Enfield Uniting Church

1st Sunday in Lent - 2010

Luke 4.1-13

There is an ancient story about a spiritual teacher whose young disciples begged her to reveal a secret prayer that would raise the dead back to life. “That’s too dangerous for you to have”, was her reply. “But it would strengthen our faith!” they countered.

“Premature knowledge is a dangerous thing, my children.” “What is premature knowledge?” they demanded. “That is something that gives power to someone who does not as yet have the wisdom that must go with its use.”

The disciples badgered their teacher on until, against all of her reservations, she whispered the words of the prayer into their ears. She implored them again and again to use it with only the greatest discretion.

Not long afterwards the young students were walking through the desert when they came upon a heap of bleached bones. In a spirit of frivolity that often overtakes the inexperienced and idealistic they decided to put their newly learned, secret prayer to the test.

No sooner had they uttered the words than the bones gained flesh and were transformed into ravenous lions that chased each and every one of them down as “guests” at an unexpected, but long-awaited dinner.

Ah temptations, temptations. They are certainly a part of the human condition and they do impact on our day-to-day lives. Outside of leading a very sheltered existence, the lures of sex, power and excess will come along now and then. Some of us might even affirm with Oscar Wilde: “I can resist anything but temptation”. And so it is that when it comes to Lent, our preparation for the events of Holy Week, that some feel led to give things up (like chocolate), or focus on some study, as we sense that in some ways we have not lived our lives quite as well as we should.

It’s only natural. We are part of an ornate human / divine complex of relationships with God and one another. These carry great responsibilities and unfathomable possibilities for creating good and evil. Good and evil just don’t happen. They are almost always the fruits of our choices – the ways that we use our power and handle our temptations. So let’s have a look at our Scripture readings for this first Sunday in Lent and try to see how our lives are reflected.

Today we have two of the great, foundational stories of faith which have so much to say to us today about the abuses and possibilities of the being human. Even if we don’t believe in a 7 day creation; a primordial first woman and man; or a specific geographic spot called “Eden”; the authors of Genesis still has a deeply realistic framework for understanding the potentials of our lives and world as well as how they can go off the rails.

This particular creation story tells of the archetypical woman having a conversation with another inhabitant of the garden, a serpent who fills her head with doubts about the orders God had given to her partner “the Adam”. He had been told that he and the woman could eat of anything in the garden except from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil; that would kill them. The serpent says that’s bunkum, God’s got it wrong, and furthermore if they do eat of the fruit they will be like God knowing good and evil. Now what could be wrong with wanting to be like God? So she ate and found out the serpent was right; she had become wise and gave this powerful gift to “the Adam” who also ate and came to awareness. But something was wrong.

This story has been used by Paul and countless theologians to illustrate how “original sin” entered into a perfect world as human rebelliousness against God. It is also used as a backdrop for portraying Jesus as the “New Adam”, the one who faces his own demons (as we heard about today) but responds by submission to God. Yet without launching into another sermon, I suspect that there’s a lot more going on in this creation story. The story of Adam and Eve is also about growing up, leaving behind our naïveté, accepting our power, learning to make choices and dealing with the consequences of those choices. It is OK to want to be like God knowing good and evil but, like the students with the secret prayer, we are not perfect. In spite of our best intentions the consequences of our motivations and goals, as well as how we use our power can be fearfully destructive as there are all sorts of things can lead us astray and then turn on us like ravenous lions. Just as in the Garden of Eden, and Jesus’ desert wilderness, there are demons and temptations for each of us to deal with. What might they look like today?

One of my favourite television series was “Northern Exposure”. It describes the everyday life of the somewhat eccentric arctic outback residents of Cicely, Alaska. They can regularly be found repairing snowmobiles while discussing Immanuel Kant or considering the influence of the Javanese gamelan on Igor Stravinsky and the Rolling Stones while at the local watering hole. One of the locals is a young man named Ed Chigliak who had an unknown father and was abandoned by his mother and so was raised by the local Inuit community. He works as a clerk in Ruth-Anne’s small goods shop and dreams of being a film director. That’s until, through a series of his experiences, the local spiritual leaders decide that Ed is being called to be a shaman –a healer of the people.

When Ed agrees to become an apprentice holy man he finds that not only has he acquired new-found respect and a new degree of power, but he also recognizes that he has a personal demon (a personified green dwarfish figure) who gives him a really hard time when he least wants it. Eventually he learns that his demon is named “Low Self Esteem”. Though he may be a healer and leader, Low Self Esteem keeps telling him that he’s a fraud: too young, too little training, too weak, not clever enough to be what he’s called to be.

Isn’t that reflected, at least in part, in those temptations of Jesus? His demon repeatedly made those doubting statements: “If you are the son of God then…” The clear implication is “maybe you aren’t, so why are you bothering with all of this ministry stuff at all?” And don’t we hear such voices as well, for we all have our own personal demons. Just listen: “If you really are a child of God wouldn’t you be a better person, a healthier person, a happier person, a younger person?” “If you really are a child of God, wouldn’t your family have fewer problems or be more involved in the church?” Demons have many voices. Another is hubris: “If you really are a child of God, than shouldn’t others think, believe and worship as you do?” “If you really are a child of God, don’t the ends justify the means to see that God’s will be done?” There are many demons, many voices, many temptations. What can we do?

Refusing to deal with the temptations is not an option really, as if we could put our heads in the sand in order to avoid them. Choosing not to choose is still a choice with its own consequences. So how can we hope to choose well? Further from the “Gospel of Northern Exposure”. In spite of his demon, Ed accepts his calling and his power as a healer in his community. One day he comes across a champion athlete whose illness is resisting both western medicine and his own indigenous remedies. So he goes on a vision quest to try and find out what really ails her. Ed stalks his own demon to the “Personal Demon Caravan Park”. That’s a brilliant picture, isn’t it? We can change jobs, partners, or churches in an effort to improve our lives and our personal demons just hitch up the caravan and come along. After interviewing “Co-Dependence” he finds his patient’s demon who is named :“External Affirmation”. Her self-worth is entirely based on the praise and recognition of others and this has made her sick. Like Jacob at Jabbok, Ed battles with this demon till daybreak, while his own devil screams that he’s going to be crushed. He isn’t beaten though. It’s a stalemate and the young shaman recognizes that his patient, in the end, has to fight her own demon and Ed’s own personal demon has been vanquished.

Here we are shown the truth that as called, responsible and aware people, who are surrounded by tempters and temptations, that our power is best used for, with and on behalf others rather than for ourselves. And so Jesus would refuse bread for himself, but feed the five thousand; reject kingdoms but befriend the outcaste; disallow the theatrics of jumping off a tower but accept a cross. Here we are shown that loving others well is the surest compass to navigate our temptations. Katernine Lee Bates, in her poem Tempted, describes Jesus’ desert experience this way:

Ecstasy, faint with its own bliss, encountered

The Scorpion

Of self, love’s enemy. For love is holy

In loving: love is safe

Only in saving; love, despised, rejected,

The world’s white waif,

Needs nothing that this earth can give of glory,

For love dwelleth in God.

So may this season of Lent be a new phase of our journey together. May it be a time of re-dedicating ourselves to our calling, of accepting our power, our responsibility and our humanness. May it be a time of being open with ourselves about ourselves complete with our demons and temptations. May it be a time of knowing that even if our shortcomings and mistakes come back at us like a pride of lions that Love travels with us not only to forgive us, but to give us deeper wisdom, courage and strength for a new day and a new world. Amen.

© Alan Biglow 2010

Permission is hereby given for the material to be freely quoted or copied in those situations where it is deemed helpful. The copyright should be acknowledged with the words “used with permission of the author” included.