Identity Crisis

Lent 1a

March 9, 2014

Matthew 4:1-11

In 1953, a very controversial novel was published.  In 1988, Martin Scorsese adapted the novel into a film of the same name “the Last Temptation of Christ.”  Both the novel and the film have caused quite a bit of anger and have even been banned in some countries.  The basis of the novel is that Jesus, though without sin, was tempted daily just like every other human on the face of the planet.  But the final temptation is for Jesus to come off of the cross.  As he hangs there in pain, he sees a young girl approach him and reveal to him that he is not, in fact, the son of God, but that God is very pleased with him and now wants him to live and be happy.  She then helps him off of the cross and leads him in to a long, happy, comfortable life.  It is not until much later, when confronted by Judas, that Jesus realizes that the young girl was the devil, who had seen Jesus’ most vulnerable moment as the time to bring forward one final temptation.  Upon realizing this, Jesus runs to a now destroyed Jerusalem and begs to be crucified so that all can be made right.  And then the viewer watches as we go back to the beginning, to Jesus on the cross, a Jesus who stays on the cross despite the mocking and the jeers of those around him.

I’ve wondered before if part of the reason that this novel and movie are so controversial because the notion of Jesus being 100% human, as we confess in the Nicene creed, is something that makes us a bit uncomfortable.  And I still do wonder that.  But I also wonder if the reason that this movie has been banned and burned and its author deemed a heretic has to do with the question of identity.  If Jesus really is the Son of God, could he have chosen to come down off of the cross?  And I think that positing a ‘yes’ answer to this question makes us just a little bit uneasy, if we’re honest.

(pause)

Immediately after being baptized by John in the Jordan, Jesus goes into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.  And after 40 days and 40 nights of fasting, he was at a weak point, famished.  It is then that the devil decides to approach him with three temptations, IF you are the Son of God, he says, command these stones to turn to bread…IF you are the Son of God, throw yourself down…All this can be yours, IF you fall down and worship me. 

IF

IF

Prove yourself to me, Jesus.  If you are really the Son of God, you can feed yourself…you can throw yourself down from the pinnacle of the temple and not suffer any harm, for the angels will protect you…OR, you can pledge your allegiance to me and I will give you more power than you know what to do with.

The ultimate temptation that the devil levied against Jesus, really wasn’t about bread or angels or an all powerful authority over thrones and dominions, but rather and attempt to undermine Jesus’ confidence in his identity, an identity which had just been vocalized at Jesus’ baptism 40 days earlier when God said, “this is my Son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

But even in his a moment in which he was weakened by hunger, Jesus does not give in to the devil’s attempt to rob him of his God given identity.  Instead, he relies on and is strengthened by this identity, secured for him through his relationship with his God and father, and that is what gives him the strength to resist the devil and all of the ways in which he tried to tempt Jesus from letting loose of his dependence on God. 

Have you ever noticed that the devil likes to pray on us in times of weakness?  In Genesis, as in Matthew, the devil preyed upon Adam and Eve when they were hungry and looking for food.  “Did God really say you shall not eat from any tree in the garden?” Having sown the seed of doubt into their heads (and, for the record, Adam and Eve were both there), the devil goes in for the kill and tells Adam and Eve that, indeed, they will not die if they eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil…contradicting what God had told them earlier.  And unlike Jesus, who relied on his identity in God and used that to resist the devil, Adam and Eve gave into the temptation and relied on the words of the serpent instead of the words of God.  They let their identity as children of God take a back seat to an identity of independence created when they bit in to the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 

This is what the devil likes to do to us, too.  If you are a child of God, why can’t you find a job? If you are a child of God, why are you suffering from a chronic condition?  If you are a child of God, why isn’t your life going just as you always thought it would?  And it doesn’t happen in moments when we are strong and confident, but in times when we have hit road bumps, when we have been challenged or vulnerable.  It’s like the devil knows just when the perfect moment is to plant an earworm in our brain that plays a tune which repeats themes of self-doubt and questioning our identity over and over until we start to believe that it might actually be true.  

But the devil is not the only one who likes to get us questioning who we are.  The really sad thing is that some preachers have latched on to the notion that this is true.  Those who preach the prosperity gospel tell folks that if their faith is strong enough, if they give enough to the church, then God will reward them beyond their imagination with worldly riches.  But if you’re struggling financially or have chronic health issues, it’s time to start questioning the strength and the commitment of your faith.  

And it doesn’t stop there. There is a myth that has been going around for quite a while that self-sufficiency is the only way of being a worthwhile member of society.   We come from cultures that praise the protestant work ethic, we preach that if we are going to be successful in life, you have to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, that if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.  And I will be the first to confess that my biggest sin in this life has been giving into the thought that if I am not in control of every facet of my life, then I am somehow failing.  We are bombarded day in and day out with messages that we are not good enough, skinny enough, rich enough, smart enough, worthy enough to be valued by others because we do not possess the image of the photoshopped models who grace magazine covers.

And if we’re bombarded enough, we start to believe it.  We start to believe that we are the ones who can control whether God loves us or not. We start to believe that we are the ones to blame for not fitting into a cropped and edited version of what we are supposed to look like, dress like, how much money we are supposed to make, etc.

When we believe this the lies that the devil and the world tell us, we stop believing the truth.  The truth that in the waters of baptism, we were named and claimed as children of God, that through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, nothing we do or fail to do can keep us from the love of God.  That regardless of our age, gender, profession, and income bracket, we are invaluable members of the kingdom of God, made precious in God’s sight through the blood shed on the cross.  That no matter what, God has our back and God will be with us and for us all the days of our lives.

So when the devil or society tempt us away from the truth, away from believing in our identity as beloved Children of God, pushing our sins and our shortcomings in our faces, we can look the devil in the face and say, in the words of Martin Luther “Away with you Satan, I am baptized!”