Testing in Progress

Matthew 4:1-11
First Sunday in Lent 

My baby boy is turning six in a couple of weeks.  He’s at that age where he loves to help… especially around the kitchen and especially if someone is making goodies. (There’s a story there that I’m not going to tell right now, but you can ask me privately.)  Anyway, it reminds me of another story I heard once about a different boy who was turning seven.  Like my kid, he was very interested in “helping” while his mother made cupcakes for his classroom.  

He was interested, as she mixed and baked, but he seemed particularly interested when she was frosting the cupcakes.  Knowing what goes through the mind of a soon-to-be seven-year-old boy, she reminded him that the cupcakes were for his class and he wasn’t supposed to touch them.  

She needed to leave the kitchen for a couple of minutes, and when she returned, she saw her son staring intently at the cupcakes.  He didn’t even seem to notice her come back into the kitchen so she just watched him for a while, but all he did was stare at those cupcakes.  She asked him, “Do you need help remembering the right thing to do?”  

And without turning his attention from the cupcakes, he said, “No.  I need help doing it.”  

Our theme today is obviously “temptation.”  A word that can just as easily be translated as “testing.”  And most of the tests that we receive in life are not complicated.  In fact, most are true/false tests.  Occasionally, we'll get a multiple-choice.  But when you find yourself answering one of life’s tests in the form of an essay… there’s a good chance that you've already flunked it.  

We are all tempted, we are all tested, so sermons about it seem almost pointless.  We already know the right thing to do: obey God and don’t sin.  The answer to temptation is obedience; end of sermon; amen; go in peace…  

Except that knowing the right thing to do isn’t the end of the sermon, is it?  Sometimes it’s more about doing what we know we should do; and sometimes don’t just hit us when we’re alone and staring at that proverbial plate of whatever is tempting you.  Sometimes these tests, if you will, come at all of us together.  

So how does one preach about an issue which won’t go away and whose point never changes?  I thought about making this one of those “reminder sermons”: a sermon about a thing you already know about, but it’s good to be reminded of from time to time.  

But then I thought: there is another angle here that we may not have thought about.  What if we look at this story about the temptation of Christ from the perspective of the Body of Christ? 

So first: in this very familiar story, after being baptized by John into the wilderness, Jesus goes out to be tempted… not something I’d recommend—why ask for trouble—but it’s what Jesus does.  

The text tells us that Jesus was there for forty days… an important number in Scripture.  In this case, I think the number forty is supposed to remind us of the forty years the Israelites were tested by God before they entered the Promised Land.  It’s interesting: we are also reminded of their testing through that journey every time Jesus says, “it is written.”  Because every time Jesus quotes Scripture here, it is from the same place: Deuteronomy.  At every test, Jesus answers with a reminder of the Covenant.  And at every one of his tests, the answers Jesus gives are not just answers given to individuals but answers to an entire faith community… like ours.  And the answers that were learned through the testing of that community are the same answers for the testing of this community: trust in God… and in that trust obey.  

So yeah, the answer to testing is still going to be obedience, but we’re also given a reason for that obedience: because God can be trusted.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.  We haven’t even talked about the test yet and here I am giving you the answers.  

The first test Jesus is given is literally to the body of Christ: it  comes after forty days of fasting… and guess what, he’s hungry.  We should also not be surprised that the test he receives is about food.  The tempter takes advantage of the most obvious source of weakness.  The tempter uses Jesus’ obvious hunger to try to get him to turn stones into bread.  Now this, like most temptations, doesn’t seem like such a bad thing until you look at it more closely… especially when you look at it as a lesson for us, the church.  

What the tempter wants the Body of Christ to do is let circumstances dictate how the Body of Christ will use its resources.  Now sure, there are times when the Body needs to be fed; but it's God, not the circumstances, that determines those times. 

For example, if receiving new members were to be seen as one of the ways that the church is fed, then you might say our church is not exactly starving, but we’re certainly not overeating either.  We receive new members from time to time, but not in great multitudes.  So some might think we're hungry.  And it’s probably good for us to be hungry; it’s good for us to want to grow.  But here's the tricky question: how does God want us to be fed?  

I know that sounds kind of strange, but how does God want us to grow?  Are we trusting in what God wants for us, sharing the treasure of Christ's kingdom; or are our desires based on our circumstances?  Perhaps we yearn for new members so that we can teach them how to tithe.  But is that really why God wants people to be a part of this community of faith?  

Jesus answers this temptation with the reminder that it is not simply by bread that the Body of Christ survives, but by the Word of God; which not only nourishes us but also inspires and guides us as well.  If we let our circumstances determine when and how we are fed, then we are not trusting in God to meet our needs.  And this test, as any test, is answered by trust and obedience.  

The second test that the Body of Christ faces is much like the first, but from the other way around.  Again, the tempter begins with the taunt, “if you are the Son of God.”  But this time, rather than preying upon the Body’s circumstances, the tempter seeks to create a crisis.  “Jump off this ledge,” he says.  “God will take care of you.”  And perhaps God would, but that's hardly the point, is it?  

Sometimes the Body of Christ makes its own crises. Sure, we say and do things that hurt the members of Christ's Body all the time, but God would never let us actually break it, right?  I honestly don't know.  I like to hope that the work God has for us is more important to God than the damage we might do to it, but is that a risk we should take?  Jesus says, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”  And the temptation here is to create a need for God to meet that wasn’t there before you created it.  And this test, as with any test, is answered by obedience.  

In the final temptation, we find the tempter has given up subtlety.  He offers a deal: everything there is… for one low price.  Not such a bad deal.  I mean Jesus was going to be King of kings either way, right?  With one small compromise Jesus can gain all this without all of the messiness of the cross… all right, it’s not such a small compromise.  And maybe being the King of kings wasn’t the only reason Jesus came.  

This test, like all the others that the Body of Christ faces, comes down to trusting God.  Trusting that the plan God has for this Body, with all its messiness, is really what is best.  In this test we are faced with a compromise that seems to get things done quickly and efficiently.  But in that compromise, we not only forget that there is a purpose in the messiness, but we also turn our worship and service away from God.  

When Jesus says, “Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only,” we are reminded that there can be no compromise.  No matter what splendor we are shown, our calling is to worship and serve God alone.  Which sounds simple enough, but this is a nasty little temptation.  Because there’s a lot of splendor out there and we want it… presumably for God’s glory.  We look out at a world more prosperous and efficient than the church and we think, “Why can’t that be us?”  Sometimes we even look out at the success of other churches and wonder, “Why can’t that be us?”  

Except that is idolatry.  When we turn our attention away from the worship and service of God and set plans for ourselves that may not be from God, that is idolatry.  When we are tempted to compromise who God has called us to be, we are tempted to worship things other than God.  But this, like all temptations, can only be answered by obedience.  

Friends, the tests that are put to the Body of Christ all try to draw our trust away from our trust in God.  Rather than being distracted by our circumstances, let us obey the God that does meet our needs.  Rather than creating needs where there are none, let us trust in God to guide our ministry.  Rather than compromising who we are as the Body of Christ, let us trust in God’s plan for us.  And, trusting in the God who meets our needs, let us respond to all temptations with the answer we knew when we started: let us answer with trust and obedience.