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“And lead us not into temptation…”
Sermon by Catherine W. FitzGerald March 13, 2005, Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill Genesis 3: 1-7 Matthew 26: 36-46
This morning we heard a tale of two gardens—and in them, two temptations. The first, that of Adam and Eve, is easily perceptible—there was a rule, temptation to break that rule, and the breaking of the rule. The second temptation story, belonging to Jesus, is not so easy to hear. Stay awake with me, as we sift our way through the temptation narratives. For we, who were once sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, now look to Christ for new meaning and life. But first, to the Garden of Eden… In the garden we find Adam and Eve—the first humans of God’s creation—created in God’s own image. The garden is paradise itself—land of milk and honey—the place dreams are made of. And in this perfect place, something goes awfully awry. It all begins with the serpent and his first question: “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” It’s a seemingly innocent question—one which everyone knows the answer to—including Adam and Eve. “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.’” Adam and Eve know the answer, but the serpent’s question (“Did God say that?”) brings them doubt. Haven’t you ever known the answer to a question before it was asked, and then once it was asked doubted your answer? Doubt slithers in, leaving Adam and Eve to wonder—“Did we hear him right?” And then, the serpent takes that doubt and runs with it: “you won’t die—God knows that when you eat the fruit your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” The snake comes as a wolf in sheep’s clothing: “If I know God, and I think I do, he’d never do a thing like that—God wouldn’t limit his love—would he? Maybe you just misunderstood.” The serpent has tempted them—and made his proposition seem congruent with God’s being and will. And, as we well know, the temptation is quite successful. This week I took my sermon research to the public. It was time to read my monthly story in our pre-K classes…I chose the story of Adam and Eve’s temptation…written in Dr. Suess-like verse. Little did I know that following the story, I would be inundated with confessions. Yes, I know all the preschoolers’ dirty little secrets. How little Joey stole those extra chocolate chips, how Jenny stayed up past her bedtime. (Names have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent.) Interestingly, the 2 and 3 year olds were far more innocent than the 4 and 5 year olds. It was healing all around. ? Actually, it was rather refreshing, for the confessions of a preschooler are far less intimidating than those we find in our texts today. Faced with the gravity of true temptation (in this situation eating the forbidden fruit had far worse consequences than eating the forbidden cookie)…being with the children was refreshing. If only our temptations remained so innocent. Alas, they are not. The Adam and Eve story exemplifies the root of our temptation—our desire to be gods, to be in control of our lives, rather than giving our lives over to God, and thereby loosing the control to which we so desperately cling. As Douglas John Hall puts it: “The temptation of Adam and Eve and of the Christ, the temptation of Everyman and Everywoman is to have their being rather than having to receive it, daily, like the manna of the wilderness or the ‘daily bread’ of Jesus’ model prayer. It is the temptation to possess being rather than to trust the One who gives us our being, daily.” Adam and Eve’s lack of trust lead to severe punishment by God—hardship, toil, death—exile from Eden. And this punishment, in part, defines humanity throughout the generations. We know now that being fully human involves limits, loneliness, temptation and anxiety. All of these are part of what it means to be free. And in our freedom we have options. Above all, we have the option to choose or not choose a life with God. As we affirm both Jesus’ divinity and his humanity, we affirm that he too had this choice—which brings us to our second garden. The temptation in the wilderness has passed. Jesus has already faced loneliness and abandonment in the desert—at his weakest, he has boldly defied Satan. He has entered Jerusalem, and sat down to eat for one final supper with his disciples—among them the one who would betray him. Following the meal, Jesus took them on a trip to the garden—the garden of Gethsemane. Though he brought all of his disciples to the garden (all but one, of course) he asked only three to accompany him into its depths. Peter, John and James—the inner circle of disciples—followed Jesus as he made his way through the garden to pray. He had been trying to tell his disciples for some time now that it would come to this—his betrayal and crucifixion. They didn’t seem to get it. Every time he tried to warn them, tried to convince them, it was harder and harder to stick to the plan. How they were still so filled with denial. As they walked, Jesus became more and more overwhelmed by his sorrow, anxiety, and frustration. He had brought Peter and the boys from Zebedee with him—maybe this time they would finally get it. He needed them to get it—just so that someone would be with him through this, to lessen the pain of it all. A little further into the garden, his despair became too great to bear alone—“I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here and stay awake with me.” He made his way a little farther into the garden and threw himself on the ground to pray: “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me—yet not what I want but what you want.” He was so tempted to leave off that last part and shout, “let this cup pass from me—take it away!” But he continued to suffer in obedience. Finishing his prayer he returned to his disciples, only to find that they too had abandoned him in their slumber. Clearly, they didn’t get it. Frustrated, he awoke the three: “So, you could not stay awake with me one hour? Stay awake and pray that you may not come into the time of trial; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Alone again, he went to pray. With each moment his temptation increased—in his humanness he craved to save his own life, rather than sacrifice it for us—the ones, who like the disciples, could not even stay awake with him. With each episode his suffering increased, and if we are to believe Jesus is fully human (which we do), then increased suffering must have been accompanied by increased temptation to abandon the plan. But each time, he ended, in prayer and action, with, “not what I want, but what you want.” Jesus prays three times—and each time returns to find the disciples sleeping. He was ultimately abandoned. He had no one—not God, not humans. And following their third bout of slumber, Jesus is handed over by his betrayer with a kiss. It was the ultimate “dark night of the soul”—his was the ultimate suffering—and thereby, he faced the ultimate temptation. Bonhoeffer explains: “the temptation of Jesus is not that heroic struggle of man against wicked powers that we fondly and lightly suppose. In the temptation, Jesus is robbed of all his own strength, he is left alone by God and man, in anguish he must suffer Satan’s robbery, he has fallen into the deepest darkness. He is left with nothing but the saving, supporting, enduring Word of God, which holds him firmly and which fights and conquers for him.” Jesus exposes himself to all of these temptations—and it is here his reconciliation with God on our behalf begins. Jesus overcomes the greatest temptation and remains obedient to God—thereby changing the course of human history forever. By the temptation of Christ, the temptation of Adam is brought to an end. Bonhoeffer continues, “All temptation is temptation of Jesus Christ and all victory is victory of Jesus Christ. All temptation leads the believer into the deepest solitude, into abandonment by men and by God. But in this solitude he finds Jesus Christ, man and God. The blood of Christ and the example of Christ and the prayer of Christ are his help and his strength.” Jesus, the one who reconciles us to God, is also the one who taught us to pray. His prayers and actions in Gethsemane distinctly echo the prayer taught to his disciples. Pray like this: “Lead us not into temptation…” Origen, one of the early “fathers” of the church, asks a great question: Why do we pray “lead us not into temptation” when we know well that we face temptation every day? What do we mean when we pray? He writes: “Let us pray, therefore, that we be delivered from testing, not so that we should not be tested (for this is impossible…), but so that we should not be overcome when we are tested.” Origen lived with the great fear of his own temptations. In fact, he went to great efforts to avoid temptation. He chose to sleep on the ground, rather than the bed—wanting no comfort. He took literally the reference of the Gospel to “those who make themselves eunuchs because of the kingdom of heaven”—and physically deprived himself of his sexual organs by castration. He knew temptation well, and apparently, he approached it with great fear and trembling. But if I have made you nervous, let me reassure you—we do not need to go to these extremes to fend off temptations. Let me make you nervous again—we do not need to go to these extremes because there is nothing we have in our power to prevent us from being tempted. And now for more reassurance: there is one who helps us overcome it. I hope everyone is aware by now that I am not talking about having that second doughnut, but about down and dirty, life-threatening temptation—temptation that hits us where we are most vulnerable—temptation that meets us at our weakest. I found this sort of temptation abundant in the hospital, during my time as hospital chaplain. I have never seen such reason to despair—nor have I seen such resilience in Christ. It is easy to stand here this morning and pray the “Our Father”—it is not such an easy prayer when faced with true trials of the soul. But Jesus has given us this prayer not just for daily sustenance—he has given it to us as crisis ministry. As Hauerwas and Willimon attest, “Words like ‘save’ and ‘trial’ and ‘deliver’ are words of crisis. They remind us that to pray this prayer means to be thrust into the middle of a cosmic struggle.” As most health care workers do, I saw a lot of crises in the hospital—each with their unique heartbreak, and yet unified in human suffering. When dealing with the subject of prayer, one particular woman stands out in my mind. Helen was an African American woman in her mid-forties on my oncology unit. She was there for months. When I was first called to visit her, she couldn’t even talk—we had to work with pens, pads, nods, and a lot of tears. She was so miserable—battling the cancer was only worsened by her inability to care for her children and responsibilities as she lay in the hospital bed. Weeks into our meetings, she was finally able to speak. She told me—“we must be prayer warriors.” I knew it was true, and I believe we were prayer warriors for one another. But I’m afraid, for Helen, the Job-like trials were just beginning. We thought she was in the clear when she was released a few weeks later. And, I believe in terms of her cancer, she was okay. But her own cancer was no match for the event to come. One morning I stopped by the office to check on some patient lists and I overheard a colleague speaking about an incident in the ER. “There is a woman whose son is probably going to die…she had this long last name I think it was....” And I knew, this was my Helen…this was her son. I rushed down to see what was going on (probably more for my own sake than for hers). Her eleven-year-old son had died of an asthma attack—they didn’t even know he had asthma. They believed it was due to the air conditions in her home. She was originally scheduled to move to a new home before her hospitalization. She never got a chance to make that move. Already at her weakest, Helen experienced this blow no mother should bear. My temptation (a temptation that I faced frequently in the hospital) was to go home, crawl into bed, and never return to work. For Helen, I imagine the suffering and pain were a much greater source of temptation. Hers was the story of Job: a woman of faith plagued by tragedies. And yet, in her abandonment she knew there was only one to turn to. I could not run from God, nor could she, for God calls us to stay awake to him through prayer. Helen prayed. Her family prayed. Her ministers prayed. The deacons from her church prayed. The even let me pray (an intimidating feat amidst Baptists, who are generally very gifted at extemporaneous prayer!!). It did not make it better. It did not give us reason. It was more than any of us could bear…but not more than Jesus could bear. Hall’s words echo this belief: “Because God’s own face is set against that which negates life, suffering does not and must not have the last word in this tradition.” This is the good news. Broken and worn down, we confront temptation with the only weapon we have left: prayer. When we are angry, despairing, lonely—our only choice as Christians is to turn to the one who taught us to pray. And we pray his prayer together. We are together in Christ—he made it that way. Though in the garden, Jesus wishes his life would be spared (and he wants God to know it), he commits himself to God through prayer. And so, every time we are faced with temptation, and in the in between times, we must also commit ourselves through prayer—that we might stay awake to God, awake to the will of God. Not my will, but your will be done. We are descendants of Adam and Eve—tempted at every turn. We are also Christians—followers of the one who suffered and endured in Gethsemane. He meets us in our deepest, darkest places and says, “you are not alone.” He gives us the good news that we have not been abandoned. And this is very good news. Thanks be to God, Amen. |