Luke 4:1-13/ Deuteronomy 30:15-20

One thing that I have come to understand in my days as minister is that people do and will believe almost anything. The religious world is filled with all kinds of snake oil and plenty of believers who seem to buy anything that is being sold. I saw a guy on the evangelical channel that actually told people that it was their Christian duty to forgive but forgive only once. “Wife if your husband is cheating on you forgive him but if he doesn’t mend his ways pack his bags!” And more ominously, “Parent if your son comes home and announces he is homosexual forgive him but if he wants to remain in that abomination have nothing more to do with him. Eliminate him from your life.” Yikes!

Now I do not begrudge this man his beliefs even though I heartily disagree with him, but I do mind him misrepresenting the words of Jesus in this way. It is one of the most familiar passages in the Christian scripture. “How many times should I forgive? Seven times?” Jesus is asked. And what does he say, “No seventy times seven!” In other words there should be no end to ones forgiveness and yet this idiot with his television show and all those agreeing adoring congregants can pass his views off as Gospel because he is on television. And there are plenty of people ready to believe that he preaches the word of God.

But people will believe anything.

I know that people will believe anything because there is a window on a building in Clearwater, Florida, the building that houses the Ugly Duck car rental agency. People actually believe that the image of the Virgin Mary can be seen in this window. People not only believe it but they come there to see it and to pray to it, to look at it for inspiration, and to be healed by it. I tell you people will believe anything. I don’t know what the psychology is but I know that it is true. People are believing animals and people organize their lives around the things that they believe.

I am reading a book called Constantine’s Sword. It is mostly a history of the church and its relationship with Jews. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested. One thing I love about it is that it is a very interesting study of how people come to believe different things and how Christians came to believe many things about Jews. This is a very dark side of the fact that people will believe anything. Some of what Christian people have believed about scripture and Jesus and their own history has been very tragic for the Jewish people. That is the trouble with belief. People will believe anything and sometimes it can lead to some very evil behavior. Because faith is a double edged sword. It can bring miracles and it can bring holocaust. It all depends on what you believe. And I always tell people that it is essential to be meticulously responsible about what you believe because sometimes even the most innocuous beliefs can lead to some very disturbing and destructive behavior.

But the truth is, again, that people can and will believe almost anything. And this can be most troublesome in this world. But when I think about it I realize that it is no less than God who wants it this way. I think God gives us the freedom to believe anything, anything at all. And as much as I distrust most of those preachers on the evangelical channel and as tragic as the history of faith sometimes is or as silly as it is to believe that the Virgin Mary has taken shape on the Ugly Duck car rental agency I will not ever say that all people don’t have the right or the freedom to believe anything they want. I won’t do that because God won’t do that.

Look at the passage we read for today from Luke. It is a passage that shows Jesus being tempted. One interesting fact about this passage is that Luke cannot quite bring himself to report it in the same way that Mark and Matthew do. In Mark the earliest Gospel Jesus is said to have been driven into the wilderness by the spirit. In Mathew the spirit takes Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. But in Luke the spirit goes with Jesus into the wilderness for no apparent reason but it is there that he is tempted. A subtle difference, but an important difference, in meaning when we are talking about the activity of God.

Temptation is God’s reason for leading Jesus into the wilderness in Matthew. In Matthew and Mark both it is the spirit that does the leading into the wilderness. In Luke it is ambiguous as to what the purpose of the journey is and who is leading. And interestingly by the time John is writing there is no room in his theology for a God that would tempt Jesus.

Well why not? For the same reason you might have reacted to the title of this sermon. “Blessed Temptation” seems wrong. The two words don’t go together do they? Temptation wouldn’t come from God would it? But it says in scripture at least in Matthew and Mark God did put before Jesus certain temptations before he began his ministry. That means that these temptations must have had a divine purpose.

Temptation is a bit of a loaded word; I would rather say that this is a story about choices. God put before Jesus, choices. Just as God puts before all of us many choices. You can say a lot of things about God but you cannot say that God provides the opportunity to live only one way, believe only one way, look only one way, choose only one way. The incredible number of religions and cults and ways of believing ought to make that crystal clear. In fact the most characteristic feature of the life we lead here is that we have been given many choices about everything. There is nothing more obvious about God’s world than this. So it must be that God ordains choices. Call them temptations if you will but they are nothing more than choices. Jesus was a part of this world so he had many choices and temptations.

This is a problem and it has vexed Christianity and really every human being from the beginning. It is easy with all the choices to make plenty of poor choices. Because of this it can be unnerving to have too many choices. And really we have nothing but choices. And that is exactly where the need for religion comes in. One great thing about religion is that it can make these choices more manageable. “Thou shalt not kill.” That is a very good teaching about one choice that we have. Holy books are filled with such instruction and most of it is important and wise.

But sometimes the church, or particularly ambitious theologians, or triumphant emperors want to take that a step beyond and say in fact that there is no choice. God doesn’t give choices rather the devil does. As if choice is evil. Luke is moving that way John preaches it. If you read the gospel of John it becomes apparent that John wants to posit a God so in control that no one has a choice. God is understood to have a plan and no one has a choice to do anything but follow that plan. This is especially tragic for Judas because he had no choice, according to John, but to betray Jesus and then is damned for doing so. What kind of God would damn someone for following the plan? It is a misguided idea at best. God gives choices, many choices all the time.

But what kind of God would give choices? Doesn’t that kind of freedom lead to wrong choices and tragic consequences? Yes it can and it has but it can also lead to faith, and engender hope, and bring love into the world because love, hope, and faith are choices before they are love, hope, and faith and if they are not choices they can never be love, hope, or faith. Because these things cannot be coerced. You cannot make anyone live in hope, extend their love, or grow in faith you can only give them the opportunity, the choice and that is exactly what God does all the time.

Everyone has these choices and the genius of Jesus was to understand that God extended this opportunity to everyone regardless of social standing, economic circumstance, religious affiliation, or even physical or emotional wholeness. Jesus knew that everyone had the chance to enjoy the love, the hope, and the faith of God. And the road to happiness and meaning begins when people realize what a wonderful opportunity God has given to them.

The good news is that we all have the opportunity to believe anything, and I guess it is good that they do because that gives them the chance to find the blessings of God in a way they could not find them any other way. And it means that we have every opportunity to seek and find our God on the path that we choose. In other words, to God’s plan there is nothing more important than freedom. In Christ Jesus. Amen.