let us begin with the first temptation. Turn these stones into bread. Feed yourself Beloved Son of God. Yield to hunger, break the fast. Seek first your own needs and appetites. Use your Godly power to do something practical. Who cares if you zap those rocks into loaves of bread?

The Devil tempts Jesus with food to stay alive, not manna from heaven, but real bread you can sink your teeth into. Like Adam and Eve in the garden Jesus is first tempted by an all you can eat buffet deal.

Why is it a sin for the beloved son to call on the protective powers of his father? Haven’t we all called out, “Feed me?”

But Jesus rejects this first temptation. He rejects just taking care of himself. He chooses deprivation over power, vulnerability over rescue. Later he will feed thousands with a few loaves; he will turn his own body into food. The sharing of bread will become a great sign and metaphor for the in breaking of the kin-dom.

This temptation to use food as a ploy or a weapon is implicit in both my country’s domestic policies and its foreign aid programs. We cut off food stamps for the poor and increase military aid to those we have special relationships with.

The second temptation is about political power, the power to rule the world, to be the one in charge. This is the illustration I was drawn to in my children’s Bible and it still has some hold over me. I have been on top of that mountain in Jericho where you can see all the way to Dead Sea. The seduction is real; the world needs me to be in control, someone who will organize for justice and peace 24/7.

Jesus however sees it, sees right through the Devil’s seductive promises that feed our egos. Jesus refuses to place himself at the center. He refuses to let go of his dependency on his Father. He refuses to bow to this God of military and political power.

It helps me to know not only that Jesus rejects this power but also that he was tested with it. The temptation to make ourselves into leaders, heroes, or martyrs is real. The temptation to use violence or force is real. It is seductive to choose celebrity status over obscurity, a white steed instead of a donkey. It seems more practical to avoid the way of suffering love.

The third temptation is often called the religious temptation because it is the view from the Temple. God is presumed to be a force that you can command or manipulate. It is a temptation to force God’s hand, to leap of your own accord and expect God to save you in compliance with your own need to know you are indeed Beloved.

The seduction is that if Jesus survives this ultimate magic trick and is saved then he will certainly be the One everyone will want to follow. His credentials will be well established after such a show. He will be the idol of the masses.

Everyone will listen to him. And on top he won’t have to follow the Via Dolorsa. And then finally, he won’t have to die. Jesus rejects this last temptation.

He rejects this seduction to place himself as the One above all. He asserts his divine mission by reminding us he has come to be our brother, fellow sojourner through the wilderness. Dear Ones, this time of trial in the wilderness prepared him for what was going to come in Jerusalem and in particular in the Garden of Gethsemane.

To keep Lent then is to follow Jesus into the wilderness, the place of trial, and later the garden. It is to confront the Confuser who tries to shepherd us with his staff to follow him and not the One who calls us Beloved. The grace of the season is that Jesus suffers not for us but with us. He has been there. He is showing us the way even while he himself is being tempted and tested.

Dear Ones, as we begin our journey into Lent, may we experience the companionship of the Christ whose vulnerability became his strength. 

May we enter with courage the deserts we don’t choose or avoid.  And when the angels come to assist us in all their whispering sweetness and remind us that we are God’s Beloved, may we believe them.