The Temptation of Suspicion

Luke 4:1-13 

3-9-25

Lent 1

 

So I don’t believe in the devil.

I mean, that is if we’re talking about a being that exists 

The Temptation of Christ
J. Kirk Richards

outside of us wandering around wearing red leotards and horns and

sitting on people’s shoulders tempting them I don’t believe in THAT.

 

And I don’t believe in the stereotype 

that the movies have

shown us of magical seductive 

figures conjuring up

contracts for people to sign away their souls.

All that would be easy enough to avoid.

I don’t believe that Satan just pops up and chats with you as

another person as is depicted this and other great artwork either.

 

And I don’t believe that just a few certain people are 

possessed by Satan like in the Exorcist or the Omen or any number

of other movies that came out in the 70’s.

And I don’t believe that just because someone does a horrible,

heinous act that they are Satan or the devil.

 

But I do believe that there is a force of evil in the world

And I do believe that this force is crafty and ingenious

and I believe that it is working every day to try and take us

away from God and God’s way of doing things.

And I do believe that it is not outside of us,

like we normally think, but it is a force inside each one of us,

waiting for every opportune and vulnerable moments to tempt us.

 

So just because you haven’t had a chat with

with someone who tries to get you to do things you

shouldn’t do, don’t think you’re safe from temptation.

And you haven’t seen Satan, just because you saw

someone whose eyes were dead or they did something bad.

 

So Satan. Not guy with horns.

Not infesting just certain select individuals.

Satan is inside us, and around us and working among us.

Much more cunning, much more dangerous.

 

All that being said,

I do realize that only way artistically, movies, paintings,

and scripture –and even in sermons, by the way—

that we have been able to depict this force working in the world

is by showing a being outside us. Like the devil or Satan.

So I’m going to talk about Satan like the scripture does.

Like it’s an outside being. Even though I don’t quite believe in that.

 

Thanks for listening to my Ted talk about Satan.

Now, on with the rest of the sermon.

 

This week , Jesus is tempted by Satan.

He’s just been baptized and he is driven out into the desert

where he doesn’t eat for forty days and forty nights

and there he is tempted by the devil, that force of evil

inside us who knows just what to say to everyone.

 

When we say the word temptation in our modern world,

we often think of two things: lust or dessert.

Right? Temptation is sex or chocolate cake.

I’m not sure why these two things but still.

I think we like to tame temptation down to a moment’s decision.

Something that we might want,

but we clearly know that we shouldn’t have.

But is that how the devil works? I don’t think so.

 

Probably the most well known story of temptation

is in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve.

God tells them not to eat the fruit of one certain tree

they could have everything else but not that one.

God tells them that on the day they eat that one, they will die.

And they don’t eat from that fruit until they meet the serpent.

 

The serpent starts talking to Eve and asking her questions

“Did God say you couldn’t have any fruit in the garden?”

“No”, Eve says, “just that one tree in the middle.

God said if we eat that we’ll die.”

Then the serpent tells Eve, “that’s not true, you won’t die”

Then the serpent basically says, “God lied to you.” 

The serpent goes on: “God doesn’t want you to eat it because if you eat it, 

your eyes will be open and you will be like God knowing good and evil.”

And so they went to the tree and they ate the fruit

that they were told not to eat.

 

Now what did that serpent do there?

Did he tempt them with lustful things? no.

Did he tempt them with how delicious the fruit was? no.

Did he even tempt them with the power of knowing good and evil? no.

 

What the devil did is what the devil is really best at.

That is to sew doubt and mistrust,  He says to them:

“God told you you’d die, but you won’t

God just doesn’t want you to eat that because

God doesn’t want you to be all that you can be.

God wants to keep it all for himself,

God doesn’t care about you.”

 

The devil said basically, “Don’t trust God.

You can get what you want without God.

You need to look out for number one in this garden.”

 

This mistrust damages Adam and Eve’s beautiful relationship

with God, and eventually their relationship with all creation.

This distrust gets passed down through their children

and it eventually infests all of creation.

That’s the lesson of Genesis 3.

The reality of what we live with today.

 

And when we look at the story of Jesus today,

that same temptation has come to meet with him.

It tries to lure Jesus away from the ministry

God has given him to do.

And Satan uses the same tactics as the serpent.

By attempting to sew mistrust.

By putting a wedge between Jesus and God,

By trying to fill Jesus with doubt.

Trying to let Jesus take care of things himself in his own way.

 

Satan says, -What if you go hungry? What if you don’t survive?

The whole mission will be lost.

-Couldn’t you do better job for everyone if you took over

as the leader of this country instead of getting crucified by them?

-What if God doesn’t protect you?

-Maybe you’re not really God’s son?

-What if this whole thing doesn’t work out?

You need to look out for number one in this desert.

 

Not chocolate cake, not lust. But seeds.

Seeds of doubt and mistrust.

 

And that voice that voice of temptation

goes on to offer Jesus sure things,

things that are right there immediately:

food, wealth, power, and security.

And in exchange Jesus has to just give up one little thing:

God’s path. That which God needs him to do.

 

Temptation doesn’t start with the big stuff,

like violence, and wars, stealing, and corruption.

It starts with seeds of  insecurity, doubt, and suspicion.

Satan tried to tempt Jesus with insecurity in himself,

doubt in God’s promises,

and suspicions about everyone else.

These are the tricks of the devil.

 

Satan does this to us too.

And does it in the same way.

Satan sews seeds of insecurity, doubt, and suspicion.

Steering us away from God’s path of love, forgiveness, and reconciliation all the time.

 

We’re called on as Christians to trust God

and also to love each other.

We’re supposed see other people first as Children of God,

to forgive them, to care for them, and to work with them.

 

God’s way is to care for other people

God’s way is to trust others and work together.

God’s way is to open up our hearts to one another

God’s way is alliances, and cooperation, and unity, and trust.

Peace talks, diplomacy, negotiation, compromise, and civil discussion,

God’s way is vulnerability, and understanding, and forgiveness.

And Satan hates all that stuff.

 

The devil would love it if we were all alone, isolated

getting whatever we can,

looking out for number one, not helping each other.

The devil loves it when it’s just about me, or just me and my family

or me and my people first, and everyone else doesn’t count.

 

The devil hates that whole “love your enemies” thing that

Jesus was talking about a couple of weeks ago.

The devil loves it when we stop trusting God’s promises

to us and try to take care of everything on our own.

When we think we have found a better, more expedient way

than God’s way to live in this world.

 

And I think Satan has gotten a real hold in

this country by dividing us along political ideology.

 

The devil has succeeded in sewing mistrust and suspicion

between spouses, families, friends, co workers,

between neighbors, in a really devious way.

Through ideological differences.

We have given into this temptation.

 

We are a divided country today.

There is no doubt about that.

I’ve looked at something that

was written about 15 years ago,

and it said something like,

“We’re the most divided that we’ve

been in this country since the civil war”.  

That was 15 years ago.

It seems naive in retrospect.

We’ve taken division to new levels today.

 

I almost long for the division we had 15 years ago.

Politics and political ideology is separating us.

Friends and family members can’t talk.

It seems like those people who are on “the other side”

don’t even live in the same world as I do.

 

And then those people who don’t want to take sides,

who are uninvolved in the whole thing? what’s up with them?

Don’t they know this is a war?

Don’t they know our democracy is at stake?

Don’t they know the other side is trying to kill

us and destroy everything we love?

Of course, these are Satan’s words.

 

They come very easily for both sides of any division.

The devil loves this kind of talk and thought especially.

The kind that shuts off all conversation

and vilifies any opposing thought.

The kind of thought that dehumanizes another.

 

The word Satan in Hebrew means accuser.

Satan is the thing in us that accuses the other.

The thing in us that makes enemies.

It’s the force that makes prejudice.

It’s the force in us that makes hate.

And it’s telling us constant lies.

And drawing us away from God’s mission for us.

 

Satan’s plan for Jesus in the desert

was make Jesus mistrust God’s plans

for him, to take him off the path that God had put in front of him.

Satan wanted to convince Jesus that God had abandoned him.

That he couldn’t trust God’s way for him.

That he needed to take things into his own hands,

forget about God’s way, and get things done.

Get the bread himself, get the power for himself,

get the security for himself and not trust God’s

slowly unfolding plan.

 

And that is what Satan is trying to do with us too.

The force of evil in this world is constantly trying to

take us off God and Jesus’ path for us.

That love your enemy stuff doesn’t seem to apply

when I believe that the other side wants to destroy democracy.

That forgiveness stuff doesn’t apply

when I believe that the other side is just evil.

Seeing everyone as a child of God doesn’t

apply when I believe that those people over there

are possessed by the devil himself.

Every side of the ideology is guilty of falling into this temptation.

 

When we believe in those whispers from the accuser

that tells us that other people are just evil and a lost cause,

then we feel have to take matters into our own hands.

We can’t follow Jesus way because they’re trying to destroy us.

I have heard all of those things. Maybe thought all of those things.

That is Satan’s work.

 

I mean I believe there is right and wrong.

I, of course, feel I am on the side of right.

And I believe that we should act on that and work for that.

And protest and write letters, and make rules and laws,

and work to change things that are wrong.

That is part of what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

 

But what it also means to be a follower of Jesus

is to act without vilifying other people.

Even when they vilify me.

 

Satan hates it when we do God’s work and follow God’s Way

and trust God to take care of the details.

 

And that’s what Jesus did here in the desert.

He denied the devil’s temptation to mistrust God,

to just take matters into his own hands,

and take care of things himself in a more expedient way.

 

Jesus leaves the desert, goes into Nazareth and gives that sermon

we heard just a couple of weeks ago which lays out his plans:

bring good news to the poor.

proclaim release to the captives

recovery of sight to the blind,

‘et the oppressed go free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor

Which is a big and crazy plan that God gave him.

And things got tough at times, but

Jesus had to trust God’s way to get through it.

  

Jesus denied the devil and believed

and trusted the God that he knew,

the one that loves and cares for us and won’t leave us alone.

The one that gathers us in community

and teaches us forgiveness and grace for all.

 

And this is the image of God

that Jesus has passed down to his followers.

And that Jesus trusts us to use and share with others.

The one that binds us together,

and that we can pass on from generation to generation.

 

Traveling on Satan’s path would definitely have

been easier for Jesus.

It would have been quicker and more

immediately satisfying for Jesus I know.

 

God’s way is difficult, it’s long, it takes time,

it’s frustrating at times,

and it actually leads to the cross.

 

But Jesus trusted God’s way.

And that trust is what saved the world.