mirrors in the desert

Shalom Mennonite Church

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Lent 1: Becoming Human: Shaped by Testing

Text: Matthew 4:1-11

Eric Massanari

“mirrors in the desert”

Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness

to be tempted. (v.1)

The first words of this story suggest

that Jesus was compelled to go into the desert.

There is a sense here that he could

do nothing else because this is

where the Spirit was blowing his life-

the one and same Spirit that had

just come to rest on him in his baptism.

He fasted forty days and forty nights,

and afterwards he was famished. (v.2)

This second verse suggests a more intentional

and volitional act on Jesus' part,

his own embrace of the Spirit's call.

Once in the wilderness, Jesus chose to fast,

to grow hungry,

to be emptied.

And it is then, and only then,

that his testing begins.

It is at the end of the forty days

of solitude, silence, and hunger

that Jesus experiences his greatest test.

The Spirit's leading

and his own fasting

prepared Jesus to face

his tempter.

The devil.

The way the story is told

it is tempting to interpret this scene

as an encounter between Jesus

and a malevolent power beyond him,

and evil other.

Perhaps that is true.

However, if we consider our own experiences

of temptation, we might read this a different way.

Though we may be tempted by things

external to us: chocolate, web-surfing,

power, authority, wealth -

the experience of temptation is

itself an inner struggle.

I remember from my childhood a Disney cartoon

with Goofy the dog facing some temptation.

He had a little devil on one shoulder

and an angel on the other –

both the devil and angel bore Goofy's own face.

There is truth in that image.

When we are wrestling with temptation

it is as if we are wrestling within:

with a devil within

with an angel within.

Each one of us is capable

of doing good and doing harm,

serving others and serving our selves,

nurturing love or feeding fear.

We must choose, day-to-day, moment-to-moment, our path.

I suppose it may rub against the grain

of some traditional views of Jesus

to suggest that Jesus' temptation

in the wilderness of the Jordan

was for him an inner struggle.

The church has often emphasized

Jesus' divinity rather than his humanity,

and has therefore shied away from

suggestions that Jesus ever faced

his own inner struggles and turmoils.

This is what I would like to suggest this morning.

That in the fullness of his humanity

Jesus' time of testing in the wilderness

was very much a struggle within his own being.

And I would suggest that reading the story this way

brings great power and depth to the gospel

as it unfolds from this pivotal moment.

Before stepping into his public ministry

Jesus must face temptations that are

in a sense universal human temptations:

the temptation for power & control,

the temptation to be elevated above others in stature,

the temptation to seek his own safety and security.

He must bring these into balance

into right relationship within himself

before he can continue on the way

as a teacher, a healer, and an anointed one of God.

Jesus' moment in the wilderness, one could say,

is something a bit like Narcissus pausing by a pond

and staring down into the mirror-like surface.

Narcissus, you might remember from Greek mythology,

was a proud and handsome young man who

was so taken by his own reflection in the still waters,

so enamored with his own beauty,

that he could see beauty no where else,

and in no one else.

He could not see his own pride and arrogance,

and these devils within tempted him and made him blind.

His blindness overwhelmed him

and, in the end, it cost him everything.

In the desert Jesus looks into a mirror,

one that shows him what his path could be -

a path of power, control, success and security.

He is able to see what he could be

if he makes certain choices

from this point onward-

if he bends the world to his own will,

if he kneels down and worships himself

and the powers of the world.

And he is able to see clearly

that this choice to become

a beloved wonder-worker, a powerful ruler,

would come at far too great a cost.

And so he chooses a different path,

a life of loyalty to the vision and love of God.

His time of testing in the wilderness

is a necessary preparation for all that follows.

He has to first let go of these things

before he can fulfill his deepest calling.

We, too, need such mirrors in the dessert,

experiences in our lives that reveal to us

not just what we want to see in ourselves,

but also that which is more difficult to see:

the stuff that sometimes gnaws at us,

pulls at us, and often causes us

to seek after our own interests first—

our own power, control, security, affirmation—

no matter what the outward circumstances

of our lives may be.

Thomas Keating, a contemporary Trappist monk,

tells the story of a young man

who proudly used to drink his friends

under the table at the local bars.

Of course, the sense of satisfaction

this gave him would last only a few minutes,

until he found a new bar and new drinking buddies,

or until the inevitable hangover would set in.

Eventually he sees the error of his inebriated ways,

and he gives up his heavy partying,

he stops going to the bars, he gives up drinking,

he “sees the light,” he “gets saved”

and he decides to to join up with the most

rigorous group of Christians he can find.

So he joins a Trappist monastery

and relishes in their austere way of life in community.

When Lent rolls around he energetically joins the fast.

And as the forty days pass by,

and many of the other monks

wind up in the infirmary due to

weakness or digestive problems,

the young man feels a sense of pride

since he is one of the “last men standing.”

The scenery has changed,

but his inner barriers remain.

He's still stuck peering into the

surface of the pond like Narcissus.

This is a common human pattern.

We need those experiences

and relationships in our lives -

and it is often relationships -

through which the Spirit calls

us into our own wilderness experiences

that reveal to us the truth of what is there within.

The Spirit leads us into many self-revealing

moments every day, much like the Spirit

led Jesus into the wilderness.

Part of the equation is up to us, and our own

willingness to grow hungry and empty enough

to see what we need to see.

This is not easy to come face to face

with our own our own brokenness.

We might wind up feeling like the Apostle Paul

who, in a vulnerable moment, famously lamented:

I do not understand my own actions.

For I do not do what I want,

but I do the very thing I hate . . .

For I do not do the good that I want,

but the evil I do not want is what I do.

ROMANS 7:15-16, 19

But it can be a gift to be brought

to such honest self awareness.

The point in seeing the falsehoods within ourselves,

the ways we choose to indulge in our own selves,

is to hopefully, in time, confront them and,

as Jesus did, let them go—they do not define us!

The God who created you, sustains you

and works in redeeming ways in your life

does not dwell on your faults or falsehoods.

God sees and seeks those places in you that are

trying to say “yes,”

that are able to face temptations and tests of life

with great love and conviction, as Jesus did,

and say, “I choose the way of life and love—the Way of God.”

God leads us into the wilderness,

through our deepest hunger,

and then beyond,

into the truth and fullness of life. AMEN