Sunday, March 16, 2008
Orinda Community Church (UCC)
A Sermon by the Rev. Frank Baldwin
DELIVER US FROM EVIL Matthew 26:1-5, 14-25
I. Today being Palm Sunday, we are only one week away from Easter. And so, in our long, respectful journey through “the prayer Jesus taught us” we come at last to the 6th and final petition: Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. When Kirk, Sonja and I – “the three preachers” – first sat down back at the beginning of the year to plan our Lenten sermon themes, we honestly had no idea that we’d arrive at this particular point in the Lord’s Prayer in the very same week that Governor Eliot Spitzer of New York would so spectacularly disgrace himself and resign from office because of badly mishandling a “temptation” problem. I’ll have some more to say about him later, but first, let’s look a little deeper into the prayer.
In the original language of the New Testament, “temptation” (as in Lead us not into temptation…) is pierasmos, one of those slippery Greek words that can actually have a number of meanings. “Temptation” is certainly one of those meanings, with its suggestion of seduction or fatal attraction. Another alternative is “testing,” meaning giving proof, or seeking out potential weaknesses and limitations for purposes of refinement. “Trial” is yet a further possible meaning of the Greek pierasmos, and so is “persecution;” these last two having a particularly ominous significance in biblical times, when the early church was often subject to fierce local opposition as well as the official condemnation of Imperial Rome. So we might consider such various translations as: Don’t subject us to test after test, but rescue us from evil, or Bring us not to a time of trial, but free us from the power of evil, or even, From persecution too great to endure spare us, and deliver us from the hands of the wicked.
A puzzling dilemma has always haunted this part of the prayer Jesus taught us. And that is, to what purpose and to what extent does God actually “tempt” people? Elsewhere in the Bible – especially in the Old Testament book of Job – this issue is explored at great depth. But here in the Lord’s Prayer there is no reflection on the problem. The underlying assumption is certainly that God does not seduce us into evil, but rather in all love and mercy attempts to steer us out of harm’s way. Nevertheless, an amazingly versatile attraction to temptation seems to be a basic feature of the human condition throughout the centuries.
Now, being “put to the test” is quite another matter. A certain amount of testing is a good and necessary thing. We expect somebody to be testing new foods and drugs to make sure they won’t kill us. We test the strength and endurance of steel before it goes into a bridge or a building. We wouldn’t consider buying a new car without first taking it out on a test drive. We test students in school to find out whether they’re really learning what we’re trying to teach them, as well as to help them discover for themselves where they need to do some more work. And similarly, without being tested how will we know if our faith, our values, our promises and commitments are worth anything? Unless we are tested, how will we recognize the flaws in our character that are so obvious to others; where we have to rethink our convictions or improve our behaviors; whatever it is we’re doing that’s not working out for us; what – or who – we really have to avoid, give up or stay away from; to whom we need to reach out and make amends; what path is ours among the many conflicting options before us; what God is calling us now to do or to be? And how else will we discover our true powers – as well as our true limitations – unless we are tested?
The biblical story of Judas Iscariot that Anne read for us a moment ago affords a troubling example of one whose faith and loyalty proved to be shockingly inadequate when put to the test. Given the opportunity, Judas betrays Jesus into the hands of his mortal enemies for the price of a slave: a mere thirty pieces of silver. Before he so readily turns to the evil side of human nature, this is a man who seems to have it all: he’s called to be a disciple, entrusted by his friends with the meager treasury of the Twelve, welcomed at the Lord’s Table, accepted as a fellow-citizen of the kingdom of God. And yet, in a time of testing, Judas throws it all away, he goes in exactly the wrong direction, he morally and spiritually implodes. In a sense, the sixth petition of the Lord’s Prayer might also be phrased: And in our own time of testing, God help us not to be like Judas!
II. Now, I’m going to try and make a pretty sharp 90-degree turn right here, so you all hold on to your seats for a moment. We need to talk about this ex.-Governor Eliot Spitzer of New York. The details of his sordid affair have been exhaustively reported throughout the past week: As part of a federal investigation into the possible misuse of public funds, the Governor was secretly recorded making arrangements with an expensive call-girl, whom he took – evidently several times – across state lines for the purposes of prostitution. On Monday, with the New York Times breaking the story, Mr. Spitzer offered a public apology, which sounded to many people more like an apology for getting caught, than anything else. By Wednesday, however, faced with mounting political and popular outrage, the Governor accepted full responsibility for his conduct, and abruptly resigned from his high office.
Now, in the instantaneous analysis that is the hallmark of public discourse these days, some people have tried to make the case that it seems ridiculous for everyone to get so worked up about a so-called “victimless crime” like prostitution, especially when there are so many worse vices out there clamoring for remediation. Where is the equivalent outrage about drug and alcohol abuse, or urban crime, or child pornography, domestic violence, or mortgage bank buccaneering, or handgun proliferation, or oil price-gouging, or illegal wiretapping, or foot-dragging on reducing pollution, or torture condoned in the cause of national security, or our country having the highest percentage and the highest actual number of people behind bars of any advanced nation in the world?
Well, in the first place, I don’t believe for a minute that prostitution is “victimless.” That two affluent and otherwise highly-privileged individuals engage in consensual sex for pay does not for a moment obliterate or mitigate the ruinous enslavement as prostitutes of thousands of poor, uneducated, oppressed and exploited women around the world today. Moreover, I cannot understand how anyone could view the ashen face of Eliot Spitzer’s betrayed wife standing at his side as he made his humiliating apologies, or begin to imagine what he told his three teenage daughters, and still call prostitution a “victimless” crime.
In the second place, let us admit that the over-the-top media frenzy around Governor Spitzer’s personal and political self-immolation is a distraction from certain perhaps more serious evils that confront us today. Doesn’t that reveal rather clearly just how willing we are right now, to let ourselves be distracted, dis-engaged, and dis-empowered by trivialities; at a time in history when more, so much more is called for? Perhaps the fascinating embarrassment of self-scandalized celebrities is just one more temptation before us, a test of our own readiness to face up to and resolve the larger and more serious moral, social, and environmental challenges of our day.
III. Temptation, it is said, is subtle, sudden, camouflaged, and ruthless, with ways and means well-suited for every walk and decade of our life; not one of us is immune. For years now people have been trying to think of the evil that results from yielding to temptation in terms of mal-adjustment, flawed judgment, innocent mistakes, or lapses in education or upbringing. But you can’t explain all the wrong in the world today in these terms. A great deal of the evil in the world today is due to wickedness: the readiness of people to abandon their principles, their values, their faith and even their good sense in order to do what they know is wrong and hurtful and will come to no good end.
That penultimate line in the Lord’s Prayer – Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil – admits the existence of evil in the world and our complicity in it, and bravely acknowledges our weakness in the face of it. There’s a kind of ruthless power and appeal in temptation that can get to anyone at one time or another, and most days we are frankly inadequate to fix our world, or to fix ourselves. So the sixth petition turns to God – the only place we can turn, actually – and asks for deliverance. Finally, only God can save us, but fortunately for us, that is something God is always willing and glad to do!
So the prayer that Jesus taught us contains within it this bold confession: Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil [our own evil and that of others]. Lead us, Lord, because we are vulnerable to temptation; and deliver us from evil because we are pretty sure that we cannot deliver ourselves. And please continue to be our ally in the daily struggle for honesty, integrity, humility, justice and peace. Let us never forget that we have an ally like that. Despite every test, trial or temptation that will come our way, God is our help and hope. And Jesus Christ is our unfailing companion in this struggle. Thanks be to God! Amen.