The Right Things for the Wrong Reasons
After our Ash Wednesday service this week, I joined Karley Goen and our youth in a discussion of the symbols of Ash Wednesday and their meaning. We talked about our mortality… about ashes… about the visible sign of our invisible faith… and even touched on how the most sincere acts of our faith can be derailed in a heartbeat. Out of that discussion came a question: If the ashes received on Ash Wednesday are the visible sign of our invisible faith, then what should we do with that sign after we leave that service of worship? Some would say, “Go home and immediately wash it off.” Their reasoning comes from Jesus’ teaching in the sixth chapter of Matthew, where he tells us that we what we do in our faith is between us and God. We should pray in secret and, when we give, we should not let our right hand know what our left hand is doing. “Do not be like the hypocrites,” Jesus says, making a show of our faith. In this case, leaving the ashes on our foreheads might lead others to believe that we believe we are better than they are.
Others might say, “We should leave that mark on our foreheads to show that we are not ashamed of the gospel.” The support for this position can be found in Paul’s letter to the Romans where he states that he is not ashamed of the gospel. It is, indeed, the one thing that Paul is willing to boast about… he is willing to boast in the Lord… echoing Jesus’ own words when he tells his disciples that those who are ashamed of him and his words, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in his glory. What better conversation starter is there than this smudge of ash on our foreheads? It allows us to tell others of our faith when they ask why we have that mark on our forehead. That is why the Coptic Christians in Egypt, to this day, tattoo the sign of the cross on their wrists, despite the fact that they have been persecuted for that sign in that land for centuries.
So, should we leave it on or wash it off? There is no definitive answer, but there is, however, a guiding principle: If we wear the mark of the ash on our foreheads for the wrong reason… perhaps to demonstrate to others that we have been to church on a Wednesday evening and, thus, are more pious Christians than they are… it would be better that we not wear it at all. On the other hand, if we wash it off and then sit in judgment of all those who don’t wash it off, we condemn ourselves again by setting ourselves above them in a different way. Either way is right, if we do it for the right reason… and either way is wrong, if we do it for the wrong reason. What matters is not what we do, but why we are doing it.
The same is true of Jesus when he is tempted in the wilderness. Remember, that the one who tempts him does not have the power to make him do something evil. Temptation is not coercion. The serpent in the garden cannot make Eve and Adam eat the apple. The devil in our text cannot make Jesus turn stones into bread. "To tempt" means to try and convince someone to do something. It means enticing someone to want to do something. Tempters cannot make someone do something bad. Instead, they try to make their victim want to do something bad. In my own experience, if I sin, it is not usually a problem of knowledge. Most of the time, I know what is good and what is evil… what is right and what is wrong. If I sin, it is a problem of the will. I simply want to do the bad… or I just don't want to do the good. More often than not, it is not a question of ignorance… of not knowing the difference between right and wrong. It is a question of one's will or conviction… what do I want to do and what will I do.
As we mature, it is the responsibility of our parents… and of the church… not only to teach our baptized members the difference between right and wrong… but also to help motivate them to want to do the right thing. The devil… and much of society… is still around trying to make us want to do the wrong thing. And the way that the devil seeks to change our wills is by lying… by stretching the truth. Generally speaking, we are enticed… not with great evils… but with good things for the wrong reasons. In the movie, “Seven Years in Tibet,” Brad Pitt plays the part of an Austrian, Heinrich Harrer, who travels to the Himalayas in 1939 to climb one of the highest mountains in the world. In the first half of the film, Heinrich does many things, in his egotistic self-centerness, that are wrong. He also does several things that are right… but for the wrong reasons. Part of the storyline of the film is watching him learn that the world does not revolve around Heinrich Harrer. At one point in the film, he confronts the minister who betrayed Tibet to the Chinese in 1950, allowing an almost peaceful occupation of that land by China… ironic, when you consider that it was Austrian Heinrich Harrer who became an SS officer of the Nazis a full five years before the Anschluss of Austria in 1938. Even when Heinrich begins to tutor the eleven-year-old Dalai Llama… teaching him about the world outside the borders of Tibet… he is thinking only of his own personal gain… doing the right thing for the wrong reason.
It could be argued that none of Jesus' temptations invited him to do anything grossly evil… but rather, to do some good things, but for the wrong reasons… or at the wrong time. Think about it: What's wrong with turning stones into bread… if one can do it… for the purpose of feeding the hungry? There was no shortage of stones in first century Palestine… and no shortage of hungry people. Many could have been fed if Jesus had turned these stones into bread. Later in the gospel story, Jesus did turn two fish and five loaves of bread into a feast for five thousand... and, centuries earlier, God had provided Children of Israel with manna in the wilderness.
And what's wrong with the King of kings and Lord of lords assuming control over the kingdoms of the world? Isn't that precisely what we are expecting him to do at the Second Coming? Didn’t Jesus come to establish God’s Kingdom on this earth? Wouldn’t it have happened faster if he had done what the devil suggested? Perhaps, that was the problem: It was the devil who suggested it. Once again, was it the right thing… for the wrong reason?
And what's wrong with believing scriptures so strongly that the Son of God trusts the angels to protect him? How is this revelation different from the transfiguration… and the miraculous appearance of Moses and Elijah on that mountain? How does it compare to the story of Jesus walking on the water? How is that event more correct… more appropriate… than this? And, at the end of the gospel of Luke, Jesus is carried up into heaven in front of many witnesses. Is that somehow better than this? Wouldn’t Jesus have achieved his goal of being recognized by the world as the Son of God sooner if he had done what the devil suggested?
No, it is not easy to be a Christian in this world. If it were easy, everyone would be doing it. The temptations that Jesus faced… and the temptations that we face each day… are not easy to reject… often because they are believable… arguable. Feed the hungry? Of course. Christians do it every day. Aren’t we collecting cans of soup for the hungry now? But why are we doing it? To prove that we can? To prove that we are better than others?
And this bit about becoming master of all… isn’t that part of being human… to compete for power… wealth… or recognition of our superiority? Isn’t that why we are watching the Olympic Games this week… to learn who is the best in the world? What if we did it for Jesus? Isn’t that precisely what the Crusades were all about… conquering other lands in the name of Jesus Christ? Wasn’t the Spanish Inquisition based upon perceived threats to the orthodoxy of the Christian religion… and the desire to suppress all other expressions of faith among the people? You cannot convince me that Ferdinand and Isabella believed they were doing anything wrong when they authorized the Spanish Inquisition. Indeed, they believed they were being faithful Christians.
And what is wrong with praying for a miracle? Isn’t that something that we do every day… asking God to intervene in our lives in miraculous ways… to heal someone… to help someone do something that seems beyond their capabilities? Jesus even told us to ask for whatever we needed in his name… and our request would be granted. So, why can’t we jump off of tall buildings, expecting God to bear us up on angels’ wings? Wouldn’t that be a powerful witness to our faith? After all, Jesus turned water into wine for a few people at a wedding… and many came to believe in him after that… even his own disciples. Why can’t we do something like that?
It all comes down to two things: who we are listening to… and what is in our heart. If the voice we are listening to is not the voice of God… and the desire in our heart is not centered on God’s will for us and for our lives, then we can probably trace its origin to the evil one… and our own weaknesses… our own very human desires. The devil is a very patient… and a very crafty adversary. He has all the time in the world to put his plan into action. He will wait until we are at our lowest ebb… and then use the most seductive means to tempt us. He waited until Jesus had been in the wilderness without food for many days before tempting this hungry man with stones for bread… and this poor carpenter with kingdoms and power… and this unknown preacher with miraculous and instantaneous fame. Sneaky? Oh, yes. Remember, the devil cannot coerce us. He does not have the power to do that. No, if we succumb, we have only ourselves to blame. Our weakness is his strength.
In the text that Sylma Smith read to us this morning, the Apostle Paul says that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. But is that true? Many of us have heard people say, “Oh, Lord”, when they are not calling upon the Lord at all. Others of us have heard people exclaim, “God help us!” when they had no intention of asking for God’s help. Is Rio de Janeiro a Christian city simply because it has a statue of Christ on a mountaintop overlooking the city? Jesus told his followers, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven… which might be why Paul introduces his claim with this caveat: “if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord… and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” That just confirms that it is what is in the heart of the believer that counts… not the words they say or the actions they take. We not only have to do the right things… we have to do them for the right reasons.
The Amish Community struggles with each new invention that is introduced… meeting to discern within their community which advances they will embrace and which they will shun. To test each one, they return to the things they say that they value. Family life is one of those things. To preserve family life, they have shunned central heating… which would lead members of the family to disperse to various parts of the house in the evening, rather than gather in the one room that has a fireplace or a wood stove. For the same reason, they have shunned electricity… which leads to distractions like television and video games that supplant family time. These conscious decisions protect their family time and strengthen their family ties.
What is important in our lives? What do we value? Do we make conscious decisions to shun those things which could prove to be a distraction… those things that tempt us to turn away from what we say we value? You decide. Take the next forty days to think about it. Perhaps, there are changes we all could make to refocus on our faith… and to embrace the things that we say we value. May God bless you in this time of reflection. Amen.
Luke 4:1-13