Conversations with the Shadow
Matthew 4:1-11
Have you ever had a conversation with your shadow side?
Actually taken time to listen to what she or he had to say to you?
It’s not a comfortable notion, to listen to someone lay before us our most base desires or predilections.
As you know, today is the first Sunday of Lent: the season in our church calendar when we prepare ourselves for Easter’s renewal.
Lent is a time of carefully considering our relationship to the Holy and to Jesus’ teachings—
a period of “checking in” with our spirits;
of asking: “how is it with my soul?”
This is why, today, we often preach Jesus’ own
ascetic experience of fasting, visions and meeting with the Holy.
We remember his own preparations for the journey,
his own struggle and engagement with the shadow,
the one Matthew names “the Tempter.”
Which may be an example for us of a way to enter our Lenten ruminations:
take some time with your own inner Tempter.
…Listen to what she might be tempting you with,
what you secretly desire.
…Face what he sets before you with his excellent reasoning,
his arguments intricately planned to sway you.
Lent is a time to check in with ourselves,
take an inventory of our spirits to see what
might need to be restocked,
and what in our lives may have passed its expiration date of usefulness.
Sometimes we can come to our own conclusions about
what stays and what goes—
what feeds our spirits and
what undermines our best intentions.
But other times a conversation partner—even an adversarial one!—
can help us better to recognize and name our truths,
peer deeply into our shadows,
and build strength, grow in spirit.
And so:
what would it look like if you had a conversation with your inner Tempter?
Perhaps you need more knowledge of such a conversation partner before you begin. I know I like to have some idea where someone is coming from when I argue with him.
So who is this Tempter that Jesus faces?
Matthew’s text uses the word Devil (diabolos), while Mark’s Gospel uses Satan (satan).
Furthermore, Jesus’ early followers—and so the writers of the New Testament—
“had four names for the influences in their lives that opposed what they understood to be the will of God:
Satan, the Devil, Beelzebul, and the Evil One.”[i]
But in our understanding of this figure—taking Satan, not as a literal being, but as an idea that
captures those sinful aspects of humanity or a name for the evil revealed in our world—it helps to know where this figure comes from.
1…. My personal favorite framing of Satan comes from Hebrew folklore.
“The word satan originally meant an adversary or an accuser who could be an ordinary human being….[but the] satan was also a position in the heavenly court, something like a prosecuting attorney, whose responsibility it was to identify those who were doing wrong and to present evidence against them to God.”[ii]
The satan we are most familiar with is the one from the book of Job. This “prosecuting attorney” tried to dig up as much as possible to prove Job’s guilt (falsely, in this case).
Now, why is this particular Satan figure the one I prefer to have my own Lenten shadow conversation with? Because she does her job with me anyway.
“Hey Sharon, you know that driver you got so mad at coming into church this morning?
Yeah, the one who didn’t know how to use a turn signal?
Well, I’ve noted that you get angry at such things a lot… Your self-righteousness about abiding by traffic laws is absolutely justified!…but how about that speeding ticket you got last month?
You know you got it. I know you got it. God knows you got it.
But I perfectly agree that you can be ticked off at this morning’s driver… It’s your right!”
It’s a miniscule example of something we all might do—
justify our own small violations over and against someone else’s
…but how can I argue with this satan, this accuser, when I know she’s right.
She’s gathered the evidence against us in all the small ways we’ve gotten off the path
and tempts us into still more.
And whatever she lays out for you in your conversation
could be a part of the inventory that you want to assess this Lent, possibly throw away.
2…. Another Hebrew variation on this figure came from an ancient god of a rival tribe—Baal-zebub
[or the Lord (Baal) of flies (zebub)]. By the time of Jesus this figure had a new name: Beelzebul. And in the Gospels, Beelzebul is most often related to stories of demon possession.
If you were to have a Lenten conversation with this aspect of your shadow, what might emerge?
Perhaps Beelzebul will encourage those moments when you act out.
I think of the tantrums my parents like to tell me I threw as a child—
not able to get a grip on what was needed, but holding on stubbornly to what I wanted.
As an adult, the equivalent could be those times when
you let go of your centered self and get a little extreme.
Does demon possession (metaphorically speaking) have some kind of expression in your life?
How might Beelzebul be tempting you to act out?
3…. Diabolos was introduced to the Christian tradition by Greek-speaking disciples.
Diabolos—the Devil, the slanderer—became synonymous with Satan.
But the slanderer’s particular style was to throw obstacles across a follower’s path:
dia meaning across, and the verb ballo meaning to throw.
So if this Lent brings you to speak with diabolos in trying to determine your weaker points of temptation,
he might point out the various trials you’re currently facing—
illness, addiction, financial worry, anger at a friend or family member—
and throw these across your Lenten path to make you stumble.
That’s his temptation: to make us look at our many challenges with the eyes of diabolos.
Might one of these cause you to trip up and stop the journey to Jerusalem with Jesus? It’s a real temptation to give up on the long path to Easter’s renewal when there’s so much else taking up time and space in our lives.
I don’t particularly want to do verbal battle with this aspect of my shadow… too tempting.
But what might we learn about ourselves from such a conversation?
What expired ideas may be divulged as past their usefulness?
4…. And finally, there comes the name the Evil One.
Is this the current tempter of your spirit? When you search yourself in this period of preparation, would the Evil One be a willing conversation partner?
Systemic evil is what comes to mind when I contemplate this figure.
She pushes before our eyes
worldwide poverty,
violence against women and children,
war,
hatred between races, religions.
I find I cannot converse with this aspect of the Shadow,
nor can I allow her to name the thousands of infinitesimal ways that you or I may have
unwittingly served her.
No, I don’t recommend temptation by this figure—because we are only human,
and we can too easily lose hope in the face of her pervasive touch on our world.
And unlike Jesus in the desert wilderness, tempted by power—
power to do what he was called to do,
power to make his ministry smoother, easier and much less pain-filled—
unlike him we cannot always prevail when offered such things,
shout “Away with you!” and be ministered to by angels.
There are some conversations not to be had by us alone, delving into the deepest shadows.
But isn’t this the point of Jesus? The purpose of his church, his body?
We are beginning the Lenten journey with him and with one another,
and that path is going to lead us all to Jerusalem,
to a parade of palms,
to a last supper,
and to the cross: an ultimate example of systemic evil.
Yet we are not the ones on that cross.
We are witnesses to the way Christ can face the temptations—and the Evil—and triumph.
Alone we are but followers on the way, whose souls can speak with much smaller demons.
The big ones: they must be faced by the full Body of Christ together.
The Tempter is strong. But in Christ, I believe we can be stronger.
May our Lenten journeys lead us
not into temptations too much for us to face;
but deliver us from the Evil One together
through the resurrection and hope of Easter.
Amen.
1 comments:
excellent. thank you for this perspective on the text for this morning.
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