“The Biggest Temptation”

Matthew 4:1-11

February 13, 2005

St. Paul United Methodist Church

Rev. John A. Fleming

A preacher tells the story of what happened to him the day that he went to his hometown hardware store. What he was looking for was not a unique item. In fact, it was common. All he needed was a small tube of Super Glue. He searched the shelves of that store, but he could not find it, so he went up to the counter to ask for some help. The store was a small one. It was late in the day. There were no other customers in the store. It was obvious that the store owner had gone home. Maybe he went home in hopes of enjoying a round of golf. Behind the counter was a young man, a teenager, who worked in that store after school and on Saturdays. He did not need the job. His dad thought that getting a job would be a good idea. So he earned some money that he usually spent before the weekend was complete. This kid was on the phone on this fateful day. He saw the preacher coming, and turned his back to him, so that he was leaning against the counter. It was obvious that he did not want to get off of the phone.

The preacher saw that, of course. But he figured that the young man would be on the phone for only a minute. He was sure that he was answering some great hardware question. When he was in an ear shot of the counter, the preacher realized that the call was a personal one. The one sided conversation went something like this, “So, did you like the movie? Really? You’ve got to be kidding me! What did Beth say about that?” The call went on and on. The preacher was patient at first, but then his patience wore thin. The conversation continued, “I hate it when that happens. So, are you going to the football game Friday night?” The preacher cleared his throat. The kid behind the counter, with an aggravated look on his face turned around. The preacher smiled and said, “I only have one question.” The teenager spoke into the phone’s receiver. “I’ve got to go.” He hung up the phone, looked up at the preacher, rolled his eyes, and said, “Well, spit if out!” The preacher said, “I’m looking for a tube of super glue.” The kid said, “It’s over there, on the third aisle, in plain view. You can’t miss it. You shouldn’t have missed it! I can’t believe that you missed it!” The preacher smiled, walked away from the counter, toward the third aisle. The closer he got to the glue, the more angry he got. He thought this: “How dare him treat me, the customer like that! He was so rude!” Then the thought crossed his mind: “I’m tempted to go back up to that counter and give him a piece of my mind, tell him how people, especially customers, ought to be treated.” I was tempted. What does that mean?

A woman who has a couple of older teenagers at home had the chance to go on a business trip with her husband, one winter, to the Virgin Islands. Somehow he had found a conference, in the dead of winter, to a place like that and got permission to go. She, too, wanted to go. She talked to one of her friends about it. She said this, “The kids have school. We have a college student who stays with them when we are out of town and when they cannot go with us. We would have to leave them at home. I’ve heard about all those parties that kids have when their parents are out of town. We trust them, but I hesitate to put them under that kind of temptation.” I hesitate to put them under that kind of temptation? What does that mean?

Or how about this one? A preacher was flying home from a speaking engagement in another state. Sitting next to him on the plane was a stranger who was in the mood to talk. The stranger was looking at a magazine that was advertising Sports Illustrated’s upcoming swimsuit edition. On the printed page was a picture of a beautiful girl in a bathing suit. The stranger said, “Well, there she is.” The preacher looked up and over at the man. The man pointed to the picture and said, “That’s Veronica Verakova, last year’s cover girl.” The preacher looked at the picture, then he asked, “So,are you going to buy a copy of this year’s edition?” A bashful look appeared on his face. The preacher was sure that the image of this man’s wife hitting him over the head with a rolling pin was crossing his mind, but still he was considering it. He said, “I dunno. I’m tempted!” I’m tempted? What does that mean? By the way, I will not give in to that temptation. I will not go out and buy that issue of Sports Illustrated. It will be delivered to my house, just as every other issue of the magazine is, each week.

Most of us think that if there is one thing in life that we know about, it is temptation. Righteousness, sanctification, justification, prevenient grace, atonement, all those are words that need rescuing if we are going to understand them. But temptation, well, we don’t need any help with it. Temptation we know about. Temptation connects with our lives. We face it all of the time. It hangs over us like the flu does in its season; it waits for our resistance to fall and then it gets us. What are the things that tempt us? We are tempted to eat that piece of cake that will send us past the assigned points on our diets. We are tempted to flirt with someone at work. It is harmless. It is just a little banter between the two of us. We are just making sure that our coffee breaks are at the same time. This flirting is harmless, well, at least at first it was. We are tempted to cheat on our taxes. The government is so big. We are small potatoes. What are the chances that we will get audited anyway? Who will ever know? We are tempted to take things that do not belong to us. We are tempted to talk about someone whose business is not our business. We are tempted to lie to get us out of a tight spot. You name it and we’re tempted by it. We are always being tempted to do what we know we should not do. We don’t need any instructions on temptation, preacher. Thanks anyway, temptation we understand!

Do we really understand it? Do we really know what temptation is? The season of Lent always opens with Jesus, just out of the baptismal waters, ushered into the wilderness, led by the Spirit, to be tempted by the devil. Three out of the four gospel writers tell this story. Each of them try to answer the question of what it really means to be tempted. Allow me to say this, this morning. I think that our idea of temptation is too shallow. I don’t think that it goes deep enough. Jesus is out there in the wilderness. You might call it His messianic boot camp. He has just heard the voice of God. He heard it as he came out of the waters. The voice said, “This is my Son the Beloved. With whom I am well pleased.” And so now he and the devil are out there in the wilderness to see if Jesus has what it takes to be the Messiah, the Son of God.

Our idea of temptation is shallow. It doesn’t go deep enough. It has no depth to it. We think that temptation is the urge to do something that we really want to do, but know we should not do. We think, “One more cigarette. One last fling. One click on the computer won’t hurt me!” The deeper temptation is not the urge to misbehave, to do what we know we should not do. The deeper temptation is to be who we are not called to be.

That is the message in the story of the temptations of Jesus, or at least one of its messages. The devil is not trying to get Jesus to misbehave. The devil is not trying to get Jesus to do the kinds of things that the people in his day were tempted to do (like breaking the rules, stealing from a neighbor, coveting). What the devil is after is deeper than that. The devil is trying to get Jesus to forget his baptism, to deny his messiahship, to leave behind that he is a child of God. We, too, are tempted to forget those things. Well, at least the first and the third. We are especially tempted to forget that we are God’s children.

I heard about a father who was in the middle of one of those father and daughter fights. I guess that I have that to look forward to with Annie Grace when she and her hormones get a little older. So a father and a daughter were in the middle of that. She had tested his limits. She had snuck out of the house. She was dating someone that her father disapproved of. She came in many nights on the wrong side of her curfew, and a few of those nights, with alcohol on her breath. She had stretched the limits of her father’s grace many times. And now she was late again. She tried to sneak in the house, but her father was waiting for her. He was sitting in the dark, in his recliner. He flipped on the light when she tried to tip toe to her room. The argument immediately began, and somewhere in the middle of it, near the top of his lungs, he said, “Now you listen to me! If you are my daughter...” The words had just left his mouth. They had arrived in both his daughter’s ears and in his ears. “If you are my daughter...” If you are my daughter? He thought, “She has always been my daughter. I held her moments after she was born.” If you are my daughter? He thought, “I rocked her to sleep, read her countless stories, said prayers with her at her beside.” If you are my daughter? He thought, “I taught her to ride her tricycle, a bicycle, and how to drive a car.” If you are my daughter? As if the temptations she was giving into would all together terminate their relationship. But more than that, that it would plant a seed of doubt in her heart that her dad really loved her.

You see, that is the real power of temptation. The devil knew that. He used that. There are three temptations in Matthew’s telling of them. In the first two, the devil says, “If you are the Son of God...” One by one, the devil picks away at Jesus’ messiahship, at his son ship, at his real identity. The three temptations, to turn stones into bread, to throw himself down from the top of the temple and to worship him, the devil, the tempter aren’t enticements or lures to do bad things. You see, what they really are, are invitations to be somebody else, to live some other life than the one that he was supposed to live. That life that he was supposed to live would send him out among the dusty roads of Galilee and eventually to Jerusalem. The life that he was supposed to live would have him drinking from a bitter cup. The life that he was supposed to life would be one that would be handed over to the ones who wanted to kill him. The life that he was supposed to live led him to a cross and a grave. The life that he was supposed to live could not be killed. “You are the One”, says God, as Jesus comes up out of the waters. “With you I am well pleased.” And the devil sows a little doubt, “If you are the Son of God...”

Now I need to tell you this before we go home this morning. This story of the temptations of Jesus is not just here for us to cheer Jesus on and for us to help Jesus to tell the devil to get lost. These temptations, these three, are as old as the Bible itself. They are not unique to Jesus. The Israelites wandered in the wilderness for forty years with these temptations. This story is here because, we, too, will face temptation. We, too, will be tested. We, too, will spend a little time in a wilderness. And it is not as easy as an angel of one of our shoulders and a devil on the other, whispering in our ears. It is not as easy as taking things that do not belong to us, cheating on our taxes, a little innocent flirtation. Those are temptations. They are real. I am not discounting them. But the greatest temptation is to be someone else, and to live some other life than the one that you are called to live. The transgressions that we find ourselves in the middle of, the things that we do, and then feel bad about are small potatoes compared to that. I should tell you that if you are not careful, choosing the small temptations, one at a time, may lead us to the bigger one. I think that you should ask yourselves when temptations come, “Is this who I am supposed to be?” “Is this my lot in life?” “Is this who God chose me to be?” If it’s not, then I invite you to tell the devil to get lost. And when you do, then you might hear the flutter of angel wings as they come to minister to you. Let us pray.

(Special thanks to a preacher and pastor who helped me to see the real problem with temptations. His story is the first one, about the afternoon that he spent in a hardware story. He also gave me the ideas for the other two temptation stories and the story about the father in the midst of this sermon. My thanks is to due to him and many like him who have given me ideas for this sermon).