Luke 4:1-13
“Great Comebacks”
March 10, 2019
Cookies, pretzel sticks and marshmallows – things kids love – all laid out on a tray. That was what four-year-old Carolyn Weisz saw when she sat down at the desk in the little room in the Bing Nursery School at Stanford University. She was told she could pick whichever one she liked and she pointed at a nice plump marshmallow. An offer was then made by the researcher. Her choice was to eat the one marshmallow or she could have two marshmallows when he got back. If she decided she only wanted to eat the one marshmallow she could ring a bell and he would come right back but then she would lose her chance to get a second marshmallow. Fifty years later, a grown up and very patient Carolyn couldn’t remember what her pre-school self did but she’s pretty sure she would have been in the 20 percent of the children who waited for the two marshmallows unlike her older brother Craig who distinctly remembers that once he was left alone in the room with no one to see him, he took all the treats on the tray. This test was designed to identify the processes mentally that allowed some people to delay gratification and others to just give into it immediately.
(https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/05/18/dont-2#)
Temptation is something every one of us faces each day. In this 40-day season of self-examination and prayer, some of us will swear off chocolate or alcohol or social media, perhaps hoping to become more mindful of where and how God fits into our lives. For an increasing number of folks, Lent is a time to add a discipline into our lives – setting aside a time for daily prayer, looking around at the real needs that surround us and figuring out how we might open our hearts and share by volunteering time or devoting financial resources or as in the 40 day Item a Day giveaway, we de-clutter our homes and lives and entrust items we’ve held onto to those with less who could truly use them. By the way, it’s not too late to get started on this challenge and there are still trash bags on the Do Something table in Bailey Hall to help you.
If we remember that the word “temptation” comes from the root word meaning “to test,” we may be able to move from the definition of temptation that only connotes decadence. The devil, embodied evil if you will, is testing Jesus in the wilderness in three different ways – with bread after a 40-day period when Jesus neither ate nor drank anything; with a promise of power to be king of the world; and with safety in order to test God. What the devil is really testing is Jesus’ confidence in himself and in God, trying to whittle away his very identity as the Son of God and the relationship he has with God. If Jesus loses trust in God, the devil will be able to declare victory. The original story of testing also involved the devil in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve where they, too, were promised God-like status and all they had to do was to eat some fruit from the only tree that God had told them not to. They were assured that all would be well and they went ahead and ate of it and immediately God knew and everything was changed. God then uttered the same words that we used on Wednesday to receive our crosses of ash from last year’s palms, “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.”
This wilderness story is fascinating for many reasons including the fact that all three of Jesus’ responses and the devil’s final words are all quotes from Scripture, specifically Deuteronomy and Psalm 91. Also, no other human is present in this story to witness what happened or to tell about it after so we must assume that Jesus was the one to share it in some form or another during the ministry that this whole experience kicked off – we could think of it as his training course for the work he’s about to embark on where trust in God and the relationship he has with God will be his strength and what he will rely on throughout his journey to Jerusalem and the trials he will face there. We, the hearers of this experience two millennia later know where that strength comes from. Jesus may have needed to pull out this story often to respond to the skeptics or doubters he would encounter along the way. He would be able to say to the men, women and children he would encounter that he, like them, has been tested. Testing is a part of the human condition and accompanies the free will with which we’ve each been born.
Testing or temptation, if you will, can take many forms and also sometimes goes unrecognized as pulling us away from the loving path to which God calls us and Jesus modeled for us. Wilderness or desert, as some Bibles refer to it, are places we’ve all been to. The wilderness is that place in which we feel isolated from all that is familiar. It can come after the loss of someone we’ve deeply loved or after a serious medical diagnosis. It can come after the end of a marriage or a job.
And we don’t just find ourselves in the wilderness after a significant life issue. It can also be when our confidence in what we know to be true is tested. Our wilderness may take the form of depression or desperation or just a desire to give up. What Jesus shows us is that regardless of the testing we go through, God is still there. We get that from Adam and Eve, who like us, made choices they would come to regret. We are changed by wilderness experiences. It seems clear that Jesus became more committed to his relationship with God. That is not to say we should wish for wilderness experiences for ourselves or anyone else but only to recognize that they will come and we will not be alone through them. Maybe we won’t be able to quickly quote Scripture to get us out of that place but we will have God to lean into and we may even get to help accompany someone else out of their wilderness space, to be the angel they need, offering support and strength for them in the same way we would ultimately treasure such help from others. This Lent may include a time of wilderness dwelling for you and so I would offer this blessing from Jan Richardson:
Beloved Is Where We Begin
If you would enter
into the wilderness,
do not begin
without a blessing.
Do not leave
without hearing
who you are:
Beloved,
named by the One
who has traveled this path
before you.
Do not go
without letting it echo
in your ears,
and if you find
it is hard
to let it into your heart,
do not despair.
That is what
this journey is for.
I cannot promise
this blessing will free you
from danger,
from fear,
from hunger
or thirst,
from the scorching
of sun
or the fall
of the night.
But I can tell you
that on this path
there will be help.
I can tell you
that on this way
there will be rest.
I can tell you
that you will know
the strange graces
that come to our aid
only on a road
such as this,
that fly to meet us
bearing comfort
and strength,
that come alongside us
for no other cause
than to lean themselves
toward our ear
and with their
curious insistence
whisper our name:
Beloved.
Beloved.
Beloved.
from Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons, “© Jan Richardson. janrichardson.com.”