TEMPTED TO BE
A Sermon by the Rev. Dr. Jack E. Skiles

March 1, 2009

Genesis 9:8-17 and Mark 1:9-15

Last Wednesday evening a group of us gathered here in the sanctuary. I hesitate to say that we came and celebrated the beginning of Lent with our traditional Ash Wednesday service. One does not really celebrate Lent.

In our most traditionally liturgical churches there is not during Lent any music, hymns or anthems that include the use of any joyful sounds like the word, alleluia. It is a somber time that in the northern hemisphere that matches our feeling about the closing month of winter weather.

After the service on Wednesday our brilliant and talented organist, Ed Penhorwood and I were discussing whether or not God would hold us responsible for the sins of our youth. Ed and I seemed to believe between the two of us that we had plenty of things to be worried about.

It brought to my mind a story that Garrison Keillor told some years ago when he and his brother were trying to move two big old pigs that were happily resting in the mud. They needed them to move to a pen. Garrison and his brother picked up rocks and started pelting the pigs to get them up and moving rather than wading into the muck and the mire that the pigs were resting in.

Garrison's father came up behind them and sharply reprimanded the boys for their cruel behavior and told them in no uncertain terms that hogs were not a sport like baseball.

You know how we were as kids. Garrison said that a week later that his dad and two neighbors' killed both of those hogs butchered them and cured the meat. Garrison reflected that as boy, he said, "I couldn't really understand why my father got so upset about us tossing rocks at a couple of pigs that he was just going to kill anyway. Which was worse?" He said that he was grown before he could realize what his father's great purpose was. He said he could remember that on butchering day all the participants were very somber faced and serious as they went about the task of killing and butchering. Killing the hogs was a ritual that revolved around having food for the long winter months ahead. Killing for food, Garrison said, he grew to appreciate the ritual of it over against the reality that he and his brother were just being lazy and mean throwing rocks at the pigs. It was a world of difference. All of us at one level, at one time or anther sometimes engage even serious things as though they were a game or a sport.

This week's lectionary Scripture text is about temptation. If we can't relate to Garrison's story directly, there is not a one of us here that doesn't know temptation. All of us probably remember reading or hearing someone quotes Oscar Wilde: "I can resist anything but temptation." Most of us have tales to tell of doing something, or being tempted to do something that we most probably didn't have to do and then in fun said, "The Devil made me do it."

Some of us here probably have succumbed to the temptation on any number of recent bitter winter mornings simply shutting off the alarm and giving in to the temptation of just a few more minutes, some of which might have extended to a few more hours In the sack. There is always the old stand by temptation that restaurants build into the equation. After eating a great meal they bring by the dessert tray or cart and we give in to the temptation of saying, "Well this time. It is so tempting."

It is great fun to talk about the temptations that stay at these levels. But, you know as well as I that in real life temptation doesn't stop there. We are in a University town, so we can talk, can't we? Someone gets invited to New York for a concert, an extra ticket becomes available. It means leaving Bloomington on Thursday and not getting back until Tuesday. Several classes will need to be missed. What does one say to get out of that many classes? Oh, my grandmother is having surgery, my favorite grandmother. No one is going to get excused for a concert. On Tuesday the student gets back to class and the first professor says, "How is your grandmother?" The student says, "My what? Oh, yes, my grandmother is doing fine, thank you."

I'll say this now, will the situations in life like this get any easier, or will it just take bigger and better lies?

"Yes, Mrs. Smith," the man says. "I'll be over there first thing on Monday to fix your plumbing. I know it's frozen up, but I can't get there now. I'll be there first thing Monday morning. Yes ma'am."

When he gets off the phone his wife says,"I thought you were going deer hunting on Monday." " We are." "Then why did you tell her..?" " It will hold her off for the weekend and I'll think of something on Tuesday."

There is an old Arabic tale about not letting the nose of your camel ever to get inside of your tent. Giving into temptations grows easier. The test at school is important; it's the biggest exam of the semester, worth nearly one half the grade. I'll put the main formulas or the material on a sheet of paper in my pocket. I've not decided to cheat yet. But the whole time I'm taking that exam I'm focused on the paper in my pocket. Shall get out the paper? There's a big difference between the C I probably deserve and the A my GPA could surely use. The temptation is not just about throwing rocks at pigs anymore. It is a little more serious.

The man gets his check on Friday afternoon and he stops and gets it cashed. He knows he wants to get home with it and pay some bills and get groceries. But, he passes the casino on the way home and he tells himself, if I get lucky just once I can double up on this pay check. He walks back and forth out in the casino parking lot. It's just not throwing rocks anymore.

There are hundreds of moral, ethical moments in our daily lives and how often do we hear ourselves say, "Who's going to know anyway?" or "I'll do better next time." I know people who would never even entertain the thought of snatching an elderly ladies purse but who do not mind at all fudging on their income taxes with far greater amounts of money at stake. No face, no name, whom will it hurt? We're not throwing rocks anymore.

Most of us would say, "Come on preacher, this is by and large the easy stuff. We've got most of our rationalizations for this stuff firmly in place. So if we've been up to this point in the shallow end of the pool, I invite you to wade in a little deeper with me.

Jesus is tempted. Fred Craddock, as he deals with this text, tells us that we have to be careful when we ponder the temptation of Jesus not to make into cartoon that has Jesus in one frame and the devil in another with a pitchfork and a long red tale. That is a cartoon scenario. Jesus, the Scriptures imply, was seriously tempted after his baptism. Even someone like me, weak as I am, if I see the devil coming and I know it is the devil, I'd say, "Here comes the devil! Give me your best shot, I can handle it." My problem is not the easily identified evil that I have to choose or not choose. It is when I have to ponder a situation where what is best is not always so easily identified that my life gets sticky. "If I were to draw a picture of Jesus' temptation," says, Craddock, "all we would be able to see is Jesus."

Please note when you read the story the next time, note that it was not the devil that drove Jesus to the wilderness, it was the Spirit of God. It is, it seems, in God's nature to push us, to pull us, to lure us to become more. I hope you don't let the reality that Jesus was tempted bother you. It is the reality that Jesus was fully human and that he suffered and that he got hungry and that he was tempted just like everyone that's a large part of what makes Jesus so darn special. He was hit by life just as we are and still he was able to show how to live fully and remain such a phenomenal example and witness to what God desires from all us. I'm afraid that Jesus was serious when he says later in Mark's gospel, "You who follow after me will do even greater things than I." That's another of those things that I wish J esus hadn't said.

Jesus was tempted as we are tested.. Temptation is not about our weaknesses, it is a measure of our strength. The stronger and more faithful to God we are, the more opportunities we have, the more influence we have, the farther up the chain of command we are, the greater will be our temptations. George Buttrick used to say, "You are not going to have a sea storm in a road side puddle." A small person has small temptations and challenges. With Jesus, what a storm!

For forty days the storm raged after his baptism. A lot of times it us not until we have decided a direction that the real pressures begin to build in our lives. We're not just talking throwing rocks at pigs here or whether to choose to eat chocolate during lent.

Jesus is approached in his temptation, in his test of whether or not he is going to fulfill what he said he was going to do. In afterthought, that is fair, isn't it? Temptation is not at its core in this story about being tempted to do something wrong. When Adam and Eve were in the garden, the voice of the tempter said, "Would you like to be as God is?"

The voice did not say, "Hey, would you like to be like me, the Devil? I've got a joint out in the car out back, I'm 420 friendly. Let's go be bad." The voice in the garden said, "Would you like to be like God?" What's wrong with that? Isn't that what we are called to seek to do, to be like God, Christ like?

Temptation in this story has nothing to do with those answers to the test that we have secured away in our pockets or with an ice cream fudge Sunday or with whether we need that hit that comes from a drink, or a joint or any other substance. Jesus' temptation was this: What am I really going to do with my life? Real temptation is when you do not know right from wrong. It is about asking, "God what do you want me to do with the skills and the gifts that I have been given and developed? God what do you want because I see a lot of options to go after?" This is the real temptation that matters. Jesus had never preached a sermon never healed anybody or taught a lesson in Hebrew school. He had not even started his ministry. So Jesus, what are you going to do with the rest of your life? Still wet behind his ears from his baptism, now he faces it.

My siblings and I took turns sitting with my father through the night in the hospital as he got sicker and closer to death. He was so much more relaxed when we were there. One night about three or so in the morning, my dad reached over and took my hand and said, "Jack, my life, my eighty years have gone by so fast."

I'm not throwing rocks at pigs. Some of you might not even be worrying about this. Sure enough when death comes some kind hearted minister can say a lot of good things on the occasion about the good things you've done and about your family and what you did for the community and all, but I am asking you this morning to please ask yourself right now, "What is my life anyway?" If you sum it all up does it add up to a life lived with humble integrity and that every thing you leave behind will continue to blossom forth that integrity? Have you lived like Jesus with generosity and compassion and care for those who need it most?

The wonderful thing about what Jesus left behind is that even if you or I have never even thought about it, it is not too late. And even if you or I have messed it all up, it is not too late to begin anew. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, still wet behind the ears from our baptisms. The temptation of Jesus is ours...to struggle with desires of God for our lives.

I don't know what your life should be but, I suspect you should be able to say in twenty-five words or less, "This is what my life is about, this is what God is calling me toward." It is a good Lenten spiritual practice.