Snubbing the Devil

Snubbing the Devil--March 6, 2017

"Again the devil took Jesus to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; and he said to him, 'All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.' Jesus said to him, 'Away with you, Satan! for it is written, Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.' Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him." [Matthew 4:8-11]

It's not just the what... it's the how as well.

It's not just that Jesus is the rightful once-and-future ruler of the universe--it's that Jesus' way of ruling doesn't look like an empire.  It looks like self-giving love.  It looks like a cross.

I know that at first blush this story of Jesus and the devil can be tricky for us to know how to deal with.  After all, we know the twin temptations about evil--either to imagine that evil is all an illusion, or to imagine that every rotten thing in the world is "the devil's fault."  We either see red horns and pitchforks hiding behind every hangnail and speeding ticket on the one hand, or we fall for what the movie The Usual Suspects calls "the greatest trick the devil ever pulled--convincing the world he didn't exist."  So it's hard for us to know what to do with a story like this, a literal contest between Jesus and the evil one, Jesus and the old Accuser, the Satan (reminder, the word "satan" is not a personal name in the Hebrew Bible, but a title, like a prosecuting attorney or accuser).  This kind of conversation between Jesus and the forces of evil seems so far out of our daily experience that we don't even know where to begin with it.

Well, let me suggest a starting point.  The whole conversation, the whole scene of temptation in the wilderness, is one of the evil one's craftier strategies.  He is playing for the how and not even fighting Jesus on the what.  The devil practically grants right off the bat that Jesus is the Son of God (and after all, this moment from the Gospels follows right after Jesus' baptism, where the literal voice of God speaks from heaven, "This is my Son," so that's not really up for debate if we have made it to this point in the Gospel).  The devil knows he won't have much traction trying to get Jesus to doubt that part of his identity, since the words "You are my Son, the Beloved," are still echoing in his ears. No, the devil's clever plan is to suggest to Jesus an alternative way of being the Son of God, a different approach to being the Messiah, that doesn't involve suffering love or a cross.

And really, all apologies to Kevin Spacey in The Usual Suspects, but THAT is really the cleverest ploy the devil attempts in the Scriptures: to get us to think the how doesn't matter, as long as we are aiming for the right what.  The devil's strategy is to say to Jesus, "Look, you are here to rule the world as God's chosen King and Messiah, right?  So rule, already!  I'll give you the keys to the whole thing right now!  You can claim the Roman Empire, crown yourself right now, and have any other kingdoms you can see, with no fine print... you just have to accept my terms."  The devil wants to get Jesus to turn from the way of suffering love.  The devil wants to get Jesus to fall for becoming one more in a long line of emperors, tyrants, and pompous blowhards in power.  The devil wants to get Jesus to think it doesn't matter how he rules, as long as he rules! 

All of that is to say, the most insidiously demonic motto of all is simply to assert that it doesn't matter how you act or what you have to do to win... you only have to win!

The evil one banks on Jesus being just like every other emperor, every ruling party, every king and prince and potentate that had come before or would come after.  The evil one's strategy is to get Jesus to give up on the cross as the way God rules, and to short circuit the kind of rule God intends over creation--to skip past suffering, self-giving love, restorative justice, and mercy for all of us undeserving stinkers, and just rule with an iron first and jackboots.

The evil one assumes that Jesus just wants the emperor's crown and is looking for a way to avoid the shame and sorrow of the cross.  The evil one assumes (wrongly) that God's power is like every other power out there--that it has to be coercive, angry, and threatening in order to accomplish its ends.  The evil one assumes that the only way to rule the world is to get yourself crowned as a head of state.   He assumes that because that is how evil works in the world--using fear and anger and intimidation to force one's way and to step on people who get in the way.

And this, dear friends, is the devil's undoing--he suffers from a lack of imagination!  The devil cannot imagine that there could be another kind of rule, another kind of reign, another kind of victory.  He cannot stomach or fathom the idea of a rule through suffering love. 

So often, we religious folks suffer from a similar delusion.  We often think that the cross is some unfortunate obstacle getting in the way of Jesus' rule--as if Jesus had been on his way toward a coronation on Palm Sunday, but that pesky Good Friday business derailed him, until Easter put him back on track to take his place in the ranks of Caesar and Alexander the Great and Nebuchadnezzar and the pharaohs of Egypt as one more in a long line of exalted emperors.  So often we imagine that the cross is a detour from the Kingdom of God, or that it is somehow the price Jesus must pay in order to later on get to establish the Kingdom.  But that's not how the Gospels tell it--no, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all make the scandalous claim that the cross is the way God rules.  The suffering love in the life and death of Jesus were not simply Jesus paying his dues, as it were, before he could get crowned.  The suffering love that Jesus lived and surrendered his life to are the way Jesus shows himself the rightful ruler of the universe.   They are his reign.

For Jesus, the way he rules is just as important as the fact that he rules.  A tyrant Christ or a pompous blowhard Jesus could not be the true Messiah, the true Son of God--because the way the Messiah rules reveals the character of the God whose kingdom it is.

That means for Jesus, there are certain tactics and strategies that are ruled out right from the start, both for him, and for us, his followers.  Jesus rules out doing evil for evil. Jesus rules out being dominated by fear and hate.  Jesus rules out taking advantage of people.  Jesus rules out paranoia and suspicion.  Jesus rules out blaming someone else or looking for convenient scapegoats--and every time we try to dump guilt or blame on some easily-targeted person or group, Jesus turns our sights back on himself and says, "No! You don't get to make those people your scapegoats--if you are going to play that game, you had better turn your attacks on me first!"  And he absorbs all of our vilest impulses like that.  There is not a whiff of self-serving.  There is no room for ego-driven plotting, like, "I have to show I'm better than you, so I'll one up you every chance I get like a little child!"  None of those are acceptable strategies for King Jesus.  And for Jesus, and the movement he is launching, the way we carry out the movement is as important as (if not more important than!) any conventional victories or success along the way.  For the people of Jesus, living the Kingdom-life is how we succeed.  Whether or not anybody else is "wowed" by that kind of life is not the point. Whether we are popular or not is not important.  Whether we are comfortable or have impressive numbers is not the issue.  Jesus' victory is the cross and the suffering cruciform love that he embodied all the way there, and our victory is in sharing that kind of life together.

Today, then, it's not about what the world calls success or failure.  Today, then, you and I will be given lots of opportunities to buy into the "It doesn't matter how you get there--you only have to win" thinking.  Just remember that it is demonic every time, regardless of how it is phrased, whose lips are saying it, or how much we think we want whatever the goal is.  Jesus is not just interested in the destination, but the way we take to get there.  Jesus is not simply looking to be emperor of the universe by force and by fear, but, as the New Testament says it, "to fill all things and be all in all."

Today, when those opportunities for short-circuiting the way of self-giving love come to you, call  them out for what they are.  When you have the chance to scapegoat, when you have the chance to alienate, when you have the chance to pass the buck, when you have the chance to use fear to get your way, when you have the chance to look out for your own interests while squashing somebody else, recognize those as the diabolically empty promises they are, and echo Jesus' words, "Away with you, Satan!"

Go ahead, snub the devil.  Jesus has given us a better Way.  He is our victory.

Lord Jesus, give us the courage to step into your way of life, and the wisdom not to fall for the empty promises the devil offers us of winning at any cost.