LIVING IN THE LAND OF TEMPTATION
Matthew 6:7-15; James 1:12-15

A sermon given by the Rev. Richard H. Taylor
October 10, 2004 / Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Has the Lord's Prayer become outmoded? Has it lived past its time? Jesus tells us to pray “lead us not into temptation,” or “bring us not into the time of trial.” But our time is full of trials, and our land is full of temptation.

Jesus time was marked by long lonely treks of solitary disciples through the Jordan valley or up the Jericho road. Sometimes there might be a group: a caravan of traders, or a group of pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem. If it was dusk, when the thieves and robbers were known to inhabit the Jericho Road, you could avoid the trial, and not travel at that time. Or if a fork in the road allowed a journey to Sodom and Gomorrah, you could avoid the cities filled with tempting evils.

Trials seem to have times. Temptations seem to have places. Prayer then was a way to avoid them.

Not that the issue was that God wanted us to be tempted, nor that God planned trials. Yet even a well intentioned pilgrim could get lost and wander into a terribly tempting place. A little prayer and some holy attention might help us to focus better and get lost less often. And I can imagine – sometimes – that God wants us to be in a position to help someone who is in a tempting situation, or to be there to befriend a person facing a great trial. So perhaps God does instruct the Samaritan to go down that road at a particular hour. And Jesus seems called by God to land the boat by the pig farm to talk to the Geresene demoniac. So God may want us – as helpers – to enter the land of temptation.

But if we are not ready, then Jesus says it is helpful to pray “lead us not into temptation.”

For those ancient caravans on lonely wilderness paths there were choices, forks in the road – this way or that. It was probably even still true in the days of the American west. A cowboy apparently could decide to enter Dodge City or Tombstone; and could pray meaningfully on the Chisholm Trail, “lead me not into temptation.”

But is that true anymore?

It seems to me that we already live in the land of temptation: every day, every moment, we are surrounded by it. Think of any temptation that might haunt you by night, and we have it in spades.

Food and gluttony: who else in history has seen the likes of our modern super markets?

Liquor, drunkenness, drugs: has there ever been a time when so many young people, so many people in prison, so many people on the streets are high, mind damaged?

Lust, sex? We live in a triple X society, with pornography on sale, and sex used as a business tool in media and advertisements. Escort “services” are advertised in the paper and prostitution is visible.

Or what of sloth and laziness? Isn't the television the most original invention to stay home and become a couch potato? Has there ever been more entertainment to lull away the day with useless titillation?

To turn off one temptation is to turn on another one.

As I rethought the text of the prayer I was astonished to think that Jesus equates temptation with a place or a time. Lead us not into temptation.

I am inclined to think that the place of temptation is American culture. The time of temptation is now. To live a normal life we are immersed in it. We are showered by it every day, from billboards, magazines, radio, television.

I am so overwhelmed by it that I have begun to wonder if we should not be praying “Lead us out of the land of temptation?” Lead our children out of the land of temptation.

Now, true, there are people in the land of temptation who need our help. But if you are going to lead someone out of the land of temptation from drugs – for example - , you better not be tempted yourself, you better know the way out. Don’t be so naïve as to think that you know the way out of every tempting land.

I've begun this sermon on temptation by lifting up personal sin: gluttony, liquor, drugs, sex, sloth. I am still enough of a conservative to believe that great dangers lie in these areas, and to call you to caution and distance.

But I am also troubled by some other temptations that I believe are out of control in our culture.

A month ago I was driving from New Jersey back home, and I stopped at a place to eat in Connecticut. Across the aisle from me were three men who were having a loud conversation. I couldn't help but hear. They were bemoaning the loss of American lives in Iraq. But then they said and agreed, what Bush should have done was blown Iraq off the face of the Earth, then we would have lost no lives. They then launched into accolades and praise for “the Russians.” “The Russians,” they said, “would never allow the kind of nonsense we would allow. The Russians are not afraid to use their nuclear weapons.” There was even some praise of Stalin.

I am sure these men did not consider themselves to be Communists, but this praise of Stalin, apparently for killing millions, is a ghastly political viewpoint to hear in America. And since then, I don’t know that the Russians – Soviet or since – have proved particularly effective in taking over countries or fighting terrorism. The Soviet Army got bogged down in Afghanistan, and the current government can not protect schools near Chechnya. But I guess I am particularly shocked by the idea of “Blow them all away.”

Where does this faith in weapons come from, and this desire to destroy?

This culture, this weapon and destroy culture takes many forms. Many an American man has refused the responsibility of caring for the children they have fathered by blowing them all away, just walking out, moving away, and enjoying themselves. Many a lover of weapons and violence has turned on their spouse, their partner, their prostitute for the night, with a vengeance where fists and insults become weapons to “blow them all away.”

This world view is a temptation to violence and death, and any ten-year old can hear it sitting in the Boston Market on Route 95 in East Haven, Connecticut.

Lead us not into temptation!

Or should I tell you of another overheard restaurant conversation this summer when I heard two men telling a boy – who appeared to be seven or eight – jokes and vile comments about women. Their vulgar sense of humor got the little boy to laugh, apparently enjoying the attention of two adult men. But woe to the unseen women who will suffer under this learning curve.

Lead us not into temptation.

It is everywhere.

As I have grown older I have come to appreciate more and more the Amish way, or the monastery, or the quiet houses with televisions off, and a focus on the garden.
What I want to suggest to each of us this morning is that we begin to orient our lives in the way we have continually asked God: that we be led not into the land of temptation; that we find a way out of American culture to another place whose ruler and maker is God.

Here are some things that have helped me:

1. I throw the newspaper ads away before looking at them.
2. I go to the store as seldom as possible.
3. I choose reading, television, radio carefully. I avoid commercials.
4. I make my pledges to the work of God first, then order my budget on what’s left.

We should not ask God to do for us what we are not trying to do for ourselves.

Our culture is corrupt. We need to find a way out.

Amen.