“Wilderness: The Reality Show”
February 13, 2005 First Sunday in Lent
Gospel Lesson Matthew 4:1-11
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterward he was famished.
The tempter came and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread."
But he answered, "It is written, 'One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"
Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, 'He will command his angels concerning you,' and 'On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'"
Jesus said to him, "Again it is written, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; and he said to him, "All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me."
Jesus said to him, "Away with you, Satan! for it is written, 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'"
Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.
Some years back, the geniuses that run the television networks stumbled upon a grand scheme. They would produce shows without writers and without famous people who demanded a lot of compensation. They would place ordinary people in extraordinary situations and put on them on camera. And they called it--Reality Television.
And the shows were diverse. On the one hand, there’s the human nails-on-chalkboard experience known as American Idol. Good Lord! Don’t some of these people have friends who will tell them that going on national television and singing is not a good idea? Reality? Real friends don’t let friends do that!
And there was my favorite. Joe Millionaire. I call it my favorite because it is the only one I’ve ever seen. You see, I have enough reality in my life, so I need to watch fiction. But, several years ago, I visited my brother and his family, and they were transfixed by the idea of an ordinary guy pretending to be a millionaire surrounded by all these anorexic women in a French villa with a butler, a chef, and an unlimited wine cellar. Some reality.
And the king of the reality series is Survivor, wherein the players are divided into teams on a deserted island, and then they cheat and claw each other until the teams are gone, and the last cheater standing is the winner. The Survivor.
And there was the short lived Temptation Island. In this one, couples were encouraged to cheat on each other with someone from another couple. And they were put in situations which made their fidelity destined to fail.
One of the more popular shows now is the Biggest Loser, where contestants compete by losing weight. Unfortunately, the producers tempt them along the way with all kinds of goodies.
You want to see Survivors, look at the Week of Compassion slides that we showed you. Go on WOC’s website and see real survivors--people whose homes have been destroyed by hurricanes, tsunami, floods, fires, wars. Some lose everything, but with your monetary help, they keep going. They rebuild. They pick up the remaining pieces, and mourn the things that the no longer have. Their lives are not a game. They are the real Survivors.
And we have the real temptation reality show--Jesus in the desert.
Jesus goes into the desert and does something we might find strange. He gets stronger by fasting and praying for forty days. Stronger, mind you. If I don’t get lunch in another forty minutes, I’m gonna’ have a blood sugar crisis, and I’ll give in to whatever you want. You won’t even have to consider it temptation. It’ll just be instant submission.
But Jesus goes into the wilderness and focuses his mind, his heart, and his will to what is right and good, and to what kind of savior he is and will become.
The Gospel accounts can be described as history, theologically interpreted. In other words, something happened here, but what we get is not unbiased reporting (if there is such a thing--and I don’t accept that there is). What we get is the event as it relates to the ongoing revelation of God in the world.
Take the Gospel of Mark. It is universally accepted that Mark was the first of the Gospels to appear some 30-40 years after the death of Jesus. It is the shortest and sparest of all the accounts of Jesus life.
The Temptation narrative, which we read today, consists of one sentence in Mark: “He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.”
That’s it. No Devil. No stones to turn into bread. No temple from which to jump. No mountain. Just there, tempted, angels.
Even the early Gospel writers understood that that would make terrible reality TV, because good reality TV needs conflict, and so the next versions of the story--Matthew and Luke--added a little. Not so much so to make the story interesting, but to help us understand who Jesus and why this story is important.
Matthew and Luke bring the conflict to the front and depict the direct confrontation between Jesus and Satan. Satan tempts Jesus to use his power to do three things: turn stones into bread, jump off the temple, and bow down to worship Satan.
There’s a number of ways you can look at this, but what makes the most sense to me, is that Matthew, particularly wants to present Jesus to the world as the Messiah. The trick is, Kenneth E. Bailey writes, he’s not going to be the Messiah of popular legend.
One of the affirmations of the Messiah in the thought of Israel was that he would bring an economic uplift to the people. Empires exist for the benefit of the conquerors, and Rome’s empire was no exception. In an imperial world, food and money flows from the conquered place back to the center--Rome. The people of Israel had been growing food for the Empire and paying taxes to the Empire. They expected that the Messiah would bring them economic good fortune.
Turning stones into loaves of bread was more than just a trick to feed himself, who’d been fasting for 40 days and 40 nights. Using his power to turn stones into bread would have an immediate economic impact on his people--and would signal to them that a new age has come--the Messianic Age. If the Messiah brought them economic prosperity, they would follow him in a heartbeat. Like our former President said, “it’s the economy, stupid!”
The scene turns from the wilderness to Jerusalem. To the top of the temple. If the new Messiah were to bring economic prosperity, he would also bring miraculous powers. In ancient Judaism, the high priests were expected to examine any claim to messiahship and delegations were indeed sent to Jesus for this purpose. If he would act out some public, undeniable miracle in the temple area — perhaps he could throw himself down from the tower at the corner of the temple complex — then the high priest would at once proclaim him the true Messiah. Such an action would shut all mouths and open all doors across the nation. This would establish his identity and authority by performing miracles. It is not by accident that he was asked repeatedly to show a sign. The use of miraculous power would be a divine identity badge by which he could be unmistakably recognized.
And then, the scene shifts to a mountain so big that it isn’t identified. Because it doesn’t exist. A mountain that overlooks all the kingdoms of the earth. And on this mountain, the Devil offers Jesus all the kingdoms of the world. What he was really offering was, Rome. If Jesus would only seize all the political power in the world, Israel would immediately be elevated to a preeminent position in the New World Order. The Romans would be driven out, and the line of David would be instantly restored to its glorious throne.
If Jesus accepts the above popular view of the Messiah, and proceeds to carry out its agenda, the nation would be at his feet. Indeed, if he could achieve economic growth, grab sensation headlines in the local press, and expand the power and influence of the nation and the world, in a democracy he would easily win a nomination and get elected!
If we are to believe that Jesus was truly human, then these temptations would have to really, well, temp him. Relevance, Popularity, and Power are not trivial things. And if Jesus were to say yes to any of those temptations, he’d be an instant hit. His ratings would double Survivor’s. But, in these moments, we find out that Jesus is not the kind of Savior to take short cuts. Instead of winning the people in three temptations, he will spend the next three years winning their hearts. In fact, he is now in the third millennium of winning their hearts and minds, and has called us to join in that task.
I’ve sometimes heard this passage preached that since Jesus could resist temptation, you can, too.
I’m sorry, but I am only human, whereas Jesus was human and divine at once. The truth of my reality show is that relevance, popularity, and power--in one form of or another--will tempt me all along my journey with Jesus. And the difference between me and Jesus, is that I will undoubtedly fail--at least at some point.
The good news is that though I may fail, the one who walks with me, picks me up, brushes me off, and forgives me, won’t. Jesus has never failed me yet. And that is Good News, indeed. Amen.
First Christian Church Sermons 
February 10, 2008
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