NewCreation

Homily for First Sunday in Lent, Year A

Welcome, my sisters and brothers, to this the homily for the first Sunday in Lent, and we move backwards in our reading of Saint Matthew's Gospel to a chunk which we left out when it was the right time, which was the Temptations of Jesus. The Temptations of Jesus come immediately after Jesus's baptism. He is led by the Spirit into the wilderness in Matthew's version, and I think it's worth pointing out here, because this is something which we're going to get repeated later in Lent, which is that immediately after a revelation of Jesus's sonship — "this is my son in whom I am well pleased" — there comes, if you like, a down moment for Jesus when he has to live through the consequences of this. We'll have that at the Transfiguration also, the next big "this is my son" moment; then he goes down and lives out what that means in Jerusalem. But here Matthew gives us a picture of what Jesus's baptism meant, and particularly one element of it. I brought out when we looked at Jesus's baptism the different sorts of water that he was fulfilling, but one of course was coming out of the waters of the Red Sea — in other words, the extent to which Jesus was the fulfillment of the Mosaic promise. And this is what we're going to get in today's Gospel. A good deal of this, of Jesus's temptations here, is Jesus fulfilling Israel, showing what Israel was really all about, and not succumbing to the temptations that Israel had succumbed to. So our Gospel begins: "And Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness." And it's interesting — "led up." This is a place of upwards movement. It's not "cast out into the wilderness"; it's "led up into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil," here simply referred to by the Greek word diabolos. "He fasted 40 days and 40 nights." Now this obviously refers to the people of Israel's 40 years in the desert before getting to the Holy Land, but more importantly it refers both to Moses and to Elijah, both of whom fasted for 40 days and 40 nights before particularly important revelations — in the case of Moses, before he gave the Ten Commandments; in the case of Elijah, before he received his next prophetic mission. So this is setting us up for the next time when Moses and Elijah come together with Jesus: the Transfiguration. I just wanted to bring that out, just to show how exactly everything is calibrated in Matthew's Gospel. So Jesus fasted 40 days and 40 nights, and afterwards he was famished. I don't actually know why they say he was famished. I mean, I imagine he was, but the actual Greek just says he was hungry. There's no particular emphasis on it, though. 40 days will do that for you. Then it says the tempter came and said to him. So it's interesting — under the description "he said" it by the devil, but the tempter came and said to him — so I like the notion of the beguiler, the one who beguiles, because there's an interesting suggestion that Jesus, it's only in the process of undergoing the temptation that Jesus recognizes who the tempter is, because he only refers to him as Satan at the end. So the Beguiler, the tempter, comes to him and says, "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread." Now, all the key is in the word "if." The beguiling is in the "if." Jesus has just heard the voice which said to him, and to those listening, "This is my Son, in whom I am well pleased." In other words, he knows his identity, and the point of a beguilement is to suggest to you — apparently to concede to you that you are something, but to suggest that you might be feeling a little bit unsure about it, and so need to do something to demonstrate it. "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread." So the first great attempt to undermine Jesus's knowledge of who he is, and to get him to do what so often we do, which is to be triggered into doing something that will make us feel that we're doing something right, rather than knowing and allowing ourselves to relax into being sons and daughters of God. But Jesus answered, "It is written, one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God." He's quoting from the book of Deuteronomy. In fact, all his answers in this passage quote from the book of Deuteronomy, which, remember, is Moses's sermon to the people of Israel concerning what they screwed up and what they must now get right. And this refers to the passage of Deuteronomy which looks back at Exodus and the time of manna in the desert. God gave manna, and the question was: you must learn to trust, not to take more than you need, because I will give you what you need. So Jesus sees the temptation which is, if you like, the temptation of Exodus — the temptation of being able to have something more, just in case. Jesus said no. "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread." No. What I'd like to add, of course, is that Jesus will eventually become the bread which he gives. He will eventually become the bread and give himself as bread to us. But that's through becoming what he really is and knows: the Son of God. Then the devil took him to the holy city — that's Jerusalem — and placed him on the pinnacle of the Temple, one of the high parapets of the Temple, saying, "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, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone." This is a quote from Psalm 91, a very beautiful Psalm, and of course is the origin of our phrase — well, not phrase — the devil quoting Scripture. Here is the devil quoting Scripture. What's going on here? Well, if in the previous temptation it was Jesus as Israel and its prophetic life, the Moses exodus life, here it is the priestly life: the pinnacle of the Temple, someone on the top of it throwing himself down. Because, of course, the purpose of the priestly sacrifice in the Temple was that it was God coming down and giving himself up as a sacrifice for humans, so that they could be covered by his blood, for which the lamb was to stand in. That would have been the ancient rite of the atonement. And Satan — in one sense, the devil is saying to Jesus — "You're going to be able to do this sacrifice, but preempt it. Just go ahead, do it, cast yourself off, preempt the sacrifice." So the priestly temptation: of thinking that the Temple itself will be a place of security, that you will be secure because it's the Temple, because of God — the fake security. And Jesus said to him again, "It is written: do not put the Lord your God to the test." And that likewise is a quote from Deuteronomy, and in this case it refers to the occasion at Massah in the desert, when the people complained and wanted water and they put God to the test. So Jesus responds to him again with Deuteronomy, again showing that what is absolutely central to Israel's faith is carrying on the journey, not putting God to the test. Note, so far, that we've had a reference in the first place to bread, in the second place to water. The third reference is to power. "Again the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. And he said to him, 'All these I will give to you, if you will fall down and worship me.'" In other words, all of these are within my power. All you need to do is sign up to me, and you will become the ruler of them just as I am. Jesus says to him — and at this stage Jesus recognizes him, he's no longer beguiled, no longer considering any conceivable chance that he might be right, so that he needs to cite Scripture — Jesus says to him, "Away with you, Satan," which is the same phrase he uses about Peter, incidentally, a few chapters later. "For it is written: worship the Lord your God and serve only him." Likewise, a passage from Deuteronomy, very close actually to the previous passage from Deuteronomy, and it appears to refer to idolatry. So you have the bread, the water, and idolatry — the idolatry of the calf. But all idolatry comes ultimately to a question of power. And Jesus knows perfectly well that if Satan has the power, it is because people give him the power and think they're getting it. If you go along with the lie, you think you're becoming triumphant through the lie, but in fact the lie is running you. That's how the power of Satan works: convincing you that you're being given power, whereas in fact you're being sucked into a power that you don't in fact run, but which turns you inside out. "Away with you, Satan, for it is written: worship the Lord your God and serve only him." Now, please notice what Jesus has done. He's rejected the three classic messianic temptations: that of prophet, that of priest, and that of king. He is going to redefine hereafter what is meant by prophet, what is meant by priest, and what is meant by king — the principle of power, the principle of blessing, and the principle of speaking and living the truth. These three are going to be radically altered by what Jesus is going to live through hereafter. It says then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him. So it's interesting that the movement from the water of baptism — which in Luke he comes straight up, and the sense is that already his ordination has kicked in, and so now he is able to be with, in the holy place — the holy place has now become associated with him. Here it's interesting that the wilderness acts as a psychological step through into the holy place, so that the real holy place is not simply something that happens by — what's the word — by an extrinsic act like baptism, but it's something that actually we grow through and into by our baptism, like by Jesus's baptism, as we become the priest, the prophet, and the king. So we are to learn to say no to the shortcuts, to agree to be held in being, and allow ourselves to be given the capacity to be good to others, to be given the capacity to forgive and make forgiveness available for others, and to be given the capacity to exercise the kind of power that actually helps people live in truth. All of these are processes into which we are taken by baptism, and Jesus is showing us that this is the true path of Israel. The same elements will come up in different readings over the next weeks, and I hope you will keep this in mind as we invite our Lord to help illuminate our Lenten journey. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.