Matthew 4 | Temptation in the Wilderness 1997

There is a myth that has been circulating in the Church for over a thousand years that is utter nonsense and it's time someone said so. So here goes.

The idea that suffering is somehow redemptive is absurd.

You heard me. Suffering is not redemptive. Suffering is a tragedy, a tragedy that Jesus came to put an end to.

Now, like most folks in the church, I bought this myth hook line and sinker in my youth. My youth director preached sermons about how we should be more like Jesus. Now that sounds like a fine idea, but was my youth director advocating feeding the hungry or healing the sick or befriending the outcast? No; he told us that to be more like Jesus we should suffer; that suffering would purify our souls. He told us to take ice cold showers in the morning so that we could begin our day in a Christ-like and holy way. He told us that we should pray all night on our knees until they hurt so bad we could no longer remain upright. He told us we should discomfort ourselves in any way possible so that we could "be more like Jesus."

I bought it. I took cold showers in the dead of winter--and we were living in Chicago, of all places! I distressed my knees, and used me creativity to devise other heinous ways of abusing my body so that I might be more pleasing to God. What I really needed was a course in Critical Thinking skills!

It is no comfort to me to reflect on the fact that for the past thousand years the rest of the church was likewise taken in. We worship the image of Jesus on the Cross, and we in the West have elevated the Crucifixion as the supreme moment of atonement, thus glorifying Jesus' suffering and sending the message to millions of believers: Suffering is redemptive; if you want to be like Jesus, suffer.

This practice is called the "imatatio dei," the imitation of Christ, and has had as its advocates sincere monks wearing hair shirts to increase their purity, martyrs who felt that their cause might be somehow advanced by their own suffering and death, and countless other Christians who have crawled on their bellies for hundreds of miles to a shrine, flagellated themselves before the crucifix or tortured themselves with boredom repeated meaningless devotions, all for the alleged cause of "spiritual advancement."

Hooey. Sorry, folks. I don't get up here and spout opinions very often, but this morning I am. Suffering is not redemptive. This idea is based on a faulty interpretation of the Crucifixion. It is not the purpose of the Cross to inspire us to re-enact Jesus' sacrifice in the little mystery plays of our daily lives, but to so horrify us that we will do all in our power to prevent such horror from ever befalling another human being. The crucifixion should be for us a symbol of the beginning of the end of suffering, not the beginning of a movement of suffering.

The masochistic pursuit of suffering is not an appropriate way to imitate Christ. Very well, then, you might ask, what is an appropriate way to imitate Christ? Our Gospel reading tells us that Jesus went out into the Wilderness for forty days where he was tempted by Satan. There he is tempted to wield power in three ways: over nature, over politics, and over God. Let's look at these temptations.

1) Satan tempts Jesus to wield power over the natural world and turn stones into bread. He tempts him to use his "magic powers" for his own comfort, to impose his will upon his environment in order to get what he wants. This is a common temptation to all of us: we want to world to conform to our desires, we want people to change in order to suit us; we want to pervert and distort the natural world to please us. After all a shopping mall is much more pleasing to look at than a forest, isn't it?

2) Second, Satan tempts Jesus with temporal power. All Jesus has to do is swear his loyalty and the world is his; all the nations, all the wealth, all the power. All he has to do is sell his soul. How many people do you know who think that this is a bargain?

3) Third, Satan tempts Jesus to wield power over God, to force God to save him. Satan tells him to jump off of the temple, for God was sure to send angels to break his fall and thereby prove to all those in the crowded city square below that he was the Son of God. Wield power over God?? Surely by this point anyone could see the absurdity of Satan's temptation, the desperation he must have been feeling to propose this one. "Wield power over God, so that you can put on a good show."

No. Jesus refuses. He will have none of it. Jesus will not wield his power over the earth. He will not wield power over the nations. He will not wield power over God. That is not Christ's way. Paul says that he "emptied himself of power and took on the form of a servant." It was by abdicating power that Jesus performed his redeeming work. It was by rejecting power that he confounded not just Satan, but the religious and civil authorities, and yes, Jesus continues to confound us today.

Most people want power. Many people are mad for it. Some kill for it. Many have sold their souls and succumbed to the temptation offered by Satan to wield natural or political or religious power. But it is not the way of Jesus. If we want to be like Jesus, it will not be by becoming spiritually powerful, or by chalking up spiritual brownie points due to our voluntary suffering. If we are to be like Jesus we must reject the temptation to wield power over the earth, over each other, over God. Jesus said, "I do not call you servants, but friends." This is how he won the hearts of the common folk. It is how he redeems our lives from meaninglessness and despair today.

We do not need to be paragons of spiritual power. We do not need to flog ourselves or put up with abusive relationships because of some mistaken notion that our suffering somehow makes everything better. No one is redeemed by our suffering. If we want to be like Jesus, then we must give up exercising our power over others, and rest in the gentle hands of a God who will not abandon or forsake us.

Do we want our work to be redemptive? Then we must refuse the temptation to seize or maintain power over other people. Do we want to redeem the earth? Then we must stop trying to mould it into our own commercialized image. Do we want to redeem Christianity? Then we must stop trying to control God by declaring who is and who is not worthy of God's love, God's grace or the church's attention.

Do we want to be more like Jesus? Of course we do. But we don't do it by mimicking his passion and death. Good, sound Protestant theology states that that death was a one-time deal, and nothing you do can add to it. No, if we want to be like Christ, we must do it by mimicking his life, not his death. We must strive to live as he lived, healing, nurturing, speaking out for what is right and working to make God's Community manifest on earth, even as in the heavens.

I am proud to be a member of the Grace Community, because here we are truly putting our hearts and souls into the imitatio dei, here our power is shared equally by all and those of us who lead do so only by assuming the form of a servant. And that is a church I am proud to be a part of.

Let us pray.

Living and redeeming Christ, you were given many opportunities to exercise power in this world. Satan offered you many chances, as did the zealots, as did even the disciples. For they did not understand your way. Likewise, we are shortsighted, and think that the best way to follow you is to suffer like you. But you do not need our suffering, the world does not need it, we do not need it. Instead, you insist that we lay aside our scepters, and take up instead our cross, so that we might follow you not into millennia of suffering, but into a new morning of resurrection, of peace, of community. Help us to see the many ways we manipulate and scheme, the small ways we seize and safeguard our power, and help us to be like you, who having lived and reigned with the Father and Holy Spirit, yet laid your glory by to assume the form of a servant, for only then could the world find redemption and peace. Amen.