Tempted In The Strong Places Of Life
Sermon
Tears Of Sadness, Tears Of Gladness
Gospel Sermons For Lent/Easter
In his best--selling book called First You Have To Row a Little Boat, Richard Bode writes about sailing with the wind, or "running down wind," as sailors sometimes speak of it. When you're running with the wind, the wind is pushing you from behind, so it's easy to be lulled into a false sense of security. Writes Bode:
Since my boat and I were moving at almost the same speed as the wind, I could barely feel its refreshing touch against my face. The warm sun beat down on my back. I slumped on the cockpit floorboards ... telling myself if ever I could sink into blissful indolence, this was such a time.1
Suddenly without warning, Bode experienced what sailors call an accidental jibe. The wind got in behind his outstretched mainsail and threw the heavy wooden boom across the boat with such tremendous force that it crashed into a stainless steel stay, ripped a fitting from the deck and tipped the mast. Writes Bode: "Had I been sitting up on the deck, instead of down in the cockpit, my head surely would have been knocked from my neck."2
While his boat was being repaired, Bode had time to ponder the lesson he'd learned.
I was to jibe many times in my life, before I understood that going with the wind is the most dangerous course of all ... I found it deceptively easy to let myself be lulled into that false sense of security that so often surrounds us when the wind is at our back.3
The topic of this sermon is temptation, but not the usual temptations, the so--called "temptations of weakness." Let's not talk about the temptations to cheat, lie, steal, commit adultery, over--eat, or over--indulge. These are all temptations of weakness. Rather, let's ponder the so--called "temptations of strength," the challenges we face when everything is going well - when we are succeeding in life, when we have the world by the tail, when the sun is shining and the wind is at our back. These kinds of temptations are often much more subtle, much more seductive, much more demonic.
In the scripture lesson from Matthew, notice that the devil does not tempt Jesus to fail, to succumb to weakness. Just the opposite - the devil tempts Jesus to succeed! The devil seems to say:
Don't you want the common people to rally around your ministry? Just turn these stones into loaves of bread and you'll have more followers than you know what to do with. You say you want to prove to people that you're the Son of God? Then throw yourself from the top of the temple, and God will rescue you. You say you want to establish your kingdom here on earth? You say you want to rule over the nations? Well, it can all be yours, if you do just one little thing for me. You say you want to be a success, Jesus? It's as easy as one, two, three.
The devil, you see, tempts Jesus to succeed, not to fail. The devil tempts him not where he is weak but in the strong places of life.
Those of you in the business world know what I'm talking about. The greatest temptations come, not when you are performing poorly, but when you are succeeding, when you are doing one hell of a good job. According to college chaplain Will Willimon, that is when the boss calls you in and says, "We want to give you a bigger sales territory. We think you're going places. You've got all the right stuff."
"But I don't want a bigger sales territory," you reply. "I'm already away from home three nights a week as it is. What about my family?"
"What about your family," says the boss. "It's because of your family that we want you to take the job. You need a lot of money to support a family these days. You want to keep them happy, don't you? So take the job, take it for them!"4
Or let me use my own profession as an example. We clergy are most susceptible to temptation, not when the pews are empty and the church is going down the drain, but when the congregation is vital and alive and the parking lot is full. How easy to be lulled into a false sense of self, to feel that we are more important than we really are, to believe that the rules we preach for others don't apply to us. In the worst--case scenarios, such temptations can lead to clergy misconduct.
In her important though disturbing book, Is Nothing Sacred? Marie Fortune tells the story of the Reverend Peter Donovan. When Donovan came to First Church, he began to attract new members almost immediately. At first, the old timers were glad that Donovan was bringing in so many new members and getting them into leadership positions. But eventually a pattern began to emerge. "Don--ovan recruited people to him," writes Marie Fortune. "He elicited commitments to himself, not to the church. Many of the newcomers were more fans of Pete Donovan than members of First Church."5 But never mind! The church was growing, the programs were flourishing, excitement was high. Yet something was not quite right. Some of the people felt manipulated. Others began to suspect that Donovan was acting inappropriately with certain women in the church. A huge split developed in the church, some fiercely loyal to Donovan, others who felt that they had been duped. In the end, he lost his job. They said it was adultery that did him in, but they were only partly right. The root of the problem was not just adultery but an abuse of the power of his pastoral position. He had taken advantage of women who were most vulnerable - one of them grieving the death of her husband, another young, naive, and starry--eyed, another recently divorced. Just as it is the psychiatrist's solemn responsibility to make sure that the patient remains on the psychiatrist's couch and never ends up in his bed, so clergy need to understand the power of their position, and honor appropriate boundaries. As you can imagine, the outcome was disastrous: the victimized women needed years of counseling to get their lives back together, the congregation was torn apart, and a dynamic pastor lost his job.
Of course, sometimes it's not individual clergy who are at fault but the institutional church itself. I own a beautiful book of reproductions of famous paintings of biblical scenes. The book contains a remarkable painting of Jesus' temptation, which is deeply disturbing for those of us who are employed by the church. In this masterpiece painted by a sixteenth century Flemish artist, the devil comes to Jesus out in the wilderness. Do you know how the devil is dressed? He is dressed in the robe of a medieval monk with rosary beads in his hand.6 In other words, the devil is dressed up as the Church!
How many times has the Church been tempted to use its position of strength to promote not evil dressed as evil, but evil dressed as good. "Come," said the Church in the Middle Ages, "give us your money and your young men so that we can go and wage war against the Moslem infidels and reclaim the Holy City, our Holy City of Jerusalem." "Come," said the Church at the time of Martin Luther, "give us your indulgences and you can buy your loved ones out of purgatory." "Come on," said some parts of the Church right here in America less than 200 years ago, "if people in the Bible had slaves, then slavery must be God's will for us still." "Come on," said some parts of the Presbyterian Church just fifty years ago, "If the Bible says, 'Women should be silent in the churches' (1 Corinthians 14:34), then who are we to think of ordaining them as deacons, elders, and ministers?" How many times has the Church itself succumbed to temptations of strength?
And what can we say of those who rule the nation? One day in the nation's capital, the most powerful man in the land eyed a beautiful young woman. He summoned her, seduced her, and later tried to hide the truth. He enlisted the help of a trusted confidant who covered the whole thing over and made it look as if the leader was blameless. Did the confidant know all the facts, or did his fierce loyalty to his boss blind him to the truth? We may never know. But we do know that the leader's indiscretion did not go unnoticed, especially by God. So God sent the prophet Nathan to confront the king with his sin. They said it was adultery that caused King David to stumble, but they were only partly right. The root of the problem for the most powerful man in the land was not just adultery but an abuse of the power of his position. He took advantage of a starry--eyed young woman who didn't know how to say, "No."
This nation, the good old United States, has been experiencing some temptations of its own. As a nation, we too have been tempted in the strong places of our national life. How easy to ignore the moral indiscretions in Washington as long as the nation is strong and powerful. With military planes and warships flexing their muscle in the hot spots around the world, how convenient to remember that we are the strongest nation on the face of the earth. With the stock market soaring, interest rates low, and the national debt on the decline, how easy to say that what happens behind closed doors doesn't matter. How convenient to believe that public and private morality have nothing to do with each other. As long as our ship of state is on course with the sun shining, our sails full, and the wind at our back, how deceptively easy to be lulled into a false sense of security.
And meanwhile, says Luke's version of Jesus' temptation, "The devil departed until an opportune time" (Luke 4:13). No one knows for sure, but maybe that opportune time for the devil to return is now.
____________
1. Richard Bode, First You Have To Row A Little Boat, (New York: Time Warner Books Publishers, 1993), pp. 62--64.
2.
3. Ibid.
4. William Willimon, What's Right With The Church (San Francisco: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1985), pp. 108--109.
5.
6. Juan des Flandes, "Temptation of Christ in the Wilderness" in The Bible In Art, Richard Muhlberger, ed. (New York: Portland House Publishers, 1990), p. 57.
Since my boat and I were moving at almost the same speed as the wind, I could barely feel its refreshing touch against my face. The warm sun beat down on my back. I slumped on the cockpit floorboards ... telling myself if ever I could sink into blissful indolence, this was such a time.1
Suddenly without warning, Bode experienced what sailors call an accidental jibe. The wind got in behind his outstretched mainsail and threw the heavy wooden boom across the boat with such tremendous force that it crashed into a stainless steel stay, ripped a fitting from the deck and tipped the mast. Writes Bode: "Had I been sitting up on the deck, instead of down in the cockpit, my head surely would have been knocked from my neck."2
While his boat was being repaired, Bode had time to ponder the lesson he'd learned.
I was to jibe many times in my life, before I understood that going with the wind is the most dangerous course of all ... I found it deceptively easy to let myself be lulled into that false sense of security that so often surrounds us when the wind is at our back.3
The topic of this sermon is temptation, but not the usual temptations, the so--called "temptations of weakness." Let's not talk about the temptations to cheat, lie, steal, commit adultery, over--eat, or over--indulge. These are all temptations of weakness. Rather, let's ponder the so--called "temptations of strength," the challenges we face when everything is going well - when we are succeeding in life, when we have the world by the tail, when the sun is shining and the wind is at our back. These kinds of temptations are often much more subtle, much more seductive, much more demonic.
In the scripture lesson from Matthew, notice that the devil does not tempt Jesus to fail, to succumb to weakness. Just the opposite - the devil tempts Jesus to succeed! The devil seems to say:
Don't you want the common people to rally around your ministry? Just turn these stones into loaves of bread and you'll have more followers than you know what to do with. You say you want to prove to people that you're the Son of God? Then throw yourself from the top of the temple, and God will rescue you. You say you want to establish your kingdom here on earth? You say you want to rule over the nations? Well, it can all be yours, if you do just one little thing for me. You say you want to be a success, Jesus? It's as easy as one, two, three.
The devil, you see, tempts Jesus to succeed, not to fail. The devil tempts him not where he is weak but in the strong places of life.
Those of you in the business world know what I'm talking about. The greatest temptations come, not when you are performing poorly, but when you are succeeding, when you are doing one hell of a good job. According to college chaplain Will Willimon, that is when the boss calls you in and says, "We want to give you a bigger sales territory. We think you're going places. You've got all the right stuff."
"But I don't want a bigger sales territory," you reply. "I'm already away from home three nights a week as it is. What about my family?"
"What about your family," says the boss. "It's because of your family that we want you to take the job. You need a lot of money to support a family these days. You want to keep them happy, don't you? So take the job, take it for them!"4
Or let me use my own profession as an example. We clergy are most susceptible to temptation, not when the pews are empty and the church is going down the drain, but when the congregation is vital and alive and the parking lot is full. How easy to be lulled into a false sense of self, to feel that we are more important than we really are, to believe that the rules we preach for others don't apply to us. In the worst--case scenarios, such temptations can lead to clergy misconduct.
In her important though disturbing book, Is Nothing Sacred? Marie Fortune tells the story of the Reverend Peter Donovan. When Donovan came to First Church, he began to attract new members almost immediately. At first, the old timers were glad that Donovan was bringing in so many new members and getting them into leadership positions. But eventually a pattern began to emerge. "Don--ovan recruited people to him," writes Marie Fortune. "He elicited commitments to himself, not to the church. Many of the newcomers were more fans of Pete Donovan than members of First Church."5 But never mind! The church was growing, the programs were flourishing, excitement was high. Yet something was not quite right. Some of the people felt manipulated. Others began to suspect that Donovan was acting inappropriately with certain women in the church. A huge split developed in the church, some fiercely loyal to Donovan, others who felt that they had been duped. In the end, he lost his job. They said it was adultery that did him in, but they were only partly right. The root of the problem was not just adultery but an abuse of the power of his pastoral position. He had taken advantage of women who were most vulnerable - one of them grieving the death of her husband, another young, naive, and starry--eyed, another recently divorced. Just as it is the psychiatrist's solemn responsibility to make sure that the patient remains on the psychiatrist's couch and never ends up in his bed, so clergy need to understand the power of their position, and honor appropriate boundaries. As you can imagine, the outcome was disastrous: the victimized women needed years of counseling to get their lives back together, the congregation was torn apart, and a dynamic pastor lost his job.
Of course, sometimes it's not individual clergy who are at fault but the institutional church itself. I own a beautiful book of reproductions of famous paintings of biblical scenes. The book contains a remarkable painting of Jesus' temptation, which is deeply disturbing for those of us who are employed by the church. In this masterpiece painted by a sixteenth century Flemish artist, the devil comes to Jesus out in the wilderness. Do you know how the devil is dressed? He is dressed in the robe of a medieval monk with rosary beads in his hand.6 In other words, the devil is dressed up as the Church!
How many times has the Church been tempted to use its position of strength to promote not evil dressed as evil, but evil dressed as good. "Come," said the Church in the Middle Ages, "give us your money and your young men so that we can go and wage war against the Moslem infidels and reclaim the Holy City, our Holy City of Jerusalem." "Come," said the Church at the time of Martin Luther, "give us your indulgences and you can buy your loved ones out of purgatory." "Come on," said some parts of the Church right here in America less than 200 years ago, "if people in the Bible had slaves, then slavery must be God's will for us still." "Come on," said some parts of the Presbyterian Church just fifty years ago, "If the Bible says, 'Women should be silent in the churches' (1 Corinthians 14:34), then who are we to think of ordaining them as deacons, elders, and ministers?" How many times has the Church itself succumbed to temptations of strength?
And what can we say of those who rule the nation? One day in the nation's capital, the most powerful man in the land eyed a beautiful young woman. He summoned her, seduced her, and later tried to hide the truth. He enlisted the help of a trusted confidant who covered the whole thing over and made it look as if the leader was blameless. Did the confidant know all the facts, or did his fierce loyalty to his boss blind him to the truth? We may never know. But we do know that the leader's indiscretion did not go unnoticed, especially by God. So God sent the prophet Nathan to confront the king with his sin. They said it was adultery that caused King David to stumble, but they were only partly right. The root of the problem for the most powerful man in the land was not just adultery but an abuse of the power of his position. He took advantage of a starry--eyed young woman who didn't know how to say, "No."
This nation, the good old United States, has been experiencing some temptations of its own. As a nation, we too have been tempted in the strong places of our national life. How easy to ignore the moral indiscretions in Washington as long as the nation is strong and powerful. With military planes and warships flexing their muscle in the hot spots around the world, how convenient to remember that we are the strongest nation on the face of the earth. With the stock market soaring, interest rates low, and the national debt on the decline, how easy to say that what happens behind closed doors doesn't matter. How convenient to believe that public and private morality have nothing to do with each other. As long as our ship of state is on course with the sun shining, our sails full, and the wind at our back, how deceptively easy to be lulled into a false sense of security.
And meanwhile, says Luke's version of Jesus' temptation, "The devil departed until an opportune time" (Luke 4:13). No one knows for sure, but maybe that opportune time for the devil to return is now.
____________
1. Richard Bode, First You Have To Row A Little Boat, (New York: Time Warner Books Publishers, 1993), pp. 62--64.
2.
3. Ibid.
4. William Willimon, What's Right With The Church (San Francisco: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1985), pp. 108--109.
5.
6. Juan des Flandes, "Temptation of Christ in the Wilderness" in The Bible In Art, Richard Muhlberger, ed. (New York: Portland House Publishers, 1990), p. 57.
