One of the main downsides of worldviews is the inevitable human tendency to include unwarranted elements of symmetry. If we think we can comprehend an overarching view of our existence (we can’t), then we in our feeble understanding are drawn continually to force elements of balance, equivalence, or conceptual juxtaposition into that view. This is part of the pathology of worldviews. Not content to seize upon values and follow them where they might lead (or follow them until we might realize they must be discarded), we contrive to place values on scales of moral theory and to imagine that our moral theories can extend to the bounds of our existences. Our existences, then—rather than being continually unfolding experiences of our values placed by us in the hands of God—become stories told by us, stories of good and evil, heroes and villains, noble causes and dark agents. Such are worldviews.
We are told by our Savior to put our hands to the tasks around us, and to not worry about tomorrow. Our worldviews, on the other hand, tell us that each and every task makes sense only in an all-encompassing context, and all are parts of some great plan to which we imagine ourselves privy.
Entranced as we are by worldviews, we are forever missing opportunities to learn lessons understandable best in modes of surprise and disruption. We are continually looking at things from above, rather than from within—and when we look at things from above, we attach a geometry to our comprehension. This or that force—in our musings—is played off against another, and we observe the virtual symmetry (or near-symmetry, as we observe imagined conflicts between opposing forces.)
A notable example of this is the persistent tendency to view the Temptations as some sort of battle between the devil and God over Jesus. Certainly, there are situational causes to see the Temptations as such a battle, but the proper response of the observer is not to identify with the winning side, but rather to emulate the behavior of Jesus. The desert, the stones, the temple, even all the kingdoms of the earth, even the devil—all are mere ephemera.
The most insidious element here of the tendency to concoct symmetry lies alongside the need to emulate Jesus. There are two ways to emulate Jesus here; one is correct, and the other is not, and that makes all the difference. The incorrect way to emulate Jesus here is to imagine oneself responding in like manner to the devil. A careful look at the Temptations reveals that the particulars of Jesus responding to the devil’s taunts are no more important than the particulars of the setting.
Attempting to make ourselves attentive to the values held by Jesus, a few interesting (and non-threatening) points can leap out. The devil says, “If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.” By “non-threatening,” as I just mentioned, I mean that we can look at Jesus’ reply without being made uncomfortable by making the inescapable observation: Jesus responds with, “It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”
Jesus, it must be observed, does not respond in direct manner to the devil’s challenge. To Jesus’ reply of “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God,” the devil might merely counter with, “Alright, tell one of the stones to turn into an engraving of the Law and the Prophets. What does that have to do with whether you are succumbing or not to hunger? You have not denied the necessity of bread.”
The point, as we must assess forthrightly, of Jesus referring to the importance of the word of God lies not in the substance of Jesus responding to the devil. The devil is hardly worth Jesus noticing. What is important is the fact that Jesus has drawn into the matter that which he most rightly values: the word of God. The value settles the matter. Jesus focuses on what he values, and that is response enough to the scheming of the devil.
The Temptations, then (in the sequence presented by Matthew) proceed to the “pinnacle of the temple," and the devil dares Jesus to throw himself down. Jesus responds with “It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” Again, the threat of a charge of impiety would overshadow our assessment, if the passage was really about some great battle between the devil and God over Jesus. Our assessment would have to be some such as, “How is Jesus really responding to the devil? It seems like some mid-twentieth-century American story of a cowardly bully boy being finally challenged, and responding weakly with, ‘It’s a good thing I’ve got my church clothes on, or I’d really teach you a lesson.’”
How, indeed, is Jesus really responding to the devil? If this is indeed some great, potentially cataclysmic confrontation, with the fate of the universe in the balance and the sovereignty of God ostensibly in question, what then would it be to the devil to be answered with, “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God”? In the story of the Temptations, the devil is a nobody, and all that matters is that the sinless Son of God responds correctly, and that he models as well our correct response to the challenges of our own lives: to remember what we value—the scenarios of our contrivances be damned, the vistas of our worldviews be damned.
And finally the devil “sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them,” and says to Jesus, “All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.” Jesus’ response is “it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.” The devil is answered, of course, but the answer has nothing to do with the devil being reckoned of any standing as an adversary. “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve” is logically inconsistent with any interaction between Jesus and the devil—unless the quotation is understood as Jesus addressing what he values, this being the most fitting internalization—as it would be also for us—as he shows the devil the door.
Indeed, it is too rarely noted that Jesus shows the devil the door. To take the notion of a “cataclysmic confrontation” to heart, it would have to be reckoned that—before, during, and after the Temptations—the door belonged to the devil. The confrontation takes place in the world. Regarding “all the kingdoms of the world,” the devil says, “All these things will I give thee”—as though they were the devil’s property. The corresponding quote from the devil in Luke is, “All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it.”
And what does the devil, the ostensible ruler of the world, get for his trouble? In Luke, Jesus says, “Get thee behind me, Satan.” In Matthew, “Get thee hence, Satan.” These dismissals seem scarcely to be consistent with Jesus reckoning that the world is the possession of the devil, much less a devil who could hold out the world as a temptation for another being, and be told to keep it.
In what is presented to us in the Gospels, the devil is presented as a nobody. The Gospels focus on the values that Jesus holds, and that he wants us to find and nurture within ourselves. All of these centuries' worth of talk about “the world,” and about worldviews, and about the world under the devil, and about our place in the world—all of this is as nothing in the face of our Savior’s admonition for us to look to this day’s troubles, and to the troubles of our neighbors. If we value what Jesus values, the lopsided and wobbling world will carry on as Jesus would will.
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