Lent 1
Preaching
Preaching Luke's Gospel
A Narrative Approach
In the early years of the Christian Church a dominant theme of the Lenten season was the conflict between demonic powers and Christian life. The text appointed for this First Sunday in Lent, the story of Jesus' temptation, picks up this ancient theme. There were obstacles on the way as Jesus sought to live out his vocation as Son of God. There are obstacles on our way as well as we seek to live out our vocation as children of God.
We have looked at this passage briefly in Chapter 6. It appears to be part of a series of stories (3:21-22; 3:23-38; 4:1-13; 4:16-21) that develop the Son of God theme in Luke's telling of the Jesus story. Jesus was declared to be Son of God in his baptism and through the instrument of a genealogical list. In this week's story the devil tries its hand at interpreting the meaning of Son of God. The devil operates from a "theology of glory." "If you are the Son of God," the devil says, "command this stone to become a loaf of bread." In this and its other temptations the devil seeks to persuade Jesus to "count equality with God a thing to be grasped" (Philip-pians 2:6). "Show us your God stuff," the devil hisses. "Let's see the glory now!" But Jesus would not. He remained an obedient Son of his God. He would walk the road of suffering to the cross. Glory would have to wait for another day. (See Luke 24:26.)
Jesus does not succumb to temptation. In so doing he establishes his identity as the obedient Son of God. The writer of the book of Hebrews picks up this theme in a pastoral way. "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin" (Hebrews 4:15). We see in Jesus, therefore, the One who overcomes temptation on behalf of all humankind! He becomes, in turn, a model for Christian discipleship.
Jesus turns away the temptations of the devil by quoting from the Old Testament, specifically from the book of Deuteronomy. Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy 8:3; 6:18 and 6:16 in turning back the devil's lying promises of glory. The context in the book of Deuteronomy is that of the people of Israel in exodus to a new land. According to most biblical accounts Israel's time in the wil-derness was a time of temptation and failure! In the wilderness Israel was tempted and failed. In his wilderness Jesus was tempted and did not fail.
The early Christian theologian Irenaeus made use of this wil-derness analogy and several other Old Testament analogies in his doctrine of recapitulation. Irenaeus spoke of Adam and Eve in Paradise as moral and spiritual children. Humans were intended to grow into full humanity, into ever closer resemblance with God the Maker of all. The devil's temptation (Genesis 3:1-7) was too much for those in the childhood of the race. They were tempted to "be like God." How can any human refuse such an offer? So Adam and Eve ate of the tree. They acted in disobedience. Through this act the whole of the human race became enslaved to the devil (Romans 5:12-21).
According to Irenaeus, the whole human race fell under the power of sin, death, and the devil through the disobedience of one man. If the human race fell into bondage through the disobedience of one man, it can be put back together again by the obedience of one man: "... just as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous" (Romans 5:19). As Irenaeus put it: "God in Christ became what we are, in order to enable us to become what He is." This is recapitulation. The word itself comes from the fact that mathematical addition in the ancient world put the sum at the top of the column. The solution is the "summing up" process. So, according to Irenaeus, all things are "summed up" in Christ; all things are "recapitulated" in Christ.
The temptation story, therefore, recapitulates the story of the fall. Adam was disobedient. (This is Irenaeus' way of putting the matter. Today we seek to include Eve in the story, too.) Jesus was obedient. Adam (and Eve) did count equality with God a "thing to be grasped." Jesus did not count equality with God "a thing to be grasped." Indeed, Christ became what we are in order that we might become what God is! Because of Christ's act of obedience we are free from the powers that held us in bondage.
The major significance of Irenaeus' theology was its polemic against Gnosticism. Harold Bloom, an author who defines himself as a Gnostic Jew, has written a recent book called The American Religion: The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation. His funda-mental thesis is that the religion that is native to American soil is Gnosticism. He defines Gnosticism as follows:
... the Gnostics, in a narrow sense, were a proto-Christian sect of the second century of the Common Era, whose broad beliefs centered in two absolute convictions: the Creation, of the world and of mankind in its present form, was the same event as the Fall of the world and of man, but humankind has in it a spark or breath of the uncreated, of God, and that spark can find its way back to the uncre-ated, unfallen world, in a solitary act of knowledge.1
Gnosticism, that is, believes that humans have fallen from a spiritual world that existed before the creation. We are now captives of a material world. But there is hope. God is within us! The uncreated is within us. The unfallen world is within us. Therefore, by a "solitary act of knowledge" (gnosis means knowledge) we can leave this material world and return to our rightful place among the gods.
The aim of Bloom's book is to show how the new American religions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are at heart gnostic. The major nineteenth century new religions in America were Mormon, Christian Science, Seventh-Day Adventism, Jehovah's Witness, and Pentecostalism. All are gnostic, proclaims Bloom. The cults that have sprung up among us in recent years are gnostic as well. Most of what passes for "spirituality" in the media today is also gnostic. Bloom's analysis of the gnostic tendencies of so much of what passes for "spirituality" today is essentially on target!
The single passage of Scripture that could be used as a theme for a book on these religions and cults is Genesis 3:5: "... for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." Gnostics of every time and every place count equality with God a thing to be grasped. God is within them, and all they need to do is to know this, and act upon this knowledge, and they will be reunited with the gods.
Against such did Irenaeus rail. So must we. Today's text is a very important bulwark against manifold forms of false spirituality! Jesus Christ did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. Counting equality with God a thing to be grasped is perhaps the fundamental human sin. We were not created to be gods. We were created to be human beings. We were created to live in obe-dience to God. Jesus demonstrates that obedience for us in the temptation story. As Risen Lord he takes our fallen humanity and restores it to full humanity. As Risen Lord he grants to our humanity eternal life.
Homiletical Directions
In its narrative setting in Luke's Gospel the story of the temp-tation is part of a series of stories in Luke 3 and 4 which gradually reveal for us the meaning of Son of God. If you did not deal with this narrative sequence on the Sunday of the Baptism of the Lord you may wish to deal with it here. See Chapter 5 for the exposition of the Son of God theme in Luke and possible directions for this week's sermon.
We have put the story of Jesus' temptation in much broader narrative perspective in what we have said above. It is quite natural to place the story of Jesus' temptation alongside the first story of human temptation in the Genesis garden. Story One of our sermon, therefore, would be the Genesis 3 story of temp-tation. The final focus of the telling of this story should be on the fundamental human temptation to play God. "Eat it," the devil said, "and you will be like God."
Before turning to today's story it might be wise to play out this "be like God" motif in the human story. A story or two of how we humans seek to play God might be told. Or you might enter the gnostic world which we introduced through Irenaeus' theology of recapitulation. This week's text affords us an excellent opportunity to deal with the nature of much of the spirituality that runs rampant in our culture today. People claim to be more "spiritual" than ever even though formal religion or going to church has nothing to do with it. Much of the spirituality that surrounds us is gnostic. The assumption is that God is by nature within us and that what we need for a fulfilling life is to make contact with the God within. Spirituality that does this lives out the fundamental human sin. Such spirituality makes equality with God a thing to be grasped!
If you deal with the gnostic theme it would be wise if you can tell a story from the cult world or the world of contemporary "spir-ituality" that makes the point. You might also wish to say a few words about Irenaeus to indicate that Jesus was obedient where humans were disobedient. Jesus did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped! The usage of Philippians 2:6 is very im-portant in a sermon that focuses on the center of human temptation „ the temptation to want to be like God.
Finally, tell the story of the temptation. Tell it with a focus on Jesus' obedience, on the fact that he did not grasp equality with God. In doing so Jesus Christ won the victory over the tempter and the temptation. In his victory we have new human possibilities for our life of discipleship. Irenaeus was right. Jesus became like us in order that we might be like him!
A concluding proclamation would enable Jesus to speak to us of his empowering victory. Jesus says to us today: "The human race succumbed to temptation. Humans wanted to be God. So I have come from God as a human. I have overcome the temptation. I have overcome the tempter. I have come to set you free from temptation. I have come to live within you in order that you may be as I am. Walk with me as a human being empowered by my presence. Walk with me and I will empower you to no longer count equality with God a thing to be grasped. Walk with me and I will enable you to live for others and not for yourself." Amen.
____________
1.aHarold Bloom, The American Religion: The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992), p. 2.
We have looked at this passage briefly in Chapter 6. It appears to be part of a series of stories (3:21-22; 3:23-38; 4:1-13; 4:16-21) that develop the Son of God theme in Luke's telling of the Jesus story. Jesus was declared to be Son of God in his baptism and through the instrument of a genealogical list. In this week's story the devil tries its hand at interpreting the meaning of Son of God. The devil operates from a "theology of glory." "If you are the Son of God," the devil says, "command this stone to become a loaf of bread." In this and its other temptations the devil seeks to persuade Jesus to "count equality with God a thing to be grasped" (Philip-pians 2:6). "Show us your God stuff," the devil hisses. "Let's see the glory now!" But Jesus would not. He remained an obedient Son of his God. He would walk the road of suffering to the cross. Glory would have to wait for another day. (See Luke 24:26.)
Jesus does not succumb to temptation. In so doing he establishes his identity as the obedient Son of God. The writer of the book of Hebrews picks up this theme in a pastoral way. "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin" (Hebrews 4:15). We see in Jesus, therefore, the One who overcomes temptation on behalf of all humankind! He becomes, in turn, a model for Christian discipleship.
Jesus turns away the temptations of the devil by quoting from the Old Testament, specifically from the book of Deuteronomy. Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy 8:3; 6:18 and 6:16 in turning back the devil's lying promises of glory. The context in the book of Deuteronomy is that of the people of Israel in exodus to a new land. According to most biblical accounts Israel's time in the wil-derness was a time of temptation and failure! In the wilderness Israel was tempted and failed. In his wilderness Jesus was tempted and did not fail.
The early Christian theologian Irenaeus made use of this wil-derness analogy and several other Old Testament analogies in his doctrine of recapitulation. Irenaeus spoke of Adam and Eve in Paradise as moral and spiritual children. Humans were intended to grow into full humanity, into ever closer resemblance with God the Maker of all. The devil's temptation (Genesis 3:1-7) was too much for those in the childhood of the race. They were tempted to "be like God." How can any human refuse such an offer? So Adam and Eve ate of the tree. They acted in disobedience. Through this act the whole of the human race became enslaved to the devil (Romans 5:12-21).
According to Irenaeus, the whole human race fell under the power of sin, death, and the devil through the disobedience of one man. If the human race fell into bondage through the disobedience of one man, it can be put back together again by the obedience of one man: "... just as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous" (Romans 5:19). As Irenaeus put it: "God in Christ became what we are, in order to enable us to become what He is." This is recapitulation. The word itself comes from the fact that mathematical addition in the ancient world put the sum at the top of the column. The solution is the "summing up" process. So, according to Irenaeus, all things are "summed up" in Christ; all things are "recapitulated" in Christ.
The temptation story, therefore, recapitulates the story of the fall. Adam was disobedient. (This is Irenaeus' way of putting the matter. Today we seek to include Eve in the story, too.) Jesus was obedient. Adam (and Eve) did count equality with God a "thing to be grasped." Jesus did not count equality with God "a thing to be grasped." Indeed, Christ became what we are in order that we might become what God is! Because of Christ's act of obedience we are free from the powers that held us in bondage.
The major significance of Irenaeus' theology was its polemic against Gnosticism. Harold Bloom, an author who defines himself as a Gnostic Jew, has written a recent book called The American Religion: The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation. His funda-mental thesis is that the religion that is native to American soil is Gnosticism. He defines Gnosticism as follows:
... the Gnostics, in a narrow sense, were a proto-Christian sect of the second century of the Common Era, whose broad beliefs centered in two absolute convictions: the Creation, of the world and of mankind in its present form, was the same event as the Fall of the world and of man, but humankind has in it a spark or breath of the uncreated, of God, and that spark can find its way back to the uncre-ated, unfallen world, in a solitary act of knowledge.1
Gnosticism, that is, believes that humans have fallen from a spiritual world that existed before the creation. We are now captives of a material world. But there is hope. God is within us! The uncreated is within us. The unfallen world is within us. Therefore, by a "solitary act of knowledge" (gnosis means knowledge) we can leave this material world and return to our rightful place among the gods.
The aim of Bloom's book is to show how the new American religions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are at heart gnostic. The major nineteenth century new religions in America were Mormon, Christian Science, Seventh-Day Adventism, Jehovah's Witness, and Pentecostalism. All are gnostic, proclaims Bloom. The cults that have sprung up among us in recent years are gnostic as well. Most of what passes for "spirituality" in the media today is also gnostic. Bloom's analysis of the gnostic tendencies of so much of what passes for "spirituality" today is essentially on target!
The single passage of Scripture that could be used as a theme for a book on these religions and cults is Genesis 3:5: "... for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." Gnostics of every time and every place count equality with God a thing to be grasped. God is within them, and all they need to do is to know this, and act upon this knowledge, and they will be reunited with the gods.
Against such did Irenaeus rail. So must we. Today's text is a very important bulwark against manifold forms of false spirituality! Jesus Christ did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. Counting equality with God a thing to be grasped is perhaps the fundamental human sin. We were not created to be gods. We were created to be human beings. We were created to live in obe-dience to God. Jesus demonstrates that obedience for us in the temptation story. As Risen Lord he takes our fallen humanity and restores it to full humanity. As Risen Lord he grants to our humanity eternal life.
Homiletical Directions
In its narrative setting in Luke's Gospel the story of the temp-tation is part of a series of stories in Luke 3 and 4 which gradually reveal for us the meaning of Son of God. If you did not deal with this narrative sequence on the Sunday of the Baptism of the Lord you may wish to deal with it here. See Chapter 5 for the exposition of the Son of God theme in Luke and possible directions for this week's sermon.
We have put the story of Jesus' temptation in much broader narrative perspective in what we have said above. It is quite natural to place the story of Jesus' temptation alongside the first story of human temptation in the Genesis garden. Story One of our sermon, therefore, would be the Genesis 3 story of temp-tation. The final focus of the telling of this story should be on the fundamental human temptation to play God. "Eat it," the devil said, "and you will be like God."
Before turning to today's story it might be wise to play out this "be like God" motif in the human story. A story or two of how we humans seek to play God might be told. Or you might enter the gnostic world which we introduced through Irenaeus' theology of recapitulation. This week's text affords us an excellent opportunity to deal with the nature of much of the spirituality that runs rampant in our culture today. People claim to be more "spiritual" than ever even though formal religion or going to church has nothing to do with it. Much of the spirituality that surrounds us is gnostic. The assumption is that God is by nature within us and that what we need for a fulfilling life is to make contact with the God within. Spirituality that does this lives out the fundamental human sin. Such spirituality makes equality with God a thing to be grasped!
If you deal with the gnostic theme it would be wise if you can tell a story from the cult world or the world of contemporary "spir-ituality" that makes the point. You might also wish to say a few words about Irenaeus to indicate that Jesus was obedient where humans were disobedient. Jesus did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped! The usage of Philippians 2:6 is very im-portant in a sermon that focuses on the center of human temptation „ the temptation to want to be like God.
Finally, tell the story of the temptation. Tell it with a focus on Jesus' obedience, on the fact that he did not grasp equality with God. In doing so Jesus Christ won the victory over the tempter and the temptation. In his victory we have new human possibilities for our life of discipleship. Irenaeus was right. Jesus became like us in order that we might be like him!
A concluding proclamation would enable Jesus to speak to us of his empowering victory. Jesus says to us today: "The human race succumbed to temptation. Humans wanted to be God. So I have come from God as a human. I have overcome the temptation. I have overcome the tempter. I have come to set you free from temptation. I have come to live within you in order that you may be as I am. Walk with me as a human being empowered by my presence. Walk with me and I will empower you to no longer count equality with God a thing to be grasped. Walk with me and I will enable you to live for others and not for yourself." Amen.
____________
1.aHarold Bloom, The American Religion: The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992), p. 2.
