No Test Needed - September 23
Today’s Readings - Psalm 119:97-120; Esther 6:1-14 or Judith 10:1-23; Acts 19:1-10; Luke 4:1-13
It’s a cliché, but we’ve all seen it in movies or on T.V. One of the characters is desperate for help. Maybe, their child has gone missing, or they’ve gotten into some kind of legal trouble. Whatever the situation they try bargaining with God. They say to God, “If you will bring my child home or get me out of this mess, I’ll do anything you want me to do.”
And then, when whatever they asked for doesn’t happen they get angry and proclaim that there is no God, or God isn’t all powerful or God could have answered my prayer if only God wanted to do it. Bargaining with God is nothing more than a test of God’s ability to help us or maybe a test of God’s love for us.
We had a friend a few years ago whose family member was killed in NYC on 9/11. She had been loosely associated with the church for most of her life but after her cousin’s death she lost all desire to be affiliated with church. She blamed God for his death several years later, she was still angry at God. She was convinced God could have saved her cousin if God had wanted to.
I also knew another woman whose stepson was in one of the Twin Towers on 9/11. She reacted very differently. Everywhere she looked she could see God at work. She could see how God had been and remained present to so many people who had been in New York City that day. Her forgiveness of those who perpetrated the tragedy, and her attitude became well known and she was asked to speak to other families who were going through similar losses of their own. Her calm sense of peace in the midst of tragedy was healing to others. She was interviewed by a reporter who asked her why she wasn’t angry at God. She told him that God had been no more responsible for those thousands of deaths than God had been absent when Christ died on the Cross.
In today’s gospel Satan tempts Jesus by proposing that he test God’s love. Wisely Jesus refuses. He replies each time with a quote from the Hebrew scriptures. Scriptures that tell the story of a covenant relationship between God and the Hebrew people. A mutual relationship that is a testament of God’s never-ending love and devotion to God’s people, as well as their commitment to God.
Jesus is the manifestation of the second covenant, an extension of God’s promise to the Hebrew people that extends not only to the Jewish people but also to the Gentiles and to all people, of every race and nationality. Jesus does not replace the first but fulfills and broadens it. It’s a promise of God’s unconditional love, grace and forgiveness. In return we are asked to love our God with all our heart, mind and soul and to love our neighbor as ourselves.
Our God does not dance on a puppeteer’s strings. We don’t need to test God’s love, the way a young child might test his mother or father’s love. There is no stronger testament of God’s love for us than the gift of God’s only Son. It’s a love that needs no proof or test.
faithfully,
Sally+
Question for Reflection and Challenge - How do we consciously or inadvertently test God? Why do we need the reassurance that might come? How might we learn to live resting in the assurance of God’s infinite love and presence?