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“Why
Temptations Become Useless” Sermon Delivered By Rev. Dick Stetler – March 5,
2017 Centenary United Methodist Church
Psalm 32:1-11; Matthew 4:1-11 The first Sunday of Lent presents us with the opportunity to put our lives under the microscope during a fixed period of time. This period of reflection helps us to figure out who we are, where we are going and what kind of results we are generating with our activities and attitudes. When we examine
the temptations that Jesus faced after his baptismal experience, we find
that most of these urges have entered our minds at one time or another.
We know our need to satisfy our hunger.
We have known since we were children what it feels like to test
our boundaries. We have also
known the drive for personal power that comes from our achieving
popularity, developing our talents and soaring in our accomplishments.
Most people enjoy recognition and
applause. The temptations
that came to Jesus were not the product of
some insane evil-being that is
relentlessly lurking around the margins of our lives offering us
sabotaging tools for our self-destruction.
We are the only one responsible for our lives even though the
urgency of some desires may try to convince us otherwise.
This
sense of urgency happens because our thoughts and feelings grow larger
the more we energize our desires and fears. This morning we are
going to consider why it was relatively easy for Jesus to be dismissive
of these urges. We are also
going to examine what else was going on inside of Jesus during those 40
days that went way beyond these temptations.
Jesus had just
experienced a virgin birth at his baptism. The Greek understanding of
a virgin birth had nothing to
do with the physiology of a woman. In Jesus' world, the Greeks
understood a virgin birth as
describing what happens to people when they grow beyond their
animal urges, urges that are often the source of most temptations. Once people
evolve beyond these needs, they discover the qualities of
the heart.
Many of these qualities are listed in one of Paul's letters.
(Galatians 5:22)
Experiencing a virgin birth
enables men and women to grow up. Eventually, they reach a state-of-mind where the material world produces
tools for growing and learning
rather than valued objects
that people want and feel they need to possess.
Jesus used this
concept of the Greeks when he told Nicodemus that he must be
born again.
Translated
this means that he must experience
a virgin birth that would help him organize his life around the
matters of spirit. (John
3:5) Jesus' own rebirth
happened during his baptism.
It had such a profound affect on Jesus that it influenced his message. There was far
more going on inside of Jesus during those 40 days than our lesson
indicates. We know this
because of what resulted from his baptismal experience. Jesus abandoned
totally the duties and disciplines associated with the practice of
Judaism. Jesus learned to
embrace individual choice over following the Laws of Moses.
Jesus associated the pearl
of great price with the development of attitudes of being. (The
Beatitudes, Matthew 3:1f) What
was it that caused Jesus to depart from the God of Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob? Jesus knew his
people's history. He could not
remain associated with the claims made by the keepers of his heritage
and traditions of the war-god that showed no mercy on the
Hebrews' enemies, particularly
when Jesus would never dream of behaving this way himself.
The savagery of
King David, for example, rivals the atrocities of ISIL in today's world.
Last week our Bible Study class considered this passage, "Then David
defeated the Moabites. He
made his prisoners to lie down on the ground.
Two out of every three were murdered as they lay there." (II
Samuel 8:2) David had
developed his skills as a warrior-king from what he believed God was
asking him to become. "The Lord made David victorious
everywhere." (II Samuel
8:6b) A BIG question is: Where did Jesus get the substance of his new message? Jesus had reached a state-of-mind where what allures many people no longer attracted him. The temptations in the wilderness had no meaning. It no longer mattered to Jesus that he was homeless. (Luke 9:58) He no longer needed to conform to the duties of the eldest son that were prescribed by his heritage. He left his trade and family to become an itinerant teacher and healer. These
quantum leaps that Jesus made
separated him from his parents' religion.
Jesus always had a curious mind.
At the age of twelve, Jesus sat with priests as he pondered the
religious beliefs that his parents had taught him.
(Luke 2:41f) We can
picture him asking, "If God created everything and called it 'good,' why
would God need to kill everyone with a flood when most people did not
know what God wanted from them?"
It is quite
possible that during his earlier travels Jesus heard stories of another
teacher that provided better answers to many of his questions.
The followers of Siddhartha Gautama had a large colony of
followers in Could it be
that these stories became a blue
print for Jesus' new message that came from a teacher that had
nothing to do with Judaism? From
Jesus' exposure to the teachings of Gautama, he may have realized and
accepted an entirely different orientation toward God and toward others.
The only way that God's nature
changes is when people choose to describe their Creator differently.
Jesus' new
ideas, however, were readily accepted by his listeners.
(Matthew 7:29) Almost immediately, Jesus began to change the
narrative of his people's religious beliefs.
Even the
Apostle Paul understood the Greek meaning of experiencing
a virgin birth. (Romans 12:2)
Paul had his own experience that changed his destiny. He had
everything anyone could dream of having in his world, e.g., Roman
citizenship, wealth, education and the mastery of four languages and was
a high class Pharisee. Paul was so spiritually moved by his experience
that he walked away from all of it. Paul's message after his
virgin birth took his life on three missionary journeys. His former
temptations had become a muted
voice within him. One of my former parishioners had reached this level or
orientation with his own life. He was chosen for a high position in a
Federal Government agency.
He knew that he would be greeted with resentment because he was brought
in from the outside rather than being chosen from among those that had
risen within the agency. In To prevent
being perceived as a threat to the others, he began his first day on the
job by brewing Starbucks coffee for everyone, replete with assorted
sweeteners and real cream.
His acceptance by the others was greeted warmly.
He made people feel safe and valued.
Some weeks
later, someone came into his office and said how nice it would be if the
office staff also had some doughnuts to go along with the coffee.
So he brought in doughnuts and thanked the person for the
suggestion. As the months
went by, someone else asked, “Do you think it would be possible to get
some doughnuts that are cream filled?”
Of course, he readily complied even though he was personally
paying for these creature comforts.
What gave him
great pleasure was watching people being people.
I asked him if anyone ever
expressed gratitude for what he was doing.
No one had and then he added, "This is the way it must be for
God. Our daily free gifts are in the thousands.
Are those gifts matched with an
equal number of expressions of our gratitude?" Think about this: Who was growing during this office experience, the one giving and not counting the cost, or the ones whose requests continued to grow from receiving? While no one expressed any appreciation for what he was doing, resentment never entered his mind. He was waiting
for some health-conscious employees to come into his office and say,
"Would it possible that we might get some whole grain granola power bars
and fresh fruit for those of us that do not care to eat doughnuts?"
To my knowledge this never happened.
Where do all these responses have their origin?
How do we slowly slide into being so insensitive to each other
that gratitude is often one of our last responses in
our quiver. People often
appear quite unaware that they are the ones that generate the
urges to attack, blame and point fingers.
The adult world regularly practices labeling, criticizing,
scandalizing and spreading gossip. These responses do nothing more then
indicate what is going on inside of those speaking.
There is no
devil forcing us to engage in
these activities or to say words that contain more hostility than value.
Gautama was one
of the first teachers to instruct his listeners that
attitudes are what determine the
qualities found in human life. Jesus' contact with Buddhism is a
distinct possibility. Jesus once
asked his listeners: "Why do you look at the speck in your neighbor's
eye while paying no attention to the log in your own eye? First,
cleanse your own inner world and then you will see clearly how to
correct the lives of others."
(Matthew 7:5) This teaching
comes directly from Buddhism. In
fact, when scholars placed the teachings of Gautama and Jesus side by
side many of them are identical.
Jesus may have blended the
best qualities of Judaism and Buddhism to create what later developed
into Christianity. (Acts
11:26) Jesus
understood that everything that occurs in our lives is interpreted
through the vision created from our emotional and spiritual maturity.
Gautama used the word
Nirvana to describe what people can experience in this world.
Nirvana is a Sanskrit word.
Jesus used words that described the identical experience.
He called it living in The Kingdom of God, a context that the Hebrews would understand. During our Lenten walk, we have
the opportunity to become even more accountable for the quality of our
lives in all our environments and circumstances.
Jesus was interested in one mission -- to teach people to
bring loving energy into every moment.
(John 18:37) When we examine what
our temptations are asking us to do, all of them are designed to fasten
us more securely to some outcome in the material world.
Jesus taught how a virgin birth can transform and liberate all of us from such
confining desires.
It does not matter where our
numerous skills of spirit have their origin.
What matters is how we live them. Lent is an
excellent time to examine how we are in living what we know.
We need to humble ourselves by remembering that we will always
remain students for the rest of our lives.
CONGREGATIONAL PRAYER Merciful God, we cannot experience the Lenten season without reflecting
on the number of times we take for granted what comes to us without our
asking.
When we are eager to
learn, understanding comes.
When we extend ourselves in love, we are never without receiving it.
Yet, we are also mindful of our mistakes, our hasty judgments and
our need to cast blame. Kindle in us, O God, our desire to stretch
beyond the areas of our weaknesses.
Help us to learn that our finest moments are when we find
ourselves walking on the road less-traveled because we are following the
Master.
Amen.
PASTORAL PRAYER Loving God, how grateful we
are that Jesus came into our midst to teach us why it is so important to
become more loving, patient and peaceful men and women. In spite
of all the truth he taught, it was you, O God, who chose to grant us
free will. Even though our thoughts and actions frequently do not
serve us, you gave us free will to become what reflects the desires of
our hearts. In the drama that life
represents, you have allowed distractions to intrude on the teachings of
your son. You have allowed tantalizing alternatives to parade in
front of us. It is we who must choose between the
pearl of great price and
the idol. It is we who must select between what will enhance our
spiritual skills and what is only an imitation that pretends to offer us
what we fear we are lacking. Thank you, God, for being so confident in us. We live with fears. We make mistakes. We frequently forsake the substance for the shadow. Yet, O God, we understand that this is how you created us. You want us to come to you unencumbered. You want us to learn that all that glitters is not gold. You want us to choose wisely, once we have learned that all other alternatives are only invitations of what could never enhance your Kingdom on earth. What a joy it is for us to know that your love is so encompassing that it surrounds us and protects us even when we are too blind to acknowledge your presence. With grateful hearts we pray these thoughts through the spirit of Jesus, the Christ, who taught us to say when we pray . . . |