A Likely Story

Text: Luke 4:1-13

We are forgetful and easily distracted creatures. For this reason, we tell ourselves stories. Old family stories. Stories about growing up, falling in and out of love. About school and career. We tell stories around the dinner table, passing them on from one generation to the next. We tell them in courtship. These stories remind us who we are. We need these daily reminders so that we remain complete.

We tell stories in church through scripture, through the Bible. These stories remind us who we are with God. That we are creations of God, children of God, and God’s people, and brother and sister of God in Jesus. Oddly enough, we find this big story about us and God easy to forget.

We are not the first to do this. People in the Bible have to tell each other the story of God all the time. In the first reading today, from Deuteronomy, the people are reminded to give back to God the first part of what has been given to them. As they do so, and by way of explaining why they do so, they retell the central story of how God freed them—not they, themselves, but their ancestors—how God freed them from Egypt and led them into a land of their own where they now live.

The apostle Paul weaves into this story of the Exodus the story of Jesus Christ. “There is no distinction between Jew and Greek,” Paul writes. Gentiles, pagans, become, through God’s gracious invitation, part of the story, and the whole story becomes for all of us. The season of Lent is a time to reflect on whether we feel like we fit into this big story, whether we feel like it really is our story, and if so, finding a way of being, a way of living, that makes sense in light of this story.

Part of our story—the story of Christians—is the story of Jesus as told by the Gospel writers. Today we hear from Luke about the very beginning of the public life of Jesus. Though oddly in this story there are no witnesses, so it is a private story of Jesus’ which we are privileged to observe.

If you look in your Bibles you’ll see that these verses in Luke are labeled “The Temptation of Jesus.” As you know, these labels are not part of the Bible but are added by the modern editors for our guidance. Sometimes they are imperfect guides, as in this case. Jesus is not tempted as someone on a diet might be to have one of Dan Wyneken’s killer brownies at coffee hour. It is not like Jesus is longing for something wicked that he can and should not have. For this reason, some Bibles call this “The Test of Jesus.” But it might be better to think of these temptations or tests by the devil as offers. The devil wishes to seduce Jesus into doing things which seem, on the face of it, to be well-aligned with Jesus’ ministry.

People go hungry. They pray for daily bread. It would be great if Jesus could turn stones, of which there are many, into bread, of which there is too little.

People suffer from injustice. They pray for an end to oppression and exploitation at the hands of indifferent or brutal political leaders. It would be great if Jesus could claim his authority over all the kingdoms so that they would become as God’s kingdom.

People are defrauded by their spiritual leaders. They pray for good and faithful teachers. It would be great if Jesus could restore truth and compassion in those who guide us.

The devil’s offer is simple and reasonable. Sensible. At the most, it requires a little compromise. When Jesus turns down the offer, therefore, he does not argue it on its merits. He does not discuss the wisdom of turning some stones into bread, or the efficacy of taking over all the nations. He instead quotes and interprets scripture. He relies on the story of God and people. He remains true to the story. The devil’s offer is a perversion of it.

Aligning oneself with the story of God and people is a kind of obedience. The test is not whether Jesus will seize power but rather whether the devil can convince him to violate the story and thus destroy it. There is much at stake here.

Obedience is a foreign-sounding word to most of us. But the obedience of Jesus here is not about domination and acquiescence. It is not about being lawful. It is not about being a good person. It is about embracing the story of God as we understand it and about not being so pleased about writing our own.

We who follow Christ have made a decision to go along with the story we have inherited. To be obedient. That is one of the things we mean when we say we believe the story. We agree that we can and will make the story our own. That we trust that it can be a pretty good guide for us. This does not mean, of course, that we are always able to follow the guidance.

Sometimes the offers of the devil are convincing. We cause suffering, or let people suffer because of our inaction, for example. We torture, or wage war. We consider our claims superior to others. In cases like these, then, we tell ourselves another, alternative, story. A story which is often more compelling and convincing; that is why we go ahead. Expediency, safety, lesser evils, practicality. Stories like these. But these are not the same story as that of a loving God revealed in good creation and through Jesus Christ. They do not align with that story.

There are lots of reasons why we might not do what God asks of us. Are they good reasons? Sometimes they seem to be; sometimes we know they are not. We are given a chance to obey God and to follow Jesus’ teachings or not to. It is not easy to do that—to follow Jesus—it is not always safe to do that, it is not always sensible to do that. We ask ourselves: is it worth it? If I do what I understand Jesus is asking me to do, will the world be better? Will the kingdom of God be more likely? Do I believe what I understand God to be saying to me?

The story of God and people is good news. God makes, forgives, provides for, and loves us. And even lives with us. But for some reason that does not completely make it appealing.

Partly that is because God asks us to do also what God has already done for us: be compassionate, generous, forgiving. Not easy. Partly because we are fearful. Partly because it seems so outrageous that God might love all of us and that we are called to do the same.

So, we are tempted to ignore the story. Make it something for other people in a different time or under different circumstances. Or to discount it, to understand both its promise and its demands more softly.

In the time of Lent, especially, we take it upon ourselves to reflect critically on the story that we, humanity on this earth, and that we, each human, are living and how it fits story of God that we know. To consider how the two stories match up. To ask ourselves: Who are we? How are we doing?