Grace Cathedral

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We give this holy instant to you O God. Guide us as we follow, certain your direction will lead us into peace. Amen.[1]

1. Are you living your real life? Or are you merely trying to avoid or dull the pain of existing? So much is at stake these days. And because we are involved there is no simple answer.

The nineteenth century Christian existentialist philosopher Gabriel Marcel (1889-1973) writes that a, “mystery is a problem that encroaches upon itself because the questioner becomes the object of the question. Getting to Mars is a problem. Falling in love is a mystery.”[2] In another context Gary Wills writes, “We seek one mystery, God, with another mystery, ourselves. We are mysterious to ourselves because God’s mystery is in us.”[3] Today we confront the mystery of our life and the mystery of God.

On Thursday at a reception for a newly elected city supervisor I found myself at the Top of the Mark half an hour before sunset. This ballroom sits twenty floors above Nob Hill with a 360 degree view. The perfect clarity of the golden light shone on my entire world from the green hills of Mount Hamilton, Mount Umunhum and Black Mountain south of the San Mateo Bridge to Mount Diablo, Mount Tamalpais, the Wine Country and the Vaca Mountains in the north. As a teenager looking at those Vaca Mountains from the other side, I never could have imagined my future here.

After joking with the supervisor about his visit to my office during the campaign, I spoke to a middle aged friend who has just received a prominent appointment in the new presidential administration. We had an uncomfortable conversation. Before we said a word I could tell he wondered whether I disapproved of what he was doing. He had been offered great power and a fantastic opportunity but looming in the background was the question – at what cost? at what cost to his humanity?

It felt like we had walked into the Bible. Temptation, bread, beauty, power and great heights. I wish that I had been less concerned about hurting his feelings and asked the questions that were really on my mind.[4]

2. Luke writes that after his baptism Jesus is “full of the Holy Spirit” and that the spirit leads him into the wilderness. The story is about a test. The devil tempts Jesus to turn bread into stone, to take power over all the kingdoms of the world and to throw himself down from the highest pinnacle of the Temple. Let me begin by briefly telling you how I interpret this passage. Then I will go into greater detail about the historical context and finally conclude by talking more about why this matters.

For me this gospel passage is not about the importance of will-power. Jesus is not a kind of Marcus Aurelius-style (121-180) stoic philosopher, abstaining from comfort and power, and bravely unconcerned about his own safety. The ancient Greek stoics used the word eudaimonia to describe the highest goal of human life. It means happiness or welfare. They cared about four virtues: prudence, fortitude, temperance and justice.[5]

It is not that Jesus felt unconcerned about happiness or virtue. In fact he shared with the stoic philosophers the conviction that how one acts is more important than what one believes. It’s just that the point Jesus makes in this story is not about fortitude or will-power. This is not even centrally about resisting evil. Instead, Jesus is teaching us how to live a holy life, how to be a child of God. He shows us a way of living in humility, generosity and love, with genuine strength.[6]

3. We cannot fully understand this passage without recognizing the way that it refers back to two other stories in the Old Testament – the temptation of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and more importantly the story of Moses. I cannot understate the importance of Moses for understanding this. Every word Jesus speaks is a quote from the Book of Deuteronomy.

Moses meets God in the flames of a burning bush. There God promises Moses to free his people who are suffering as slaves in Egypt. After a series of escalating confrontations between Moses and the Pharoah, God brings the people safely into freedom through the Red Sea. They begin a forty year journey in the wilderness. When they complain about being hungry, God provides them with a mysterious food called Manna (the Hebrew word for “What Is It?”).

Have you ever wondered why the people wandered for forty years? This time prepares them for the Law, the Ten Commandments which Moses brings down after spending forty days on top of Mt. Sinai. We most often joke about the Ten Commandments as if they are just an arbitrary rules, as “thou shalt not’s” that restrict us. In contrast to this the Torah treats them as a gift to help organize and sustain our social and spiritual life.[7]

Later Deuteronomy explains that this time in the wilderness was so that they would not come to say to themselves, “My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth…” (Deut. 8:17). In other words God’s people are in the wilderness to learn humility and generosity, to really understand that God is like a hidden mountain spring always dependable, always bringing new life.

4. This is the background for understanding Jesus’ forty days with the Holy Spirit being humbled, instructed, and strengthened. Let’s talk about the three temptations. The devil says, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread” (Lk. 4). We might think this is about food or sustenance. When the devil says “IF you are the Son of God” he’s really asking Jesus to prove it. For the devil being God’s son means having power independent of God. Quoting Deuteronomy Jesus answers, “One does not live by bread alone.” In other words, God is the source of our sustenance.

In the second temptation the devil shows Jesus all the world’s kingdoms in an instant (en stigma chronou). I imagine this as the way the world looked from the Top of the Mark. The devil says more literally that the world’s “power and glory” has been given over to him and that if Jesus worships him he will give it to Jesus. Jesus says, “Worship the Lord your God and serve only him.”

Jesus is saying that having power over the world will not make us more just, thoughtful and humble. The beauty of being fully human does not involve competing with God but being in communion with God.

The third temptation takes place at the pinnacle of the temple in Jerusalem. The devil tells Jesus to throw himself down and quotes Psalm 91 to say that the angels will prevent him from being hurt.[8] Again behind the devil’s invitation is a deep distrust that God will care for us. Jesus says, “do not put God to the test.” All three temptations are fundamentally about not trusting God.

For me this story is not about resisting temptation so much as it is about living in God. The devil says “Feed yourself! Rule over others! Trust no one!” We see people in public life who live according to these dictates but Jesus shows us a better way. What the temptations share in common is that they are the devil’s vision of human life as a  competition with God rather than communion with God. No matter what we do, we are not independent of God. We are humble creatures made to rely on God for everything.

In short, the devil is asking “Does God love us?” And Jesus responds with the Good News that God does.

5. Let me speak briefly about why this matters. No matter who we are, one day we will find ourselves in the wilderness. Some of us right now are in the wilderness. The wilderness sometimes looks like a crowded hospital waiting room, or the long walk through office cubicles carrying a cardboard box of your belongings, or a friend’s couch after a bad breakup. It might look like your own home when someone you love is no longer in it.[9]

You know that it is the wilderness, because everyone tries so hard to avoid it. You know that it is the wilderness because it is the place where you do not have what you need. And yet we are changed by time in the wilderness. We meet God there.

Last year our Dean Emeritus Alan Jones died. This week was his birthday and I have had him particularly on my mind especially the last paragraph of his book Living the Truth. He understood the wilderness as he imagined how his life might end.

“When I am dying (in whatever state I am in) I hope that I will be part of a community of trust and love that understands the intrinsic value of human life. As long as I am a member of Christ, my living and dying as a person who is known, loved, and accepted is what really matters. From the perspective of the gospel we are liberated to believe in ourselves because God believes in us, even at our worst. How we act depends to a large extent on who we believe ourselves to be. And who we really are is safe in the hands of God, whose love sometimes burns us before it transforms us. And this is the truth.”[10]

Who do you believe yourself to be? Are you living your real life or trying to dull the pain of existing? On this first Sunday of Lent I keep revisiting that conversation with my friend at the Top of the Mark. I wish that we could have talked honestly about where we feel the spirit is leading us.

At the beginning of Lent I am also thinking about the wilderness that you are traveling through, about how together we are learning to trust God. Jesus does not teach us primarily about what to avoid but about how to live. The highest goal of life is not perfect will-power or stoic independence but communion with God. This life is a school for learning to trust God and for studying how to give and receive love. God’s mystery is in us.

Production

Please include the opening prayer. Images might include:
The Top of the Mark (Mark Hopkins Hotel)

Marcus Aurelius

Alan Jones

[1] Based on Norwood Pratt’s prayer. “This holy instant I would give to you. Be you in charge this day. I would follow you certain your direction gives me peace. Create in me a clean heart O Lord and renew a right spirit within me” 6 March 2025.

[2] Cited in John Kaag, American Philosophy: A Love Story (NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016) 225. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marcel/

[3] Gary Wills, Saint Augustine (NY: Viking Penguin, 1999) xii.

[4] Many of us have friends in the Federal government who received Elon Musk’s memo requiring them to answer the question, “What did you do last week” in five bullet points (and copying one’s supervisor). This is not the only test confronting us these days.

Over the last two months the Bible has been made new for me through the radical changes happening all around us. Scripture has been so helpful as I try to make sense of these events. Right now God presents us with a spiritual opportunity. God offers us a new way of entering into a holy mystery. It begins with a test and Jesus’ three point memo to the devil.

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoicism

[6] As is so often the case I am very grateful for the insights of my friend Matthew Boulton, “The Hidden Fountain: SALT’s Commentary for Lent 1,” SALT, 4 March 2025. https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2019/3/5/the-hidden-fountain-salts-lectionary-commentary-for-lent-1

[7] Why wander? Why the Ten Commandments? The answer is summarized in Deuteronomy 8:1. “This entire commandment that I command you today you must diligently observe, so that you may live and increase…” The point is to live and increase.

[8] “For he shall give his angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways. They shall bear you in their hands, lest you dash your foot against a stone” Psalm 91:11-12 (Book of Common Prayer, 720).

[9] Barbara Brown Taylor, “The Wilderness Exam,” Day1, 21 February 2010. https://day1.org/weekly-broadcast/5d9b820ef71918cdf2002924/the_wilderness_exam?utm_source=chatgpt.com

[10] Alan Jones, Living the Truth (Cambridge, MA: Cowley Publications, 2000) 159-60.