Emsworth: Lent 1
Temptation can be good!
Sunday 29th February
Readings: Romans 10:8b-13/Luke 4:1-13
‘Lead us not into temptation’ are five words that roll off the tongue, because they are part of what is perhaps the best-known prayer there is. But I sometimes wonder what is going through peoples’ minds when they are saying them. And what of my own disorganized, suggestible mind as well? To be honest, the list is endless: the temptation to say what I really think to someone who regards bishops as polite sponges, that are there to absorb other peoples’ prejudices and frustrations; the temptation to leave tomorrow’s post for a week, or more, because the paperwork at times seems to have little to do with the kingdom of God; the temptation to eat cream cakes every day in Lent, just for the sake of it; and perhaps the temptation to fill the diary, suddenly, with all the things I’ve forgotten to do, not in order to do them, but to have done them!
I don’t know if any of these resonate with anyone here this morning. I expect that they do, because for most of us, the word ‘temptation’ is really about breaking out of the mould, defying life as we normally experience it, and treating ourselves to something deliberately different. Temptation can often be fed by envy – envy of another person’s job or position, their financial situation, or the (apparent) ease with which they go about things; and then we might begin to realize that, once in their shoes, there would be another set of temptations, to do with the grass being yet greener in someone else’s field.
Breaking out of the mould is what Jesus is faced with in this morning’s gospel – but on the grand scale. Like every painting, it is carefully framed, especially in Luke’s version, the gospel normally used in this particular year: Luke takes care to tell us at the beginning that Jesus is ‘full of the Holy Spirit’, and when Jesus has both experienced and seen off each of the three main temptations, we are told that the devil ‘departed from him until an opportune time’, which means the events that led to his betrayal and crucifixion (Lk 22: 3, 28, 53). And I can’t resist pointing out that the word for ‘opportune time’ which Luke uses is KAIROS, the theme-word for the review that is taking place of ministry and mission in the diocese at the moment, and which will be the subject of the road-show at Catherington tomorrow fortnight (Mar 15th). There are opportune moments, KAIROS moments, in the life of every person and community, and it is important that we grasp them, and not let them pass us by.
For Luke, the whole of Jesus’ life is a temptation, which begins in the wilderness, and reaches its climax at the cross; and there is an irony, because the devil loses Round 1 of the contest today, but seems to win Round 2 on Good Friday. It is important, however, to see through that superficial reading of life as we experience it: God wins Round 3 on Easter Day. And it is this hope that enables us to begin Lent this week, not in a miserable frame of mind, cynically dismissing ‘yet one more’ Spring cycle of gloom, but in a constructive frame of mind, in the Easter faith, where life continues to have its difficulties, challenges, and tragedies, but they do not quite manage to destroy us. Lent is an old word for Spring, a season when we are forced to see signs of new life penetrating through the hard, unforgiving winter turf.
So what are these temptations? Out there in the wilderness, they reawaken the collective memory of the People of Israel wandering through another wilderness, not for forty days, but for forty years; and whereas for Jesus, it came straight after the great, public event of his baptism in the Jordan, for the Israelites it came after their escape from slavery in Egypt by undergoing another dramatic water-experience – through the Red Sea. First, Jesus is tempted to turn stones into bread, to solve the world’s food-shortage problems at a stroke. To this, Jesus replies that, just as the People of Israel, when they were hungry, were given that strange food, ‘mannah’, they had to learn that they had first to depend on every word of the Lord (Deut 8:3); their real – and our real - sustenance is spiritual, not just physical. Next, Jesus is shown the kingdoms of the world, which means undermining totally the spiritual order of things, over which alone God is supreme. To this, Jesus replies that, just as the People of Israel, when tempted to discard God altogether, had to learn again their special relationship with him, and serve him only (Deut 6:13); we cannot pick and choose our religions according to where we live and the company we keep. Then, Jesus is tempted to throw his life away, to see if God would rescue him, which is the ultimate test of all, and the devil piously quotes from a Psalm to back up his case (Ps 91:11-12). To this, Jesus replies by alluding to what the People of Israel learnt when they put God to the test at Massah (Deut 6:16); do not play with fire in any of your relationships, least of all with God, the source of our life and love.
A great preacher of the early Church remarked on this tense scene that ‘the devil tempts so that he may ruin. God tempts so that He may crown.’ (Ambrose of Milan, Exposition of the Gospels: Luke 4:19) There is so much needless destruction in these inner struggles Jesus experienced and won through. To appeal to peoples’ bellies – and nothing more – is to strike exactly the wrong note: we are spiritual beings as well, and therefore need our whole personalities fed, important though food clearly is. To appeal to peoples’ sense of power – and nothing more – is to offer the exact opposite of the enduring, quiet, and apparently insignificant love that the babe of Bethlehem, who was greeted by poor shepherds, and who went to the cross of Calvary alongside the penitent thief, comes to bring each day to the world. To threaten to throw one’s life away in order to see what happens, the self-destruct button dressed up with a touch of dubious religiosity, is the last resort – and one that leaves behind a legacy of pain from which it can be almost impossible to recover.
The devil does indeed tempt – in order to ruin both us and our world. God tempts – in order to crown us with spiritual strength. Just because we can do something, it does not mean that we must – simply in order to demonstrate a facile view of freedom and personal autonomy. And the message of this gospel passage is that we can be tempted by similar fantasies, which at the end of the day are so unreal, and yet which appear so superficially attractive. By all means dream about the next field which might be greener if you have to, but for heaven’s sake learn to make sense of your own – in order to see it as the arena for your own daily struggle with God.
+ Kenneth Portsmouth
