Shopping Hungry

Lent 1A: Gen. 2:15-17; 3:1-7; Matt. 4:1-11; St. Paul’s, 3/8/2017

Jim Melnyk: “Shopping Hungry”

Have you ever gone grocery shopping when you were hungry?  Not just, “I could use a snack,” hungry – but “I could use a full-course dinner and dessert,” hungry?  It’s not easy, is it?  Everything looks good to us at that point – even stuff we would normally never consider buying, let alone eating, seems to reach out to us – and perhaps even finds a way into our shopping cart.  It doesn’t pay to shop hungry.

That’s Jesus after forty days of fasting in the wilderness.  I get the feeling that just about anything would be look or sound good by the time we reach today’s point in the story.  It makes sense that Tempter would show up when Jesus is physically, and perhaps emotionally, at his weakest – Matthew tells us he is famished.  Having heard the voice of God at his baptism, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” one has to wonder if Jesus expected to then be led out into the wilderness for a forty day fast capped by a face-to-face meeting with a powerful adversary.  The Spirit of God can surprise us that way.

Theologian Verna Dozier wrote, “The most important thing about Jesus’ baptism is that by it his mission is set.  He is to show the world what it means to live in the kingdom of his father, to live out God’s dream” (The Dream of God: A Call to Return, p 131).  Last week we spoke about how we are invited to not only live within that dream, but to participate in its coming reality.  You may recall Verna Dozier’s take on what our response to God should look like.  She put it this way: We are called to be “[citizens] of the kingdom of God in a new way, the daring, free, accepting, compassionate way Jesus modeled… being bound by no yesterday, fearing no tomorrow, drawing no lines between friend and foe, the acceptable ones and the outcasts” (ibid p 139).

It would seem that Jesus’ bout with temptation is a serious necessity as he comes to grips with his call to help usher in the kingdom of heaven.  Throughout his ministry Jesus will be constantly tested – will be constantly challenged – either to forgo his calling or to twist it in ways that benefit himself, or a select few, rather than all people for all time.

It makes sense that Matthew places a bookend at the early pages of his gospel – that first bookend being the temptation Jesus faces to shortcut his way to a kingdom.  Each of the three tests are designed to seem like easier, more plausible pathways to take as Jesus wrestles with what it means to be faithful to God and to God’s dream for creation. 

Jesus – you have the power to do good – just say the word.  You can feed yourself by making bread from these stones – strengthen yourself – and then you can feed a world.  Jesus will indeed go on to feed the hungry – but to feed them both body and soul.  Verna Dozier notes how his motivation at moments like the feeding of the multitudes had nothing to do with self-preservation.  Rather, “his motivation was compassion, [and his willingness to identify] with their suffering” (ibid, p 132).  Jesus knows what it means to hunger.

Jesus – throw yourself from the pinnacle of the temple – show the world who you are!  Force the hand of the Divine!  Prove yourself to be the Holy One of God!  What an incredible temptation for the One who, as the author of Philippians puts it, “though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross” (Phi. 2:6-8). 

Have you ever wondered if there was any kind of a deeply felt ache somewhere within the all-too-human Jesus – perhaps a faint memory that it wasn’t always like this – as he stands dirty, hungry, and exhausted before his adversary?

And finally there’s the challenge to have it all now – to just get on with it all and get it done.  Jesus – just bow down to me and I will give you all the nations of this world.  Think of all the good you could do right now – just give up your pipe dream of God’s kingdom – it can be all yours. Now.  Just say the word. 

Oh, Lord, I’m willing to bet we can all understand such temptation.  We hunger for meaning in our lives.  We hunger to be seen, we hunger to be heard, we hunger to be taken seriously.  All of this can be seen in the hunger the woman and the man show in the Garden – wanting more.  Most of us hunger for some sense of personal power – to have some say in how our lives get lived out in the world around us.  When we’re at our best, the power we desire is a power we would carry out in concert with our fellow human beings – power with one another – a healthy sense of interdependence.  That kind of power, when it comes from God, is part of the dream of God – sharing with one another an authority that comes from God and leads others into God’s dream.

But of course, there are some folks who hunger for power over others rather than power with others.  That is not the dream of God for us, or for the world – power for power’s sake – power used to exclude – power used to negate personal dignity – power used to elevate self over all others.  The final temptation faced by Jesus this day is to yank the kingdom of heaven from the God who not only dreams it into realty, but who sustains it.  By the end of Matthew’s gospel we’ll see the second bookend put in place by the author – the one that finally balances out the temptations in the wilderness.  Having been faithful to God’s dream throughout his ministry, even to the point of death on the cross, the risen Jesus comes into his own – that which was truly his from the foundation of time.

Matthew will tell us how after the resurrection “the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age’” (Matt. 28:16-20).

Again, Verna Dozier wrote, “I think Jesus left his temptation experience with his mind made up as to the way he would go, a way that would bring him into direct confrontation with the kingdoms of the world” (Dream of God, p 136).  He would surround himself with followers who would wrestle with his call – who would wrestle with his vison of the dream of God – with his vision of the kingdom of heaven.  Jesus would tell stories – he would offer riddles about the coming kingdom – he would jut out his chin and challenge the authorities – always in the end asking his listeners, “And what would you do?” (ibid, 137).

Jesus would go on to tell us that we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world.  He would call us both disciples and friends.  He would tell us that we have the ability to love one another graciously, and to forgive one another when we fail.   And Jesus feeds us even today with his own body and blood whenever we gather together at this holy table; so we will never have to find ourselves shopping while we’re hungry.

“The world is not [yet] as God would have it be.  The kingdoms of this world are not yet the kingdom of [our] God,” but the promise is still alive (ibid, p 139).  Jesus would have us dare to dream the dream of God – Jesus would have us dare to dream the wonder of a kingdom where every human being – where every living thing – counts as a sacred reminder of God’s love.