Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Sermons 

Title: "Speeding Past Temptation?"

Text: Mark 1:9-15

you may well have grown tired of hearing me

marvel about how quickly Mark blows past

things that the other gospel writers linger over.

More than one scholar has commented that, for Mark,

it appears that the narratives around Jesus’ death

are the only really important thing

that he wants to get across.

Everything else is just "an extended introduction."

You get that feeling again today.

The story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness –

which always greets us on the first Sunday in Lent –

we can probably repeat a good bit of it,

some of us could probably even name the three temptations

that Jesus was offered by Satan;

a few of us might remember that

they come in a different order in Luke than in Matthew.

But I confess, I had forgotten

that Mark doesn’t even mention them!

Here we are, still in chapter 1 of Mark’s gospel,

only 11 verses into the story,

and we get a grand total of two verses about the temptation.

After Jesus’ baptism, it tells us:

"…the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.

He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan;

and he was with the wild beasts;

and the angels waited on him."

That’s it!

Two whole verses.

Nothing about his fasting;

nothing about turning rocks into bread,

or flinging himself off the highest tower of the temple,

or being given dominion over all the peoples of the earth.

Just two verses.

Like so much else,

Mark speeds right on past the story of Jesus’ temptation

in order to get to what he thinks is really important.

So just for fun,

let’s see if we can put ourselves into Mark’s head

and his thought processes,

and figure out why this story is so not important to him.

It’s always possible, of course,

that Mark didn’t know the rest of the story.

Scholars believe that Matthew and Luke

had sources available to them that Mark didn’t have.

So maybe they knew more details in the first place.

On the other hand,

giving exactly two verses to the temptation narrative

is entirely in keeping with Mark’s breathless style of prose.

One in which the adverb "immediately"

occurs everywhere you look.

Is Mark partly right, then?

Is this story not particularly important,

in the grand scheme of things?

Even more important, though,

whether it was or wasn’t important to him,

does it matter to us?

For Mark,

it seems over and over again

that the most important point to be made

was about Jesus’ death.

Not even the resurrection …

early versions of Mark’s gospel don’t even mention the resurrection.

Mark is concerned with the death of Jesus

and the meaning of that event.

He’s simply not all that interested in what Jesus did while he was alive,

except for how that led up to and/or explained

his impending death and sacrifice.

Maybe he was short on writing time;

maybe his audience already knew a lot of the "lifetime" stories,

and needed to be educated in greater theological depth

about his death, not his life.

We really don’t know.

The end result, though, is the same:

We don’t even get to the story of the temptation

until chapter four in both Matthew and Luke.

Mark places it eleven verses into chapter one.

He’s not going to waste time

telling us about things that, ultimately,

are not important.

Now that’s an interesting thought.

For all that Christians have struggled with, argued about,

and fought against temptation for all these centuries,

is it possible that it is not ultimately important?

I have found this hard to articulate,

because I don’t mean to suggest that it’s okay

for us to give in any time we feel tempted.

Rather, that we may give too much weight to

our experiences of temptation,

and give them too much power over us.

Let me give you a few "for instance"s,

and see if I can be clearer about what I mean.

For some of us,

we beat ourselves up if we even feel temptation,

regardless of whether we give in to it or not.

"I’m such a bad person;

I would just eat chocolate all day long if I could."

Or we beat up other people

for confessing to having felt temptation …

like all the grief Jimmy Carter got years ago

when he confessed to having been tempted by other women.

("Lusting after," of course, is what he said.)

But even Jesus was tempted!

Not "pretended to be tempted …"

not "was offered temptations, but didn’t actually feel it."

No, even Mark, as brief as he is,

tells us that Jesus was tempted by Satan.

He felt the desire to do the wrong thing.

He knew it would be wrong, and yet, however briefly,

he felt the wish to do it.

So if even Jesus felt tempted,

how can we beat up on ourselves or others

for the feeling of temptation?

We can’t help what we feel.

We can only help what we do about it.

Feel tempted?

Speed on past it.

Others of us dwell on temptation

because we’re a little too pleased with ourselves

for the times when we have resisted it.

Have you ever felt a need to let people know

when you have been virtuous in the face of temptation?

I could have had a drink,

but I decided not to.

I really thought about buying that new outfit,

but I didn’t give in to temptation.

He invited me to come up to his apartment,

but I didn’t go.

Now, there may be a few times when

talking about our own resistance to temptation

may be useful,

if we are trying to help someone else withstand.

For example, if you are a recovering alcoholic,

and are trying to mentor someone who is newly recovering …

it may be comforting for that person to know that, yes,

you still feel temptation from time to time,

but day by day, you are able to withstand.

Talking about your own experience of not giving in

may offer hope to someone who is struggling.

But most of the time,

when we talk about our own virtuous choices,

it’s because we are trying to compare ourselves

to people who made choices that don’t seem so virtuous to us.

Shopping isn’t my particular temptation,

but this past week I was talking with a fellow graduate student,

who comes from a wealthy family,

and she was telling about the last purse she bought,

which cost her $1200.

And I confess that I got pretty smug

about how I almost never give in to "shopping" temptations.

Except books, of course.

Perhaps we need to speed on past

the temptations we have resisted, as well.

Dwelling on them,

if all they are going to do is make us feel superior,

is pretty useless.

Perhaps the most difficult to address, though,

is the times when we have faced temptation

and given in.

Probably pretty joyfully, at least in the moment that it happened.

I mean, would we really have felt tempted

if giving in wasn’t going to be fun, at least briefly?!

Shouldn’t we dwell on those times?

It’s Lent, after all!

Shouldn’t we rehearse our bad deeds,

wallow in them, rend our garments,

confess them with trepidation,

and repent?

Shouldn’t we wait anxiously to see whether

God is going to strike us down

for our failures?

Shouldn’t we dwell on the times we have given in,

and beat ourselves up about them,

so that maybe, just maybe,

we won’t ever be tempted to do it ever again,

whatever "it" was?

What if the answer is no?

What if we are supposed to speed on past

even the times when we have done wrong,
or have failed to do good …

not because it isn’t important,

but because it isn’t ultimately important?

Isn’t God’s forgiveness more powerful than our sin?

Even if it’s a sin we have repeated on numerous occasions …

because, let’s face it, we all have our favorite sins

just as we have our favorite temptation.

But as long as we have acknowledged them

and asked God’s forgiveness and healing,

shouldn’t we just speed on past them?

In a sense, Mark’s breathless pace is absolutely right.

Rather than dwelling on the rough patches in our faith journey,

perhaps what we need to do is just what Mark has done,

albeit for reasons of his own:

to speed on past them.

To speed past our own experiences of temptation,

to speed past our own moments of resistance,

to speed past even our own failures.

Because what ultimately matters

is that we stay on the journey with God and toward God,

regardless of the obstacles we encounter, or the bumps in the road.

Make speed bumps out of them …

Speed on past!

Amen.

© 2006 Julie Adkins (e-mail: DrJAdkins@trinitypresdallas.org)