Refusing a Reasonable Devil

Refusing a Reasonable Devil--September 21, 2018

Then the devil took Jesus 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. [Luke 4:9-13]

Whatever else you might want to say about him, the devil comes off as a reasonable fellow.

By that, I mean that the tempter who speaks here in Jesus' wilderness days is only suggesting that Jesus use the privilege he surely has in order to keep himself safe, insulated from pain, and comfortable.  And to our ears, that temptation always sounds reasonable--we don't have to work too hard to convince ourselves to use our privilege (while at the same time, maybe not even recognizing that's what we are doing) to keep ourselves from having to endure suffering.

That really is the gist of what the devil proposes to Jesus.  In the whole contest between Jesus and the tempter, the real issue is how Jesus will embody his calling as Son of God.  Will he use his divine potential to whip up bread and other creature comforts whenever he wants?  Will he be willing to bow down in exchange for political power and all the world's kingdoms?  And then there is this third offer in Luke's gospel--for Jesus to throw himself down from the top of the Temple, knowing that if he wished, the angels would come and catch him, so that he didn't even stub his little messianic toe.  It is, in other words, the temptation to use the perks of being the Son of God with angel armies at his command.  It is the temptation to be treated specially and to let it happen in order to be spared some menial inconvenience or trouble.  

And honestly, don't we find that all too tempting ourselves?  We might even convince ourselves that it's just plain... reasonable to use whatever advantages, leg-ups, or head starts we can get in life.  We might even convince ourselves that our advantages aren't really unfair--they're just how it is and always has been.  And that's just the thing--what makes the temptation so diabolical here is the suggestion not only that it's perfectly reasonable for Jesus to use his privilege to keep himself insulated from suffering, but that maybe it's not even a privilege, but just the natural order of things.  After all, once you have chosen not to see to special position you have, you also prevent yourself from having to see that others do not have the option of calling angelic armies to cushion your feet.

Wonderfully, of course, Jesus rejects the devil's offer.  Jesus sees through it, and refuses to go through with the stunt, even though the tempter has quoted Bible verses to make it seem appealing (a reminder to us all once again, that just having a Bible verse to quote is not a guarantee of being in tune with God's Kingdom agenda).  Jesus rejects not just this particular dare--of jumping off the temple and getting caught by angels--but the whole logic that lies underneath it.  Jesus refuses to use his status as "Son of God" for his own benefit, or to secure his own life, or to keep himself comfortable.  That is true, not only for those forty days in the wilderness, but for a whole lifetime all the way up to and beyond the cross.  

Jesus lays down the privilege he could have leveraged as the divine Son of God at every turn.  He gets hungry.  He gets lonely.  He bears the anger and doubt and betrayal of those closest to him.  He gets arrested.  He endures the hateful way the Romans look down on Jews, as a Jewish man himself, and he endures the hateful way the religious leaders look down on outcasts, tax collectors, and sinners by identifying with them as well.  He allows the soldiers to torture him rather than using a divine Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card.  He dies.  Surely, at every point along the way, there was the voice of the tempter at the back of Jesus' ear saying, "You could avoid all this.  You could be spared enduring what these walking meat-sack humans go through.  You could have those angels here in a moment to prevent you from having to be treated poorly.  You could let them suffer themselves."  Luke hints as much when he notes that the devil departed from Jesus "until an opportune time," which meant that the temptation to use his privilege for himself was there all the time, ultimately at the cross when the crowds cry out, echoing the devil's own logic, "If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross..."

Thank God that Jesus says no, not just once, but for his whole life long.  Thank God that Jesus is able to see that even if he could summon angelic protectors to keep him from stubbing his toe, that is not the way of the living God.  The God whom Jesus has come to make known suffers alongside us, walks with us through the wilderness, goes with us into exile, and grieves in our own grief as well.  The God whom Jesus has come to make known doesn't put God's own self first, but lays down whatever privilege could be used.  That, in fact, is what the apostle Paul would say about Jesus by quoting an even earlier hymn in what we call Philippians 2:5-8, where he says:

"Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death--even death on a cross."

For Paul and the very, very earliest Christian community even before Paul, this was not simply a recitation of historical episodes in Jesus' life, but a picture of how Jesus had dealt with the privilege he had access to as one "in the form of God."  And in the wider context of Philippians, Paul's point is that the followers of Jesus are called to do the same. We who name the name of Jesus are called to recognize the places in each of our lives at which we have been given advantages, protections, and comforts that are not given to all. And instead of milking them to keep ourselves comfortable while others suffer, we are called like Jesus to lay them down.  We are called, in other words, to value other people more than our own privilege... because we have learned it from Jesus.

Today, that's our calling: to look at our own selves honestly, and to see where we have been hiding safely in the shelter of advantages others do not have, and instead of using them at others' expense, to lay them down.  We are called to value what Jesus values--and Jesus values others more than he values his own comfort.

The devil won't be able to understand such other-centered values, because the devil's appeal to using your own privilege for yourself and your group always presents itself as "reasonable." But the good news for us on this day is that Jesus was never all that interested in looking "reasonable," at least on the devil's terms, and he has already laid down all his privilege, all the way to a cross, for us, even before we have done a thing.  

Lord Jesus, give us the courage to see ourselves honestly and to set aside our advantages to stand with the world you love.