Keeping Our Eyes on the Prize - The Rev. C. Dean Taylor

Lent I, Year C, 2007

And Jesus...was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.
Luke 4:1-13

It was the tiniest detail on a story I saw on TV last week.  It was a story on the PBS series, “Religion and Ethics Weekly” about how Heifer International works, which we in this parish, of course, know very well by now. 

          The story focused on a single farmer from Tanzania who had been given a cow from Heifer years ago.  The milk from this cow has not only fed his family, but has also enabled him to send his children to school, and later, to buy a goat, and later, more cows and more goats.  In this story, the proud farmer showed off his heard.  The small detail that caught my ear was when he came upon a particular surly goat who actually lowered his head and charged the camera.

          “Ah, that one,” said the farmer, “That one is evil.” Then (I loved this) he shrugged his shoulders and said with a laugh, “We give him the name Osama Bin Laden.”

          That says so much theologically!  But for today, it shows us what we all do, all of us human beings, when it comes to the things that cause us grief.  The things in our lives and in our world that give us pain, or discomfort, or real agony.  We give it a name, and somehow hope to find some kind of control we didn’t have before. 

          For all that is negative in life we still give the name “evil”.  For the ancients, however, they pictured or imaged all the forces of evil centered into the form of a personality, in Hebrew lore, a “fallen angel” named Satan, or the Devil.  Most of us don’t believe in a literal personality “out there” who is the Devil, but there is much we can learn about evil in our lives from these holy narratives, as in our Gospel today.  With Jesus in the desert, he hears the voice of temptation, which is actually very familiar to any human being. 

2.

Remember when you were in school and about to take a hard test, and there was a part of you that just begins to get you to panic and think, “I’m going to flunk this.”  Or even, “What if I forget what I studied, or if I studied the wrong thing? What will happen if I fail?”  Listen to that voice long enough and it is actually more likely that you will fail. So you try to assure yourself:  “OK, you know this stuff. Just take your time and remember.”

If you’ve ever had to get up in front of people and speak, and before hand, there’s this voice inside your head that says, “You’re going to freeze up and make a fool of yourself.”  And the thought actually contributes to the possibility of your actually freezing up.  So you go back and forth between that voice and the voice of calm that says, “OK now, calm down and focus.”

          We carry on these inner conversations all the time.  You stand in front of the mirror.  “Should I wear this, or not?”  “Of course, you look fine.” “Wait a minute. You look ridiculous, and everybody is going to be laughing at you behind your back. You’re not exactly what they would call attractive, you know.” 

What the ancients learned about these inner voices is that some are healthy, and some are not healthy.  Or, as they would say, some are the voices of evil, or the devil, and others are the healthy voices of God.

          It is the purpose of Lent to learn about the Good and Bad within yourself.  Which is to say, as the ancients would put it, the purpose of Lent is to learn DISCERNMENT.  Spiritual discernment is the practice of listening to the voices inside your own self and naming them healthy or unhealthy, either good or evil. 

          The season of Lent sets up, in a way, a kind of artificial desert, much like Jesus went into in today’s lesson.  We set up our own spiritual desert by taking on a discipline and giving up something unhealthy for the forty days of Lent, until Easter.  And, it’s really kind of interesting, hearing the conversation in your own soul. 

3.

          Here’s how it works. In fact, I will guarantee you that this will happen.  You decide (Just between you and God) that will give up, say alcohol, or sugar, or TV, or you decide to take on something—perhaps carve out quiet time in your day, or prayer time, or you decide to learn about forgiveness, or try giving away some money anonymously to a good cause—try any good change, get rid of a bad habit or create a new one, and I guarantee you that this is what will happen. 

You will hear a voice from within that says, “You know you’re hungry.  You’ll never last 40 days.  C’mon, you’ve proved your point.  Four days is a lot. Taking on that as a Lenten Discipline was such a mistake! You always do that. When will you learn?  You take on all this stuff and always fail before it’s over, so why go through this silly, childish ordeal. Hey, nobody will ever know.” 

 Or, “Here I am sitting alone, my quiet time, and I’ve got a million things to do.  This is kind of selfish, and, well, silly.”  Or, “Forgive?  THAT person? After what he did to you?  That’ll just prove your weakness.  He deserves your anger.  Remember how bad it hurt!”

When that happens, when our own voices begin to undermine, and shame, and make us feel small or weak or insignificant or even silly, we are called to do what Jesus did. 

Jesus does not have to “win” a debate, or argue point by point. For one thing, the Devil uses the truth in the beginning.  But you keep your eyes on the prize.  As Jesus keeps his eyes on God.  So the voice inside his head says, “So Jesus, you are hungry, and that in itself is bad.  Don’t you just wish that this stone here were a wonderful loaf of bread?

But Jesus says, in effect, “It is true that to be hungry is evil.  But God created this situation to be as it is.  God made them stones.  As much as I might wish otherwise, (and I really do, for I am very hungry), God made them stones.  There is some reason that they are stones and not bread, and I choose to trust God that some good will come out of this hunger.”

4. 

Then Jesus sees in his imagination all the Kingdoms of the world, and the voice inside him says, “Hey, isn’t it terrible, Jesus, that some people are rich and powerful and others are poor and powerless.  And, for that matter, what a real shame it is that you were born poor and powerless. Who you are, Jesus, this poor powerless underclass Jew, is just not enough.  Who you are is just not enough. Don’t you just wish that you had been born rich, with good connections, and you would have the power to do some really good things in the world, and make more of an influence.”

But Jesus keeps his eyes on the prize.  He keeps his eyes on God.  And so Jesus answers, “It is true that being poor and powerless is very frustrating, and, God knows, there are times when I wish that I had more earthly power and influence. And yet, the reality of my life is that God has made me this way, and sent me into the world exactly as I am, and, though I do not understand why, I am trusting God that who I am is enough, and that, somehow, some good will come out of my poverty.” 

And the same with the third temptation.  Jesus imagines himself at the pinnacle of the temple. And again, the voice of temptation, with the temptation of an idea:  If God is really for you, then you should be able to escape the sharp stones and the pain of this world. Throw yourself down.  If God is for you, then you’ll know that by leading a pain-free life.  Throw yourself down. God will not let you feel pain.”

But Jesus keeps his eyes on God.  And he says something like this: To feel great human pain is an incredibly evil thing, and it is the one thing I least understand about this human journey that God has called me to walk.   And yet, for some reason, I must experience everything that human beings must experience, and I am trusting God that some good will come out of my pain.  And so, having said all this, the voices are quieted. “The Devil left him until a more opportune time.”

But Jesus has already taught us, through the story of his own discernment, what is the basic untruth, the basic lie, that is underneath every unhealthy voice, every evil voice, that is within us. 

5.

It is the fearful belief that God is not for us, and, as a result, that who we are is not enough.  That is why, when we hear the voices of fear, the voices that undermine and diminish and make our soul small, we are tempted to believe them. 

God is not for you and who you are is not enough.  It’s the essence of all temptation.  And so, we are offered the genius of Lent.  Make yourself a desert, a mini-desert, that will begin that inner conversation. 

Name those voices in your own head, and, though we can’t shut them up or get rid of them completely (Not even Jesus could do that), we can move them out of the way at least long enough to hear more clearly that other voice, that “still, small voice.” It is a voice that has been right there all along, the voice of God our creator, who said, at our Baptism, “This is my beloved child, with whom I am so, so well pleased,” a voice that calls us again and again to a Love that is real and cannot be defeated or diminished.