Standing Under the Scriptures
March 8, 2009

Dear Fellow Voyagers,

Our readings for this Sunday are:

Genesis 17.1-7: God promises Abraham, hitherto without an heir, an abundance of descendants.

Mark 8.27-38: This is a cardinal passage, containing Peter’s confession, Jesus’ rebuke of him following hard on it, and Jesus’ account of what is required of a disciple.

Our readings for last Sunday could be thought of as the two pediments of a bridge. The first was the prelude to the story running all the way through the Scriptures, the culmination of which was marked by the second.

The first, Genesis 9.8-17, was the conclusion of the Noah’s Ark account, one which is known far and wide. But as we saw, it has important implications, perhaps not immediately apparent. The passage comes after the flood has subsided and Noah, his sons, and their passengers have disembarked. In it God announces his covenant with Noah and with “all flesh.” This consists of his renunciation of a flood such as this, which has been his means of dealing with the evil arising in his creation. Presumably this would involve his foreswearing of lesser means of destruction as well. And the sign of his covenant, by which he will remind himself of it, is the rainbow in the clouds.

We noted, to begin with, that this covenant (known as the Noachian in accordance with the Hebrew spelling of Noah) is prior in time to the Sinai covenant, and that it is not just with the Israelites but with all people, indeed the whole earth. In Jewish thought, at least, it has afforded a basis for working out relations with other peoples. Further, it would seem to accord with Jesus’ parable of the wheat and the weeds (Matthew 13.24-30). When the latter appear, the servants want to rush in and pull them up---something of a flood solution to the problem. But the householder restrains them, cautioning that in so doing they would disturb the roots of the wheat, and that the weeds can be dealt with at harvest time.

We noted also the permanence of God’s renunciation of a flood solution: “…never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” We took this to mean that God renounced the option of dealing with evil by overturning or cancelling history. But it would be far from him simply to acquiesce in evil. Therefore this implies his turning to the other option, namely dealing within history with evil. And this option can be seen as beginning already in Genesis 12, in the story of Abraham. This continues with the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt, the Exodus, the wilderness wandering, the occupation of the Promised Land, the establishment of the Davidic kingdom, its division and ensuing difficulties, the destruction of the nation and the exile of the people, their return and, out of all this, the coming of the Messiah.

The Messiah’s coming is the other pediment of the bridge spoken of above. In Mark 1.9-15, our second reading, we had not the whole of it but at least the beginning. The passage speaks, following Jesus’ baptism but before his preaching in Galilee, of his temptation by Satan in the wilderness. Thus it fits the first Sunday in Lent with its affinities with the temptation: 40 days duration, a season of abstinence. Already it raised some general questions for us: the significance of the wilderness in Israel’s history and in our lives, the identity of Satan, what temptation consists in. The wilderness figures most prominently as that in which the Israelites wandered for 40 years following their escape from Egypt. And it conjures up notions of tracklessness, of the absence of the signposts that we are accustomed to, and thus of disorientation. But, as was pointed out, it can also be a place of renewal and creativity; Jesus is recorded as withdrawing into it for prayer. The two images are not inconsistent; he old must often be transcended if the new is to emerge. Indeed, we must pass through death in order to enter fully into life.

As for Satan (a.k.a. the devil, the tempter), in Hebrew the basic meaning of the name is adversary. I proposed that Augustine’s concept of evil as an absence of good might be illuminating here. Similarly, Barth conceived of the primeval chaos as the absence of form and content. Yet this non-being has force, indeed a powerful one, paradoxical is that may be. Along these lines we may comprehend the power of Satan.

As for temptation, my suggestion was that it involved the use of a capacity with which God has endowed us---all our capacities are so endowed---for our own purposes or at any rate a purpose less than God intended. When this is done, that capacity becomes unavailable, or at least less available, for its intended purpose. My suggestion seemed to receive less than full acceptance. Nevertheless something like it can be seen as operating in the specific temptations to which Jesus was subjected. For these concern the use of his divine power for something less than the salvation of humankind. Indeed, they might be seen as exercises in how not to use his divine power. Mark does not specify what the temptations were---there were three. For them we have to turn to Matthew (4.1-11) and Luke (4.1-13). Conflation of Gospels is frowned on; nevertheless in this instance it may be justified.

Jesus’ first temptation, at the end of his 40-day fast, was to use his divine power to turn wilderness stones into bread, presumably so that he would not have to wait to eat until he got to a town. But this would be to use his divine power to satisfy his own physical hunger. Therefore he refuses, saying to Satan, “Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” His second temptation, in Matthew’s order, is to throw himself down from the pinnacle of the temple, presumably to show that he will not thereby come to harm and so to demonstrate irrefutably his divine status. This he refuses by saying to Satan, who himself quoted Scripture,”You shall not tempt the Lord your God.” Perhaps there is a connection here with the “Messianic secret” that we have been encountering, namely Jesus’ repeated attempts to keep his healings and castings out of demons from being publicized. Hs concern may have been to have people respond to him spontaneously, by the Spirit, rather than to compel their belief.

The third temptation is the most existential of all, at least for those of us who have glimpsed worldly power and its attraction through government service. It was to receive authority over the kingdoms of the world in return for worshipping Satan. As the class noted, this could be seen as an opportunity to bring material and other benefits to the world. But Jesus’ intended purpose was its salvation, not its prosperity. So he says, “Begone, Satan, for it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’”

We noted that Jesus responds to Satan consistently out of Scripture, as it happens out of Deuteronomy. And this accords with what we have been saying all along, namely that if we are sufficiently imbued with the Scriptures, as we aim to become in our class, we will be equipped to deal with whatever confronts or assails us along the way, in with some abstract system but with scriptural images arising in our minds. In his temptations Jesus establishes this pattern for us.

Luke’s’ account of the temptations concludes by saying that the devil left Jesus “until an opportune time (kairos).” In this connection I recently ran across a striking insight of Barth’s. Jesus seems to have no particular problem in rejecting these temptations; he does so in an almost offhand way. But in rejecting them, so as to use his divine power instead for its intended purpose, he set himself on the way that led ineluctably to Gethsemane. And there, in the garden, he was subjected to his supreme temptation, namely to avoid the cross, which he strained to his utmost to overcome. Although it is not so specified, this may be taken as Satan’s “opportune time.” But overcome it he did. And thereby he saved the world, and us.

Faithfully, Fr. Ted