I mean, if you were you, and happened to have his powers, and the Tempter met you after 40 days of fasting. Would you say yes? I’m not sure myself. I don’t mean, I don’t know if I’d be strong enough to resist. I’m really not sure I would know the difference between right and wrong here. To turn a rock into bread–I don’t know whether I know what’s wrong with that.
I would also have known it was wrong to worship this Being–any good Jew knew that, and so would you or I. But stones into bread? Isn’t that just the kind of miracle Jesus in fact does perform? What’s wrong with that? He once–no, not once, four times–takes two, loaves of bread and multiplies them several thousand fold.
There are between 613 commandments altogether in the Law. I have not searched them this time but I’ve read them all. I do not recall one about turning stones into bread. There is one about worshiping God alone–which is probably how I would know not to worship this Tempter. If anyone can find a Law that says You may not turn stones into bread, or words to that effect, fine, but I do not think you can find such a Law.
There are 3 crucial lessons in this classic Gospel for the 1st Lord’s Day in this season.
#1, the better a person you are, the more you need to be on your moral guard. What is my point? Well, for one thing, we are meant to note that the Adversary does not tempt the best of humans with crass, obvious sins. The better a person you are, the more subtle, the more complex, the more ambiguous the temptations will be. To use the language of the New Testament, the Tempter sends off his minor demons to tempt those who might rob, rape, or murder. He goes after the religious people, the good, himself, and he tempts them with much less obvious sins.
You see, the Tempter did not tempt Christ to break into the treasury and steal some money. Nor did he tempt him to murder one of the more obnoxious Pharisees or brutal Romans. Nor to commit adultery, nor to bear false witness, nor to covet. Those things you and I would not have fallen for.
Your lesson there is clear. You are a church-going (you’re here, aren’t you?), law-abiding, and even loving person. So watch out. The more like Christ you are, the more dangerous your spiritual condition. [Screwtape–one of the delights of Christianity but also superb meditation on the nature of Temptation].You are the kind of quarry the Enemy wants above all.
#2, the Bible is dangerous. Handle it with care. It can hurt you if you don’t, and it can be used for evil. People outside the Church mention this often. We need to say it too and then explain it. There it is before your eyes: the Devil using Scripture to tempt the Christ. St. Augustine said Scripture is a toolbox. Correct. And that toolbox contains knives. Is a knife good or bad? A knife isn’t. The real question is whose hands hold the knife–a surgeon’s or a felon’s.
#3, ethics is a science. Ethics is the science of good and bad. Science is not the truth; it is the search for the truth. Ethics is not good and bad. IT is the search for good and bad. And anyone who says otherwise simply does not know the history of morals.
Now, what? What am I talking about? A very serious and challenging thought–but important for us right now.
As the whole world knows our world wide communion is at a crisis moment. And at the heart of the crisis is a dispute between the American Church and an heretical faction that does not understand Christian ethics, and wishes to refer it to Old Testament Law. The issue–leaving the one involving ordination aside because it involves another principle and you haven’t got all day–the issue is the blessing of same sex unions. This nontraditional faction opposes these blessings, because, they say, the Bible condemns same-sex unions. As I said, the Bible can do a lot of damage when it falls into the wrong hands.
Now among the events of this week, the Archbishop of Canterbury issued as statement that contained the one criticism of our Church that I can agree with. He said that we have not offered quite enough context–enough framework for thinking about the issue. This does not excuse the disgraceful behavior of the heterodox party. But I believe it is a legitimate criticism. I have in fact to be honest myself thought that this is a weakness in our position.
But it is hardly an incorrigible one. Archbishop Rowan will not hear these words, but I do offer them to you. Not in the spirit of telling you what to think–contrary to the nontraditional schismatics, our Church has never told people what to think but rather striven to equip them to do their own thinking, to work out their own salvation, and perhaps mitigate some of the fear and trembling.
So. We Christians–at least we Anglicans–never claim we follow Torah. We claim to try to follow Christ’s Law. So let’s see what Jesus does with Old Testament Law.
He says he will not turn rocks into loaves. In truth, Jesus here is not obeying a law. He is inventing one. He takes a principle–bread and God’s word–and from that he invents a law. Discovers something about ethics. Treats ethics as a science.
Seem odd? Well, let’s explore Jesus and Law for a moment. I would almost suppose those Prelates who are so critical of my Church have never done that very thing–how could they, and say the kinds of things they say?
So, what is the fourth commandment? You must not break Sabbath. The commandments are theoretically equal but this is a huge one in Judaism. Many good rabbis thought it was the greatest of the commandments. It is all about our relation with God, about our honoring him through devotion of time and his loving us by forbidding us to work on one day every 7. What does Jesus do? Does he emphasize the Sabbath? No, he breaks that Law. He breaks it several times in the course of his work, saying something is more important than the Sabbath.
There are also as everybody knows this time of year if you look at the labels on your food strict dietary laws in the Torah. And unlike today, when many Jews choose not to observe them, in Jesus’ day as far a I can tell everybody observed them. It was just what you did. But what dos Jesus say about food? He says what matters is not what foods you put into your body what matters is what thoughts come out of your heart. And then happens to them in the New Testament? The head disciple receives a vision of all kinds of non-kosher things, and told by God that it is permissible to eat them, that God does not create unclean things! That’s why we do not keep kosher. But Jesus had already settled the principle: something there is that is more important than Kashrut.
What is the second commandment? I won’t insult your Biblical knowledge by quoting it. You know what it is. (It’s on page 318 if you’re having a momentary lapse).This one we have simply thrown away. Out the window. Graven images–we have stamped that 2nd Commandment “no longer applicable” and well, look around you. We’ve done that–there’s nothing in Scripture that lets us do it. God does not appear to Stephen or Paul or someone and say “from this point on, you can make statues and draw frescoes.” That we–like Jesus–well, we discovered. And I do not know of a Christian in the world today who is troubled by images. Something there is that is more important.
And all kinds of little commandments. I was in violation of one of them this morning until I changed my jacket in the sacristy. Any men here whose fathers have passed away? Well, if you are clean shaven you are violating the Law of Moses. I’ll bet you didn’t even know that.
We do not keep any of the little commandments–the 603. And as for the 10: let us be honest and accurate. You do not keep Sabbath and you do not refrain from images.
In other words, laws change. Ethics makes discoveries. And besides it all depends. And though you do not steal, I would bet that you approve of Robin Hood.
It works the other way as well. I mean, we have discovered certain things are wrong that we used to think of as right. Two hundred years ago we did this. With slavery. You won’t find any law against slavery in Torah. You will on the contrary find some guidelines about how to treat your own slaves. Nor in the New Testament. The only mention of it I can think of is St. Paul telling slaves to obey their masters. Christians owned slaves for hundreds and hundreds of years. As recently as the seventeenth century everybody accepted slavery. The fact that it is wrong did not dawn on anyone. Did not occur to anyone until some Anglicans woke up in the 18th century. They were doing wrong but they did not know it. They did not know any better. But we do. How? We again have discovered something about ethics.
I could multiply these examples the way Jesus multiplied loaves but you haven’t all day and you get my point.
Ethics is a science. The science of right and wrong. A science does not claim to be the final truth–ever. And it changes. It makes discoveries. It is like chemistry. Chemistry changes all the time; the material world it studies does not. Ethics changes all the time; the spiritual world it studies does not. Right and wrong stay the same, but ethics had better not.
I had a problem, as I almost always do, with the press coverage. They label the minority of Episcopalians who want to prohibit same-sex blessings as “conservatives.” “Traditionalists.” I object. These are what St Irenaeus would call “so-called” conservatives and “self-styled” traditionalists. Traditionalists who don’t know the tradition they are in: you would almost guess they’ve never even read our first and most important moral theologian, Richard Hooker, whose Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity are just part of the basic curriculum for real Anglican clergy everywhere. He is by the way where I found my thesis, ethics is a science.
I believe we who affirm these things are the real traditionalists. We are the real conservatives Because our tradition knows that ethics changes–it grows. And because we conserve the very principle really worth conserving, which has been at the center of our Church from the outset. And it sure isn’t some selected laws out of Leviticus.
What is that? Ignatius of Antioch says Priests should be in tune with the Diocesan as strings in a harp. That is a real challenge for me sometimes but thankfully this week it wasn’t–at least where our ordinary Mark is concerned. He made love the bottom line, pretty clearly. In the media, local and national. Good for him.
We were very much news this week.
Three very different people expressed their reactions to that news. The 1st was a bright and successful older man–my age that is– a good friend who tells me he won’t come near Christianity because it is all about telling you the rules and keeping you under control and though he is spiritual and loves God and believes Christ, he thinks the Church is simply out of line. This week’s news, he says, proves his point.
The second was a very troubled good man within the Church, who said I came to this communion precisely because it is the one that welcomes and includes and affirms, and now what’s it telling me?
And the third is a younger man who tells me this: I was brought up in it and I want to return. But I am watching it very closely now. Because if those forces that want to turn back the moral clock prevail, I will not do so. And to paraphrase Rabbi Hillel, if not the Episcopal Church, where in the Christian world can I possibly go?
Everybody is waiting to see what happens. I myself am praying. And here is my prayer:
That I will be able to say, once the dust has settled, this my first friend: look, some Christians have thought its all about rules but Jesus wasn’t like that and I am part of a Communion that knows better. My Church does not tell me how to think, it respects my autonomy and equips me for thinking. And perhaps mitigates some of the fear and trembling.
That I can say to the second: rest assured, this Church makes only one condition in welcoming, and not only welcoming but affirming you: and that is that you try your best to be what Scripture says you are, which is the image of the living God.
And that I can say to the third young man, look, see, we did the right thing, we stood up to the forces of evil that are trying to hamstring our Church, we stood our ground just as we have always done in the past. We did not cave in the name of unity. We held firm and kept the faith. Because we remembered once again that something there is that is more important than anything else whatsoever.
