Sunday, March 05, 2017

March 5, 2017 - The Temptation to Mastery

Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7; Matthew 4:1-11

So, clearly, on this first Sunday in Lent, as we begin the forty days of self-reflection that is our journey towards the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ on Easter, the theme of this Sunday is “temptation.” And when we hear about the Spirit driving Jesus into the wilderness to face the devil, and when we hear about God setting up the perfect Garden of Eden with a tree in it that God then tells Adam and Eve not to eat from, one of the questions that tends to arise is whether God is deliberately exposing us to temptation, and for what reason.

For example, if we look at Genesis, the traditional interpretation has been that the snake in the Garden is the devil, infiltrating Paradise in order to steal the first humans away from God. But nowhere in the Biblical text does it actually say that. In fact, it says that the serpent was “more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made,” meaning that the serpent was among the wild animals that God had made. The serpent was not the Devil, but one of God’s own creatures. So, the question arises, why would God a) put a Tree in the garden that was deadly to Adam and Eve, b) point out the tree to Adam and tell him not to eat from it, and c) create an animal that would hang out with Adam and Eve and try to trip them up? Is God trying to set up Adam and Eve to give in to temptation? Why would God do that? What kind of God is this?

Similar questions arise when we hear the story of Jesus in the desert, in the Gospel of Matthew. The Scripture we hear begins very explicitly, “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” Now why on earth would the Holy Spirit do that? Why would the Holy Spirit deliberately expose Jesus to temptation? Is God sadistic? Is God indifferent to our struggle? Is God heartless? Obviously we don’t really think that God is any of these things, and yet we have questions.

Well, to explore this tension between God allowing us to face temptation, or even setting us up and drawing us into a “time of trial,” as we say in the Lord’s Prayer, and believing that God does actually care for us, we need to go a little further into what temptation actually is. What is it that we are tempted to do? What is this temptation that carries such devastating consequences if we give in to it?
Well, an important thing to understand about the Garden of Eden story is that when the serpent is inviting Eve and Adam (whom, you may have noticed, is there for the whole thing, he just doesn’t say anything) to eat from the tree, the serpent is setting it up as a choice between knowing everything or submitting to God’s command. That’s what’s meant by the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The phrase, Knowledge of Good and Evil is similar to our phrase from “A to Z.” It means knowing everything there is to know and so the tree of the knowledge of good and evil means the tree of knowledge of absolutely everything. And since knowledge is power, the tree of knowledge is really the tree of power over everything. And so another way of looking at this story is that the serpent sets up a choice between humans having power over their world––mastering it––or being vulnerable to it. The serpent takes advantage of the reality that humans are not actually in charge––God is––and encourages Eve and Adam to “be like God.” To be the ones in control.

And we see this in the story of Jesus in the desert, too. Three times, the devil tempts Jesus to take control of his surroundings and his life. He tempts Jesus to change rocks into bread, to defy gravity, and to take power that he has not yet been given. All of these are various signs of mastering one’s world––feeding oneself from nothing and therefore not having to rely on the natural cycles of food production in nature, mastering the basic rules of physics and not having to submit to gravity or time (not that the writer of Matthew knew about any of these things, but we can certainly understand it this way), and being the one in charge of not only ourselves but everyone around us.

This is the temptation we are constantly exposed to in our lives. The temptation to be in charge. To do it ourselves. Little kids do this all the time––“I want to do it MYSELF!” They want to be the ones in charge, to decide what and when and how things happen. And this doesn’t get better as we get older. We want to decide what happens in our lives. We want to be in control. And, when we are confronted with a lack of control––through unexpected illness, or inevitable decline, or decisions made without our permission––we get angry. We try to take back control. We give in to the temptation of wanting to know everything so that we can be in control, of wanting to eat from the Tree of total knowledge. When things become very clearly out of our control, the temptation is to want to wrest back that control. To be like God. To master the situation.

But why is this so bad? Why is it so bad to want to be the masters of our own world and life? Why is it so bad to want to be the one in control of our relationships, with one another and with God? To want to be God by knowing everything and exerting complete power over it all?

Well, first of all, because we can’t. We don’t have that capacity. We are simply incapable of seeing all the consequences of our decisions or foreseeing the ways in which our actions might actually damage those around us. I don’t need to explain all of the ways in which we hurt ourselves, and others, and the world, when we try to arrange things to protect ourselves. We’ve all made decisions that unintentionally hurt others. We can’t get around that.

But there’s a more compelling reason that God encourages us to turn away from the desire for complete mastery. And that is because it is in vulnerability––the complete opposite of mastery––that we truly grow and mature and become like God. The Tree of Knowledge made Adam and Eve aware that they were naked. That they were vulnerable. This story isn’t about them being ashamed because of their nakedness––God created our bodies and called them “very good.” Our bodies are nothing to be ashamed of. This story is about them being ashamed of their vulnerability, of their awareness that they don’t have the power they think they need, of what they perceive as weakness. Their knowledge became a curse when they react to this vulnerability by attempting to protect themselves from it. By hiding, by blaming one another, by trying to cover up their vulnerability and deny it and get rid of it. This is how Eve and Adam react to that knowledge. They hide from God. Adam blames Eve for getting him into trouble. Eve blames the snake. They do all the things we do when we become aware of our own vulnerability.

But the knowledge of our vulnerability becomes a blessing to us when we remember that God’s deepest strength comes not from controlling and mastering the universe, or us, but from being vulnerable to us. This is what we see in Christ, and in the story of Holy Week––in Christ’s voluntary journey to the cross, to death at the hands of those whom he loves. In the story of Holy Week we see that choosing vulnerability to those around us is what brings about new life. Not just for Christ, but for those whom he loves. When we choose to be vulnerable––to others, to the world, and to God––the consequence is life. For them, and subsequently for us. It feels risky, to be sure, because it usually means our own death, but we know that after death is true life. This is why God made God’s self vulnerable to us in giving us God’s own Son. So that we might truly understand that God’s truest essence is shown in being open and vulnerable to us.

The temptation of the Garden of Eden, and of Jesus in the wilderness, and of our daily lives, lies in trying to reclaim being made in the image of God––to be like God––by controlling and mastering our lives and those around us. But it is the opposite that is true. To be like God, we must open ourselves in vulnerability to one another, to the world, and to God. Just as God is vulnerable to us.
So why does God allow us to face the temptation of mastery versus vulnerability? Or even deliberately expose us to it? Because, as I said, God has decided to be vulnerable to us. God could remove this temptation from us––God could isolate us in a bubble where there is no temptation to power, God could have created a Garden with no Tree in it, and could have controlled every single aspect of our environment so that we would never have the opportunity to transgress. God could have directed the Holy Spirit to keep Jesus away from the desert, not lead him straight to it. God could have acted as the complete and total master of our lives, and not have had to send God’s own Son to show us the way by dying for us. But that would be counter to who God is, and to who God wants us to be. Without the constant process of being faced with temptation, of giving in to it, of suffering the consequences of that decision, of learning and resisting, and choosing vulnerability instead of mastery––without all of that process of growth and maturity––without choice, we would not grow. We would be slaves, not children, of God. I believe that God does, in fact, want us to become adults, as it were. God is not interested in having a bunch of perpetual children running around Creation. If that were the case, God would not have created us with curiosity or intelligence or a desire for justice. But God did, and God wants us to grow into the fullness of what God has created us to be, similar to the way in which parents want their children to grow into mature adults. God created us in the image of God, and God wants us to grow into that image.


In these forty days of Lent, as we strive to become aware of the times in life when we are tempted towards mastery instead of vulnerability, there is one last thing to remember, and that is that God is with us in all of this temptation, and stays with us no matter our choice. God remained in the garden with Adam and Eve, and then accompanied them out of the garden when it didn’t work out. And the Spirit of God went with Jesus into the wilderness as he faced the temptations of the devil and enabled him to resist. It is the Holy Spirit that gives us the strength to resist temptation, to choose instead to be vulnerable, and to follow Christ on the path to Easter.  And so we say, thanks be to God. Amen.

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