David Orendorff · Matthew 4:1-11

To follow Jesus might seem hazardous to our health. Just look at Jesus. After being baptized for the repentance of sin by John the Baptist in the Jordan River, he rose from the water, the sky opened, the Spirit of God descend on him and a voice from the heavens, presumably God’s voice, said, “This is my son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

Since God was “well pleased” with Jesus we might assume that Jesus would get some preferential treatment from life, that he would have good health and good food, fine lodging, a wonderful family, and a satisfying and successful career. But it didn’t happen that way.

That lovely, dovelike spirit immediately leads Jesus (Mark’s gospel says, “Immediately drove him”) into the wilderness, a place of wild animals and robbers and the realm of the devil. The one with whom God “is well pleased” is deserted to face evil directly for 40 days and 40 nights. And this is only the beginning of what becomes the road to Jerusalem, prison, a trial, humiliation, torture, the cross and a grave.

So why be a Christian, why follow Jesus? Why trust our lives to a God who will lead Jesus, his beloved son, into the wilderness and to the cross. Why, because the temptations, and even death, come not from being a Christian, but from being alive. The real label ought to read “Warning, being alive may be hazardous to your health.”

Whether we are a follower of Jesus or not, we are alive and to be alive is to know suffering. What the disciple of Jesus knows is that Jesus suffered our sufferings. Jesus lived a hard human life and a torturous death, and still loves and forgives. And what the disciple also knows is that God is with us. It is what God does in response to wilderness and graves that is our hope and our faith. And so that we might know that God knows our fears and tears, the first act of Jesus’ ministry is suffering and temptation in the wilderness.

As you might guess I have preached on this more than once and each time I approach it I see something different. This time it occurred to me that all three temptations, when applied to me, are but one temptation in three forms; the temptation to think of myself as god of my life.

The first temptation is to change stones into bread. This is the temptation to think and act like I am the one who makes the bread I need. Though I need to work for bread, I am not the one who makes the bread. It is God who turns stones into soil, soil into wheat, and wheat into bread. We can help as good farmers, cooks and stewards but we cannot make bread, we are not God. So the first temptation is to make myself god as if I could make my own bread from stones.

The second temptation is to force God to take care of me when I throw myself off of Mount Rainier. By demanding God’s protection, by dictating to God how God should keep me safe, I make myself god to God. And if I am god to God, then again, I have attempted to make myself god.

And the third temptation, to have the wealth of all nations and the authority of all kings, is to have the wealth and power of God, for it is God alone that truly possesses all wealth and all authority. For me to want this as mine is again for me to want and attempt to be god.

All three temptations are about the one temptation to make myself god rather than surrendering my life to God. Or said more simply, my greatest temptation is to make all of life about me and to strive to control all life for me.

Some friends sent me this joke with a point.

An Irishman, a Mexican and a blonde guy were doing construction work on scaffolding on the 20th floor of a building. They were eating lunch and the Irishman said, “Corned beef and cabbage! If I get corned beef and cabbage one more time for lunch I’m going to jump off this building.”

The Mexican opened his lunch box and exclaimed, “Burritos again! If I get burritos one more time I’m going to jump off, too.” The blonde guy opened his lunch and said, “Bologna again. If I get a bologna sandwich one more time, I’m jumping too.”

The next day the Irishman opened his lunch box, saw corned beef and cabbage and jumped to his death. The Mexican opened his lunch, saw a burrito and jumped too. The blonde guy opened his lunch, saw the bologna and jumped to his death as well.

At the funeral the Irishman’s wife was weeping. She said, “If I’d known how really tired he was of corned beef and cabbage, I never would have given it to him again!” The Mexican’s wife also wept and said, “I could have given him tacos or enchiladas! I didn’t realize he hated burritos so much.”

Everyone turned and stared at the blonde’s wife.

“Hey, don’t look at me,” she said, “He made his own lunches.”1 thanks to Mike and Margaret Novak for this joke.

When we make our own lunch, when we make life about ourselves, we die by our own foolishness. But when we, like Jesus, make our lives about God, then we live. When we trust our daily bread to God’s creativity, trust our safety to God’s love, and trust our wealth and power to God’s power, then we live even as we are dying.

When I make life about me everything is a fight to stay on top, to stay in control, and to stay alive. But when I make life about God then I can relax and let God be in charge. A hackneyed but correct aphorism says it this way, “Let go and let God.”

This “letting go” is a gentle and unforced receptivity to God’s love for our living. Usually this soulful relaxing is forced upon us when we are at our wits end, when there really is nothing more we can do anyway. So we give up the effort, we give up trying to be our own god because there it has failed us.

When Jesus refuses the temptation to be God, proclaiming instead that life is made and revealed by God and God alone, the angels come to him in the wilderness and minister to him. Everything that Jesus was tempted to do for himself, the angels do for him. The angels feed him, hold him safe and give him what wealth and power he truly needs to serve the God of compassion and justice.

And miracle of miracles, the same happens for us. When we move out of the center of our lives, when we “Let go and let God” the angels come and we are saved from the devil and the wilderness. When we let God be God then, as Paul describes it, “a peace that passes understanding” settles upon us even as we are crucified and die.

In his book The Paradox of Intention Marvin Shaw sees this strange result of “reaching the goal by giving up the attempt to reach it” as a common theme among all the major religions and calls it the “ethic of consolation” writing:

According to the ethic of consolation in all of its philosophical and religious forms, fulfillment cannot be found through the successful attainment of the usual goals of wealth, power, acclaim, and control over our lives; but we are to take consolation for this failure and impossibility in finding a peace and fulfillment, which could not otherwise be found, by simply giving up self-effort. This state of acceptance, trust, openness, this sense of being at home in the universe, cannot by its very nature be the outcome of efforts; the pond cannot be forced to be still, but becomes still of its own accord when efforts cease. The goal then is not a matter of doing, but of being. Contrary to the logic of common sense, with its endless flow of “how-to manuals,” this one goal is not an attainment, but a gift. However, the condition in which gifts are received is one in which efforts to earn and attain are replaced by receptivity.2 Marvin C. Shaw, The Paradox of Intention Reaching the Goal by Giving Up the Attempt to Reach It, (Scholars Press, Atlanta, 1988) 5.

When Jesus refuses to strive for bread, for safety, wealth and power, he is receptive to the angels who come and care for him. For those of us who choose to follow Jesus the same can be true. When we refuse to see life as a challenge we must conquer and become receptive to the grace of the divine daily offered to us, then the peace we so desired in our striving finds us in our receptive acceptance of God’s love.

Life is hazardous, dangerous and fatal. We are called to follow Jesus who didn’t avoid the wilderness and its temptations, but went into the very heart of life’s struggles and there remained faithful to God. And by that faithful surrender, letting go and letting God, he was served by the angels. And when it came to the end of his life rather than fleeing certain death he again surrendered to God, went through death and was raised by God.

When led into the wilderness places of our lives, the places that seem devoid of civilization and God, we can resist the temptation to be god and surrender our will to the will and design of God. And through surrender, receptivity without striving, we are gifted with a peaceful soul in both the wilderness and on the cross. The peace we could not make by being the god of our lives comes as grace.

Shalom and Amen.

[1] thanks to Mike and Margaret Novak for this joke.

[2] Marvin C. Shaw, The Paradox of Intention Reaching the Goal by Giving Up the Attempt to Reach It, (Scholars Press, Atlanta, 1988) 5.