During Lent we journey with Jesus into the desert. The Gospel account tells us that "Jesus, full of the the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil." (Luke 4: 1 and 2a). We are told from this part of the Gospel narrative that the Holy Spirit was with Jesus as he was tempted. This is all very interesting. Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit and led by her. At no point was Jesus alone in what he faced. In Jesus, God sets for us a powerful example. It is a reminder that God is with us in our darkest times. When life challenges us and we find ourselves face to face with evil, we can trust in God to help us and deliver us. Even if we are so unfortunate to fall, God is there with us to raise us up again.
In Kate Moorehead's Lenten book: Get Over Yourself; God's Here! she has an entry for Wednesday of the first week of Lent about "Resisting Bible Bullets." The entry is so good, I have to include it in today's blog.
"In his final effort to tempt Jesus in the wilderness, the devil quotes Scripture. I have found it quite remarkable that the enemy of God would use Scripture to justify his purpose. If the devil is able to quote Scripture, the n we must not simply assume that all those who quote the Bible are in the right. We must think, interpret, listen, and evaluate. We must also pray.
Many Christians use Scripture as a weapon, firing verses at one another in discourse, as if to back oneself up with Scripture as the ultimate authority. I like to call these Bible Bullets. Often these Bible Bullets are taken out of their context. They do not always serve their purpose; they are not necessarily truth.
The Bible is the ultimate authority for Christians and for Jews, but not in a single verse. Unless read it its entirety and placed in its context, the Bible contradicts itself. I believe God inspired the Bible to be complex and multifaceted for a reason. It is not designed to be used as a weapon or to justify a point. God would not want it used in such a manner. It is meant to be engaged as we would engage in a very important relationship with someone whom we respect and love above all others.
The devil quotes Scripture with the belief that Jesus will destroy himself simply because a single verse of Scripture says so. But Jesus responds in the best way possible. He uses Scripture right back again. He defeats the devil in the language of the devil's own choosing." (Pages 32,33)
This is something that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people understand all too well. For far too long conservative Christians have used the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, Leviticus 18: 22 and 20: 13, Romans 1: 26-27, 1 Corinthians 6: 9-10 and 1 Timothy 1: 9-10 to condemn all homosexual relationships including loving, monogamous and committed ones. If we read the words of Kate Moorehead with a sense of understanding, we should come away with the perception that using Bible verses to blast any particular group of people into thinking they are less than loved and valued by God to justify denial of fundamentally equal and basic rights is an incorrect and uncharitable use of Sacred Scripture. Yet it is absolutely correct to remind others committed to Jesus Christ and the Gospel message of salvation, that in Christ God brought all into fellowship with God. Christ came to help all who felt lost and ostracized by society and the religious community to find their way into God's Community of Faith.
As we look at today's Gospel account of the temptation of Jesus a little more, we should hear what Out in Scripture has to say.
Ah, temptation. What would the season of Lent be without it? The word temptation conjures particular images in our culture. We have the cartoon character Sylvester the Cat with an angel on one shoulder and a little devil on the other. There’s Homer Simpson trying to ignore the nearby doughnut. Popular images of temptation share one thing in common: they emphasize individual choice regarding a single moment.While the temptation story in Luke 4:1-13 likewise depicts an individual choice on the part of Jesus, his choice involves not a single tasty morsel. Rather, Jesus’ temptation involves a broader discernment. It is the very question, "Who will Jesus be?" This is how Lent confronts us — it raises vocation as a pressing life concern.
As the gospel of Luke presents it, Jesus’ temptation poses how his messianic identity will relate to privilege and power. Will Jesus stage demonstrations of messianic power? Will Jesus seek glory and authority as ends in themselves? Will Jesus expect God to certify his identity through outrageous demonstrations? In short, will Jesus turn this messianic vocation toward self-aggrandizement?
Privilege and power can tempt. They pose primary challenges for communities of faith in the United States and Canada. Voices within the churches seek growth for its own sake and political influence as a sign of the church’s status. They often determine the church’s agenda by means of its struggle for influence. Yet consider Jesus’ message immediately following his temptation. In the Nazareth synagogue he reads Isaiah’s proclamation. Isaiah declares good news to those who are poor, release to those who are captive, recovery of sight to those who are blind, freedom for those who are oppressed. Jesus embraced the prophet’s vision as his own vocation. In him, the vision was fulfilled (Luke 4:16-20). This clarity about Jesus’ own calling empowered him to confront the temptation in the wilderness, and also offered strength for the ministry and challenges that would follow.
The Scripture commentary from the Human Rights Campaign also has some very thought provoking thoughts about the reading from Romans 12: 8b-13.
The apostle Paul also explores the connections between vocation and privilege in Romans 10:8b-13. Many congregations have experienced tension between their new wave and their old guard. In Greg Carey’s own denomination, the United Church of Christ, churches sometimes experience this temptation when they consider the prospect of becoming "Open and Affirming" to all persons, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. Some ask, out loud even, "Will we become a gay church?" Paul’s letter to the Romans apparently addresses how some Gentile believers, the new wave, came to look down upon the smaller number of Jewish Christians in their midst.
In the church, whose opinion rules? Who does God call? Who ascends to heaven and who descends into the abyss (verses 6-7)? Paul insists "there is no distinction." "All who call on" Christ will encounter Christ’s generosity; "all who call" come to salvation (verse 12). The church that follows Christ cannot use its vocation as an arm of privilege.
The passage also invites us to reflect on the interplay between the church’s vocation and the vocation of individuals who are called by God. How unfortunate it is that some churches use their power and privilege to deny the pastoral vocation of so many LGBT people. It’s a good thing that Jesus was not dissuaded from his vocation by a few scriptural proof-texts quoted by the devil (Luke 1:9-12). We long for the day when the church will not be such a devil’s advocate (literally!) in similarly using a few Scriptures out of context to perpetuate the wrong-headed idea that gifted and called LGBT people are unfit for ministry.
As LGBT people of Faith, we should use this time during Lent to pray and be active in helping the Church to become a more welcoming and affirming place for LGBT individuals. I myself and my partner are fortunate to be welcomed, affirmed and celebrated as a gay couple at St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Many readers of this blog are part of other congregations and faith traditions where they experience welcome, affirmation and celebration. But we might consider using this time to help ourselves move past our old temptations to listen to the "old tapes" that many of us have experienced from the religious right. We should ask God to help us remember that God does not see us as condemned people, but sees us as loved and cherished by God in Christ Jesus our Lord. We must also pray against the temptations that tell us to quite working for justice and equality because it is much too hard. We must also pray against the temptations to be only a voice for justice and equality for ourselves, and not for others such as the people of Uganda and Haiti and right in our own country. We should also be concerned about people affected by HIV/AIDS and other STD's, as well as cancer, heart disease, diabetes and many other illnesses. We should be advocates for the health care reform that is going on in our Congress. We should also be very concerned about all of those whom society and sometimes the Church kicks to curb as second class citizens.
We have an opportunity to take some lessons from Jesus and his struggle with evil and temptation. But we should also ask for the grace to accept the challenge of facing the evils of our time with the same grace that Jesus fought with when he was tempted. Like Jesus, we should never make excuses or exceptions for being who we are. We must always be willing to serve those most in need, but we should also spend some time alone with God so that God can meet us at the point of our need. The challenge of the temptation of Christ is to recognize that in Jesus is the very face of God. In his temptations, Christ focuses himself on God and challenges us to do the same.
Almighty God, whose blessed Son was led by the Spirit to be tempted by Satan: Come quickly to help us who are assaulted by many temptations; and, as you know the weaknesses of each of us, let each one find you mighty to save; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (Collect for the First Sunday of Lent, BCP, Page 218).
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