And the Devil Said

Scripture Lessons: Deuteronomy 26: 1-11 and Luke 4: 1-13 Sermon Title: And the devil said Preached on March 10, 2019 There’s something very special about being in a church like this one. Personally, for me there’s something very special about returning to the church I grew up in. Our church has changed of course since I was a kid, but there are parts of this church that still smell the same. I don’t mean to say that we have a mold or mildew problem. What I mean is that there’s something about the stairwell that leads down to the room we call Track 25 where our kids have their Sunday School. That stairwell smells exactly the same way it did when I was a kid going down to have Sunday School in that same room, and every time I walk down those stairs I am overcome by the power of memory. When some of you walk into this room (or the Sanctuary), I imagine that the same thing happens. Memories come rushing back. Maybe you see your mother singing in the choir or your father serving communion. You might remember your children, now grown, being baptized, or how you felt to walk down the aisle on your wedding day. What I’m talking about is a bit like time travel, but it really happens, and so we know that the words of Faulkner are true: the past isn’t gone; it isn’t even past. Such an understanding of the past, strange as it may seem, embodies the Hebrew word for remember. You know that when words are translated from one language to another, sometimes part of the true essence of the word gets lost. That’s just the way it is with language. Any language. Were we to translate a phrase like, “Well, bless your heart” into Spanish, a literal translation wouldn’t do it justice. Likewise, when Jesus said at the table with his disciples, the first time he broke the bread and poured the wine, thereby serving the first communion, he said, “Do this in remembrance of me.” We have to be careful about our English translation, because by saying that, he didn’t mean, “When you do this 2,000 year from now, remember me, think of me, or don’t forget my name.” Instead what he meant was, “When you do this 2,000 years or 10,000 years from now, it’s a chance for you to recognize that I am present with you still.” That’s a different thing. It’s a bit of a time collapse, only when God is eternal what is time anyway? So, our religion is full of these rituals that connect the great, historic, deeds of God with our present. That’s what’s happening in our First Scripture Lesson. This is one of my favorite passages in the whole Bible, Deuteronomy 26: 1-11. Deuteronomy can be boring, but Jesus quotes this book often, so we are wise to pay attention to it. In the passage that I read the people bring forth their offerings, their first fruits, but once they’ve done it, they say something. They participate in a short liturgy: A wandering Aramean was my ancestor, they said. He went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous (that was all a historically accurate statement). Only then they said: When the Egyptians treated us harshly. That wasn’t technically true. And afflicted us, (the people who said it hadn’t technically been afflicted). By imposing hard labor on us, not technically true either, because the people who said these words had never been in Egypt. The personal pronoun “us” is, in a sense a fabrication, for everyone who had personally been enslaved in Egypt by the time Deuteronomy was written or this liturgy would have been used was already dead. But still they say: When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labor on us, we cried to the Lord, the God of our ancestors; the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil and our oppression. While none of this is historically accurate, for remember back in Sunday School when you learned that before anyone entered the Promised Land where this liturgy was used, the generation who knew slavery in Egypt had to die, what Deuteronomy calls each consecutive generation to do, is to make their history present again. Deuteronomy calls each generation to make the suffering of their ancestors real once more. And this liturgy calls each generation, ours included, to make the mighty power of God who liberates people, not a memory, but a present reality possible now as it was then. If any of that sounds strange, know that this isn’t a strange, new idea. That’s what happens in here all the time. We don’t remember Jesus as historical fact. We evoke his memory and are reminded that not only did he live among us, he still does. We don’t just think about the mighty deeds of God, studying them like we do ancient history. When we remember, the memory becomes a current reality. Lent is the same. We give something up, chocolate maybe, but Lent’s not a diet. It’s more than that. When we observe a Lenten Discipline, we join Jesus on his journey through the Desert, or, we remember that he joins us on ours. This is important. It’s important to know that Jesus is with us, for Satan is not confined to ancient history either. He also whispers in our ears today. “Command this stone to become bread,” the devil said to Jesus, but he didn’t just say that to Jesus. He says that to us. “Eat drink and be merry,” he urged. I ask you, could there be a more persistent temptation in our 21st Century than this? Constantly we too are told to drink, because “It’s 5:00 somewhere.” Or to eat, because “You’re not you when you’re hungry.” We are so constantly bombarded by the voice of temptation urging us to satisfy our cravings, as though satisfying physical desire could bring true satisfaction, though it cannot. Scripture and the hymns tell us that again and again. There’s a hymn that I love, but it’s probably one that no one but me likes to sing. It’s called “God Marked a Line and Told the Sea.” It’s so bad they left it out of our new hymnals, which says something, because they put a lot of hymns that only a preacher could love in there. In this hymn, the 5th stanza it goes: We are not free when we’re confined, to every whish that sweeps the mind, But free when freely we accept, the sacred bounds that must be kept. You hear that? I won’t sing it, and I won’t ask you to, but I want you to know it because these words are true. The devil’s knocking on our door, day in and day out, saying: “Command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” “Come on,” he says, “just use that credit card. You can pay for it later.” “Have a bite. It’s delicious. And maybe it’s bad for you but live a little.” Now I’m not trying to advocate for suffering through Lent or denying yourself for the sake of denying. My grandmother was on a diet, pretty much for her entire life. Tab was all she’d drink, and I always wanted her to eat, drink, and be merry a little bit more than she did. On the other hand, the point I’m trying to make is that trying to satisfy the desires of the flesh is like trying to fill up a bottomless pit. Constantly searching for physical pleasure is a slavery all its own. At some point we all have to say, “Enough.” I have enough. I’ve eaten enough. My one spouse, she’s enough. But on TV and our computer is the constant temptation, not to be satisfied with what you have. That’s why, you and I, we must call on Jesus. We must see him present with us, providing us encouragement as we face the same temptation that he did. We need him. For the devil has more to say. The devil also led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said to him, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority. If you will worship me, it will all be yours.” Do you know anyone who would take him up on this offer? Do you know anyone who already has? The human desire for power is so great, that constantly in the headlines is the story of some tyrant who oversteps decency, manipulates the democratic process, abandons his moral character, for what? To put himself in the place of God. This is a temptation that too many face and too many fall prey to. So, in Venezuela there are two presidents. In North Korea there’s a dictator with a nuclear arsenal. And here there is a news story every day about an attorney, a campaign manager, or somebody who took the devil up on his offer. In a quest to gain power at any cost, even for the price of his own soul, too many fall prey to the devil. What are we to say about these things? What are we to do? When we hear the tempter’s whisper, we must call on the King of Kings and Lord of Lord, who refused to step beyond the limit of his power. Even he bowed before somebody. Even he was always mindful that God was in control. So, we must join him in worship of the God who rules heaven and the earth, constantly mindful that he doesn’t need our help or advice, and that when we take on too much power or authority it rots our souls. The devil still speaks. He’s speaking now and too many are listening, but he has more to say. For then Satan said, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here.” How strong is the desire for self-preservation in the human heart? So strong, that we will compromise the truth to go on living. So strong, that we will turn our back on those who we love to save our own skin. So strong, that we won’t change our ways even if our ways are holding us back from joy. “Save yourself,” the devil says, but we must listen instead to the one who says, “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.” Lent is a gift we’ve been given. And we’ve been given it because we are all the time living these unexamined lives. We even defend our unexamined lives, mindful only of what we stand to lose, blind to what we stand to gain if we would leave our broken ways behind. Let us be bold not to save ourselves. Let us die to the ways of sin, leaving behind our broken ways, that we might rise with Christ. Let ignore the persistent lies of Satan, to follow the one who still walks beside us and still leads to Eternal Life. Amen.