“Passing the Test” Vance L. Toivonen
READING Luke 4:1-13
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished. The devil said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread." Jesus answered him, "It is written, 'One does not live by bread alone.'" Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said to him, "To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours." Jesus answered him, "It is written, 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'" Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, 'He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,' and 'On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'" Jesus answered him, "It is said, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'" When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.
READING (A Course in Miracles, Chapter 23, Section IV, Number 9)
Those with the strength of God in their awareness could never think of battle. What could they gain but loss of their perfection. For everything fought for on the battleground is of the body; something it seems to offer or to own. No one who knows that he has everything could seek for limitation, nor could he value the body’s offerings. The senselessness of conquest is quite apparent from the quiet sphere above the battleground. What can conflict with everything? And what is there that offers less, yet could be wanted more? Who with the Love of God upholding him could find the choice of miracles or murder hard to make?
SERMON
One of the biggest hits of the new television season, and the winner of this year’s Golden Globe Award for best Drama, is the show Heroes. The main character in the show is a young Japanese man, whose name is also Hiro (that’s H-I-R-O). He is on a journey, a quest, as all heroes must be, and finds himself bumping up against one obstacle after another. He is not without his doubts, but returns again and again to the higher calling of his mission, which is, and repeat it with me if you know it, “Save the Cheerleader, Save the World!”
Joseph Campbell tells us that for heroes
There’s a large journey to be taken, of many trials…the trials are designed to see to it that the intending hero should really be a hero. Is he really a match for this task? Can he overcome the dangers? Does he have the courage, the knowledge, the capacity, to enable him to serve?(Campbell, The Power of Myth)
What we have in the gospel stories of Jesus’ testing in the wilderness is a fairly typical story of heroic trial. This story would be nothing exceptional if Jesus were somehow God in the flesh. Of course God would be able to overcome such testing. But if Jesus were merely human, or even just a bit superhuman, like so many comic book heroes, then this navigation through the temptations of greed, power, and what Campbell calls “spiritual inflation.” would be quite extra-ordinary. However, Jesus does not even give in to the temptation to admit to divinity here. One of his counters to Satan suggests that God is other than himself, that God alone is to be worshiped and not Jesus.
There is much in Christian mythology, both in Biblical material and in extra-canonical literature, that places Jesus on the stage of a great cosmic battle. This story is one of those battle scenes, a glimpse of the two main archetypes in the cosmic conflict between good and evil, between God’s kingdom and the kingdom of Satan. Paul later refers to Satan as “the god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4), as if somehow Jesus is doing battle on the planet of Satan, as if Jesus is the invading warrior trying to take back what once belonged to his Father God. This mythology is stronger in Christianity, and especially in more fundamental forms of Christianity. What we have here is a piece of that mythology.
This is all quite interesting if we want to educate ourselves about hero mythology. Heroes, by the way, are usually on quests that are tied to the saving of a people, or a nation. Someone else stands to benefit from the hero’s successful mission. That’s just one more side note I wanted to throw in before moving on to what I would like us to do with this information this morning.
This cosmic battle is not a bad metaphor for our lives, I suppose. Every morning we arise to do battle in some way, shape or form. We go out to do economic battle, trying to keep our heads above the bills that pile up each month. We go out to do battle with our health, attempting to stay ahead of the deteriorating forces of aging. We go out to do ideological battle on the religious and political arenas of the human species with others who seek to create a society different from the one we would prefer living in. And we go out to do battle with ourselves, the most pernicious of all enemies, as we were reminded once by a cartoon character named Pogo who said, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”
Pogo graces our bulletin cover this morning. The now very famous line comes from a Pogo strip that ran on Earth Day 1971. In it Pogo and Porky Pine are walking through the forest. They seem to be stepping gingerly on the forest floor as they walk. Porky Pine, in one of his honest, heartfelt moments, says “Ah, Pogo, the beauty of the forest primeval gets me in the heart.” To this Pogo retorts as he watches carefully where he is stepping, “It gets me in the feet, Porky Pine.” In the second of the two frames we see Pogo and Porky Pine sitting under a tree, gazing back upon the ground they just traversed. It is strewn with all manner of garbage and junk, an old tire hanging from a dead tree limb across the way. Porky Pine then admits, “It is hard walkin’ on this stuff.” Pogo, also looking out at the mess we have created says those words, “Yep, son, we have met the enemy and he is us.”
So, yes, we are really only doing battle with ourselves. We are reminded time and time again by the repackaging of ancient wisdom (its most recent incarnation being the film and book called The Secret), that we create our own reality. We bring into existence through our thoughts and yes, our fears, the world we live in. Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is within you and all around you.” The kingdom of God, the God-reality that we pray for each week here, and in churches throughout the world, the peace and joy and love we all long for, is already right here, and right now. This is what the author of A Course in Miracles is trying to impress upon us. Why would we fight for what is already ours? Why would we use violent, coercive means to acquire what we already have?
Jesus is not ultimately tempted to give in to the tests put to him by Satan because Jesus understands that it is in God’s hands, not Satan’s hands. We too are in God’s hands. Our very lives are in God’s hands. Every breathe we take is a gift. Every aspect of our lives is a gift. We own nothing and we own everything. We are nothing and we are everything. I am you and you are me and we are one with the Creator of the Universe. So what could anyone pass under our noses, so to speak, in order to draw us into some sort of armed conflict with others? What could we possibly need that we do not already have; especially if we have everything?
The reason that there are others in the world who need what we have is that we understand them as others, and not as ourselves. I am one with Sudanese men and women who are dying of starvation. I am full, over-satiated, brimming with excess. So how can I also be starving? I am one with Iraqi women, men and children, so how can I set off explosives in their towns and cities? I can only do so if I understand that they are other than me. If I understood that I and they are one, that we are indeed one and the same, and that there is nothing in this world that we do not share, then my approach to solving the difficulties and complications of life would be different.
A Course in Miracles refers to our better choice-making as an invitation to miracles in our lives. It declares that the miracles are already ours. If this is the case, then why would they seem like miracles at all? If this is the case, then why would it seem so fantastic that we, like Jesus, could pass the tests of life and make choices that are life-giving, life-affirming, gracious, loving and joyful? Satan led Jesus to the mountaintop and showed him the world saying, “It can all be yours.” Jesus knew this was a lie, because it already was his. And it is already ours as well. There is nothing you and I do not have. We already own the world. The tests come to us in every new moment, in every choice we make. God grant us the serenity to choose miracles over murder, peace over uproar, and divine love above all.