Feb. 22 ~ The temptation of turning stone to bread and the temptation of easy answer

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/3ef8bd_8f80e35766564466a612695a6baaf0c0/720p/mp4/file.mp4

Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7

Psalm 32

Romans 5:12-19

Matthew 4:1-11

Sermon by Joel Crouse

For this Sunday, I was given a sermon from the Eastern Synod’s Climate Justice Committee to read to you. After some thought, however, I am not going to read that sermon - not in its entirety. A copy, however, is available to anyone who wants it.

When I read and reflected on the sermon provided, it didn’t sit right with me. We live in a complicated time, and the words I speak must reflect that. We have to approach this age - when so many of our values are threatened, our sovereignty is challenged, our climate is being destroyed, our children don’t have jobs, and still in this wealthy country, we have people without homes dying on the street. In fact, in January, I buried a man who died on our city streets; no one even knew his name.

In this difficult world, Jesus gives us guidance; and I, from this place, seek to represent that guidance, to pose questions that I hope reveal something of the gospel. As your pastor, I can walk with you toward an answer. I can support you in your search. But your answer, in the end, is between you and God.

In our gospel, this morning, we hear the story of Eve’s temptation by the serpent in the Garden, and the Devil’s temptation of Jesus in the desert. I want to address both - although the Synod’s sermon touches only on the latter.

For starters, I don’t think we should ever read that story about Eve in church, without requiring the pastor to address it. Without the pastor’s comments, too many parts of the Bible have left judgement mistakenly cast on women. We all know the story: God tells Eve and Adam not to eat the apple; the serpent convinces Eve to take a bite, she shares it with Adam, and they leave the Garden of Eden forever. There are so many aspects of this story that have always made me wonder. First, why did God, knowing our human failings, understanding our desire for knowledge and our innate curiosity, place such a test upon us, dangling an apple that would separate us from God within such tantalizing reach? Also, why were we expected to live in paradise forever, when it is against our very nature - when we are a species designed to reach for the future, to grow and change?

Perhaps the lesson here is that God never intended for us to remain in the Garden of Eden forever; but to go out in the world and fail and succeed where we could. By leaving the garden, we acquired free will, the ability to choose our fate; and years later when Jesus arrived on the scene, he honoured and valued that free will by creating a gospel that was a guide and inspiration but not a cage.

In that sense, what did Eve do but hope what all mothers do for their families? That they would find their own way into the world, learn from failure, rejoice in life’s happy moments, and come to know themselves more fully. Who among us, had we been in Eve’s situation would have been able to resist that apple forever? Let us not sit in judgement. To be curious and searching is to take risks. And do we not now as a society see curiosity as the driver for wider thoughts and innovation?

In the desert, the devil presented Jesus with questions with surprisingly simple answers. I do not mean that the questions themselves were easy, only that once Jesus had heard them the answers came easily.

First, the devil tells Jesus, who has been fasting, to turn stone to bread - surely the Son of God can pull off that trick, and the human part of Jesus must be hungry. But Jesus refuses: one cannot live by bread alone. Once you have turned the stone to bread for expediency at the Devil’s request, what then?

Next the devil tries to get Jesus to leap from the top of a temple in a city: either to be saved by God and revered for his miracle or cast to his death. But Jesus refuses again: he will not seek glory - and certainly not by putting God to the test. He doesn’t need glory - which is self-serving and not gospel-serving; and he doesn’t need to test a God he already believes in.

Finally, the Devil, now desperate it seems, says to Jesus: If you just worship me, I will give you everything you desire. Jesus firmly refuses: “I worship God alone.”

Now when I say these answers were easy, I mean in the context of who is asking and who is answering. For us, they are much harder - and we face these temptations all the time, from all kinds of devils. We are tempted to take the easy way out. We are tempted to show off for the sake of our own glory. We are tempted to bend our own values for personal gain. The devil does not appear so clearly to us in the desert; our temptations are so subtle we often don’t hear the questions being asked.

What is true for humans is true for the society that humans created. And certainly, the most damaging way we have given in to all three of these temptations has been at the expense of the Garden of Eden that we have been blessed to live in and charged with its responsibility. Our easy ways out, our overconsumption for glory, our greed, have brought ruin to every corner of the world. We know we need to change our ways more than what we are doing. We know we will need to make ourselves uncomfortable, that we may have to sacrifice - and yet we struggle to do so. We have acquired free will and yet we remained trapped by our lesser selves.

In particular this day, when thinking of our environment, our larger church wants us to think about the first temptation - to make bread into stone. Last spring, the Synod’s Climate Justice Committee, on your behalf, sponsored a “Pilgrimage for the Planet.” A group of Lutherans, some from this congregation, bicycled from Montreal to Parliament Hill in Ottawa to pressure the Canadian government to sign on to the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty. While we drew some attention, our hopes to have conversations with leaders were pre-empted by politicians leaving Parliament Hill to prepare for an election. So now, the committee’s effort is to encourage as many people as possible to call the Minister of the Environment during Lent and express the urgent concern to dramatically reduce subsidizing the extraction and production of petroleum products.

I suppose this endeavour; reminding our leaders what we want for our society is important, even if it does not lead right away to policy change. But as your pastor, I know that for some of you making this call, at this time, might be controversial. Our country is facing many threats; the world has many challenges. Our government is focused on making us less reliant on the United States and expanding our trade with other countries; we are an energy rich country; this is one of our most valuable resources. Can we risk not turning this stone into bread - just this one last time?

Of course, we know the danger: there will always be a next time. A new temptation to use what the earth gives us. But I want to suggest that two things can be true at once; we can recognize the need to protect our sovereignty - and agree as a nation that our dependency on oil needs to stop. We can ask our government to prioritize trade that is environmentally-friendly, to link our country’s future independence to modern green-energy, to focus on skills that will shape a new economy and mitigate climate change. When our government talks about expanding our AI industry, we can ask what energy will be used to run all that machine learning. And we can ask how our trade deals are encouraging other countries reduce their own independence on oil.

In the desert, the questions Jesus faced were about him: would he turn the stone, would he jump from the temple, would he switch sides for gold? We also face those individual questions each day, when it comes to our choices: will we buy Canadian? Will we use up all those leftovers? Will we reduce our consumption? Will we vote for politicians who support environmental policies? Will we set an example with our beliefs? As we see with both Eve and Jesus, those individual choices almost always have larger consequences, however they seep into the world.

So, while societal change may seem farther way - that call to the politician fruitless - society is composed of individuals, and enough individuals can change it.

The Committee mentions one example of hope that we heard about from Sophie Gebreyes a couple of weeks ago: in the recent Friends of Creation project around Lake Chad. Many congregations have been offering funds to support reforestation and sustainable agriculture in a region devastated by climate change. We are trying to fix a problem we largely created. But it should drive home the point that we must also work harder to prevent the problem at its source.

The Climate Justice Committee also rightly points out that our success lies in relationship. Let us all call the Environment Minister and express our desire to eliminate Canada’s dependency on oil - this is an essential goal. But let us also find ways to elevate solutions, to build up shared values, to give up a little so those without can have something.

Make the call to the cabinet minister, but do not stop there - for isn’t stopping there the same easy way out of responsibility? Educate yourself. Have conversations with your friends. Do not be tempted to adopt an easy answer; the solution lies in complexity. We must be curious like Eve to find it; and moral like Jesus to follow through on it. Always with our eye on the Garden of Eden, as our aspiration for the world.

Amen