Temptations to Our Identity and Purpose

 

Matthew 4:1-11

Lent 1 / Year A

If it’s the first Sunday in Lent then we are reading one of the gospel accounts of Jesus going into the wilderness for forty days where, at some point, he is confronted by the tempter.  Notice how the temptation begins… “If you are the Son of God…”  In the biblical texts, this wilderness temptation occurs immediately after Jesus is baptized.  He rises from the Jordon waters and retreats to a place of solitude to reflect on what he has experienced.  He needs time to make sense of what he heard while in the river – the voice of God saying, “This is my Son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” ^{Mt. 3:17} 

“You are my Son, the beloved, with you I am well pleased.”  “If you are the Son of God then turn these stones to bread.”  The temptations are at least a two-fold challenge.  The first is a question of identity: “Are you really the Son of God?  What makes you so sure you are up to the task?  I remember when you were just a little boy growing up in a nowhere town with nothing really all that special to your credit.  Why would you even think you now occupy such a lofty position?”  These are questions of identity. 

Perhaps they resonate with you and your own experience.  Maybe you have asked yourself questions from the same vein: “Am I really qualified to do this?”  “How can it possibly be I am now a parent when I don’t know the first thing about raising a child!”  “The preacher just said God has a plan for my life… at my age, right!  I am old and used up.”  Questions of identity.  Am I really the person God says I am?

This is one of the challenges the tempter lays before Jesus.  The other is this: “If you are the Son of God, if this really is your identity, what are you going to do with it?  What does it mean?  How are you supposed to live your life if this revelation about you is true?”  It is a question of purpose. 

Perhaps you understand this too.  If, for example, you are the biggest kid in your 6^th grade class, what do you do with your size and strength?  Do you use it to bully others, asserting your power to get your own way?  Or do you use your strength and stamina to help others achieve more than they are capable of doing on their own?  Given your identity, what are you supposed to do with it?

Perhaps the most basic, fundamental question each of us must answer for ourselves is “Who am I?”  Just for fun, Google this question and see what comes up… personality tests, psychological insights, philosophical explorations, debates over the role of nature and nurture (how is your identity shaped both by your heredity and the world we are raised in)? 

If you turn to the bible and ask “Who am I?” what will you learn?  The bible’s answer is this: You are who God says you are.  And God says, “You are my child, I love you deeply for who you are, just as you are.  Nothing can take away My love for you.  Nothing can make Me love you less.”  The bible describes God’s love as being steadfast – hesed in the Hebrew – and hesed is something in this life you can always count on.  In fact, God’s steadfast love for you may be the only thing in life you can count on… even more certain than death and taxes.

So, if you embrace the biblical proclamation you are a beloved child of God, what do you do with this knowledge?  The story of Jesus’ temptation tells us there are plenty of wrong paths you can go down. 

You can just go out a grab for yourself all that you want while ignoring all God wants to provide for you (like daily bread).  You can flaunt who you are in order to impress others (even climbing up to a pinnacle so all the attention is on you).  You can even go after what God wants for you, but in a way in which you are in control and calling the shots (like receiving dominion over all the kingdoms of the earth by bowing down to something other than God rather than gaining it by being lifted high upon the cross). 

Identity and purpose. 

There was a very specific moment in my teenage years when I decided to ground my identity fully in the belief I am a beloved child of God.  I decided this was going to be the bedrock on which I was going to build my life moving forward.  And I decided then and there I was going to embrace God’s plan and purpose for my life with all my heart and mind and soul and strength.  This was not a call to ordination, that came later.  To use the language of the times, I made the decision to give my life to Christ and to trust in him completely as my Lord, my Savior, and my Guide.  (Yes, I come from the Evangelical tradition!)  In our liturgical tradition the Baptismal Covenant and adult act of Confirmation carry the same weight if it is a dedication of your whole being, not just some words and rites you stumble through. 

No matter what led you to this point, unlike Jesus, who maintained God’s way not only in the wilderness, but throughout the entire course of his life, you, like me, have fallen short of living into the identity God gives to us and the purpose to which God calls us.  None of us is perfect.  None of us ever will be.  But we will always be loved by God.  These season of Lent gives us a time to engage in self-examination and reflection.  Aided by prayer, being attentive to God’s word, and acts of self-giving, we are afforded an opportunity to repent and amend our lives.  We are invited once again to follow Jesus Christ who is the true and living Way.

Please thank Macey and Kitty for the captivating display in our chancel area.  Spoiler… it is going to evolve as the season of Lent unfolds.  I love the little path of stone weaving its way to the foot of the Cross.  It feels to me like an invitation; an invitation come before Jesus with all we are and all we have in order to remember who God says we are and to reflect anew on what God calls us do.