January 8, 2023 Jesus’ Testing and Early Ministry Matthew 4

             When I began doing research for today’s sermon one of the first things I came across was the phrase, “practical atheism.”  (M. Eugene Boring, New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume 8, Pg. 164)  It was in reference to Jesus being tempted to bow down and worship Satan and thus be given the whole world.  Perhaps a story of a literal historical testing of Jesus by Satan sounds passe in today’s world, but let’s not be too quick to dismiss it just because the format seems scientifically impossible.  There is a deeply real thing to that test.  It is the very same test we all face each and every day.

When the devil shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and says, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” he is simply inviting Jesus to accept the status quo of the world.  It is inviting Jesus to use his skills for his own personal fulfillment.  Think of the power and glory a person who can perform miracles could have!

But you don’t necessarily have to go that far.  It’s really just live life the way the world expects you to.  Go with the flow.  Do things the way everyone else does in search of self-fulfillment.

If we think this is a test to see if Jesus will disobey the will of the Father we would be right.  We can also easily go one step deeper and find a very practical application.

I had nothing on my social calendar for New Year’s Eve.  I decided I didn’t want to watch the ball drop all by myself at home.  So I went to see the fireworks at Finger Lakes Gaming and Racetrack.  They were being launched over the racetrack.  The only way to the grandstand overlooking the racetrack is to go through the gaming floor.  So before they opened the grandstand I wandered through the rows and rows of video lottery machines.  I also kept an eye on the Ohio State/Georgia game to see how that turned out.  The final quarter was certainly spectacular!  But aside from the game, I thought the whole place was an interesting commentary on the state of the human condition.  Setting aside any wisdom or biblical ethics about gambling, it was hundreds of people mindlessly pushing buttons on the lottery machines.  They weren’t thinking in what they were doing.  They weren’t having fun in what they were doing.  They weren’t being fulfilled by what they were doing.  They were doing what?  Hoping to hit some jackpot of significance that would give them enough money to rise above the pointless mundane lives they are currently living? 

I don’t know.

I do know that more money will not buy you a more fulfilled life.  And I do know that more power will not buy your more prestige.  And I do know that more will not buy you satisfaction.

The test for Jesus was to buy into that life philosophy though.  It is “practical atheism” because it is looking to the human systems of the world for fulfillment rather than looking to God.

That really shouldn’t surprise us.  All the way back to the Adam and Eve story we find that temptation: humans, seek fulfillment on your own terms rather than on God’s terms.

Put that way it seems so simple.  Just trust God.  But the world always offers us simpler, easier, quicker forms of fulfillment – or so they seem.

Jesus is alone, starving, driven by the Spirit into the wilderness.  Is he, the Son of God, going to use his powers to rise above the limitations of the human condition?

When God isn’t giving us answers as clearly or as quickly as we want – and I think I can say we’ve all been there – the world’s answers are very convenient.  We take them.  But they take us nowhere.

In a sense, the rest of Matthew 4 is along the same lines.  Jesus calls the first four disciples: Peter, Andrew, James, and John.  They are fishermen.

Some interpreters have suggested that these fishermen were struggling with their profession.  Or that they were dissatisfied and wanted a life of meaning.  But there is nothing in the text to support those conclusions.  Sure, professional fishing was hard work.  It was then.  It is today.  But it was good, honorable, decent, and meaningful work.  Who can argue with the value of a job where you provide food for people to eat? 

Jesus’ call to discipleship upends the lives of these four men.  While Jesus doesn’t exactly immediately call them away from their families and livelihoods (we’ll hear more about that in a minute), it is a call that is a life priority that is distinctly different from what they are living.  If they become Jesus’ disciples that will take priority over the other life agendas they would be living.

The question for them is, are they going to unquestioningly continue their current life direction because it is stable, predictable and straightforward, or are they willing to let their lives be interrupted by God’s kingdom.

I say they are not exactly being asked to leave their families and livelihoods because of something else we learn just prior to them being called.  We learn that Jesus has moved from Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum.  Capernaum was probably also the home of Peter, Andrew, James, and John.  If Jesus is living there and they are to then while they may have left their nets to follow Jesus that day, they have not left their lives entirely.  I suspect that many days they did continue to fish and that they did return home.

Here is the interesting thing.  And here is where we see the way God works.  In today’s age if you wanted to start a movement to change the world perhaps you would gather some followers from around here.  You’d put together a plan and then head to Albany or Washington, along with your followers, to push for it.  You’d lobby.  You’d have rallies, or protests, or maybe even use civil disobedience.

Does Jesus do that?  Note that Jesus is not born in the power center of Judaism.  That would have been Jerusalem.  And he did not center his ministry by going to the religious and political leaders and trying to persuade them to his world view.  No, Jesus shows that God really sees no significant value in human centers of power and prestige.  God works on the outskirts with the people who are there.

We’re back to the testing of Jesus to live by the world’s ways and receive the world’s rewards, or live by God’s ways?

I think it could be said that from the point of view of many of Jesus’ followers, he was whipping up a following and then heading to Jerusalem to press for changes.  I think the religious leaders thought that was what Jesus was doing too. 

But no.  Jesus goes to Jerusalem simply to celebrate the Passover holiday.  While he knows full well what is coming, and while he does preach and teach in the temple – the center of Jewish religious power – he has not actually whipped up a following and brought them to Jerusalem to create a dramatic crisis.  Jesus is just a Jew celebrating a holiday in the holy city.  It is his opponents that raise it to a crisis. 

Practical atheism is what our society lives by.  It says there is effectively no God – or that there is effectively no God who will meaningfully be a part of your life.  Practical atheism says that you should be a good person because it is the moral thing to do for the betterment of the human system; and… if it turns out that if God really does exist then you want have a lifetime of morality to draw upon to get you into heaven.  But, practical atheism lets you be your own God.  That’s what we humans want.  We want to be our own source of fulfillment.  We want the video lottery terminal to give us a win for a life of meaning.

When Jesus says, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” he meant it in a very real literal way.  The kingdom of heaven – with its trust upon God, and its attitude of ‘there is enough for everyone to have what they need’, and that you can live a meaningful, solid, authentic life right here and right now is something for you to have.

Will you be immune from the often painful limits and realities of your humanness?  No.  Will your life be easier?  No.  But your life will be worthwhile.  It will be fulfilling even if it isn’t easier.

When Jesus says to Peter, Andrew, James, and John, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” it may have been a radical life change, but it was not an earth shattering crazy daring change.  It was a change away from the world’s ways of practical atheism and into God’s kingdom.

The farther we go into the future I am sure that ways of Christianity will diverge from the ways of society.  By that I don’t mean the hot button political topics of abortion or immigration or climate change.  I do not want to minimize any of them, but they are ultimately side shows that draw us from the real truth.  The truth is where are you going to point your life for meaning.  Society’s ways will take you nowhere except ongoing anxiety and emptiness.  God’s ways, while difficult, will fill you.

It isn’t hard to start.  It takes no great revelation.  It just takes a critical look at why the world is doing what it is doing and what it hopes to accomplish.  And then turning to God’s ways of loving your neighbor and discovering the truth is there.  May you have such courage and sight.