If ever there were an argument for the existence of the devil, today’s gospel is it. Notice that the Spirit of God led Jesus into the wilderness, but his tempter was the devil. Not the Holy Spirit, who filled him. Not God, who called him beloved. But the adversary, which is perhaps a better translation of the Greek diabolos. As a spiritual discipline for Lent, let me invite you to leave aside the imagery of a the scary looking red guy with the horns and tail—that’s really not something Christians are required to believe in—and instead consider what or who functions as your adversary as you seek to live a faithful life.
What actually scares me about diabolos is not so much the projections we might make about a personified evil, but rather the risk we all face of taking on the characteristics of the adversary. We know that happens: we’ve seen that kind of wickedness on full display in the world these past two weeks, as the military power of Russia bears down on the people of the Ukraine. There were lots of tears in church last week—and lots of prayers for peace throughout the world—and friends, let’s keep crying and praying and advocating until God does deliver and save the people of Ukraine, as the Psalmist promises.
In recent days, it’s been tempting to say that we’ve seen the devil at work in the world. But I think the temptations of Jesus teach us not so much about a singular strongman, but about our human vulnerability to devilish behavior. I include myself in that. Consider the dynamics of Jesus’ temptations. He’s tempted first to exert control over material goods. To turn a stone into bread, which is frankly low-hanging fruit as temptations go. I confess that I certainly want to know where my next meal is coming from, and I do indeed want to control the what and the when of it. Which is OK: God wants us to eat—Lord knows Jesus is all about providing bread—but may I never forget that I am not the one who creates or controls it. That’s God’s job.
And should I forget that fundamental principle of gratitude—that God gives all material things—then I become more vulnerable to the second temptation of Jesus. That is, to exert control over people and politics. History is replete with the bitter fruit of this temptation. For example, in chattel slavery that supported the consolidation of productive land, and the politics that enforced the subjugation of black people. Our country still lives with the consequences of that sin.
Finally, and most devilishly, Jesus is asked to exert control over God’s very self. Who would by vulnerable to that temptation? Well, every tyrant who has claimed divine favor for their actions. The ones who demand God’s blessing on their control over consumption and politics. This doesn’t happen only in autocratic states—Lord knows we’ve seen some unholy mixing of religion and political power in our own country—but I am grateful for the democratic checks that our founding fathers put into place. They knew the tools of the adversary only too well.
The sum total of these temptations—to control consumption, to control people and politics, and to control God—functions to return us to a state of slavery. In both a political and also a personal and spiritual sense. And that’s what God wants us to resist: not our hunger pangs nor our desire for security and blessing, but the risk of becoming enslaved. Our first reading makes that plain. God actually wants people to dwell in peace and plenty; in a land flowing with milk and honey. So the first thing the Deuteronomist does is to counter the temptation to control all this material abundance. He acknowledges that everything is God’s: “I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O Lord, have given me.” To which God replies: “Celebrate!” But be sure to include the aliens among you. God’s provision is not for hoarding for ourselves or those we like best. And that’s the way the formerly enslaved people of the Exodus learn to be free.
God wants us to be free. On the most basic level, that’s our task every Lent. To remember that we are a people vulnerable to the adversary, and to practice saying no to all the choices along the slippery slope that would return us to the conditions of any kind of slavery. Which are all around us, and to which the church is no stranger. Last week I had a chance to catch up with my old friend Brendan Williams, who is an Episcopal monk. Yes, those actually exist. But before he became an Episcopal monk and priest, Brendan was a member of the American Orthodox Church, which is closely allied with Russian Orthodoxy. “I loved (and still love) the beauty of the tradition held by the Eastern Orthodox expressions of Catholic Christianity,” he wrote, “[but] I simply could not reconcile the utter dissonance and… hypocrisy that was so fully and constantly on display in the environment rife with toxic religious fundamentalism and reactionary politics.”
Brendan continued “In my own experience, there are many Orthodox Christians, both Russian and American, who would unabashedly celebrate such an aim, and think it a good for the world, a ‘victory for God’… Putin’s own rhetoric makes this abundantly clear. On some level, he sees himself as a kind of puritanical, pseudo-theocratic monarch.”
I refer to Brendan’s writings not to cast aspersions on the Russian or Orthodox Church—although, like all of us, they must be accountable to God for the temptations they have yielded to—but to remind us of the very human risks of temptation to power and control over that which belongs to God alone. Even, or perhaps especially, in the church. “Domination and control are precisely the opposite of what the authentic Gospel teaches,” observes Brendan from his humble monastic perspective. “Those who passively support atrocities in the name of religious doctrine, are lost in a dark, thorny thicket of self-obsession. I say this with genuine compassion for the millions of people trapped in this myopic and dangerous circumstance… I know how difficult the authentic spiritual journey is (in whatever context one might endeavor to live it).”
Brendan offers his own cautions against temptation: “Beware those who speak often of humility and claim Christ or the Saints as their own, yet are eager to condemn others, and to imagine and proclaim themselves as knowing or living the ‘one true way’.”
“Beware those who claim to uphold the spirit of the Gospel, and yet are eager to harm or even extinguish life when it suits their own selfish aims and delusions, or their political ideologies and ambitions.”
But Brendan offers his own word of hope. Or more precisely, he lives his hope. “It was largely in response to… this co-opting of the Church by the [Constantinian] system of political and military power, that monasticism was born in the Church.” Which he describes as “the preservation of a Christian path that could actually produce Saints, who, as self-emptied vessels carrying the work of Divine Wisdom into the world, might actually know how to love‘everyone without distinction’.”
You know what to do this Lent. You know to pray fervently, to give generously, and to say ‘no’ to the adversary and the temptations that would erode your freedom and create conditions of slavery for others. Do these things in solidarity with the people of Ukraine, do them in solidarity with other oppressed peoples whose God-given freedoms have been taken from them. Do them in order that you may be free. But let me invite you into another way of thinking about your Lenten vows. Why not let this be your monastic season? Why not carry Divine Wisdom into the world: why not love everyone without distinction, why not become a like monk for Lent?
As, Pastor Julia, this is so very lovely! Thank you for this reflection!
Thank you. This one came as a gift, which usually means it’s something I HAVE to preach.