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The gospel lesson for this day comes
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from the Gospel according to St. Matthew, reading
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in the fourth chapter.
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Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness
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to be tempted by the devil.
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He fasted forty days and forty nights
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and afterwards he was famished.
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The tempter came and said to him,
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"If you are the Son of God, command these stones
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to become loaves of bread", but he answered
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"It is written, one does not live by bread alone,
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but by every word that comes from the mouth of God."
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Then the devil took him to the Holy City
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and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple saying
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to him "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down,
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for it is written he will command his angels concerning you
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and on their hands they will bear you up, so that you
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will not dash your foot against a stone.
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Jesus said to him, "Again, it is written,
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do not put the Lord your God to the test."
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Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain
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and showed him all the kingdoms of the world
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and their splendor and he said to him, "All these I
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will give to you if you will fall down and worship me".
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Jesus said to him, "Away with you Satan,
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for it is written, worship the Lord your God
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and serve only Him".
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Then the devil left him and suddenly angels came
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and waited on him.
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This is the word of the Lord.
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(crowd chants)
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Let us pray.
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From the cowardice that dares not face new truth,
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from the laziness that is contented with half truth,
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from the arrogance that thinks it knows all truth.
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Good Lord, deliver us.
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Amen.
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In June of 1973, the attention of most Americans
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was captivated by the ever unfolding story of Watergate.
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There had been a botched break-in and then hush money
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and abuse of power and privilege that seemed at least
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to reach to the upper echelons
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of Richard Nixon's Whitehouse.
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The Senate held hearings chaired
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by North Carolina's own Senator Sam Ervin,
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and gradually the truth began to emerge
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about just exactly what had happened.
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But the underlying question remained,
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what had Richard Nixon known himself.
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Finally, the President's chief counsel John Dean
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appeared before the committee and in the most dramatic
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moment of the entire affair, Howard Baker,
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the vice chairman of the committee, he cut through all
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of the evasive answers and the legalisms
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and he asked Dean, point blank, in words that many
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of you probably remember quite well,
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"What did the President know, and when did he know it"?
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I wasn't there obviously, but I imagine that
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when he asked the question, when he asked the question,
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it was as if all the air was sucked out
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of the committee room because there
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in that question hung the balance
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of Richard Nixon's political career.
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The fate of his administration and in many ways the fate
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of American democracy itself.
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I imagine everyone wanted to know the answer
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to that question out of curiosity,
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but I think everyone needed to know the answer
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to that question, because in some way
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what Richard Nixon knew said something about
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who we were, about who we had become
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as a nation.
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What did the President know and when did he know it?
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This morning in Matthew's Gospel, we read about Jesus
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in the wilderness.
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He goes there to fast and to pray and he stays
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for forty days and for forty nights.
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The wilderness, the desert is a forsaken place,
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there is little capacity for sustaining life.
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The two of the biggest obstacles to surviving
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are panic and hopelessness; it's desolate,
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you are alone, you're unsure of yourself
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and something goes wrong, and you start to panic.
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You start blaming yourself, you blame others,
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you make a mess of what is generally
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an already awful situation.
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And then panic gives way to hopelessness,
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you're in pain, you're hungry, you're thirsty
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and so you just give up.
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The desert, then was surely not a place
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that Jesus wanted to be.
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Matthew writes that he was led up by the Spirit.
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But in Mark we find that the Spirit actually drove Jesus
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out into the wilderness.
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And he goes there, not because he wants to see what
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it's like or because he needs to test out
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his new LL Bean sleeping bag, but because God
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through the Spirit wants Jesus to be there.
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Just before this God had appeared to Jesus
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at his baptism and had revealed, "This is my Son,
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the beloved, with whom I am well pleased".
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Through his baptism, Jesus finds out for himself
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that he is God's Son, but there are no immediate miracles.
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There is no teaching, there is no healing,
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there is only wilderness.
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The Spirit sends, the Spirit forces Jesus away
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into the desert with this new knowledge about
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who he is, to fast, to pray,
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to think things through.
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And so, we face in this passage, one of those questions
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on which everything seems to hinge.
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A question a lot like the one posed by Howard Baker
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to John Dean in 1973.
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What did Jesus know and when did he know it?
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What did Jesus know about himself
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and when did he know it?
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I mean, sure at his baptism he knew
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that he was God's Son, but what did that mean?
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What would that mean?
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How would he live?
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How would he die?
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Growing up I was a PK, a preacher's kid.
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There were all kinds of stereotypes
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about how the preacher's kid would act.
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And I sensed that there were also all kinds
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of expectations as to how the preacher's kid
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was supposed to act.
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But I must confess that beyond sitting quietly
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and attentively on the first row every Sunday morning,
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I don't think I ever quite figured out what it meant
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to be the preacher's son.
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For that matter, I don't think I've ever quite figured out
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what it means to be my father's son.
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And Jesus is God's Son?
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I can see why the Spirit led Jesus out into the wilderness.
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Jesus needed the wilderness to figure out who Jesus was.
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In the wilderness Jesus is alone.
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Henri Nouwen writes that this kind of solitude is a way
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of getting rid of the scaffolding
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so that there is nothing to distract,
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nothing to fall back on.
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In the wilderness Jesus is with Jesus,
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forced to confront the inner realities of who he is.
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And his only companion,
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his only companion is God in Heaven.
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And in his solitude he can fix his gaze on God,
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know God,
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and know himself.
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What did Jesus know?
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He knew that he was God's Son;
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at least from the time of his baptism;
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but he really knew it, he really knew it,
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after those forty days and forty nights,
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when alone, he confronts what it really means to be,
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God's Son.
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And then Satan appears.
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Now, there's little time for small talk,
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Satan gets right to the point.
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He's come to test Jesus.
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To challenge his understanding of who he even is.
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And Satan shows Jesus another way,
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a way that is much different from God's way.
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And it's very tempting,
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and it challenges something that we've pretty much
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taken for granted for the last 2000 years.
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It challenges Jesus' understanding
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of the very will of God.
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Just look at the things that Satan offers to Jesus.
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None of them sound terribly wrong, in fact,
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most of them, they sound pretty good.
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Satan's even got some scripture lessons thrown in
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to back him up.
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He says, "Look at these stones, Jesus.
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There are a lot of hungry people in the world,
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a lot of hungry people, think what you could do
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if you just turned all these stones into bread.
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Or throw yourself down off this cliff; God will save you,
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and everyone will believe in you,
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you won't ever have to preach a sermon.
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And, finally, imagine Jesus what you could do
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with power; all the kingdoms of the world,
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all the kingdoms.
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They can be yours."
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Even the most pious among us would have probably bought
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at least one of them.
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But Jesus has spent the last forty days and forty nights
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in the wilderness and he's got a pretty good idea
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of who, as God's Son, he's supposed to be.
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Stones into bread, it sounds like great economics,
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but Jesus knows that as God's Son he must be concerned
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with a lot more than just our physical well-being.
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A demonstration of power, it would have saved
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him a whole lot of time, but I think Jesus knew
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that, as God's Son,
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he would have to demonstrate a lot more than just power.
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He would have to demonstrate love.
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The kingdoms of this world would have been much easier,
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but Jesus, as God's Son,
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he knows that he must rely on God
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and on God alone.
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These temptations were about a lot more
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than just right or wrong.
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They were about who Jesus as God's Son really was.
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There in the wilderness being tempted by the devil himself,
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Jesus knew, Jesus knew who he was.
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This is the first Sunday of Lent,
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a time when the church remembers Jesus' time
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in the wilderness and all of the temptations
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that he endured.
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When I was a student in elementary school,
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I was first exposed to the idea
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of doing without something I loved during Lent.
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The idea was to remove it as a distraction in my life
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and somehow come closer to God.
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Now, I have to tell you that this was all well
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and good for a fourth grader.
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I gave up chocolate.
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But with minimal success.
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Especially on Fridays, because on Fridays
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our school cafeteria let us have chocolate milk.
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And I hated plain milk, I absolutely despised plain milk.
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And I quickly forgot my Lenten promise
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as I passed through the lunch line.
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I've been trying to give something up
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during Lent ever since.
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Last year, it was soft drinks,
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and that wasn't very successful because there seems
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to be a drink machine around every corner
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at this university.
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Thinking about theses experiences, I can't help but wonder
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if, often they do not become nothing more
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than trivial morality games,
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that reduce our concept of temptation.
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Temptation is about a lot more than morality.
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It's about a lot more than right or wrong.
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The temptations that Jesus faced in the wilderness
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are about a lot more than that
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because they are all about identity.
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"If you are the Son of God," Satan says.
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Satan is interested in a lot more
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than just making Jesus do something wrong,
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he's interested in making Jesus doubt who he is.
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When I applied to Duke in the Fall of 1997,
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I received in the mail a big blue book
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and printed on the cover
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was the question, Who's Duke?
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And inside there were all kinds of stories
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about Duke students and Duke graduates
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and all the varied things that they've done
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with their lives here and all the wonderful things
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that they'd done when they graduated.
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And just in reading through it, just in reading
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that question, I could see that Duke really wanted
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to define itself; to set itself apart
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from other universities,
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and to convince me that this was the place
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where I could find myself, where I could define
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who I am.
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For most of us that's what college is.
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We come here to find ourselves, to find out who we are.
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To find out who we want to be.
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Some of us already know the answers to these questions.
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And some of us, some of us come without a clue.
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Hoping that we'll find one along the way.
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It's hard to imagine Duke as a wilderness or a desert.
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But in many ways it is.
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We may not have the silence.
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We may not have the solitude.
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But we do have the temptations.
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And these temptations can be about a lot more
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than just right or wrong.
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These temptations can help us to find out something
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about who we are.
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When I graduated from high school, the minister
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of my church back home sent me a graduation card.
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I ripped it open, I was expecting to find a check inside,
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as most graduation cards that I had gotten contained.
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But I was sadly disappointed
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because instead I found a small wooden cross.
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And it was glued on a small card
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with some cheesy poem printed on the back.
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It said something about carrying the cross in my pocket,
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and carrying it and, that it would remind me that no matter
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where I went that I would always be God's.
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Like I said, I was hoping for a check.
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(crowd laughs)
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So I threw the card and the cross into a box.
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And I didn't think much of it again.
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When I got to Duke, I found myself faced
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with lots of new temptations.
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I was out on my own.
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And the sky was literally the limit.
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One of the first afternoons I was here,
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I was unpacking one of my boxes,
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And I found that little cross,
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that I had tossed aside just a few months before.
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And I picked it up and I read the sentiment
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that was attached, that God loved me.
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And that no matter where I went,
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no matter what I did, no matter what I didn't do,
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I would always be God's son.
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And you know, it didn't sound so cheesy anymore.
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Because I was standing there, standing here in the midst
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of this identity wilderness that college is,
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and those words, words that I'd heard many times before,
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probably for the first time at my baptism,
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and they called out to me,
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and they urged me to follow,
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where the Spirit would lead.
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It's hard to do that.
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There are so many other ways to find answers
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to these identity questions.
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Join a fraternity.
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Join a sorority.
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Play a certain sport; watch a certain sport on TV.
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Wear only certain kinds of clothes.
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Drive a fancy car.
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Become a millionaire before you're 30.
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Go to church on Sunday.
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It's hard to follow the Spirit.
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It's hard to follow the Spirit because
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it means being in the wilderness
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on God's terms.
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But this is our calling during Lent.
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To follow the Spirit.
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To be alone with God.
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And to struggle with the tough questions
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of who we are.
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Frederick Buechner suggest what some
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of these Lenten questions might be like.
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He writes,
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if you had to bet everything you have
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on whether there is a God or whether there isn't,
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which side would get your money and why?
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When you look at your face in the mirror,
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what do you see in it that you most like?
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And what do you see in it that you most deplore?
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Of all the things that you've done in life,
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which is the one you would most like to undo?
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And which is the one that makes
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you the happiest to remember?
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Is there any person in the world or any cause
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that, if circumstances called for it,
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you would be willing to die for?
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If this were the last day of your life,
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what would you do with it?
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During Lent we are asked to embrace these questions,
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and these questions that Buechner poses for us,
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and struggle with them, struggle with answers
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to them and in the struggle we will be led,
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maybe even forced out into the wilderness
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on a journey with the perfect companion,
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the perfect example in Jesus Christ.
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The great miracle of this story, of course,
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is that Jesus with the full knowledge of who he is
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and all that that entailed, he came out of the desert
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and he embarked on a journey that would forever
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be shaped by what he'd learned out there, alone,
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day in and day out.
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And his journey, his journey can speak to us on our journey.
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Reminding us of obedience.
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Even to the point of death.
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After the wilderness, in his moments of strength,
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in his moments of weakness, in his moments of doubt
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and in his moments of certainty, Jesus knew who he was.
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In the garden of Gethsemane he prays "My Father,
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my Father,
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let this cup pass from me,
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if it is possible,
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yet not what I want,
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what you want".
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What did Jesus know?
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He knew, he really knew that he was God's Son.
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And in the end, in the end, it was all he really needed.
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All we really need,
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to know.