Communion/ First Sunday in Lent March 1 , 2009 Lenten Voices of Transformation # 1 “The Voice of Temptation” Reverend Michael D. Powell Mark 1:9-15

And so it begins – the Lenten Voices of Transformation. We began on Wednesday with a day of silent prayer, and then in the evening we were reminded of our mortality by the sign of the cross on our brow, reminded that our mortal frames have come from dust and unto dust they shall return. Lent is historically a time for prayer, for introspection and self examination. That’s why we’ll have vespers tonight and again on the 15 th. Lent is a time for growing in our faith.

There is a particular passage of scripture that we read every year on the First Sunday in Lent. It’s the story of how Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness, and it’s actually the record of a fascinating dialogue. Talk about Lenten voices of transformation - how about this conversation between Jesus and Satan, who is trying to get Jesus to compromise his spiritual values?

Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but this morning’s version of the story is from the Gospel of Mark, and it’s a minimalist picture. Mark is a man of few words. There’s no dialogue at all. Mark doesn’t itemize or elaborate upon the temptations, doesn’t put words into the mouth of either Jesus or Satan. In fact, his version is only two verses long, and concludes simply by saying that Jesus was “ministered to by angels,” which probably means that he’d make a popular preacher. He’d have you out of here in 55 minutes flat every Sunday. And it’s an amazing story because Jesus himself must have originally told it. Nobody else was with him. Imagine if I did that some Sunday, told about how I’d just come back from having a long and involved conversation with the prince of darkness. That’d be one hell of a sermon!

But that’s what Jesus did. He told about how he’d been tempted to compromise, to be less than God was calling him to be, but that he was ministered to by angels during his wilderness struggle. The temptations of Jesus are part of what Joseph Campbell refers to as “The Hero’s Journey.” Jesus is a spiritual hero of faith. We’re invited to identify with his strength, just as he identifies with our weakness. The purpose of Lent is for us to identify with the passion of Christ as he struggled to incarnate the divinity of God’s Spirit; to live up to the high calling God had laid upon his life. He was a hero who struggled even as we struggle, and he prevailed so that we’d have a model to prevail and become heroes of faith as well.

Our theme, Lenten Voices of Transformation, invites us to a deeper recognition that we’re all on speaking terms with the prince of darkness. I’m not talking about the characterized, cartoonized image of Satan. We’re too sophisticated for that. Actually, the personal demons we all struggle with are too sophisticated for that too. According to tradition, Satan is a fallen angel,

and he’s smart enough to quote scripture. Our personal demons can say the nicest things, tempt us with exactly the things we want to hear, appeal to what is best in us rather than what’s worst. Seldom do our personal demons tempt us to do something obviously evil. More often they suggest that we simply settle for less - settle for good enough, and forget the best.

Here’s a perfect example of our Lenten Voices of Transformation theme. It’s a monologue, not a dialogue, but I think you’ll immediately recognize this portrayal of a personal struggle with temptation. In the play, A Thousand Clowns there are two brothers, Arnold and Murray. Murray is a dreamer, a man who cares passionately about people and lets that passion lead him into rocky places. Arnold, on the other hand, has made his peace with the world, knows that to get along you’ve got to go along. So here Arnold is speaking to his brother:

“I have long been aware, Murray, that you don’t respect me much. I suppose there are a lot of brothers who don’t get along. Unfortunately for you, Murray, you want to be a hero. I am willing to deal with the available world and I do not choose to shake it up but to live with it. There are people who spill things and there are people who get spilled on. I choose not to notice the stains, Murray. I have a wife and two children, and business, like they say, is business. I am not an exceptional man, so it is possible for me to stay with things the way they are. I am lucky; I am gifted. I have a talent for surrender. I am at peace. But you are cursed, and, as I like you, it makes me sad. You don’t have this gift. And I see the torture of it. All I can do is worry for you, but I will not worry for myself. You cannot convince me that I am one of the bad guys. I get up, I go, I lie a little, I peddle a little, I watch the rules, I talk the talk. We fellows have those offices high up there so that we can catch the wind and go with it however it blows. But, and I will not apologize for it, I take pride. I am the best possible Arnold Burns. (1)

Have you ever heard that rationalizing, self-justifying voice in your head? Have you had that Lenten conversation between the voices in your heart and your head? Doesn’t the so-called devil’s temptation often just boil down to the fact that we’d like for our lives to be easy?

The lesson of Lent is that God wants us to be great. Jesus is a hero of the faith, and we are called into the wilderness of our own struggle, called to identify with him and to learn trust from his trust and faith from his faith. The promise is that we’ll be ministered to by angels!

The lesson of Lent is that life is never going to be easy, not really. There’s always going to be a struggle, a kind of wilderness dialogue with our own inner voices, and we’re always going to be tempted to settle for less. But I like what William Sloan Coffin once said about his faith, “While it may be hard to be a Christian, it’s too dull to be anything else.” Dullness is the devil’s work. Christ calls us to transformation, by the renewal of our hearts and minds.

May God grant you the strength and the courage to face your own personal demons, and to call upon God. May God grant you the grace to recognize the ministry of angels. May Christ be your shalom. Amen.

(1) A Thousand Clowns, by Herb Gardner, quoted by William Sloan Coffin, “Wrestling With The Devil.”