Psychologist Abraham Maslow reminds us that there is a hierarchy of human needs. Our most basic needs are those of the body, such as food, water or shelter, and the need to feel safe and secure. If we focus only on meeting these basic needs, we fail to take advantage of the opportunity to move on to higher levels of meaning, such as giving and receiving love, building up a self of integrity or envisioning a joyful future for the earth and all creatures.
Much of our floundering as a society is a result of obsessing about our basic bodily and security needs and ignoring our higher spiritual calling. On the one hand, an economic crisis pressures many Americans to spend their days worrying about jobs or generating enough income to afford housing, heat, health care and other necessities of life. On the other hand, the threat of terrorism has compromised our sense of security. We are constantly pressured to guard against shoe bombers, underwear bombers or deranged killers who go rogue and shoot innocent people at places of work, schools, shopping malls or even military bases.
The gospels tell us that it is important to find our security through a life grounded in spiritual truth. We can see this principle being played out in an interesting way in the story of Jesus’ wilderness temptations.
For forty days, Jesus participated in a desert vision quest. During this time, he was tempted by three basic security needs. First, as he fasted, he was tempted to turn stones into bread—a code phrase for our human desire to look out for number one during times of scarcity. Jesus overcame this temptation by trusting in God to give him his daily bread. Jesus also was enticed to use his personal relationship with God as a security blanket against life’s misfortunes. This temptation, which Matthew calls “putting God to the test,” involved the need we sometimes feel to reassure ourselves that God will appear on cue and rescue us during times of crisis. Jesus overcame this temptation by deciding simply to trust in the steadfast love of God in whatever life circumstances he found himself.
Lastly, Jesus was tempted to find security in the accumulation of wealth and power. He rejected this temptation by choosing to love and serve God rather than to leverage life with the aid of riches or political privilege.
In many ways, our nation has been through a similar period of wilderness testing. For nearly a decade, we have been struggling with the demons of selfishness, greed, opportunism, coveting our neighbors’ goods and winning at all costs. We’ve called upon God in the most arrogant ways to bless our nation and help us to dominate our global neighbors.
Thankfully, we are awakening from the mesmerizing effects of such temptations and are beginning to sense that true security can only be found in caring for our neighbors. It is very heartening to see the generous out-pouring of compassion by everyday Americans to the victims of the earthquake in Haiti. This is the sort of caring that will lead us out of our wilderness phase of post 9-11 narcissism and into the promised land, where we can live lives inspired by service.
Jesus’ wilderness temptations remind us that we do not live by bread alone but by every word that ushers forth from the mouth of God. ThisWord is fed to us like baby birds being nurtured by our Divine Mother. The word gives us strength to transcend a life based upon worrying about things so that we can discover a life filled with meaning.
But even as we celebrate the security God provides, it is important to appreciate that our faith does not help us to obtain mastery over life or make us immune to life’s random injustices and suffering. Scores of good people of faith, like the Archbishop of Haiti, were recently killed in the terrible earthquake there, just as thousands of God’s children died at Ground Zero. Terrorist bombings, preemptive military attacks, tsunamis and earthquakes can and do strike the rich and the poor, the powerful and the powerless, the saints and the sinners, at any time. There is no foolproof way to protect ourselves from such events. But we can find true security in the promise that the love of God empowers us to live and to die more hopefully in a sometimes uncertain and scary world:
God is our refuge and strength,
A well-proved help
in times of trouble.
Therefore we will not fear,
though the earth should change,
Though the mountains
shake in the heart of the sea…
Come, behold
the works of our God,
God makes wars cease
to the end of the earth,
God breaks the bow
and shatters the spear…
“Be still and know
that I am God.”
Psalm 46
Each month a member of the
Cook County Ministerium will
offer Spiritual Reflections. For
January, our contributor has
been Reverend Peter R. Monkres
of the First Congregational
Church – United Church of
Christ, Grand Marais, a Just
Peace church.
Leave a Reply