First Church in Cambridge, Congregational UCC
13 February 2005
Nothing to Prove
I suppose telling people you are a minister is not the worst answer to the ever-present cocktail party question, "So, what do you do?" but it must be up there on the list. I was at a cocktail party a few years ago, and I overheard a conversation where someone said they were a funeral director. I thought to myself, "at last, I don't have the strangest job in the room." I decided I needed to introduce myself to this guy and thank him. So I did just that, told him I was a minister and tried to make some joke about how we might run into each other one of these days through our work. He laughed and said, "A minister? That's a good one, that's almost better than mine." He proceeded to tell me "I'm not really a funeral director. I'm actually a pilot for United but I get sick of answering people's questions about it so I just tell them something else." We had ourselves a little chuckle, sipped our drinks, and then he asked me, "so what do you really do?" He still thought I had to be kidding. I decided to have some fun and told him I was an actor and had been in a bunch of B movies that he probably hadn't seen. Once I had him hooked for a minute, I eventually broke the news to him that I was serious the first time. He wouldn't believe me until I pulled out my business card.
I tell this story because it points to a silly fear of mine. I have it less now than I once did. But when I used to meet a new crowd of people or even when I was spending time with my secular friends, I would worry that folks would think that just because I'm a minister, I can't be Cool. Documentary film-making or bartending? Cool. Taxi driving or landscape architecture? Cool. Funeral directing and Ministry: Uncool. Or so I used to think. For all of the countless blessings that being a minister has brought to my life, it has instilled within me a bizarre if periodic need to prove to people that I can be a minister and be cool. "I can swear and swill with the best of them," I would say to myself (and only sometimes still do). Call it vanity. Call me a crowd pleaser. Call it what you will. If I ever have to account for all this nonsense, my initial line of defense would be this: The devil made me do it!
Ah yes, the devil. You know the devil. We all know the devil. We don't talk about the devil in most churches these days because we've somehow grown too sophisticated for horns and pitchforks, but today, the devil is in our scripture and we cannot avoid him. Let me just caution you not to overanalyze his character or question whether we are supposed to believe that there really was a beast there staring Jesus down in the desert. For our purposes, let's go with what we already know—quite simply, that the devil is a bad influence.
Now, time to get serious.. I'd like for us to enter the scene of our scripture for a moment, if only as distant observers. Try to close your eyes, relax and take a deep breath. Picture yourself in a time long ago standing in the middle of an unnamed desert in Israel. There are lightly colored pebbles and rocks are under your feet. The land around you is more or less barren with the exception of a few scattered bushes. There are no houses or signs of civilization in sight. It is a hazy dusk and you are just able to make out a few stars beginning to appear amidst some wispy clouds that hang over the wide horizon. On a rocky ledge halfway up a hill in the distance, you can make out the black silhouette of a thin figure sitting cross-legged, his body slouched over and his head collapsed into his chest. He is alone at first. But then you notice another figure or maybe just tall shadow by his side. For some reason, you aren't sure of just what you are looking at. This eerie figure seems to fade in and out sight. You hear the trace of voices whispering intently. The silhouette of the man begins to appear mildly disturbed, his hands move up from his lap and embrace his arms, and his body starts to rock back and forth, slowly and gently. The wind carries a few words of the conversation to you. You can barely make them out though they seem to be repeating. "If you are who everyone thinks you are, then prove it!" "If you are who everyone thinks you are, prove it to me!" A long silence ensues. The haunting voice continues to resonate in your mind. Your eyes wince and you turn your head away for a moment. You take a breath. You turn and look back to the hillside. Only the man remains, his arms now relaxed at his sides. You're eyes are fixed on him as he slowly lifts his head to the night sky.
You'll have to forgive me for taking a little poetic license with this text. In fact the devil did not say "prove it." And yet I think one thing that is central to each of the three temptations is that the devil asks Jesus to prove something. When asked to turn stones into bread, to jump off the temple, and to take over all the power in the world, the devil asks Jesus, among other things, to prove his identity. Two out of three of the biblical temptations begin, "If you are the son of God, then . . . " If you are the son of God, then turn these stones into bread. If you are the son of God, then jump from this high place and prove that God's angels will sweep you up. The third can be spun in the same way, "If you are the Son of God, then prove it to me." Go ahead, take all the power and wealth of this world and just try to use it for good, just try not to let it corrupt you. Go ahead, prove it to me that you are that good!"
If you are who you think you are, prove it! The devil speaks these same words to us. And I fear we often do just as the devil wants. We are constantly trying to prove that we are that good, that smart, that cool, that different, or even that indifferent. As you know, Lent is a season given to prayer and reflection and self-awareness. The 40 days of Lent mirror the forty days that Jesus was in the desert. As we enter into this new season of Lent, this scripture invites us each to ponder a question derived from devil's demands of Jesus: What am I trying to prove? Feel free to play with some different variations. What have I spent my life trying to prove, and to who? Where in my am I trying to prove to myself or to others that I'm in control, that I'm good enough, patient enough, responsible enough, tough enough, smart enough, liberal enough? How might my life look different if I had nothing to prove? I don't expect you to answer these questions by the time you walk out the door today. But try to think about them, long and hard, say for forty days. They are questions to take to God in daily meditation, with your defenses down and your fears exposed to the one who knows and loves you better than you can know and love yourself.
So how did Jesus do it? How did he resist the devil's temptations? He knew right off the bat what we do not know, that he had nothing to prove, to the devil, to God, to himself or to anyone else. In this passage, and throughout his life, I am convinced that Jesus led his life having nothing to prove. He knew that God was his only richness, that humanity cannot live on bread alone. He believed in the depth of his soul that God accepts us and loves us unconditionally. He knew there is nothing we can do to earn that precious love, and nothing we can to do prove that we are worthy of it. And so, better than anyone of us, he was able to surrender the pursuits of his ego unto God in whom he would live and move and have his being. In faith, he was able to surrender his ego-driven fear of going hungry, fear of seeming weak and even the fear of death itself, to put his trust in God's all consuming and eternal love.
For those of us who have less faith and trust, we at least know "the devil made me do it" is a weak defense. Ultimately, the devil is a mask for fear, and fear is precisely what lies at the root of all temptation. If I were Jesus, I'd be most afraid of getting carried away with the whole Son of God thing, wouldn't you? Perhaps the devil in our passage represents this central fear of Jesus, a fear of exploiting his power and immortality that would have held him back from his call to solidarity with all of humanity. Compared to Jesus, our fears may seem mundane, but they are nonetheless real. They work as elusively as a shadowy figure whispering in our souls. They keep us from us knowing the joy and freedom of living in the fullness of God's love and of sharing it with one another. The litany would go something like this:
Fear of failure tempts us to prove how successful we are.
Fear of losing control tempts us to prove how we can keep it together, all by ourselves.
Fear of inadequacy tempts us to be overachievers.
Fear of intimacy tempts us to prove how tough and independent we are.
And, my personal favorite: the "Fear Factor" of death leads us to prove that we are the ultimate "Survivor".
Reality show writers eat this stuff with a spoon for breakfast. Some of our politicians seem to thrive on it absolutely. Though we can and to some extent should point our fingers at the waywardness of Washington and Hollywood, Lent invites to journey inward and to look at ourselves first. Lent reminds us to embrace our own fears—everybody's got 'em—and to expose them to the healing the touch of God's grace. It almost makes you wonder if its fear of God's grace that tempts us to prove how skeptical we are about religion, and Christianity in particular. 'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,' right? And grace my fears relieved. Amazing stuff, indeed, and yet we still carry with us that nagging burden of proof.
Most of us know what it feels like to have someone try to prove they love us—maybe a little kid who is looking for some extra attention. Say this young child makes you card on no particular occasion. We might ask, 'what's this for?' and we can picture the child saying, 'it's to prove that I love you!' Sweet maybe, but what a plea? Can you imagine something more heartbreaking? Put yourself in the shoes of that child anytime you try to prove something before God. We are breaking the very heart of God whenever we do not realize that God's grace abounds freely, and we can do nothing to prove ourselves worthy. God loves us "just as we are, without one plea", as another hymn goes. Jesus got this, and so was able to resist the devil's temptation. We still have our work cut out for us.
To recognize those places where we are trying to prove something, to recognize our fears, is to know both where we are most susceptible to the devil's temptation and where we are most in need of God's grace. The example I opened with—my trying to prove that I'm cool—is one of many examples for me and a minor one at that. But if we understand sin, not so much as a list of bad behaviors, but as the fundamental and inevitable separation from God and from one another, my attempt to prove myself will separate me not only from God's love and affirmation of my particular gifts, but also from anyone else I would have deemed uncool! Don't worry...you're all cool in my book. I think I can still handle the job. But if we play this dynamic out with Jesus' temptations, if he had proven his identity as the Son of God to the devil, Jesus would have not only turned from God, but he would have separated himself from humanity as well. Some would say that at that very moment, there in the desert, Jesus chose his life of solidarity with all humanity! He knew that his divinity was not something to be exalted, as Paul suggest in his letter to the Philippians. He chose solidarity with average folks like you and with me. By so claiming that he was just like the rest of us, he miraculously became someone we would especially listen to and follow. From the wilderness of fear and temptation, he steps back into the world, free to claim his role as a suffering servant, secure in his relationship with God, clear about his solidarity with others, with nothing to fear and nothing to prove. It's as if he took an early retirement that day in the wilderness, to live so God could use him. How cool is that? Again I ask you, how would your life look different if you had nothing to prove? Can we begin to imagine the joy and freedom?
This Lent, may we let ourselves be led by the spirit into the wilderness. With Christ's example as the center of our faith, may we live as if we had nothing to prove. May we surrender our fears to God's grace. May we surrender our God-given and God-affirmed distinctiveness that we too may live in solidarity with our every neighbor. May we let God search us and know us in all places, that we too, in words of Howard Thurman, may let this "quiet hush of surrender envelop [us] in the great silence of intimate commitment ".
Amen.
© 2005, Daniel Smith