Sunday: First Sunday in Lent C
Reading: Luke 4:1-13
Preacher: S. James Steen

I am intrigued by the contrasting ways in which the several Gospels will report the same story.  Mark is often the most succinct, and Mark's reporting of the Temptations is a perfect example of this.  "And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.  That's all Mark has to say.  Matthew and Luke's accounts are much more involved and quite similar to one another.  They were clearly using the same non-Markan source; but there are differences in the details. 

Matthew for example, who has a thing about mountains, has Jesus rise ever higher.  The pinnacle of the Temple isn't high enough for Matthew, so his devil takes Jesus to a "very high mountain."  Luke is the more sophisticated, and unique to his story, once Jesus has rejected Satan and passed every test, there is an intriguing teaser that heightens the dramatic tension.  "When the devil had finished every test, he departed from [Jesus] until an opportune time."  Luke's devil isn't about to give up.  He's lying in wait for the next opportunity to insert himself.  Luke intentionally ends the story with a sense that it isn't really complete.

By contrast, Matthew and Mark provide a neat conclusion by saying that angels came and waited on Jesus at the end of the ordeal.  In Luke the tension is further heightened by omitting the angels who stand in for God.  Luke actually chooses to increase the ambiguity that Mark and Matthew spare us, and in doing so Luke invites us to go deeper.

Although Luke leaves angels out of this episode, it isn't that he rejects the notion of angels, altogether.  He has already used them at the birth of Jesus.  An angel - and then a host of them - appears to shepherds to announce the birth.  "...the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for see - I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people..."  And near the other end of the Gospel, an angel appears to Jesus shortly before his death, during his agony on the Mount of Olives: Luke tells us, "Then an angel from heaven appeared to him and gave him strength."

But in between, Luke chooses not to provide us with a God who appears when he chooses, in ways that eliminate ambiguity and tension by drawing the story to a premature conclusion.  As one scholar has said, "In between [Jesus' birth and his agony], Luke's account will tell a very human story, with only the abiding power and presence of the Holy Spirit to assure its outcome"[i]  Luke is presenting a view of God that many today can affirm.   Even though evidence of this God's presence can be seen everywhere, the deus ex machina and the ventriloquist God, represented by angels, are missing in Luke.  Instead we find an approach that views God as constant, as present in all of life, as affirming all human experience as potentially holy, and as always offering another chapter in which our life's story can continue to play out.

Last week I heard a remarkable interview on NPR with a woman named Ana Benitez Graham.  When she was 13, Ana entered this country illegally in the trunk of a car; and her life since has been a series of surprises, each of which has taken her to a place where she would never have dreamed she could have gone.  So determined was she to become educated, that in her early teens she worked in a laundry until 2 a.m. and went to public school during the day, often sleeping during class.  When Ana got a job as a waitress it was such a step up that she thought angels had ministered to her, and she said that she was ready to settle into that job for the rest of her life.  But a co-worker, who would become her husband, observed her intelligence and convinced her to continue her education.  She entered a community college.

Following that experience, she went on to college for six years to become a pharmacist, and while making rounds with doctors, she became convinced that she was called to become a physician.  She entered medical school at Duke and immediately discovered she was pregnant, but persevered once again and is now a dermatologist.  There have been many challenges, twists, and turns in Ana's journey. 

In listening to her story, what impressed me most was how her clarity that she did not have be shackled by the expectations of her culture or her family - none of whom has every graduated from high school - had freed her to continue to evolve.  And true to so much of life, it was not God appearing from nowhere, as in the form of an angel, that supported her, but, as I would put it, it was God present in those people whom she encountered daily - and especially her husband - that helped move her forward. 

Those who study and practice systems theory tell us that, while most of us cling to equilibrium, because it makes us comfortable, it is only when we enter a state of disequilibrium that we change and grow.  A major difference between Ana and her family was her willingness to experience repeated disequilibrium, rather than rushing back to a more familiar way of being. 

The tragedy of what is currently happening in the Anglican Communion involves this same tension between resolution and equilibrium at all costs, on the one hand, and, on the other, a willingness to embrace ambiguity and disequilibrium, trusting that God has more in store for us - that the final chapter has not yet been written - and that the Spirit will provide what we truly need.  In Luke's terminology, yes, the devil will appear again.  But so will God. 

The unique genius of our tradition developed from the experience of great people who discovered that the ability to make space for different views, beliefs, and practices, within the same roomy tent, is far more valuable - indeed is far closer to God's truth - than is doctrinal certainty or biblical inerrancy.  It's no wonder that the Episcopal Church isn't the largest of denominations.  So many people will choose the comfort of certainty. But those of us who have grown to love our tradition's emphasis on hospitality, combined with its appreciation of both reason and tradition, have found a pearl of great price, and we will do whatever we must to preserve it. 

We have just entered the desert, a place of hopeful disequilibrium.  Welcome!  The Jews wondered here for 40 years as they journeyed from bondage toward freedom.  Joining our journey with theirs, we will remain here for 40 days.  The great paradox of the desert is that, far from diminishing us, its barrenness and its aridity give us a clearer sense of who and whose we are, of where we are and where we need to go, and of appreciation for life as a pilgrimage, rather than a destination.  So let us accept Auden's invitation and, together, let us follow Jesus into this land of unlikeness.     

            Amen.

[i] Sharon H. Ringe, Luke (Westminster Bible Companion) (Westminster-John Knox Press, Copyright 1995) 58-62.