Well, here you go. Below is the text/notes from our AllGroup gathering last night. I incorporated a lot from conversations (electronic and otherwise) with others. I feel kinda weird about it…. the entire time I was “giving” it I was wrestling with the demons of insecurity. I lost more often than I care to admit. But here you go.
Oh, here are some audio versions of the evening too:
Dave Nixon reading something he wrote.mp3 (6mb)
Lord’s Prayer read by Dave Nixon.mp3 (500kb)
AllGroupTeaching by Aaron Klinefelter.mp3 (21mb)
——————————
There is a lot here to talk about. It could consume a better part of the day. But our time is limited and our comprehension even more so. But with what we have I’d like us to look at this passage in Matthew – the Temptation Story, we’ll touch on Genesis and Romans some as well.
In this Temptation Story we’ll look at “Jesus-i-ness” of it and then how that spills out into our lives. There will likely be a few rabbit trails along the way and several asides, but hopefully we’ll make some progress together.
Oh, and I suppose this goes for every AllGroup whenever somebody is teaching, so I have a hunch that some percentage of what I say is probably wrong. And hopefully, by God’s Grace, some percentage will be Truth, useful, and Life-giving. The problem is I don’t know which percentage is good stuff and which is chaff. That’s your job – deciding. I pray the Holy Spirit illumines all of our hearts to hear what God is saying in our midst.
And, oh, one other thing…. right off the bat. There’s a whole part of this story that I’m not sure we’ll really get into… The Way of the Desert – The way of Uncertainty/Testing – Liminal (Jacob wrestling, Israel wandering, Jesus fasting).
What we will look at is The Way of Jesus – The way of Life (through Death)
Jesus did what we (Adam and Eve, Israel, Us) could not. He accomplished what we fail to do. He succeeded where we falter. But because of his success we can succeed. Because of what he accomplished we can do the same.
Some of us lately have been talking about Jesus as the “Great Hinge of History”. That with Jesus the story of the world turns a corner. He is the axis point where all life makes one great Pivot. And, as a bit of an aside, I think that pivot or hinge was more than just his death on the cross (as some highlight), more than his resurrection (which others highlight), more than his ascension (which some highlight), and even more than his life before all those others (which still others highlight) – it was the totality of these and was certainly not less than any of them. It was Jesus. (Johnny Cash song)
Johnny Cash It Was Jesus lyrics
Well a man walked down by Galilee so the Holy Book does say
And a great multitude was gathered there without a thing to eat for days
Up stepped a little boy with the basket please take it Lord he said
And with just a five loaves and two little fishes five thousand had fish and bread
Who was it everybody (it was Jesus) who was it everybody (it was Jesus)
Who was it everybody (it was Jesus) it was Jesus Christ our Lord
Now pay close attention little children it’s somebody you ought to know
It’s all about a man that walked on earth nearly two thousand years ago
Well he healed the sick and afflicted it and he raised ‘em from the dead
Then they nailed him on an old rugged cross and put thorns on his head
Who was it everybody…
Well they took him down and they buried him and after the third day
When they came to his tomb where they knew he was gone
Cause the stone was rolled away
He’s not here for he is risen the angel of the Lord then said
And when they saw him walking with these nail-scared hands
They knew he came back from the dead
Who was it everybody…
Another thing that some of us have been talking a lot about lately is that it is the PERSON OF JESUS that this thing is all about. In his birth (that we just celebrate a month and a half ago!) this was present, in his life and ministry this was present, in his death, resurrection, and ascension it was present – - throughout all of his time on earth (and now, presumably, apart from it to) Jesus was present. It is the Person of Jesus that makes Life possible – not any one event or action of that he did in his life. Truly because of who he was in his person all these various events happened – but they didn’t happen in some kind of isolated, vacuous, abstract, mechanical – “AND NOW JESUS FIXES THE WORLD” They happen out of who he is – its his “Who-ness” not his “What-ness” is the thing.
Similarly, as a community of faith – even more as Christ’s Body on earth – we exist because of the Person of Christ. We – Vineyard Central – are a Christ-centered community. Or if you want to sound cool you can say Christo-centric.
This is more than just lip-service, but rather a characterizing and gravitational force for us. It forms who we are. It shapes us and informs and enfolds all we do. His person becomes clearer as we are focused by the lens of God’s ongoing Story – which we read about in Scripture. Through the text of the Bible we get to know Jesus. Obviously there are other ways that God reveals himself to us – experience, prophecy, tradition, reason, etc… But none so clear as the Person of Christ and we see Christ most clearly via the text of Scripture. Well, I guess that ends the aside…. but it does play into this story….
It is this centrality of Jesus that illumines the Temptation Story. We see this Temptation Story in the light of his Personhood. The Who of this story is as, if not more, important than the What.
We see in the Adam and Eve story the temptation to power, self-sufficiency, and pride. Where Adam and Eve fail Jesus does not.
And, let me say emphatically, the point CANNOT be that Jesus, God’ Son, can resist temptation and we mere-humans can’t. This should not be used as some sort of perverted license that allows scapegoating. Adam and Eve fail and WE fail when temptation comes – left to our own devices. But through Jesus and the work of the Spirit in our lives we can overcome temptation. God can and will, if we let him, transform us to triumph over the Adversary in our lives.
From NT Wright via Jason Zahariades from CA – in looking at the Romans 5 text he says:
“The point of the Adam/Christ comparison is to emphasize that the human project begun in Genesis, the key part of the creator’s project for the whole creation, has been put back on track. Paul doesn’t offer a full ‘doctrine of sin’ here, but merely summarizes what he had said in 1:18-32 (which doesn’t usually make it into the lectionaries). Enough for the moment to know that sin involves disobedience, failure of loyalty, a fracturing of the creator’s intention, which, because it is a turning away from the source of life, cannot but bring death.
“The parallel is unbalanced (that is the point of vv. 15-17) because Jesus did not start where Adam started; he began where Adam ended up. The ‘obedience’ of the Messiah is his obedience to the whole saving plan of God, the Israel-shaped plan to which Israel had herself been disobedient; hence the double task, not just to lift the weight that Adam failed to lift but first to catch it as it fell. And the result of that abounding grace (v. 15) is the firm platform on which Christ’s people now stand. ‘By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make the many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities’; Isaiah is never far from Paul’s mind, and the echoes here are plain.
“Dense doctrinal statements are, of course, shorthand ways of drawing together a larger world of narrative. Romans was written, so far as we know, before the Gospels, but it presupposes the sort of story we find in Matthew 4. Jesus offers God not merely the obedience which Adam refused, but that redeeming obedience which Israel refused in the wilderness. Jesus faced the ‘if… ‘ of the tempter with courage, with Scripture, with loyalty to the one who had called him. Interestingly, he thereby chose the way Eve had though to avoid, the way of death, the naked death of the cross. But the tree he chose was the tree of wisdom, the tree of life.”
NT Wright, Twelve Months of Sunday: Year A
I think another thing we see through Jesus in this story is what Temptation is. What’s the point of it. Is it just some cosmic joke that God plays on us? Is God so insecure as to need us to prove our love to him by continually testing us?
Recently there was an audio essay (podcast) where Dave Slusher pours out his heart about this discontinuity he sees in this Story we say we believe in.
Surely this cannot be the case. God does not stand over us like a grumpy, disapproving school teacher waiting for us to make a mistake – or even worse, placing candy in front of a child only to take it away just to prove a point. Temptation is not cruelty.
From Thurman:
“Temptation strips away the masks and costumes we cover ourselves with to show the world and makes us stand in front of the mirror naked, looking at what lies beneath, as scary and frightening as that may be for some of us. Even after 40 days of fasting, Jesus was able to proudly stand before the mirror and reflect the Father. Our hope is that we can do the same.”
And I would add that our “hope” is not a vain hope… it is a living hope in a person – Jesus. We wish temptation had an “Easy Button” (from the Staples commercials), but maybe its good that we don’t. We want Jesus or the Spirit to be an all-purpose “Life-fixer”, but perhaps that’s not the point.
What if temptation was a good thing? See I think we assume that it is inherently bad. That temptation is Sin – that the two go together solidly.
We pray “Lead us not into temptation”, because we know how bad we are at dealing with it. We implore God – “don’t let us go there, we can’t make it on our own”. And this is not a bad thing to pray, for too often temptation does lead to sin. But it need not always be the case.
What if temptation was kinda like DEATH? See we have this general aversion to death. We aren’t big fans. We’d just assume it go away. And too often we reduce Jesus to “saving us from death” – which he does in fact do… but not in the way we usually want.
Jesus has this weird, paradoxical way of turning those things that are ugly into things of beauty. He redeems death by dying himself.
Temptation gets a similar treatment via Jesus. He turns it on its head. The thing that is meant to be an obstacle becomes an opportunity.
I’m pretty sure the same can be true in our lives. Over this past year and half Sarah and I have been looking for what God has for us in the way of a job for me. Certainly He has provided all this time and we have not gone hungry. And yet we are very often tempted during this wilderness season to cling to things other than God for our sustenance and provision. This tempting aversion can (and I pray has) become and opportunity for us to deepen our allegiance and trust in God.
So, I’ve talked enough…. I want to open it up a bit for your thoughts and dialog.
Here are two questions:
1)What do you think about this idea of Jesus being central to this Story (both the Temptation Story and the Story of History)?
2)How can the temptations in your life become avenues of opportunity?
