Sermon by The Very Rev Chris Yaw, 2/26/2023, Matthew 4: 1-11
Hi there everyone!
It is so great to see you!
My dear, dear friends, and I know you so well!
And you, of course, know me!
No, I am not the Oscar Mayer wiener...
But you've known me since before you can remember!
I'm, like, the first voice you heard when you popped into the world!
Anybody want to guess?
I ain't to proud to beg!
I'm not just your imagination!
Ok, I'll tell you, c'mon, Get ready!
Ya, it's me!
Temptation!
And I am so "at home" here in Motown!
How did I get here?
The Spirit led me here, of course!
But it's not like I've never *not been here - like I said, you've known me since you can remember -
I taught you your first word, whispered it into your little ear, remember that word?
"No!"
"Have a bite of apple sauce!"
'No!"
"Share your cookie with your sister!"
"No!"
"Please aim, wipe, and flush!"
"No!"
Of course, I also taught you that other word:
Yeah! ...which you didn't have to say out loud...
Remember when I whispered in your ear:
"You know better than your parents!"
Yes!
"They're just trying to control you!"
"Yes!"
"You don't need anybody in this world but yourself."
"Yes!"
As you grew up, and got more sophisticated, so did I!
And I whispered these words into your mind:
"You don't have to study, just sit next to Judy and take a peek at her answers!"
"Just take one hit of this, everybody's doing it, it feels great, and you're young, it won't hurt you!"
"You can drive home, you haven't had THAT much, besides, you don't want your parents to know you've over-indulged, they'd be crushed!"
Then, when you got to be an adult, I told you these words:
"Oh, you can take that home from the office, they don't pay you enough anyway, and besides, who's going to notice?"
"Go ahead and buy it! You deserve it! And besides, a lot of people have way more than 3 maxed-out credit cards!"
"Don't give that bum a dollar, you know he's only going to spend it on drugs!"
Of course, me, temptation, I don't just work on my own, I get a lot of help from my friend here.
His name is Biology.
For hundreds and thousands of years he's been at work in you.
When your ancient ancestors roamed the earth, their life expectancy was very low - 20's maybe 30's, if you're lucky. This was true for hundreds of generations!
And their biggest problem, unlike ours, was not obesity, but starvation.
So, when they found food, they ate it!
If they found something sweet, which meant energy, they gorged on it!
These folks specialized in "short-term-ism" - life is too short, you better enjoy it right now!
and this developed into a biology that's still around today - when times have changed drastically!
Stanford University says that half of today's American 5-year-olds will live to 100 - and this, living to 100, will be the norm for the U.S. by 2050. Of course, this was not the case for our ancestors.
And Biology, here, is taking much longer to catch up.
He is why we still tend to put way too much emphasis on right now and not enough emphasis on later.
Yes, you can blame him for that urge to scarf down six cookies instead of 2-
To go out and lease an extravagant car today, instead of fully funding your retirement IRA.
And for ignoring your spouse's advice to go get regular check-ups - because Biology here has us wired into "short-term-ism "
Short-term-ism has got us so worried about dying in plane crashes or from Ebola - that we stress eat on french fries and chain-smoke cigarettes that are way more likely to lead to cancer and heart disease down the road - and are far more likely to kill us.
So, between Biology and me you've got a lot of chatter coming across your radio waves
Yes, that's our job.
To tempt you.
To entice you.
To trap you.
We do it, and we do it well.
But that's where our job ends, we just talk-
You are the ones who Do!
We don't sin.
You do.
Don't fall for old Flip Wilson's line, "The Devil made me do it!"
You do it.
It's just our job to make a few suggestions...
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So, friends -
And I do mean friends, after all, "however frail we may feel in the face of it, temptation honors us with the assumption that we are free to choose - and that our choices are real and important.
Temptation is evidence of free will, of conscience and responsibility.
It involves painful conflict because God has created a desirable world in which our choices matter, our actions have consequences, and issues are worth struggling over.
It also testifies to our freedom.
Even what we call ’the fall' is proof of how real human freedom really is - For we can only really love God because we are also free to refuse God.
You ought to thank God for me!
Thank God for temptation." (David Runcorn)
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So, because I'm your friend I'm not going to leave here this morning without giving you three tips, three ways to deal with me.
Know who I am.
Know who you are,
Know what you're supposed to do.
Somewhere over the rainbow there's this place called Oz.
A little girl named Dorothy, a Scarecrow, a Tinman, and a Lion found it one day at the end of this long and windy yellow brick road.
They were looking for this man called The Wizard.
Now this Wizard had a big voice.
He had a loud voice.
He was feared, respected, and revered.
But it was soon discovered that that big voice was all he had.
In fact, he didn't even have that.
He just had a microphone.
The Wizard is Temptation.
All talk.
All bravado.
All lies.
And so, temptation is not your inevitable destiny.
Every person here has a story about some daunting habit, some unbreakable behavior, some unsolvable problem that confounded and conquered us at one point in our lives - but that somehow, some way, we got over it - God got us out of it, God set us free.
And if you and God can do it once, you and God can do it again.
I am not the one in charge.
You and God are.
At the very end of today's Gospel, we heard Jesus say, "Get away Devil!"
And that's what the Devil did - because that's who he is: someone who has to listen to you.
Know who I am.
Know who you are.
Know what you're supposed to do.
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When Jesus was tempted in today's Gospel it came right on the heels of another iconic event.
It was his baptism by John in the River Jordan, when a voice from heaven called out, "This is my son, my beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased!"
This is as descriptive of Jesus as it is of you.
I know that me and Biology here have got it ingrained in you otherwise - that you are weak little worms, paltry and pathetic - meaningless and minuscule - but see what happens when we get clarity...
...Jesus goes into the wilderness - what is this but a quiet place to pray - and he fasts, it doesn't say he starved, but he just got so caught up in God that feasting was not top of mind - and does prayer and fasting make us spiritually weak? No, it makes us spiritually strong!
It made Jesus strong enough to claim his rightful identity.
He did not waver or vacillate or beat around the bush, his preparation not his position, put temptation to flight!
It is our preparation that puts temptation to flight.
Jesus connected with who he was and whose he was.
That which was deepest inside of him came out!
We tend to think that Jesus beat the devil because he was God.
No, he beat the devil because, like you and me, he was human, had God inside of him - and by putting in place habits and practices, was able to lick him.
And you and I can do the same thing!
What are the habits and practices we are cultivating to ready us for our temptations?
Every magazine, TV show, conversation partner, book, and movie we give time to is sculpting our future self.
Want to know what you'll look like down the road what you'll value what will interest you what will take up your time? Look at what you're doing today. Today is just upstream from tomorrow.
Every habit, ritual, preference, and choice shapes and molds our future self.
Let us be wise as to who we are and who we can be and to how our present habits and behaviors are carving out who that person is and is becoming...
For God has given us tools to be victors over temptation - winners, conquerors, and kings over that which seeks to bring us down.
Know who I am.
Know who you are.
Know what you're supposed to do.
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Many of you have heard of the famous Protestant reformer Martin Luther - who, one night was lamenting with friends over dinner, the course of their ministry.
"Things aren't going so well!" said one monk.
"We're being persecuted like never before," said another.
"I'm not sure we're doing the right thing," said a third.
That's when Martin Luther's wife Katie left the dinner table and came back dressed all in in black, from head to toe.
The men looked up and asked her, "Why?"
She paused and said she thought, by listening to the conversation, that God had died, and they were going to a funeral.
God has not died, have confidence, that that which God has started, God will finish.
Our mission is clear: we are to be agents of hope.
Agents of reconciliation.
We are not to fall prey to temptation, but be aware, confident, and hopeful about where God is leading us. ... which is to be agents of love to a world in desperate need of this message.
I am Temptation, your friend:
Know who I am
Know who you are
Know what you're supposed to do.
And you will come to know God like never before.
Amen.