One of my seminary professors said that to understand the sacraments, we must hold onto two things for dear life: with one hand, we must hold onto what is visible to us, and with the other, we must hold onto what is invisible.[1] If we let go of one, we lose the mystery of the sacraments. The bread on the altar is really bread but after it has been prayed over, it is also far more than just bread. The water in the font is water from the tap, but it is much, much more after it has been blessed. After all, in just a few minutes, we will profess in the Nicene Creed that we believe in God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. The world in which we live consists of far more than is evident to our eyes.
This holding of the visible and invisible protects us from what may be the greatest temptation of all in life. Jesus’s three temptations in the wilderness can be distilled down to one foundational temptation: to hold only to what is most obvious and visible to us. Tempted in this way, we constantly assess how visible objects can serve our own needs and ours only. We exist with a transactional view of life that contains little notion of invisible potential or sacred value.
The loaf of bread is simply something that satisfies our hunger to alleviate the stomach pangs. The chronic pain is further proof that God has abandoned us. The so-called friend is someone who can help us make the necessary connections to secure the promotion for which we’ve been longing. The sacrament of the Altar is weaponized to establishing conformity to religious teaching. The increasing numbers in the parish register are no more than numbers with dollar signs attached to their foreheads.
In a world comprised only of the visible, what we see is what we get. And what we get usually benefits us alone. But the most dangerous part of a world without the invisible is that God exists for our own use. A God reduced to a visible world is no more than something we can manipulate, whether to enter heaven or to make our lives on this planet as pleasant as possible.
A world comprised only of visible things is, in short, a world ruled by the devil. It’s a world whose mystery is reduced to if-then mathematical statements. It’s transactional. If you do this, then you will achieve that. If you give me that, I’ll give you this. If you’re as talented as you say you are, then prove it to me in visible form. There’s no mystery here. There’s only a script, and there’s no option to deviate from it.
As I said, this is the world of the devil. The devil is no fool, but the devil also has no imagination. The devil focuses on what’s obvious and visible, the things that are superficially tantalizing, because the devil knows that this is where our weakness lies. In the desert when the devil meets Jesus, he can only fixate on the hunger pains that Jesus must be experiencing. The devil can’t see that this hunger leads to spiritual purification.
The devil sees holy Scripture as something to take literally or weaponize. Of course, if you’re reckless enough to throw yourself off a cliff, God would nevertheless send his angels to rescue you. God is just a dispenser of favors. Scripture is a battle ax for winning arguments. When you’re threatened, use a surface reading of Scripture to defend off your enemies. When you’re in a bind, call on God, and God will save you. When you’re uncomfortable, ask God to make you feel better. God is used for our own ease.
For the devil, who only sees what is visible, being worshipped is a way of gaining power. It can be reduced to a business sale. If you worship me, I’ll give you all the kingdoms of the world, which of course only consists of the things you can see.
And Jesus’s responses to the wiles of the devil is to call on the invisible. Things are more than they seem. The world is made of things visible and invisible. Hunger and thirst are not occasions for immediate satisfaction in every instance. Times of danger and insecurity do not always demand rescue. God’s favor can’t be bought, traded, and sold.
The devil’s world, the world of the visible only, seems like the world we live in much of the time. Religion is to be used to give us secure, comfortable lives. We go to church when we need it and feel like it. We use the sacraments as rites of passage. Church doctrine is used so that we don’t have to struggle through ethical quandaries. Relationships are used to garner status or promotions. Our spouses are used only to comfort us when we’re in need. One job is used as a stepping stone for a better one. Prayer is used to magically fulfill our wish list.
The devil temps us with the glamor of a visible world because he knows that it’s usually the only thing we see. The devil would have us believe that the way of the world is a competition. He would have us believe that life is merely survival of the fittest, so we need to use what’s visible to protect ourselves. The devil would have us believe that the most charismatic leader is the one we should follow. He would have us believe that we should take the advice of everyone who tells us what we want to hear. The devil suggests that we need clear answers to everything to have a steadfast faith.
And although it seems impossible, the devil takes temptation to the vilest level when he would have us believe that God himself only uses us. After all, the devil’s version of God is one who only operates in the visible world. Perhaps in our quest to use whatever and whomever we could for our own favor—including God—we might never have articulated our fear that perhaps God uses us. And maybe this is why we are always trying so hard to make ourselves visible to God, competing with others, overstuffing our egos, and becoming slaves to perfectionism and overwork. The greatest temptation of all is to believe that we are only being used by God, because in such a horrible, twisted world, we are always jockeying to be the one God uses.
If there is any story in Scripture that puts such a wicked notion to rest, it’s the story of Jesus’s temptations. And if we can discern the invisible in this story, we learn in this confounding episode of Jesus’s life that a God who only uses people and things would never have countenanced his Son’s temptations, because salvation could have been achieved far more expediently. And the world of the visible is a world of expediency. But God is a God of patient love, not of expediency.
We’re not mere automatons to be used for God’s purposes in the world. The mere presence of temptation in our lives is proof that God doesn’t try to protect us from harm at the expense of our freedom. God turns us loose in love, and then God meets us in the intricacies, complexities, misfortunes, and tragedies of a world distorted by sin.
The creative power of the living God defies if-then propositions or transactional exchanges. God lives and moves in the visible and invisible worlds we inhabit. God doesn’t use the Church to trick us into behaving. God doesn’t use his gifts of the sacraments to attach strings to his love. God doesn’t heal us so we will worship him. God doesn’t test us so that we will love him more. We never need to vie for God’s attention. It’s always present there in the invisible world we so often eschew.
No, the story of Scripture and the story of God’s interactions with humankind have shown that God has never withheld his love and gifts from us despite our tendency to live only in a visible world. No matter how many times we have used God as a candy machine, used the Church to serve our own lust for power, and no matter how much we have used his good creation to its detriment, God has continued to feed, protect, and love us.
So, beware of the false promises of those who would sell you transactional Christianity. Beware of those who would use God to manipulate your lives. Beware of the lies that equate misfortune with God’s absence. Beware of a world that is only visible.
Cling with all your might to the visible and invisible. Cling to the glory of God’s visible creation and to God’s invisible presence in the slums. Cling to a God who gives and takes away. Cling to a God who loves us and gives us freedom. Cling to a God who invites us to participate in his work in the world but who will never, ever use us. Cling to a God whose love is always ours in the world of the invisible. And then, you will see that beyond the visible demons in the world, there are plenty of angels.
Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The First Sunday in Lent
February 26, 2023
[1] Thanks to the Rev. Dr. James Farwell for this image.