Rev. Tom Sorenson, Pastor
February 10, 2008

Scripture:

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

In my favorite Broadway musical, My Fair Lady, the character Alfred P. Doolittle sings a song that I won’t inflict on you this morning but that has the lines: “With a little bit of luck, with a little bit of luck, when temptation comes you’ll give right in.” In its setting in the musical the song is great fun, but I think it also makes an important point. It says: Temptation is really tempting. Our two Scripture readings this morning are also about the temptation of temptation, odd as that phrase sounds. Our lessons say: Temptation really is tempting. It wouldn’t be a problem if it weren’t.

Both of the stories are famous and well known. In the reading from Genesis Adam and Eve give in to the temptation to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In the reading from Matthew Jesus doesn’t give in to temptation, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t tempted. Matthew begins the story by saying that Jesus “was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” Matthew 4:1 NRSV We don’t usually think of Jesus as someone for whom temptation was an issue, but I think this story loses most of its meaning if we don’t think that Jesus found the things the devil put before him really tempting. He was, after all, human (although, we confess, not only human). Who wouldn’t find the notion of creating food when we’re famished simply by performing a miracle, or having God really protect us from all physical harm, or ruling the entire world tempting? Surely we are meant to understand that Jesus found these things tempting. What’s the point of the story, or what is the significance of his resisting the temptation, is he didn’t?

Our Bible stories this morning present several different temptations, but to try to get at what all those different temptations might mean for us let’s ask: Is there anything that they all have in common? Is there a common theme to them? I think that there is; and I think that that common theme raises what is perhaps the central, the primary human temptation. The common theme of these stories is that we humans are never satisfied with being human. We want to be gods not mortals. Genesis of course puts this temptation directly into the mouth of the serpent. The Lord God had told Adam that he may not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and that if he did he would die. Later on in the story, the serpent comes along and contradicts God. He says to Eve: “You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God….” Genesis 3:4-5 NRSV (emphasis added) Both Adam and Eve find this temptation, to be like God, too much resist, and they eat the forbidden fruit.

It may be less obvious that the temptations the devil puts before Jesus are temptations to be like God, but I think they are. The first temptation, put before Jesus when he was “famished” after a long period of fasting, was to turn stones into bread. It is the temptation to meet one’s physical needs by miraculous means rather than by the usual human ones. Only God can do that, so the temptation fundamentally is to be like God. The second temptation is to hurl yourself off the pinnacle of the temple and let God save you. It is the temptation to ignore human frailty and mortality. Only God can do that, so the temptation fundamentally is to be like God. The third temptation is to rule the entire world. It is the temptation to usurp God’s rightful place as sovereign of creation, so the temptation fundamentally is to be like God. The serpent said to Eve and Adam eat and you will be like God. The devil said to Jesus do these things to show that you are God. Adam and Eve, who were human, found the temptation to be like God irresistible. They chose to forsake being only human. They turned their backs on their human limitations and reached for divinity. Jesus, who was both human and divine, as we Christians confess, chose his human nature over his divine nature and rejected the temptation to be like God in the world.

Like all great Bible stories, these stories are not merely about things that happened to other people a long time ago in a place far away. They are about us. The temptation of Adam, Eve, and Jesus to be like God is our temptation. We too strive to be like God and to forsake being only human. If you doubt that, consider these three examples. First: We humans want absolute truth. We’re never satisfied with the mystery of the ultimate. We want to know it all. Yet at a deep level we are aware that knowledge of ultimate, absolute truth is not given to us as humans. Knowing it is beyond our limited human capacities. And we can’t stand it. So we constantly reduce absolute truth to truth we can understand. We reduce God to a finite reality we can grasp. We do this when we take our images of God literally. We do it when we lock God up in something finite, for us Protestants usually in a book, for Catholics usually in the church. Literalistic faith like that is faith without mystery. Only God is beyond mystery, so our literalizing of religion is an attempt to be like God.

Second: We want absolute dominion over nature, over creation. We use creation as if it belonged to us. We use it as though we were not responsible to God for how we use it. We use it as if we were creation’s true sovereign. Only God is beyond responsibility to God. God is creation’s true sovereign. So our despoiling of the earth and our wasting of natural resources are nothing less than an attempt to be like God.

Third: As humans we are mortal, and we can’t stand it. We crave immortality, and so we cling to youth as though we could make it last forever. We shoot poison into our skin to remove wrinkles. We dye our hair. We dress years or even decades younger than we really are. We exercise as though our sweat could drive away the devil of aging. And when old age sets in, as it inevitably does if we live long enough, we grasp at any desperate medical measure offered to us to prolong life just a little bit longer, sometimes even when the quality of that added life is such that death would be a blessing. Only God is immortal. Only God doesn’t age, so our idolatry of youth and our refusal to accept our mortality are attempts to be like God.

Being like God is indeed the primary human temptation, and our Bible stories tell us that giving in to that temptation is the primary human sin. The Christian tradition has always seen Adam and Eve’s giving in to temptation to be the beginning of sin. The Christian tradition has always considered Jesus to be the one human without sin, and he rejected the temptation to be like God, at least in Matthew’s story of his temptation by the devil in the wilderness. For us humans, giving in to the temptation to be like God is the primary sin.

So, you may ask, what’s the point? The point, the lesson in all this for us, is this: God’s call to us is not to strive to be God, a goal that is in any event unattainable for us. God’s call to us is not to strive to overcome our humanity and all the limitations that inhere in it. Any attempt to do that is bound to fail, often with disastrous consequences, as the story of Adam and Eve teaches. Rather, God’s call to us, what God wants for us, is that we become fully and authentically human. God wants us to grow into our full human potential. Our Bible stories this morning teach us that that goal is sufficient for us. Reaching for that goal is precisely the task that God sets before us.

Which of course immediately raises the question of what it means to be fully and authentically human. What does full, authentic humanity look like? For us Christians that one’s easy. It looks like Jesus. The Christian tradition as so over-emphasized Jesus’ divinity for so long that it has often lost sight of the other side of who he was. He was for us God Incarnate to be sure, God become human. But he was precisely God become human. He shows us what God is like, but he also shows us what being human is like, what it is like, that is, when it is authentic and fully realized. He shows us that full, authentic humanity is life lived not for the self but for others, especially for the poor, the marginalized, and the oppressed. It is a life of compassion not judgment. It is a life of peace not violence. It is life that knows that there are things more important than life and that life, however we live it, does not last forever, which is all the more reason why we must live it properly. It is life that knows that there are things worth dying for, things like justice, peace, and mercy. It is life that says to God, as Jesus did in the Garden of Gethsemane, not my will but yours be done. All that is true human life. That is the authentic humanity to which we are called.

So in this season of Lent, as we prepare for the tragedy of Good Friday and the joy of Easter, let us commit ourselves to striving to become fully and authentically human. We won’t do it perfectly. Only Jesus did that, but he is our model. He is God’s model that God calls us to imitate. It’s not easy. It can get you killed. It got Jesus killed, but then as we have already seen, only God is immortal. We are human, so let’s get on with being as fully and authentically human as we can. With the grace of God we can do it. Amen.