Welcome to Monday, Lent 1 Sermon

I have wondered what I would do with this blog other than ramble on about my thoughts. Mondays seem like a pretty good time to share my sermon from Sunday. These sermons are almost never 'proofed' for spelling or punctuation. By the time my sermon hits the page most of the editing has been done and I usually preach my first written draft. Most of my sermons are put to paper between 6am and 8am Sunday mornings. Enjoy. J

Lent 1
Temptation is something that all of us face. The shape of our temptations may be different, but in the end all temptations lead us away from a deeper relationship with God and away from one another. One of our problems is that we have a tendency to focus our discussion of temptation on a totally individual level. We hear the gospel for today and say, this is the way life is, just me against the devil. This gospel, through the centuries, has led many people to go into the desert to battle their own demons. But in our time we know that the wilderness can find us where ever we are.

Just after Jesus is baptized, he was led by the Spirit into the wilderness where he was tempted for 40 days by the devil. Notice that what we have in the gospel us only the very end of this 40 days. The temptations we read take place after the 40 days, so the devil is really at his wits end. He tempts Jesus with, food because he has not eaten, power over all the kingdoms of the world, and in the end challenges his identity as the Son of God in hopes that his pride would overtake him. At each temptation Jesus answers with scripture and in the end the devil went away until a more opportune time.

Now this pattern is probably how most of us think of temptation. We have a cartoon image in our head of the little angel on one shoulder and a little devil on the other thy are in a constant battle over our personality. More recently we have been taking the path of psychology. Temptations are merely projections of our own worst instincts, the evil that is inside of us. The only way to deal with this is to look inward, just me against my demons.
On the other hand there are still many people who believe in a great evil underground, with Satan at its head. This is the way books and movies portray temptation. In one of the great classics of Christian fiction, The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis portrays the minions of evil as a great corporation, with many levels of hierarchy. Screwtape and his nephew Wormwood are low level ground workers for Satan the CEO. Their job is to temp people away from Christ in any way possible and the book is a series of letters that follows Wormwoods progress with one particular man. Letter Number 2 is one of my favorites. Wormwood has informed his uncle that his "patient" has become a Christian. Screwtape tells Wormwood not to worry "One of our great allies at present is the Church itself." He goes on "Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not talking about he Church as we see her spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity. All your patient sees is the half-finished, sham gothic erection on the new building estate. When he goes inside he sees the local grocer with a rather oily expression on his face bustling up to offer him one shiny little book containing a liturgy neither of them understands, and one shabby little book containing corrupt texts of a number of religious lyrics, mostly bad and in very small print." The devils in C.S. Lewis attempt to use the world and even the church itself to temp the patient.

This kind of thinking about temptation and Satan is used almost daily.
So we are left with two competing images of temptation. The first is something that is within us, the other is something that comes from outside of us. Those who believe that evil is inherent and is a condition to be dealt with, criticize the other side and claim that they don’t take responsibility for their own actions. Those who believe evil is from the outside criticize the other side by claiming they don’t take evil seriously enough. So which side is right?

I must confess that I grew up with an idea of the devil trying to get me. This is what I was taught in the Southern Baptist Church. I had to remain ever vigilant against the temptations of the Enemy. Later on I moved to the more psychological viewpoint and battled temptation as an internal problem, something from within my own psyche. Now I hold a little bit of each idea.
The temptation lies at the same time inside of me and outside of me and it in the interaction between those two places that we are most likely to do evil. We cannot claim that we are wholly innocent creatures left to the whims of Satan, nor can we say that we are totally guilty and only have ourselves to blame. The world is more complicated than either of these ideas on their own.
We live in a world of relationships and those relationships affect us and help create who we are. When we focus on ourselves to the exclusion of others we miss how we are affected by them, when we focus on others we miss our responsibility.

Right now I think we are swinging toward an outward focus in our world. This is happening both inside and outside the Church. I’m sure you have read in the paper the ongoing saga of the Episcopal Church in the Anglican Communion. Some people believe that the Church is under a satanic attack by gays and lesbians. Others call the exclusion, abuse and violence perpetrated against gays and lesbians the work of Satan. The point is that evil wins either way. When we attack another with the claim that we hold the exclusive truth the damage is done, evil has accomplished its task, we are separated from one another. We no longer have to look at one another and see a fellow member of Christ’s body.

Now I want to be clear in this matter so there is no confusion, I fully support the work of gays and lesbians in this Church. I believe that they are beloved children of God and count many same sex couples as dear friends. But I would never go so far as to say that those who disagree with me are in league with Satan. I truly believe that we can be in disagreement and still walk to this altar and receive the same Body of Christ, and still be the Body of Christ.

One of the greatest temptations that individuals and the Church has faced throughout the ages is the temptation towards purity. That somehow we must be perfect and make the church perfect and thereby exclude all that doesn’t fit our ideas of perfection. But it is in the very act of exclusion and isolation that evil accomplishes its task. As our temptation toward purity deepens we are left with a smaller and smaller community banded together to support and love one another and as it diminishes further and further we are finally left alone with no one able to live up to our standards.

What is called for in this season of Lent and every day throughout the year is a dose of humility. I leave you with this story from the Desert Father Macarius in hopes that we may all remember the only way to overcome our worst temptations. Macarius was once returning to his cell from the marsh carrying palm leaves. The devil met him by the way, with a sickle, and wanted to run him through with it but could not. The devil said, ‘Macarius, I suffer a lot of violence from you, for I can’t overcome you. For whatever you do, I do also. If you fast I eat nothing; I you keep watch, I get no sleep. There is one quality in which you surpass me.’ Macarius said to him, ‘What is it?’ The devil answered, ‘Your, humility; that is why I cannot prevail against you.’