I have some friends who told me once that in their basement they have a room full of provisions – stocked floor to ceiling with cases of bottled water, cartons of canned and dried food. It all started because of Y2K. Back in the year 1999 when we all wondered if the computers that run everything would make it through the millennium safely. And if they didn’t it would be Armageddon, for sure. The computers were okay, it turned out, nothing terrible happened. But since that time, there have been other reasons to stockpile. There is always, it seems, a reason to stockpile things. But you have to maintain it, replenishing as necessary, with new items as the older ones pass their expiration date. The old ones then get tossed in the trash.
I thought of that recently when I was talking with another friend about her parents. Some time ago, they built their dream house. They built it in the perfect location, a quiet place on the water. They outfitted it with all the things that make them happy – a room for her art, a room for his model-building, a state-of-the-art kitchen, a garden, and more. It is beautiful and comfortable. But unfortunately, my friend told me, her parents are not content. They find themselves worrying way too much. It is a lot to take care of, and a lot to worry about. A storm could destroy everything. Burglars could break in and take their valuables. My friend wishes her parents lived in a place that didn’t have so many wonderful things to be worrying about.
How does that happen, that we get to the point where we are practically enslaved by our stuff? Well, it starts out with a real need. We all need to eat, we need shelter, a sense of security.
But sometimes our real needs get corrupted and grow like a cancer, into something that is neither good nor healthy. Our need for nourishment can become a need to hoard food, waste food, or overeat. Our need for security can become grossly oversized because all we can think of is how someone or something might harm us – or our stuff, which for most of us is an extension of ourselves.
And then there is our need for agency, that is, to have some control over our own lives. This can grow and extend far beyond the boundaries of our own bodies or homes. It can become a craving, not only for power over ourselves but over others.
How does it happen? It starts out as something seemingly benign, even something good. But then it grows into something harmful – to ourselves and others – something evil. And every one of us is vulnerable to the temptations that lead us into evil.
Jesus was too. He had just been baptized by John in the Jordan river – a baptism of repentance, John was clear – and then the Spirit alighted on him. The voice of God was heard saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” No sooner had all this occurred, but that same Spirit of God sent him out into the wilderness to be tempted by evil. The devil, our Bible says. Satan, as he is also called. Satan is a Hebrew word that means adversary, for the devil is God’s adversary. Satan is the enemy of the good, the opposite of love.
Jesus is sent out to the wilderness, freshly baptized, ready to make a new start. But this will be a test of his readiness. He will fast, go without any food, for forty days. He will be alone, without companionship, for forty days. He will be in the wilderness, without security. This was Jesus’ Lent, his preparation for what would lie ahead.
At the end of the forty days Satan came to him. You see, by this time the rosy glow of baptism would have worn off. Whatever optimism he felt when he started out for the wilderness, he would have lost by now. Forty days of hunger and solitude, insecurity and powerlessness, would have left him in a pretty vulnerable place.
I say this because Jesus was human, like us, and we know very well our own human frailties and limitations. We know what hunger can do to us, even a little bit of hunger. Just imagine the hunger that comes from going without food for weeks.
We know what loneliness can do to us, too; what a lack of security and control can do to us. These things can change us.
And it is a moment like this when the temptations of evil can draw us in. Satan seized the moment and made an offer. “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.”
Jesus responds by quoting scripture to the tempter. One does not live by bread alone, but by the word of God. Not easy to say, after fasting for 40 days and nights. He might have easily relieved his suffering, but he declined to do so. There was purpose in this suffering.
The tempter continued with his taunts, and he upped the ante by throwing scripture back at Jesus. You see, he might have said, even the Devil can play that game. He took him to the top of the temple and said, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up.’”
But Jesus made a decision that he wasn’t going to live like that. Again, he declined the offer.
So, in a final act, the tempter takes him to a high mountain and offers to give him all power and glory if only he will worship him. “That’s enough,” Jesus says to him. Be gone.
And that’s it. At least for now. The time will come again for Jesus to face off against evil, but for now he is done. And he has won.
Jesus resisted evil. He did it by leaning on the teachings of scripture. When Satan confronted him with lies, he confronted Satan with the truth of God’s grace and love. The only way to resist evil, for any of us.
What are some of the lies we fall prey to? Perhaps it is the lie that says you are unlovable and the only way to fill up that gnawing, aching hole inside of you is to fill it with stuff – more food, more toys, more substances that will give short-term satisfaction, but will ultimately hurt you.
Perhaps it is the lie that says you are alone in this world. No one cares about you, you have only yourself to rely on. Then you need to fill that awful need by putting your self-interest first because everyone else is your enemy.
Perhaps it is the lie that says everyone else is doing it. That this is a dog-eat-dog world and if you want to get ahead, or just get along, you have to play the game like everyone else does. Lie, cheat, steal. Go for as much as you can get because, you can be sure, someone else is trying to get everything you’ve got.
But there is another way.
This week I heard a woman named Natalie speak about a project she has become involved in. It is called Nourish, in Los Angeles. It is a network of volunteers that go out and gather food. Restaurants and stores will call them and say, “We have food we can’t keep, and they go get it.
At the end of the week, all the volunteers come together to organize the food and pack it in bags. They take it to distribution sites all around the city. For anyone. No questions asked, if you want food, take it. There is more than enough.
That is the amazing thing: there is always more than enough.
Natalie said, “The world wants to trick you. The world wants to say, oh, you know, you’ve got to make sure that you’re taken care of before you can take care of others. The thing is, there are going to be times in your life that you’re going to need to lean on others and vice versa. I think it really is in the giving that you actually receive.”
It seems to me that Natalie has chosen the way of grace.
One of the very first things we do when we baptize someone is to renounce evil and affirm our reliance on God’s grace. It is grace that gives us a different way of viewing the world and all the choices we face. It is grace that allows us to choose the different way, and grace will carry us through each step of the way.
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Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash
