The Temptations of Jesus

At the beginning of Chapter 4 of Luke's gospel we read the story of the three temptations that Jesus faced in the desert. All this took place after Jesus was baptised by John in the River Jordan. It was all part of the scene setting necessary before Jesus began his ministry which was to change the world. First we saw the baptism at which Jesus is affirmed by God as his son. Now we come to a scene in which Jesus starves himself for a period as part of a reflective period as he plans his work. Having no food inside him, Jesus really feels the temptation to take a shortcut to demonstrating his power and his authority in a mighty way.

First, he is tempted to turn into bread the small round stones he sees lying in the wilderness. The devil speaks to him and suggest that because Jesus is the Son of God it would be easy to end his fast in this way. But, instead, Jesus, taking the image of small loaves of bread which the stones there resemble, is reminded that man is not meant to live on bread alone.

Now, in his mind, he imagines himself being taken to a mountain top where he can see many countries stretching away into the distance. The devil now makes him an offer. "All this dominion I will give you, and the glory that goes with it; for it has been given into my hands and I can give it to anyone I choose. All you have to do is recognise me as you master." Despite the great offer, Jesus, nevertheless, speaks up for himself, saying, "You shall do homage to the Lord your God and to him alone." This is unequivocal. God is one and he alone may be worshipped. There are no compromises, no deals, no fixes that can be made by any other power. God is one and he alone is the one Jesus is to serve and call others to serve.

Suddenly, Jesus is lifted to the top of the Temple pinnacle and set there. He looks down the height of the Temple wall and into the Kidren valley below. If he wished, he could leap down as a death defying jump and the angels would catch him as he fell. Now that would be an act the crowds would never forget. That would certainly establish his credentials. But once more comes that knowledge from the heart of Jesus: "You are not to put the Lord God to the test."

By rejecting these three temptations Jesus is establishing a ministry founded on vital principles. He has come as the Suffering Servant who will be rejected by the priests and eventually the people who are to follow him. He has come to show that the long and patient way of love will be the means of offering salvation to the people. No flashy ways that are short-lived in the mind will work at all. No short cuts may be taken. He has to take the long route whereby people discover abiding love through the grace of God. A quick fix has no place in his mission for God.

Another Lectionary reading for this week is Deuteronomy 26: 1-11 where Moses tells the people that when they enter the Promised Land they must do an act of remembrance before God. They are to recite some sentences which God lays down for them. Before they can take up a permanent place they need to remember how they were led out of Egypt, eventually to this land flowing with milk and honey. This is how they will give thanks for the land they have just entered.

It is important that they always remember who it is that has brought them to this place. they need acts of remembrance to ensure they give God the credit and therefore the worship for what he has done for them. The new life they will know in the new land has to be one which is God centered and God led. Can you see the approach resembling that which Jesus opted for at the time of his Temptations?

These two Bible readings show us how our lives are to be God centered in faith and hope in the footsteps of Jesus who showed "The way". In an age of quick fixes and instant entertainment we have a hard job to see the way forward. But, in fact, it has never changed. Our path is the long and winding path spread out before us by God. With faith in him, through Jesus, we will make it to journey's end and win the glittering prizes God has for us. It is not an easy path but it a certain and reliable way to which we are called to travel.

The Sermon on the Plain

How many people know that there was another sermon preached by Jesus on a level plain and that he also preached a set of Beatitudes? Until today I did not know this. I have been preaching for almost 46 years and this bit of scripture missed me. In Luke's gospel , chapter 6 we read similar words to those we expect to find in the Sermon on the mount. Here too, Jesus speaks about reversed values. He says the rich are to be pitied but the poor will be blessed, the well fed will go hungry whilst the hungry ones will be fed, those who now laugh will mourn and weep and those who weep will laugh.

When you look at the coming of Jesus you read in the Magnificat how the commonly held values will be reversed. Jesus preaches on the mountain and confirms that these values will be reversed. The rich man comes to Jesus and learns that he must sell everything before he can follow Jesus and inherit eternal life. Even the disciples are surprised at all this because they held to the convention that a rich man is rich as a blessing from God. Look back in the Old Testament and you see how Job is a man considered to be a model of faithfulness because of the numbers of camels, sheep etc he possesses. The whole story of Job is to test him to see how his faith stands up to the removal of everything he owns and the infliction of a skin disease and halitosis.

Jesus must have shocked his listeners when he told them they had to rid themselves of riches which got in the way of spiritual progress. The crowds came to hear him because he had become famous throughout the land. But what they heard on this occasion must have left them scratching their heads. He shook them to their toes with his words. In other words, if his listeners had any preconceived ideas about how good they were, they soon learned that what they thought of themselves was based on the wrong priorities.

These words have just as powerful a meaning today as they did then. We live in an acquisitive society, a consumer society which rates itself on possessions. The message of Jesus is that all this accumulation of wealth and possessions ultimately has no value at all. Now that makes it a difficult message to preach and certainly one which does not attract many listeners. We now, once more pose the question, "How shall we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?"

God calls us to follow Jesus but he does not make the task easy. It is rather like the people who heard "I have nothing to offer you except blood, sweat and tears." It was a harsh statement but it spelled out the way forward. It is often the case that we are exhorted to take the hardest way as being the best option when we would prefer to take the short cut or the smoother route. When a pilot is faced with a difficult storm ahead he has to decide how to deal with it. He can fly right through it or he can choose to fly round or over it. The choices are those which involve more flying time and fuel expenditure but he faces up to the fact that he will arrive safely at his destination this way. In the same way we are exhorted by Jesus to face up to harder and longer ways to get to a destination.

The beatitude asks us a straight question. Will you take the way of the world or will you trust God's way? To take God's way is our challenge. But it carries no promise of easy times or direct paths. There may come times when you think you cannot possibly be going in the right direction. The Israelites wandered round the Sinai Desert for years until they reached the promised land. But they learned to trust God and he delivered them in the end.

In life there are many pitfalls and many diversions and we have to learn to navigate around them. Some years ago we were travelling from France through Belgium and Holland into Germany. Ii was following the map carefully and suddenly found a sign before me that Ii did not understand. "What does that say?" i said to mu wife. She had been reading the "book" before we set off and was able to says, "It says Diversion." We took the diversion direction and all was well. In fact this was the most difficult journey we have ever made because it was at night and there was no one about to ask our way. A journey that should have taken about 3 hours took over 5 hours because I had great difficulty following the road atlas. We were in and out of Germany like a fiddler's elbow until we took the certain way which involved following 3 sides of a square!

The way forward is quite simple. It is the way God leads us. It is we who make it difficult by questioning better judgement all the way. We keep on learning that the only way is to trust God.

All welcome

Since leaving the Rochdale/Oldham area in 2004 I have continued to put together the weekly notices for my former church at Shaw, Oldham. Instead of reading out the notices in each service, the congregation are given an A4 sheet headed, "Weekly News". In it are the various notices regarding what is happening in the church. Each week I am emailed with the changes for the week. Some of the events taking place are for anyone at all to attend and not restricted to any sort of membership. So a typical notice might read: Games Evening, date, time, all welcome.

Now this is where Christians have a problem. They put up notices saying that all are welcome but this is often not the case. In their church they would not like to see unmarried couples, single parents, homosexuals and lesbians, the mentally ill, the mentally handicapped, some of the disabled, wife beaters, smelly & dirty people, criminals etc. In fact, it depends on who you are and what you do as to whether you are accepted in a particular church. It is because of this that people, looking for a new church to worship in, try a few before settling on a final choice. Believe it or not, some churches are not very comfortable places to be or Christian in their ways! I have to say it though, they do not really mean to be exclusive but it eventually works out that way.

Two thousand years ago, Jesus was born. As a grown man, he came to be recognised as God Incarnate. In this role he came to say something that needed saying because people had got it all wrong. He entered a society in which many were marginalised because of infirmity, sins, religious beliefs etc. The Pharisees were astounded to see him taking tea with tax collectors, refusing to condemn adulterers and so on. They missed the message that told them all were welcome. Their petty rules and regulations got in the way. This still happens today.

Yet the truth is that all are welcome as far as Jesus is concerned. So now we see that the problem with welcoming every sort of person into our churches is that Jesus welcomes them but his representatives don't! If Jesus is to be about his work of salvation he needs human beings to share it with him. This is going to be difficult in churches that do not welcome certain individuals to their fellowship. In the USA there is the problem in the Anglican community that one of their bishops is gay. At home, the Church of England had to tell a Bishop-elect that he had better stand down because he was not welcome by many who professed Christianity and were members of the same church. But part of the ministry of Jesus is to stand by the marginalised, so where do you think Jesus stands on this issue?

It is blindingly apparent that Jesus stands with all who are marginalised and all who are in any sort of need. This is the picture we see as we read the gospels which are but snapshots of Jesus. Yet some do not grasp the message. On the matter of homosexualiity it was my trade union that pointed out to me the error of my ways. At one point I was actually lobbying for a member being prevented from election as Branch Secretary because of his declared sexuality. It was only three years later that I found myself in the position of Branch Secretary and my strongest supporter was the man I had tried to block previously. In fact, I learned more about defending the rights of my members from him than any other member.

I remember on the occasion of my first visit to the annual conference of the union that the issue of homosexuality was being discussed. A young man came to the microphone and told us: "I am now going to make you feel uncomfortable for ten minutes. I have to say that you make me feel uncomfortable all the time." I never forgot those wards. I also realised that there were many homosexuals who had not declared themselves and so I must have been dealing with a number without knowing. I thought about the members I had represented and wondered which ones were gay. It showed me that there was no distinction to be made. Jesus shows us this too.

Through the ministry of Jesus, God shows us the endless possibilities there are for justice and peace. Not only did Jesus live with the outcasts of society but he also died between two of them. On the cross we took our Lord's life and we do it over and over today by our attitudes to those we think beyond the pale. May God forgive us for we know not what we do!