Do you remember Flip Wilson? He was a black comedian who had a show in the late 60’s and early 70’s. In one skit, he dressed as a woman, Geraldine, who had on a new dress. The husband asked her why she needed another new dress, since she had already bought a couple this week. As Geraldine said, “The Devil made me do it!” And whenever she was confronted by something she did that she shouldn’t have, she replies that the Devil made her do it, drawing lots of laughter from the audience.
By the way, the Flip Wilson Show was the number 2 rated show on TV in the early 1970’s, with the show’s star a black man who cross dressed. Hmm… today, it would be illegal for that show to be aired in a couple states!
Back to the story. Yup, the Devil made her do it! The devil seems to have many other names too, besides Satan. Like, temptation or sin. The devil, looked at this way, is the normal human reaction of turning away from God and toward the temptations of the human life.
In our reading this morning, the Devil tempts Jesus in three ways. First is the temptation of the body, specifically food. I think of this temptation as more than just food, but anything we can be addicted to: alcohol, drugs, gambling, gaming, sex, overeating and others.
The second temptation was for riches – all the kingdoms of the world. The desire for money and other material things are here. The desire for more than is needed; it represents the desire for the wants. Money, property, clothes, travel, lots of things that are owned but not required.
The third temptation was for power, the power to show superiority to mere mortals. And to worship the Devil, or in these terms, to spend your time seeking these temptations rather than seeking out God.
Today, we can hear the devil in our heads, saying:
- If you work hard enough, you will overcome this strife!
- But you must work more than 40 hours a week
- You must give up your family and friends
- You must give up leisure time
- You must give up your life, so that you can have a life
o A life of pleasure
o A life of leisure
o A life with enough food, money and time
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So the devil says, you must give up everything to get everything? Who, in this instance, is the devil? Surely it is not you! You wouldn’t say those things! Not your friends. Perhaps some family members may say some of these things. These things may be in your head, but who put them there? Two institutions probably did, corporations and government. But it makes no sense. How can you give up all your leisure time, working long hours, to “get ahead”, so you can have more leisure time? If you are working two jobs to put food on the table and pay rent, when do you get ahead?
As I look deeply into this problem in our society, I see that we as the majority of working people in the United States, need to help ourselves and our neighbors, by naming this addiction to the false God of greed and selfishness that pervades corporate and governmental thinking. We may need to cut back on our hours given to “The Man”, and instead, give to our neighbor and the earth. We need to turn our back on the devil and return to God.
Once again, we heard that the devil says, you must give up everything to get everything. Sound familiar? That is Jesus’ message as well. While the message from the devil is that to gain power and riches you must give up your life, Jesus means that if you give up your dedication to temptation, you can gain Heaven on Earth.
The traditional seven deadly sins—as portrayed in Dante’s Inferno and Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales – are pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth. You know me, I don’t really like the word sin, as it implies that we are all horrible and should be ashamed of ourselves. I don’t think that is healthy. I believe in an all loving all forgiving God, and so shame is not a desired response from my God.
So, instead of sin, today we are talking about human addictions. All of us, bar none, has been plagued in our lifetimes with at least one of these 7 addictions. We may look in the mirror just before leaving for church and say, “I look good!” – pride. We may feel that we need to protect our money and property for our future life, rather than share all we could with those more needy than us - greed.
We may watch a movie with a very handsome leading man or woman in it, and feel lust. We may have looked at another person’s beautiful house and wished we had one like it – envy. We may have sat down at Thanksgiving dinner and eaten so much that our stomach hurt – gluttony. We may have at times been so angry that we were triggered, and before we knew it, were yelling, scaring even ourselves – wrath. And finally, there probably have been days when we needed to get somethings done, but chose instead to watch TV or spend an extra half hour on our Facebook feed – sloth.
Each one of these human traits are just that, normal traits that people feel, behaviors that people do. They can get us into trouble, though, especially when one of these takes over our lives and becomes an addiction.
Take a moment here, before we go on, and write down on the back of your program, which of those sounded most familiar to you in your life. Note how often you have seen yourself indulge in that behavior. Ask yourself this question: Is this behavior keeping me from God, and how would my life change if I were able to turn from this behavior and instead turn toward God, asking for forgiveness and mercy and help to overcome it?
We have all heard of Alcoholics Anonymous, which was started by Bill W. in 1935. It is a spiritual 12 step process for alcoholics to recover from drinking. It does not cure, but rather gives them a way to stay in recovery, doing their best to stay sober, one day at a time.
Father Richard Rohr, a contemporary Franciscan Friar, wrote Breathing Under Water, a book about applying the 12 steps to all of us, as he feels we are all addicted to a way of thinking. In it, he writes about some addictions in our society. The USA is addicted to oil, war, and empire. The Church is addicted to absolute exceptionalism. The poor – powerlessness and victimhood. White people – superiority and the wealthy – entitlement. To fully go into the implications of each of these is beyond the scope of today, but you can surely see the point.
According to Richard Rohr, the only way beyond addiction is contemplative practice: using prayer and meditation to break down the either-or superiority thinking. To turn toward God and ask for help, in other words.
So, for now, let me outline the 12 steps, then we will end with a prayer.
12 steps:
1. We admit we are powerless and that our lives are unmanageable
2. Believe that a power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity
3. We make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand God
4. We make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves
5. Admit to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs
6. Are entirely ready to have God remove these defects of character
7. Humbly ask God to remove our shortcomings
8. We make a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all
9. We make direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others
10. Continue to take personal inventory and when we are wrong promptly admit it
11. Seek through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understand God, praying only for knowledge of God’s will for us and the power to carry that out
12. Once we have had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we try to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs
That is a lot, especially if you are not familiar with the 12 steps. At this point, let’s just consider these few points:
1. We are human and therefore are not perfect
2. Because we are not perfect, we fail sometimes
3. We are addicted to this human physical life which includes temptations
4. God is here in our midst and available through prayer and meditation to help us drop our addictions
So, finally, let us pray the serenity prayer. Feel free to say it out loud if you know it. It comes from Reinhold Niebuhr, the Lutheran theologian who lived from 1892 to 1971.
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Amen.
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