At the beginning of Jesus’s earthly ministry, immediately following his baptism by his cousin John, we are told that he is led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where he is tempted by the devil.
First, the devil plays on Jesus’s hunger, after fasting for forty days, tempting him to turn stones into bread. Secondly, the devil tests his faith, suggesting that throw himself off the pinnacle of the temple to see if God will send his angels to catch him. And finally, having failed in his first two temptations, the devil moves on to the temptations of power, glory, and authority. ‘Worship me’, the devil whispers, ‘and I will give you authority over all the kingdoms of the world, power beyond your wildest dreams’.
Of course, Jesus resists. In fact, even to say that Jesus resists is to misunderstand what is really going on here. The whole point of this episode, it seems to me, is that Jesus is not, at any point, remotely tempted by what the devil offers him. Turn stones into bread? Jesus is the bread of life. Throw himself into the void? As if Jesus has not already done just that by allowing himself to be sent to earth in the first place. And power and authority? Jesus is God! What power or authority could the devil possibly give him that he does not already have?
‘It is written’, Jesus says, quoting the book of Deuteronomy, ‘do not put the Lord your God to the test’. The devil is wasting his breath. Jesus – who is Lord and God – cannot be put to the test, as if he were just some guy… a frail human being like the rest of us. And the devil disappears, in a puff of disappointment.
And Jesus’s quotation from Deuteronomy here only serves to puncture the devil’s over-inflated sense of self-importance still further. For Jesus only quotes part of that verse… and it is what he does not say that really hammers his point home.
‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test’, the verse reads, ‘as you tested him at Massah’. And suddenly we find ourselves in the territory of our first reading for today. The people of God have escaped from Egypt and are wandering in the wilderness. Camping at Rephidim, they find no water, and they begin to complain, demanding that Moses provide water for them. And Moses replies: ‘Why do you test the Lord?’ The devil, Jesus implies, is no better than those faithless Israelites, who constantly put God to the test, accusing God of abandoning them, of not doing enough to save them, of not providing for them.
And how does God respond to this testing? God’s response could not be further from the highly transactional one of the devil, for it is a response of generosity and love, supplying the water that the people need, despite their lack of trust in God’s provision.
Our first reading today sums up the difference between God and the devil. The latter sees only deficiency and lack: physical hunger, the desire for personal safety, and, above all, a hunger for power and domination But God? God is a God of abundance, a God whose propensity for giving far outstrips our tetchy, selfish desire to put God to the test.
God provides the people of Israel with water for their journey. And, throughout their history – in their wilderness wanderings and beyond – God continues to provide what they need. Until, eventually, in an ultimate act of generosity and love, God provides Godself, sending Jesus, to be living water, that springs up even to eternal life.
All of which brings us to today’s Gospel reading. For if Jesus’s temptation in the wilderness had marked the beginning of his earthly ministry, the episode that we hear of today marks the beginning of its end. Jesus has entered Jerusalem in triumph – it almost looks for a moment as if the devil’s promise of power and glory might be coming true after all – but that triumph is destined to be short-lived. Already the chief priests and the pharisees are looking for an excuse to have him arrested and put on trial; to have him put to the test, confident that he will be found wanting.
For them, the question is simple. It is one of authority. Everything that Jesus does seems designed to challenge their authority, authority that they believe is divinely handed-down in the form of the Law to which they adhere with such rigidity. And this Jesus? He seems to do whatever he likes. He heals on the Sabbath. He mixes with tax collectors, prostitutes, and sinners. He touches lepers. He talks to women… to Gentiles… sometimes even to Gentile women. It’s all just wrong in their eyes, and they have no idea what to do about him. Who does he think he is? God himself?
And so they try to trip him up, to catch him out, perhaps to goad him into saying something that he will regret, something that they can later use against him. ‘By what authority are you doing these things’, they ask, ‘and who gave you this authority?’ In their question we hear the echo of the tempting words of the devil. ‘Go on… claim power and glory and earthly authority for yourself. You know you want to. What could possibly go wrong?’ In the name of religion, they are prodding him towards a road, at the end of which lies a Roman cross, the punishment for challenging the authority of the state.
But Jesus is not for prodding. He knows how this will play out, of course. But he will never seek or claim earthly authority, whether political or religious. Why would he, when all the authority of heaven and earth already reside in him? Throwing their question back at his interlocutors, he reduces them to a pathetic ‘dunno’. The moment is coming when they will exert their authority over him. But this is not yet it.
Instead, in the silence that hangs over their failure, for now, to challenge Jesus’s authority, he tells one of his stories.
The story itself is simple enough. A man has two sons, both of whom he asks to go and work in his vineyard. The first refuses, but later changes his mind. The second agrees, but his words prove to be meaningless, and he does not do what he has promised.
The scribes and pharisees, Jesus implies, are like the second son. They pay lip service to their heavenly father, who sends them out to work in his vineyard, but their deeds give the lie to their words. They have failed to learn the lesson of their ancestors who tested God at Massah in the wilderness. They have made up their minds about the kind of God they believe in: a God of strictness and rigour, a God whose will they imagine themselves to be enacting when they wield their ‘Thou shalt not’s, a God whose love and generosity they underestimate and ultimately reject outright.
The first son, on the other hand, models repentance. He models change. He models an open-heartedness and a clear-sightedness which allows him to say of his initial response to his father, ‘I see now that I was wrong’ and to act to put it right.
And the people with whom Jesus habitually mixes – the prostitutes and tax collectors, the Gentiles, the women, the unclean, those with nothing to lose and everything to gain –; these are the people who, like the first son, no matter what their starting-point, are open to that loving invitation, constantly reiterated, to turn to God, to follow God, to turn their lives around, to open their hearts, to drink the living water and eat the bread of life that God offers, and not only that, but to share it with those around them as well.
Jesus’s story challenges us to ask, ‘Which of these sons am I? Do my deeds match my words? Or do I say one thing and do another? Do I preach love but practise hate, or judgement? Do I give in to the selfish temptation to look after myself first and foremost? Or is my life an outpouring of joy and hope and love and gratitude for all that I have received from God?
My friends, as we reflect on Jesus’s story, and our own lives of faith, let us resolve not to put God to the test. Rather let us resolve to share what we know of God’s goodness and generosity with those around us, as God, in Jesus, shares himself with us.