MATERIALISM AS A TEMPTATION

By Margot Kassmann

[This address from the 31st Evangelical Kirchentag (church day) in Koln, 6/7/2007 is translated from the German on the World Wide Web,  http://www.kirchentag2007.de. Margot Kassmann is a Lutheran bishop in Hanover. Other articles by Ms. Kassmann on www.portland.indymedia.org include “Believing Without Seeing” and “Normalized Violence.”]


Matthew 4, 1-11

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And he fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterward he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread. But he answered, “It is written, `Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’”
Then the devil took him to the holy city, and set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, `He will give his angels charge of you,’ and `On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.” Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, `you shall not tempt the Lord your God.’”
Again the devil took him to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Begone, Satan, for it is written, `you shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’”
Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and ministered to him.

1. ON THE WILDERNESS

Jesus goes into the wilderness. The Spirit leads him there; he does not really go voluntarily. He exposes himself to an extreme experience. Will it clarify the true priorities for his life? After the wilderness experience, he publically preaches and proclaims God’s reign. He will have the strength to go his own way. The wilderness becomes the place of clarification for his calling and the place of probation.

Whoever goes into the wilderness is driven by the longing for clarification, for solitude not sensations, for the courage to face oneself or God and oneself. Whoever goes into the wilderness cannot deceive anyone any more. I am only myself, no façade, no beautiful appearance, no big pretender.

Wilderness time is a time of sensitivity and defenseless existence exposed to the sun, hunger, the dangers of life and the cold of night. What is central here isn’t survival training or beautiful sunsets. In the Bible, wilderness stands for solitude, for experience of self and experience of God. Wilderness is existence thrown on itself. Few persons voluntarily seek wilderness time. Nevertheless most people experience and survive it sometime and somehow.

Four days can seem an unbearably long time, much less forty days which is a very long time.

- 40 days Jesus fasts in the desert.
- 40 years the people of Israel wander through the wilderness.
- 40 days Moses tarries on Mount Sinai before the tablets of the covenant were given to him.

Even if we do not seek the wilderness experience, we sometimes find ourselves in our own wilderness of life, in the wilderness of loneliness, mourning, sickness and failure. In wilderness time, one is thrown on oneself – alone with oneself and sometimes alone with God. There is also a wilderness time of faith. Does God exist? How can God allow this? Why doesn’t God help me?

Wilderness time is a time of stillness with the possibility of listening to one’s own voice deep down that is often easily ignored. It is a chance to listen to God again and to what God says.

Jesus knew this. The people of God experienced this.

Wilderness time teaches what is central. The piece of bread becomes life and the draught of water becomes enjoyment. The person feels something deep down. Not losing my soul is vital, my soul, my center, my inner balance. Whatever the person passes through, his soul is in him and seeks life and a living relation to God – in the wilderness and in life that is sometimes a wilderness.

Jesus is led into the wilderness to find clarity. He must understand his commission. He does not simply find it there, slowly or suddenly. Jesus sees himself led by the Spirit, by spiritual power. He understands he must go this way in the wilderness alone to find the inner clarity and strength for his mission. A poem by Hilde Domin wondrously describes this solitude, the search for one’s way:

The hardest ways
are taken alone.
Disappointment, loss,
and sacrifice
are solitary.

The dead one answers every cry
and refuses no request
helping us
and watching
whether we are willing.

The hands of the living reaching out
without reaching us
are like the branches of trees in winter.
All the birds are silent.

Only one’s own step is heard.
Standing still
or turning around
do not help.
One has to walk the path.

Take a candle
as in the catacombs,
the little light hardly breathes.

Still when you have walked long
the miracle happens
because the miracle always happens
and because we could not live
without grace.

The candle is bright.
You blow on it laughing
when you walk in the sun
and in the blossoming garden
The city lies before you
and the table is full
in your house.

The fragile living
and the lasting dead
break bread and share win with you –
and you hear their voices again
very near your heart.


Yes, he comes again to the wilderness. Jesus finds the inner strength for his way. He can overcome the darkness. He hears again the voices of the fragile living and the lasting dead. They break bread and share wine with him. They become angels to him on the way.

One day he will be alone again – in Gethsemane and ultimately on the cross. Nevertheless he is for us when we are open to grace and miracle. He is the light that takes fear from us so the candle can blaze forth. The bread and wine are offered to us – for our way. We do not remain alone but celebrate with one another and with the Resurrected – when we share bread and wine – as the feast of life in his memory.

2. TEMPTATIONS

“Spiritual power” leads Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. To speak with Luther, the devil tests him. We understand why the wilderness is necessary for clarification. But who is the devil? I will not discuss whether this is a feminine or masculine figure. The devil is often presented as witty, as a “little devil” or a brandy custom. This devil is not funny. He represents the great temptations of humankind: the temptation to think of the world without God, to replace God, to save oneself and have power. The devil as a voice in you says: Why not? What is wrong with a little egoism? Money rules the world. Why shouldn’t I take it? Am I responsible for others? Bah! This is the temptation to refuse responsibility before God and humanity. Because we are God’s children through Christ, we could conclude these are all temptations that can meet God’s children.

Gospel Choir

FIRST TEMPTATION: “HE WAS HUNGRY”

And he fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread. But he answered, “It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”

How banal to say you must resist temptations! When you hunger, rationality is unavoidable. Pure survival is at stake. When her children hunger, a mother is ready to abandon her body and her dignity.

We hardly know real hunger in the satiated societies of the North. The boat refugees trying to come from Africa to Europe know what hunger and thirst mean. How can it be that we repress these dramas? These are dramas, human tragedies occurring on islands where many of us like to vacation. Half-starved persons worried about their life encounter the well-fed vacationers in bathing suits. Some seek relaxation while others fight for their life. The whole injustice of this world appears in a picture, eye to eye, person to person, the unfathomable tensions of our world that we often push aside

There is a cynicism of injustice in this world that sometimes dulls us satiated ones. We see this news and feel so helpless that we hide and repress. Then we also may cry out: If you are God’s Son or if there is a God, turn these stones into bread for the hungry of this world. A proof of God would be good. That would make it easier for us.

When Jesus resists this temptation, he gains inner freedom. Man does not live by bread alone – that is not cynicism toward the starving of this world. That is the discovery that a deep inner support is necessary to survive in this life. There must be a foundation that is more than the superficial promises of this world. Jesus himself will be the bread of life. Whoever knows this will find courage to act for the hungry of this world.

When we were in Israel with the council of the Evangelical church in Germany (EKD) in April, we visited Yad Vashem, the documentation site of the holocaust. The museum pedagogy has changed since I was last there. It no longer shows atrocities in themselves but describes them in biographies. The fate of an individual person, the fear, the horror, the longing for another place and destruction are described. This makes one desperately sad. You see the young woman who was a gifted painter and had no chance of living and bringing her creativity into the community.

Among us in Germany, a very personal film like Holocaust, not a documentary film, opened the gates to see the injustice, annihilation and destruction of the Jewish people. We would see “Africans” differently if we had been with Mustafa who waited for weeks to find a boat from the Congo to Europe. He wanted to study and saw a chance he didn’t have in his country. His parents sold everything so he could have this chance. Or we could worry with Sarah and her little son. She had no chance of survival with her child in the Sudan. Even if she couldn’t live, he would at least have food, shelter, education and medical care. Europe is their whole hope’ she gave everything for that hope.

These are stories of persons, our sisters and brothers, God’s creatures like ourselves. This is not “immigration to our welfare system,” as one minister said. Bread and life chances for people are central so they are not troubling beggars. Every one of us would do everything to find a way to the future, to save ourselves and give a perspective to our children. Ultimately we need a change in the inner attitude of citizens in the rich industrial nations. Christians could contribute greatly to this – by consistently raising the lifestyle question even if people smile condescendingly, by raising questions about an ethic of limits in a dogma of growth and by contributing to the nonviolent solution of conflicts.

On the invitation of EKD representatives, spokespersons of different religions from 8 states of Africa met here in Koln yesterday and the day before yesterday. The African participants passionately decried the structural injustice and said with all clarity: We don’t want alms; we don’t want to be objects of your assistance. We demand changing the structures that gag us. We demand justice. If globalization is praised, it must be a globalization of social justice, life chances and future sustainability.

Satiety can also be a temptation. We may not become overly satiated, dull and narrowed in our life horizons. Otherwise we lose the freedom to see the truth and act accordingly. Man does not live by bread alone.

Gospel choir

SECOND TEMPTATION: “THROW YOURSELF DOWN!”

Then the devil took him to the holy city, and set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written: `He will give his angels charge of you’ and `On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’ Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, `you shall not tempt the Lord your God.’”

I find it very insidious that the devil in the second temptation uses the Bible to tempt Jesus. Throw yourself down. If you trust the Bible, if you trust God’s word, then nothing will befall you. “He has commanded his angels to protect you…” Can the Bible be a temptation? Can a biblical saying be torn out of context for a diabolical seduction? This temptation comes in the garb of a theological argument.

In his Jesus book, Pope Benedict wrote on this passage that the conflict between Jesus and the devil over true interpretation of scripture ultimately concentrates on the question who is God. “This struggle around the view of God and valid scriptural interpretation is decided concretely in the picture of Christ who remained without worldly power as the Son of the living God.” [Joseph Ratzinger, Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, February 2007]

The great provocation for the Christian faith remains: Is the newborn child, the man dying on the cross, this helpless man – God’s Son?

Jesus should be seduced to a spectacle-miracle, so to speak, a show or spectacle for onlookers. He would throw himself down and be preserved. Would this be a proof of God or only news in the gutter press? Who would benefit? A few clique members, a little more attention?

The great show is “in” these days. Jesus would have been on page 1 with such a spectacle. Would he have been convincing? Would even a single person have been brought to faith or been converted?

Show-miracles and gigantic spectacles do not really move hearts in the long-term. I am convinced of this. We come to faith by an internal process, by listening to God’s word, reading the Bible, practice in silence, meditation, prayer, models and acts on the way of discipleship.

A church day is beautiful and does us good. But as churches, we may not succumb to the temptation of moving the masses by a great show. Masses would not even have been there when the devil called Jesus to jump. How can we move people? How do people find faith?

Celebrating and hearing God’s word together can strengthen faith. When we read the biographies of people, trustworthy life is always revealed - where the hand of a dying one is held, when time and an ear are found for the weeping woman, when one does one’s utmost for a youth who finds no apprenticeship. People become models by living their faith. This is more inspiring than any spectacle-miracle. How we face people is crucial. Do they see that we love them? Is charity only a slogan or do we really see a reflection of God’s likeness in the opposite partner? An inner attitude is primary.

Recently I visited a home for demented sick persons in Nienburg. This was convincing and moved me. There I saw an evangelical profile.

Recognizing God’s powerlessness and God’s omnipotence is also vital. Why hasn’t God changed everything?, we often ask in view of the suffering, pain, death and injustice. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote: “God lets himself be forced out of the world on the cross. God is powerless and weak in the world. Only as powerless and weak is God with us to help us.” [Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and papers from Prison, letter from 7/16/1944] The resurrection says: God will overcome suffering in this world with the power of love alone – not with war, injustice, empires or violence. Whoever speaks the name of God should remember this! This is especially true for those who want to be leading political figures. Love is sensitive and vulnerable but is also stronger than death! We live from this promise of God’s new world. We may trust this God who reveals himself in this way, believe in him and entrust him with all our wounds and injuries. Jesus Christ proclaimed this. He lived and died for this and is set in power by the resurrection. We hold to this God, our Savior.

Luther also held fast to this theme of God’s hiddenness. To express this experience of God’s forgiveness and nevertheless to testify to the faith that everything is in God’s hands, Luther warned against trying to fathom the “dues absconditus” and so taking possession of God.

We should not try to find exact or logical answers but have the courage to entrust ourselves to God knowing God wills life and not death. What is central is Jesus’ trust attested by Luke: “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit” (Lk 23,46). From the cry of God-abandonment, Jesus found his way back to trust in God. This is not a fast way. This is a way through the cross and death. Jesus obviously goes into God’s reign with his wounds. He does not show Thomas any unblemished body free of wounds. In the wounds, the disciples recognize the Resurrected. There is no life without fractures and scars. No spectacle can hide this.

Gospel Choir

THIRD TEMPTATION: POWER

Again the devil took him to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, and he said to him, all these I will give you, if you fall down and worship me. Then Jesus said to him, “Begone, Satan for it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.

The devil longs for worship and acknowledgment that others fall down before him. Isn’t that interesting? He obviously isn’t sure of his cause. He wants to be worshipped. Whoever worships him will have the prospect of power. On the mountain, Jesus is offered all the kingdoms of the world. At the end of the gospel (28,16f), there is another encounter on a mountain. The disciples meet the Resurrected on a mountain. They bow their knees to him and he commands them to go into the entire world, baptize people and tell them `all power in heaven and on earth is given to him.’ After resisting the temptation, he is confirmed the world ruler.

The third temptation is regarded as the greatest test when we look at the exegesis. But in my preparation, I realized: No, hunger is the greater temptation. I can let power fall from me if I have sufficient inner strength. But hunger, my hunger and thirst, or the hunger and thirst of people near to me are worse. Still power shows the seducability of people. What is this little threshold that obviously is so easy to cross? How great if I were seen in this position! If I had so much money, that would be gigantic! Doesn’t having eclipse being and hoarding eclipse living? The temptation of power can make persons pitiful.

Power is a great temptation. Shocked and sometimes cynical, we have seen this in the economic- and sports affairs of the last months, e.g. VW-affair, Siemens-affair and the doping affair. Everything involving dignity and responsibility was thrown overboard. Power and money are the great temptations of humanity.

We witness this in the middle of our society. We deplore the wars of this world but also profit in them. Ten or twelve billion dollars a month are spent for the Iraq war alone. The US military budget rose from $294.5 billion in 2000 to $562 billion in 2006. These are incredible sums. Are freedom and democracy central or money and power? What a temptation! If only a fraction were invested in prevention, peace measures and development of the impoverished countries of this earth, new perspectives for peace and justice would open up. The UN said “only” $55 billion would be needed to satisfy the immediate needs of the hungry and poor in the world. Overcoming violence means removing the breeding ground from which poverty, oppression and ignorance arise. This then becomes the breeding ground for hatred.

But let us not only point our finger at the US. Exporting weapons is also important for Germany. In 2005 there was a dreadful increase in armament exports. Weapons of war in the amount of 1.6 billion euro were exported from Germany. That was a 40 percent increase over 2004! The volumes of export authorizations rose from 3.8 billion euro in 2004 to 4.2 billion euro in 2005. We are very alarmed that armaments amounting to 1.65 billion euros are shipped to countries that are given economic assistance. The delivery of small light weapons to these countries ensures the continuation of violent conflicts. I regard armament exports as unacceptable but we need binding standards. That could be a goal for Germany as president of the EU council.

Jesus also resists the temptation of power. Guided by God’s word, he remains obedient to God. Then the devil left him. The stilling of his hunger, the chance of a spectacular public proof of God and the offer of power could not seduce him.

With the temptation narratives, the initial part of Matthew’s gospel ends. Jesus is God’s Son. Now he will teach publically and call people to the way of discipleship.

3. ON THE ANGELS

And behold, angels came and ministered to him.

What a beautiful comforting end to our Bible text! Jesus survived the worst. Now he can draw new strength. Angels cared for him. Perhaps they are persons who gave him something to eat and drink in the wilderness. He feels his strength returning. I am not exposed alone to these demonic forces but can go my way, my way in God’s way.

According to the New Testament scholar Ulrich Luz, the temptation story through its mythical dimensions becomes “a fragment of hope and an expression of confidence in God’s Son who overcame the devil through his obedience and confidence in God whose angels assisted the obedient one.” [Ulrich Luz, The Gospel according to Matthew, vol. 1, p.231, 2002]

For a long time, I quarreled with angels and held them to be nonsense or popular piety. Now I see them differently. The Hanover Bach choir sang when I gave my first sermon after my consecration 8 years ago. God commanded his angels to guard you on all your ways. The text and singing helped and supported me.

People have been angels to me. They held me when I didn’t know the way out, when fear overcame me like a deep trembling. In the meantime I have a whole windowsill in my pulpit, a whole squadron of angels, small and great.

Angels are usually people who assist us. Angels can also be experienced as God’s voice in us strengthening us even in wilderness times. We do not know how Jesus experienced angels ministering to him. Was it a person who helped him after the time of privation? Or was it this inner power that God can give enabling us to stand upright and be upright and honest?

Sometimes poetry is the most convincing form of theology. Let us hear at the end “The Foreigner as a Rose” by Hilde Domin:

the angel in you
rejoices over your
light
cries over your darkness

words of love
poetic caresses
whisper from its wings

he watches
your way
guides your steps
toward the angels

Let us set out strengthened, comforted and encouraged, strong, confident and courageous angel-ward, the way of discipleship, the way of justice that stills hunger, the way of truthfulness that resists the big show, the way of peace that questions the lusts for power. God’s word will show us the way as it showed the way for Jesus. Christ will be our bread of life on this way. God’s spirit will accompany us, in times of wilderness and in times of lush luxuriant gardens, as a power, comforter and renewer.