Not By Bread Alone

Hear O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. You shall love your God with all your heart, all your mind and with all your might. Deut 6:4-6, NJSB

Jesus and the Devil are having a debate about the Shema, what has become one of the central prayers of Rabbinic Judiasm. What does God require of one who would live a faithful life? The prayer is found in the Book of Deuteronomy and is part of the last sermon of Moses to the people he has led in good times and in bad, the people who are about to cross over the Jordan without him. Moses implores them to remember who they are, to whom they belong. Moses gives them this prayer to recite as they rise in the morning, and as they go to bed. He instructs them to teach their children. He directs them to integrate these words into their whole lives. They are carved on doorposts. They are written on tiny bits of parchment, folded into tiny boxes and worn on the heads of the faithful, religious jewelry, worn even today by Orthodox Jews as they pray at the Temple Mount.

Hear O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. You shall love your God with all your heart, all your mind and with all your might.

Jesus and the Devil are having an argument about how much loyalty to God is enough. The story as the Gospel of Luke unfolds it begins with the singing of Angels and a miraculous birth. We then skip thirty years and meet the grown man Jesus going down to be baptized by Jordan John, just like everyone else in Israel. While he is there, something striking happens: the Voice calls him out, and commissions him. The stunned carpenter takes a very long retreat in the desert to try to figure out what this means. No doubt he is praying the Shema as he sits alone in a cave watching the sunrise over the dry Judean hills. No doubt he is praying the Shema as the sun sets and the wild animals come out to prowl. Hear O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. You shall love your God with all your heart, all your mind and with all your might. As he listens, and prays the Mission becomes clearer to Jesus. He begins to make sense of how HE is to live out the commandment to Love God with everything that he has.

As he begins to get some clarity, his spirit is stronger but his physical reserves are depleted. He is hungry. Now is the opportune time for the Tempter to come and find out if he really means to keep the covenant. The Tempter knows that the whole world would come apart if people really started living the words they pray. This one, this Jesus, is dangerous because he just might succeed. The Tempter has been able to divert humans, beginning with the very first humans, from living faithfully with their God. This one, this Jesus, is going to be a harder case to crack. All the Tempter has to do is to get Jesus to make one little compromise, one little concession. He needs to get Jesus to hedge his bet, to put in place a back up plan, just in case God doesn’t live up to the promise God has made.

The wily Tempter invites Jesus to prove his identity – If you are really are the special one you think you are, you are entitled to feed yourself. You deserve a break today. Have some of the good bread. Jesus is well aware that the people he has known are literally starving to death. If he really is the special one called by God to feed the hungry, why not just – Poof - give everyone the bread they need? This invitation is foiled by Jesus sure knowledge that feeding the body is necessary, is essential, but it is not enough. Miracle Bread whether its magic from stones or Monsanto’s high producing crops that produce no seeds for next year, such Miracle Bread alone is not enough, and Jesus knows this. You shall not feast on bread alone … but on the Word of God. To be truly and faithfully human requires feeding the body but also feeding the soul with the grace, the wisdom, the presence of God. God has always provided Manna. God has always provided comfort and hope even when evil human systems lead to suffering and starvation. God has moved human hearts to help develop sustainable agriculture in places like Haiti. God’s heart responds to the starving when we see with God’s eyes. Sometimes HOPE looks like people sent by Episcopal Relief and Development.

The wily Tempter invites Jesus to take on political power to solve the world’s problems. Jesus can imagine that if he was in charge of the world society could be properly ordered for the good of all. Armies could be disabanded and bombs defused. Fair court systems could be put in place. Corrupt bureaucrats could be replaced by good government. The world would run smoothly. This invitation is foiled by Jesus sure knowledge that justice and mercy come from lives lived well. Only when communities embrace from within lives of loving kindness, lives of self giving for the sake of others can the world’s problems be truly solved. True Justice and Mercy cannot be imposed from the outside. The Tempter too, knows that external controls on selfishness, greed and power lust cannot hold.

Finally the wily Tempter shifts tactics and quotes scripture to support an offer that cant be refused. The Tempter says in effect, why suffer at all, if you are who you say you are. If you leap from the Temple, God’s House, God will surely catch you. If you are beloved of God, God wont let you down. That one is just too much, to close to the heart for Jesus. He just says Begone! He musters all his strength to walk away from that temptation. But that one shall return on another night when Jesus is all alone, in a garden, desperately praying.

We have the same temptations to abandon God’s promises set before us. We are tempted to trust the capacities of science and progress the feed the hungry, without extending ourselves to share what we have with those who are hungry. We are tempted to trust that electing the right people will lead to security and peace, without holding our leaders accountable to care for the least and the lost, without being willing to put more of our resources into the revenue stream that supports the fabric of community, the common good. We are tempted to trust that our cache of acorns is going to be enough to get us through the longest, harshest winter, turning a blind eye to those whose store of acorns has been washed away by the floods. We are tempted to hedge our bets against God’s promises of Abundant Life. We are all tempted to devote our lives to the promises of other gods.

In those moments of temptation let us remember our Prayer: Hear O People of this community of faith: The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. Let us strive to support and encourage each other to love our God with everything that we are, with all that we have. Let us passionately dance with our God who loves all that God has created: bodies of water, bodies of snow leopards, newborn babies in makeshift shelters in Haiti. And our God loves us, in spite of our compromises, our weaknesses. We are encouraged by the Loving Holy One to turn away from the temptations that beset us and to start over, to start again, to start fresh.

Our lives of prayer are full of the joy, infused with the whirling, renewing presence of Love. In the dance of love let us not just feel the love. We are to be the love, to act grounded in prayer, grounded in love. Let us be the neighbors the endangered creatures and babies so desperately need us to be. Let us hold fast with all our strength, gentle steely strength tempered with deep kindness. We are called to be a beacon of God’s love in this place. We follow the path of Jesus – to pray, to listen and to act with real, practical love. We are called to let that love shine as far as it will go, deep into the needy heart of this community, and far beyond the city limits.

With Jesus let us pray with our lips, and our lives: Hear O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. You shall love your God with all your heart, all your mind and with all your might. AMEN