Sermon Title: Settling for Less
Sermon Title: Luke
Sermon Date:
Don’t log into biblegateway.com and
search for the word “Lent.” You won’t
find it there. It isn’t a biblical
word. The disciples, of course, knew
nothing of it. It came along later.
I
knew little of Lent growing up in
I don’t have memories of anything
different or out of the ordinary happening before Palm Sunday.
For
us, Palm Sunday was a joyous day when we dressed up in new clothes provided by
Grandma (yes, we had new clothes for Palm Sunday and Easter). I could be wrong but I don’t recall the
period of contemplation or the pastor stressing our own journey toward the
cross during those days before Palm Sunday.
And saying I don’t recall doesn’t mean it didn’t happen; it just means
that it didn’t make an impact on me one way or another. And if you didn’t go to the community-wide
Good Friday service, you could go from Palm Sunday to Easter without
experiencing any sadness or discomfort at all.
So when my church in
We began our walk today as we took
down the banners, moved the flowers and extinguished the first candle. We began our walk by putting away the “Gloria
Patri” and listened instead to what happens with people turn away from
Jesus. Maybe we are among those who turn
away and settle for less than God wants for us.
Think about that as we read today’s scripture:
1
Then Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the
3 Then the devil said to
him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become a loaf of bread.”
4 But Jesus told him, “No!
The Scriptures say, ‘People do not live by bread alone.’[b]”
5 Then the devil took him
up and revealed to him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. 6 “I
will give you the glory of these kingdoms and authority over them,” the devil
said, “because they are mine to give to anyone I please. 7 I will give it all
to you if you will worship me.”
8 Jesus replied, “The
Scriptures say,
‘You must
worship the Lord your God and
serve only him.’[c]”
9 Then the devil took him
to
‘He will order
his angels to protect and guard you.
11 And they will hold you up with their hands
so you won’t even hurt your foot on a
stone.’[d]” (from Psalm 91 which was already read
this morning in scripture and the introit)
12 Jesus responded, “The
Scriptures also say, ‘You must not test the Lord
your God.’[e]”
13 When the devil had
finished tempting Jesus, he left him until the next opportunity came.”
Forty is an important number in the Bible.
Barbara
Brown Taylor says, “It was hard. It was awful. It was necessary, if only for
the story. Those of us who believe it have proof that it is humanly possible to
remain loyal to God.” (“Settling for
Less, Barbara Brown
I
sat in my office last Monday reading this scripture and preparing the
sermon. I don’t know how many times I
have read this passage but I don’t recall the last words in the passage before. I remembered “when the devil had finished
tempting Jesus, he left him…..what jumped out at me were these words…”until the
next opportunity came.”
You
mean Jesus got past the devil and had to face him again and again and
again? Absolutely. I’m sure if we took the gospels apart we
could find those places. How about when
his mother and brothers went to get him because they thought he was crazy? Have you ever doubted yourself just because
someone doubts you?
What about
when the people of his village tried to throw him off a cliff after he told
them that he had been sent to them?
Wouldn’t it have been easier to just go back to being a carpenter and
forget about being the Messiah?
What about
when Judas betrayed him? Or when he was
arrested? Or when he walked with a cross
on his back to
You know this; you get past the devil on this
round and you have to face evil again, and again and again and again.
Call
the devil what you will…Satan, the devil…the presence of evil. Just don’t ignore the fact that while God is
love there is an opposite. The opposite
of faith isn’t always doubt. The
opposite of faith can also be fear.
C.S.
Lewis says, "A
silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This
is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it
is . . . A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not
know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one
sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by
always giving in. We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until
we try to fight it: and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded
to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means
- the only complete realist."
Do you realize that Jesus was tempted
AFTER his baptism, not before it. We don’t hear about how the devil came after
him before he waded into those baptismal waters. We only hear about what happened
afterwards. Evil came after he came up
out of those waters and heard, “This is my son, with whom I am well-pleased.”
Somewhere along the line of
discipleship, we sometimes get the notion that our troubles will be all over
after we come out of those waters. After
we have given our hearts to Jesus, it is smooth sailing from then on AND if you
have troubles, well, you aren’t walking this Christian walk right. It is obviously your fault if your life isn’t
all peaches and cream after the baptism.
But life isn’t all peaches and
cream. Life brings cancer. Life brings disappointment in
relationships. Life brings difficulties
in raising children. Life brings
lay-offs and financial problems.
Is evil to blame for these
things? Yes, sometimes evil is
absolutely to blame. Sometimes it is
simply life.
And it is hard to tell the
difference. Sometimes cancer comes from companies
disposing of waste without a good conscience of what will happen to the
environment or us.
Sometimes relationships end because
one party gives into the temptation of adultery.
Sometimes lay-offs occur because,
like in the case of Enron where someone higher up in the food chain was greedy
and thousands of people lost their jobs and their retirement.
But cancer also attacks people who
live healthy lifestyles. Relationships
end because relationships are hard work and not everyone is up for it. Lay-offs occur because the economy takes a
dip or a better mouse trap comes out.
This passage reminds us that evil
isn’t going away after one successful side-step. Life isn’t going to hand us roses all the
time. Baptism isn’t going to make life
perfect.
Several years ago a movie, “Changing
Lanes” brought us themes of revenge, the evil inside each of us, the need for
forgiveness and conversion.
It
tells the tale of two ordinary men (Ben Affleck, a Wall Street lawyer trying to
make it rich & Samuel L. Jackson, a recovering alcoholic struggling to keep
his family together).
They
meet because of an accident and chaos follows both of them as they move from
their own self-centeredness to the reality of the other. Affleck wouldn’t stop long enough to help
Jesus could have allowed the chaos
of the desert experience to control his destiny but he didn’t. And lest you think, “well, he was divine,” do
not believe that he wasn’t human too.
Jesus had no ace up his sleeve to avoid true temptation. When the scripture says he was tempted,
believe it. The temptation was there, it
was true and yet he was able to turn away from it.
Let’s
remember that whether the temptation in our lives comes from the devil or life
or even ourselves…. Jesus has been there before us.
Temptation
will come after each of us. Let’s use
this period of Lent as a reminder that with Jesus’ help, we can deal with
it. We are not alone in the struggle and
that Jesus has endured all we have endured….and more.