Then Jesus was led
up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be
tempted by the devil. He fasted forty days and
forty nights, and afterwards he was famished.
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, ‘One does not live by bread alone,
but by every word that comes from the mouth of
God.’”
Then the devil took
him to the holy city and placed him on the
pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you
are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it
is written,
‘He will command his
angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they
will bear you up, so that you will not dash your
foot against a stone.’”
Jesus said to him,
“Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your
God to the test.’”
Again, the devil
took him to a very high mountain and showed him
all the kingdoms of the world and their
splendor; and he said to him, “All these I will
give you, if you will fall down and worship me.”
Jesus said to him,
“Away with you, Satan! for it is written,
‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only
him.’”
Then the devil left
him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him
Message:
This is a great story, isn’t it?
In context, this story follows the
story of Jesus’ baptism by John. Jesus comes up
from the water, takes a breath, and reality descends
upon him – in the shape of a dove, they say – and a
voice says, “This is my son, in whom I am well
pleased.” If you were Jesus what would you do?
Most of us would probably do what
Jesus did -- get the heck out of there.
And Jesus does just that. He
heads off into the desert where he fasts for 40 days
and 40 nights. (By the way, “40 days and nights” is
a euphemism – it means a long time. At the flood it
rained for “40 days and nights”; the Israelites
wandered in a desert the size of New Jersey for 40
years. “Forty” is used to indicate “a long time”).
At the end of that time the Devil
comes and tests Jesus and it sounds like theological
ping pong between Jesus and Satan. Satan says,
“Feed yourself,” and Jesus responds, “Man does not
live by bread alone.”
Satan says “Throw yourself off this
pinnacle,” and Jesus says, “No, do not put God to
the test. ”
Satan says, “I’ll give you all the
kingdoms of the earth if you’ll worship me.” Jesus
says. “Get away from me, for it says ‘worship only
God’”. Then the angels brought him lunch (this is
the more accurate translation).
That’s the story. The tradition
seems to have taken it as literally true. I don’t
believe it, but even if it is true, it just doesn’t
matter. It doesn’t matter if the story is literally
true or not, because what Jesus did is not
important, because the story is about you. This
story of Jesus’ 40 days in the desert is one of
those stories of those grand mythical stories in the
Bible that is designed for teaching. It’s not a
story about Jesus – it’s a story about you.
(Actually, if every story in the Bible isn’t about
you, it’s pointless).
The liturgical year, for example, is
basically the Christian version of a spiritual path:
first insight (Advent), the birth of awakening
(Christmas), new ways of knowing (Epiphany), into
the shadow (Lent), death of self (Good Friday),
birth of the new self (Resurrection), and
integration (Pentecost), repeat. You can imagine
Jesus in this evolutionary process (we don’t know
where he might have been), but is a transformational
moment as signified by the baptism. In that moment
the universe opens to him in an entirely new way.
And what does it says to him? It says, “You’re
God” (“you are my son in whom I am well pleased”).
Imagine the fun the ego can have with that!
In the West we have problems seeing
this story as being about us. When someone comes to
the point of saying “I am God,” the Western
tradition burns him or her at the stake. In the
Eastern tradition, including Eastern Christianity,
when someone says, “I am God,” the tradition says,
“What took you so long?”
In this story Jesus comes to this
realization that “I am God”, not in some egotistical
way, but in the direct knowledge of the Divine as
his true nature. Any such awakening comes with
incredible opportunity and power, on the one hand,
and incredible danger, all in the same moment. And
Jesus does just what any responsible person would
do: he “gets out of Dodge.” He retreats from
humanity to figure out how to deal with this
revelation. In the language of the Bible: “Then
Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness
to be tempted by the devil.
So, who is the Devil -- the tempter
-- that the Bible speaks of? Well, I’m pretty sure
it’s not some really nasty guy with horns, a forked
tail, and wings. I am confident that the Devil is
us.
In Greek, the word persona
literally means mask. Personae
referred to the masks that actors would put on to
portray a role in a play. The word persona
later got translated as ego. What we call
“the Devil” is the persona that we wear. And
“sin” is in believing that the persona that
we wear is actually us.
Now the persona knows that it
is just a mask, that it has no reality of its own.
The persona refers to the clothes we wear so
we can act in the world; we have to have some way of
interacting on the physical plane, the persona
(the ego) is the vehicle.
The problem arises when we get
confused (sin) and believe that the persona
we wear is truly who we are. All suffering begins
here. The project of the persona is to deny
its insubstantiability and convince itself, and all
other egos, that it is real. That within us that is
100% dedicated to persuading us that the mask we
wear is who we are is called in the East Maya, the
goddess of illusion. Maya has no real power except
the power of confusion, illusion and deception. In
the West we call Maya the Devil.
Now, in this story the Devil -- the
god of self-delusion -- has just been thrown a bone
of incredible value in its quest to keep us asleep
in the dreamstate: “You are my (God’s) son, in whom
I am well pleased”.
“Cool,” responds the
Devil/ego/persona/ Maya, “you thought you were
unique before, but look, you just got proof that you
are the son of the very God himself! You really are
special!” Others have had this awakening and taken
the Devil’s bait. Jim Jones is a contemporary
example. In this teaching story Jesus doesn’t just
blow off the ego’s temptation, but he goes into the
desert (at least metaphorically) to struggle with
the possibilities of this new awakening.
First, the tempter points out that
Jesus can use this understanding to make himself
wealthy: “If you are the Son of God, command these
stones to become loaves of bread.” It’s true, such
awareness can be used to generate personal wealth.
I imagine Jesus seriously considering this
possibility but ultimately concluding: “I don’t live
by bread alone. I don’t live by riches. That’s not
what my life is about. I live by whatever it is that
takes my breath in and blows it out, takes my breath
in and blows it out, until I die.”
The persona, masquerading as
the true self, then tries a different strategy:
throw yourself down [off this pinnacle] for it is
written, "He will command his angels concerning
you," and "On their hands they will bear you up, so
that you will not dash your foot against a stone.”
In other words, do some magic tricks. Everyone will
know you're special then.
Some gurus today do just that. One I
have read of will sit on a rock in the middle of the
water and, if he decides, will have water flow over
him, or around him, or beside him. Another will
manifest ash for thin air.
We share this temptation. New
insights and understandings tempt us to show off: “I
have had an epiphany; I now understand life more
deeply.” The temptation is to show off, subtly, of
course, because we are very sophisticated: “Please
notice, I’m more spiritual than you”. Or, “I am so
much more humble than you.” In the Integral Church:
how much wiser and more inclusive we are than other
Christians.
Jesus responds to the Devil’s offer:
“No. Do not test God.” Magic tricks have nothing to
do with awakening. If you use new understanding to
do magic you have missed the point…entirely.
Finally, the Devil says, “All you
have to do is worship me.” I love that line. Of
course, this has nothing to do with worshiping
Satan. It has to do with what we do, day in and day
out. Each of us falls flat on our knees in front of
the altar of our false self, and says “I will do
anything to keep you alive, to believe that I am
separate from all that is, that I am unique and not
part of all life, to believe that I am ‘Tom’ and
nothing more.” I imagine Jesus responding “been
there, done that; after all, I am human.”
Jesus essentially give that same
answer he has give for all of the ego’s temptations:
“That’s not it. The point of this awakening is not
about strengthening the false self that keeps me
imprisoned in delusion. It is about freedom. It’s
not about what is seen; it is about that which does
the seeing. It’s not about what I hear; I am devoted
to that which hears. It’s not about what I taste;
it’s about that which tastes.”
In all of these examples, Jesus steps
back, and rejects the fabulous temptations that come
with being a spiritually realized being – all the
opportunities for the persona to aggrandize
and set itself apart. Jesus steps back into the
utter simplicity of “that which is breathing me,
that which is seeing through me, that which is
hearing through me,” in other words, God. And in
that choice, he awakens even more fully, and life
itself (the angles) serve him.
To reiterate, this story is not about
Jesus; it’s about you, it’s about me. It is a story
about how we awaken. It is a story of how we will
choose when we come to a new understanding: will I
use this to reinforce the illusion of myself as
separate, unique and better; or will I recognize the
source as the divine within and give thanks?
So I invite you to enter into this
story and see if it has any truth for you. If it
has a glimmer, I invite you into it. This story has
no point whatsoever except your spiritual
awakening. It’s just a story, until and unless it
serves your awakening.
Amen
