Standing at the Crossroads (or—Who do you trust?)

Genesis 2; Matthew 4:1-11
February 10, 2008

You know, life is full of crossroads. We come to them every day as we drive or walk. A crossroads is also a place of decision. Do we turn right or left—do we go straight ahead? Or—sometimes, do we make a u-turn and go back? Life is a lot like that. We are constantly having to decide which way to go—every tiny decision is, in a way, a crossroads, and sometimes our choices can have surprisingly powerful consequences. You turn left onto the freeway instead of continuing on the access road and bam! You're in a traffic jam. So you are late getting where you are going. You lose your reservation or annoy or worry your friends or miss an important meeting. You lose a business deal. Left instead of right at a crossroads. Turning right instead of left—so you discover a waterfall instead of a pond at the end of the trail, you meet this person instead of that one, or no one—each decision in life, each tiny choice—fraught with consequences. Robert Frost's famous poem says it better than anyone else:
The Road Less Traveled

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

We encounter all the characters of this morning's narratives at crossroads in their lives—major crossroads. Yet, in Adam and Eve's case, when they woke up that morning in the Garden, their thoughts were probably not filled with a foreboding of a momentous choice, one which would change their lives forever in unimaginable ways. To pick or not to pick, to eat or not to eat, to listen or not to listen? Perhaps none of that even so much as flashed through their minds as they stood regarding the tree. It looked good. The snake sounded reasonable. So they trusted the snake, and listened, picked and ate. The rest is history. Or not. But the rest of the narrative is pretty clear. If we believe in Fall theology, humankind lost paradise because they trusted the snake and turned to the left. If we don't believe in Fall theology, and I'm one of those, humankind chose life with purpose, life rich with potential, filled with all textures of emotions and experiences instead of endless timeless existence. Either way, they stood at a crossroads under that tree, turned left, and left Paradise behind until such time as they should have the wisdom and compassion and selflessness to make it again.

In our Gospel reading, Jesus has just been baptized. He has stood at that crossroads of decision, and stepped into the water of repentance and rebirth. And the Spirit of God has descended from heaven and alighted on him like a dove. What kind of life did he imagine, do you think, when he took that step off the bank and into the Jordan? The words from God descend from heaven, they are still hanging in the air above Jesus' head--"this is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased." And, the text immediately tells us, "Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil." We know immediately what the purpose of this hike into the hills is. Jesus doesn't stumble on temptation. The serpent, as in the Old Testament reading for this morning about the temptation in the Garden, does not glide out from behind a rock and surprise an unsuspecting naïve Jesus. God fully intends that Jesus should be tempted, and we are told about it right up front. Jesus was led into the wilderness by the Spirit to be tempted by the devil. But first, he must wait, and pray, and fast for forty days and forty nights. He has been led from one crossroad to another—he has accepted Messiahship by stepping into the baptismal river. Now he stands at the crossroads of what kind of Messiah he will be.

In order to fully appreciate the symbolism of this story of Jesus' temptations, after his forty-day travail in the wilderness, we must turn to another Old Testament story, this time of Moses, and understand the parallel that Matthew constructs between the leader of the Exodus and Jesus of Nazareth. Moses, and all the Hebrew people, were in Egypt because one Joseph had gone there, and had caused his family to come after him and settle there. In Matthew's Gospel we have also had an account of a Joseph who took his family to Egypt. Before the Exodus, Moses, you will recall, was saved from the death ordered by Pharaoh that all the male babies be killed. Jesus was saved from death at the order of King Herod, who demanded the slaughter of the boy babies in Bethlehem to rid himself of a feared future rival who just might be the Messiah. Moses was taken to a high mountain and shown all the land as far as the eye could see. Moses was with the Lord for forty days, and during those forty days Moses did not eat or drink. Moses' leadership faltered, and he failed the test of his forty years of wandering in the wilderness. He took power to himself, and made a miracle for the purpose of coercing faith, of underlining his political leadership. He commanded as if he were God. He got his miracle. But he lost the Promised Land. Jesus, in the Gospel of Matthew, is presented to us as the new Moses, but the one who does not, will never fail the test.

He is offered three things by the devil, there in that wilderness. Famished, hungry to the very marrow of his bones, he is offered bread. "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread." How wonderfully ironic. Surely if Jesus believed himself to be the Son of God, surely he might have reasoned, God would not wish him to starve to death. He is starving. Here is a way. He can embrace a ministry of bread making. And he would not be the only beneficiary. In a hungry world, making bread out of stones would be a well received credential. He would have had the biggest following, the greatest reputation, the most magnificent church--maybe even a crystal cathedral. What is so wrong with this making of bread? The key, I think, lies in the word "command." Command these stones. Don't ask God to make them bread, don't pray to God for the power, and the right to turn them into bread. Don't go humbly up to those stones, directed by God--Command them! Assert your right, your power to mold reality to your will. Assert your right to determine what is right and wrong in the universe, who shall be hungry and who filled. Command them! The voice of temptation does not recognize the difference between hearing the word of God and doing it, and commanding your own laws. Jesus decides against a ministry of bread. He decides against a ministry that would guarantee him an enormous following. He decides against, at the same time, putting his own agonizing needs ahead of his understanding of his place in God's creation. He responds that we do not live by bread alone, that he and we are not sustained only by the creature comforts of this world but first and foremost by the word of God. The only commands Jesus will make will be God's commands.

The second temptation is less concrete but more poignant. The devil takes Jesus up to the high pinnacle of the temple, not just any high pinnacle, mind you, but to the one that is not only the highest in the city but is the representation of the human family's reaching up to heaven for God, the pinnacle of sacred striving, and reminds him that he can jump. After all, the Son of God is a precious, valuable person. The angels will catch you. Kind of reminds you of stories about people poised on a ledge above death, driven there by an unassuaged hunger in their souls, and hearing the crowds below call "jump. Jump." This is the temptation to test God's devotion to Jesus. "You have said I am your son. You ask me to do something terribly, unimaginably hard. So prove you mean it." As we move into the season of Lent, the image of the Christ once again lifted up to a high place will haunt our very dreams, and we will wonder, perhaps, if he again thought of jumping down. Of rejecting torture and death. Of calling on God to save him from his mission, from glory bought by his blood. Then, as in the wilderness, he refuses to take action into his own hands. He asks, he perhaps begs, but he does not command, he does not jump.

Finally the devil shows Jesus from a very high mountain all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them. And here he shows his true nature. First he tested Jesus' willingness to take power that is God's and be like God, second he tested Jesus' steadfastness and ability to wait upon God, now he comes out in the open. This time, the devil promises to give Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and all the glory of them, if Jesus will fall down and worship him. Now, perhaps, Jesus recognizes this voice for what it is. As he will later do in his ministry, he quiets the voice of the demon. Begone.

Jesus rejected a whole wilderness of paths to glory in this story. He stood at innumerable dry, dusty, badly marked crossroads, the signs twisted and faded and misleading. He rejected the temptation to demand proof from God. How hard is this one? To demand that God fix it, make it better, give me what I need, and want, and then I will believe and serve you. I have been baptized, after all, I am your child. So give me what I deserve. A very dangerous request, don't you think. How subtly the devil leads us to a clouded mirror, and how amazingly God clarifies it for us. Do not tempt God to give us what we deserve. Therein lies the path to the wilderness and no way out.

Jesus rejected a political answer to the world's problems. This does not mean that we may ignore politics. They affect our lives, and have the power of life and death over us all. But we must not confuse political strength and might with the ultimate power of God. We must not adopt the methods and means of the politically powerful in building the church. It cannot be about kingdoms, and glory. It is about sacrifice, and love, and humility.

He rejected a ministry of bread. I think, for me, that one was the hardest of all. It's easy to confuse earthly bread with spiritual feeding. It is not a bad thing, after all, to want to feed the hungry, or to eat when you are hungry. Haven't you every dreamed of what it would be like to be able to meet the need of a hungry world--to reach out and just create enough food for everyone? I know I have. And later in the story, Jesus would do just that. But he would not command stones to become bread. He would not be a magician. He would ask his disciples to have faith, to take what they had and pass it around. And they would discover that what they had to share was enough to do what they had to do.

In his response to each of these temptations, Jesus responds with quotations from Deuteronomy: We do not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." "You shall not tempt the Lord your God." "You shall worship the Lord your God and God only shall you serve." Something more than bread, more than even potentially beneficial powers, political influence, religious spectacle lies at the heart of Jesus ministry. He counters with nothing but the Word. In Jesus we encounter one who did not try to be God or as God, and who did not try to use God to claim something for himself. The church, which can be too fond of power, place and claims of favor, needs to walk in the steps of Jesus. Too many people came to Jesus, and come to the church today for the wrong reasons. They lust for a quick fix for what ails them. They want to be healed--now. They desire some sure, absolutely fail-proof set of rules that will help them to negotiate the pitfalls of life, they want to be liberated, free, and unbound from any care greater than themselves. They want the crossroads signs—if crossroads are really necessary, to be clear and unambiguous, but they prefer a straight path with no divergence, no decision necessary. But life isn’t like that for us, just as it wasn’t like that for Jesus. Jesus found salvation in the Word of God, in every word. And he used his trust in God and in God’s word as his signpost. He followed the turning toward struggle and loss and hope. The best hope of Israel, Jesus, was willing to live by and if necessary to die by the Word. And here in Vallejo, He is our best hope, too. It all depends on what you decide when you come to the crossroads—and who do you trust?