The Heart of Temptation (Lent 1C)

Christ in the Wilderness-- the Scorpion, oil painiting by Stanley Spencer

The Heart of Temptation

First Sunday of Lent (Year C)
10 March 2019; 8 am Spoken Mass; 10 am Sung Mass
Homily Delivered at Trinity Episcopal Church

Ashland, Oregon

The Very Rev. Fr. Tony Hutchinson, SCP. Ph.D.  

Genesis 9:8-17; Psalm 25:1-9; 1 Peter 3:18-22; Mark 1:9-13

God, take away our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh.  Amen.

“Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from [being baptized at] the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil” (Luke 4:1).

We know this story, told by the three synoptic gospels. 

Mark’s version is short and sweet: after Jesus is baptized, he hears God’s voice, “You are my son, this day I have fathered you.” Immediately, the Spirit drives Jesus into the wilderness where he remains for forty days, tempted by Satan, living with the wild beasts, though “angels ministered to him.”  That’s it. 

Matthew and Luke, drawing from their shared sayings source, expand this story into a fuller narrative presenting three temptations, together with Jesus’ answers to the tempter’s arguments.  Matthew and Luke have the same three temptations, though they disagree on the order of the second and third.  All question the voice Jesus heard at baptism: “You are my son:” 

“If you are the Son of God, do not suffer hunger.  God says he will give food to his chosen in the desert.  Command this stone to become a loaf of bread.”

“If you are the Son of God, why aren’t you in charge?  It is I who control all the power and money in the world. Bow down to me and I will make you king of the world as befits a Son of God.” 

“If you are the Son of God, prove it so all may know.  Scripture says God will protect and defend his chosen.  Throw yourself from the 10-story high spire of the Temple, so that all the devout may see God save you and follow you.” 

The story of the temptation in the wilderness does not appear in John’s Gospel.  But interestingly, in John 6-7, Jesus encounters and declines the same temptations in his day to day ministry.  Here, they are pushed on Jesus not by an evil spirit in the desert, but by the people around him: 

In 6:31, the people ask Jesus to miraculously make bread for them.

In 6:15, the people try to make Jesus King before he has to flee from them.

In 7:3, Jesus brothers try to convince Jesus to go to the Temple in Jerusalem to show his power out in the open. 

Thus it appears that the Synoptics’ desert temptation story is a narrative artifice to sum up in a single scene multiple themes that repeated again and again in Jesus’ life and ministry. 

The trope “If you are the Son of God” on the Tempter’s lips reveals, I think, the heart of what these temptations, and what all temptations, are about.  It echoes the tempter’s words in Genesis 3:  “Was it really God who said don’t eat of that fruit?  If you disregard that voice, you will be like God, with an awareness of good and bad.”  This is the “if” of practical atheism, repeated several times in the passion story: Those mocking Jesus say, “If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross!”  One of the bandits at Jesus’ side says almost desperately, “If you are the Messiah, save us along with you!”  If,  if.  The point is—act as if there is no God above you, no one whom you can trust wholly, even in the midst of pain. 

If, if.  Do not act on the basis of trust and love in God.  Rather, try to control God, and stage manage things.   Rather than accept that God is in charge and does things as he sees fit, try to be in charge.  Make those stones bread.  Cozy up to real powers-that-be.  Force God’s hand and make him do what you want on your schedule.    Do what you need to do to be a winner. 

It might not sound like atheism, but at its heart, it denies the nature, if not the existence, of God. 

I once had a spiritual director who told me that the heart of healthy emotional life and all spiritual growth is the two affirmations:  There is a God.  And I’m not him.  You can’t have one without the other.  The practical application of this was the aphorism, “Let go, let God.” 

Jesus answers each temptation in the desert—one to satisfy physical cravings, one to pursue the wealth and power of the world by honoring the Wicked One controlling them, and one to force God to prove that Jesus is Beloved—by quoting scripture back at the Tempter.  When we see that sin is what alienates us from God—this God who loves us—and alienates us from each other, these scriptures take on broader meanings: 

“Do not live by bread alone, but by every word spoken by God”:  We have needs of which we are not even aware, given our imperfections and limits.  We thus need to trust God’s judgment in this, not our own.”

“Worship God alone and serve only God”: Do not try to set up idols in the place of God, objects or people whom we can control, and manage.   

  

“Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”  Don’t try to manipulate or control God.  In the degree that you do, it is not God we are talking about.  

We have all sorts of ways of spinning things to convince ourselves that the “if, if” is not atheism.  “God helps those who help themselves” is one.  Another is “God blesses the righteous and punishes the wicked.  I need to follow these rules so that I can get God in my debt so he will give me what I desire. I need to punish the sins of others so that God will hear me.”   How far away from “forgive so that you can be forgiven” and “not as I will, but as you will.”   

When Jesus says, “Lose you self so you can find it,” he is not saying that self is bad.  He is saying “lose your false self,” the self you think is you when you change “There is a God and I’m not it” into “There is a God and I am he!” or “There is no God so I am all there is.” 

The temptations—“If  you are the beloved of God, then take charge!”, “If you are beloved of God pursue your own will,” or “If you are beloved, force God to prove his love”—all involve a rejection of our own true nature.  I am not talking about Augustine’s Original Sin or Calvin’s Depravity of fallen humanity but rather the opposite of these:  I am talking about being beloved of God.  There is a God, and I’m not it.  God is love, and I am loved.  And because of this, I can love.  Denying this, or confusing it with cheap imitations of power and love, again is practical atheism. 

For in fact, we are beloved of God, regardless of our disabilities and failings.  Henri Nouwen writes, 

“Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection. Success, popularity, and power can indeed present a great temptation, but their seductive quality often comes from the way they are part of the much larger temptation to self-rejection. When we have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity, and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions. The real trap, however, is self-rejection. As soon as someone accuses me or criticizes me, as soon as I am rejected, left alone, or abandoned, I find myself thinking, "Well, that proves once again that I am a nobody." ... [My false self says,] I am no good... I deserve to be pushed aside, forgotten, rejected, and abandoned. Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the "Beloved." Being the Beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence.”

The heart of all temptation is the desire to take charge, take the place of God.  This might be by setting up false idols like money and power, or pleasure and satisfaction of our urges in the place of God, or by constantly figuring out new ways we think we can manage or control God.  It might be simply by despairing and resigning ourselves to a life without hope or true joy.  However manifested, the heart of all temptation is our pursuit of self and hoping against hope, clinging onto things the way we want them. 

That is why George MacDonald wrote,

“With every morn my life afresh must break
The crust of self, gathered about me fresh;
That thy wind-spirit may rush in and shake
The darkness out of me, and rend the mesh
The spider-devils spin out of the flesh-
Eager to net the soul before it wake,
That it may slumberous lie, and listen to the snake.”

In the name of Christ, Amen.