First Sunday of Lent

“Jesus … was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days, to be tempted by the devil.” Lk. 4:1

Temptation.

Even the word itself is enticing, glamorous, seductive.  

Mae West, the sultry screen star, humorously put it this way: “I generally avoid temptation … unless I can’t resist it.” Billy Sunday, the famous preacher, was a little more reverent when he prayed: “Lord, Lead me not into temptation. I’m quite capable of finding the way all by myself.”

Then, of course, perhaps the greatest theological mind in the Western world, St. Augustine,  when trying to end his life-long battle with a particular temptation, beseeched God: “Lord, make me pure … but not yet.”

Temptation. It’s a major feature of the human condition.

And, that’s because, if there’s one thing you and I understand about life, it’s the reality of being tempted. Whether it’s diets we impose on ourselves, or struggles with greed or lust or vengeance, we’ve all come to know what temptation is like.

But, why would Jesus be tempted? Why would this story of his temptations be so important that all three of the Synoptic Gospels – Matthew, Mark, and Luke – begin their Gospel account with this scene of Jesus being tempted by the devil, three times?

To understand what’s really going on in this Gospel story, we have to step back and remember the classic account of the Israelites being saved by God from the horrors of slavery.

It’s really a love story – the story of how God fell in love with a particular people, the Israelites. As the book of Deuteronomy puts it: “The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession … because the Lord loves you.” 

But, after saving them from the Egyptians who enslaved them, the Lord God puts them to a test “that he might humble you, testing to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not.”

The whole idea of being tested, of being led by God, of a place of “wilderness,” of the number forty, and even of fasting, all comes from this original account of God testing to see if his people he’s so in love with will be able to love him in return; testing to see “what was in your heart.”

On a purely human level, immediately following his baptism in the Jordan river, the same is asked of Jesus.

And notice what his “test,” his temptations involve.

His Father is about to hand over to him an enormous amount of power – the power of being God’s face in the world; the power of building a kingdom of love and peace and mercy; the power of being so united to the Father that the two become one.

Jesus, then, on a purely human level, must be tested to see if, unlike the Israelites of so long ago who flunked the test, he can remain utterly faithful to Abba, his Father.

What’s important for us to see is that the test Jesus is given is the very same one that we all have to pass if we are to become a people faithful to the Living God. Our test, like that of Jesus, is to show what is truly “in our heart.”  

The test is this:

Can you remain faithful? Can you keep your commitments? Can you be obedient to your life promises? Can you make your God the true Lord of your life?

If you look closely you will see that all the tests given in this story are ones concerning what Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, calls the “Three Great Obsessions/Addictions that we have to overcome in order to really understand who Jesus is and what Jesus is asking of each of us in order for the Reign of God to rule in our hearts.”

Those temptations/addictions/obsessions are:

Power. Prestige. Possessions.

These are also the same three temptations that Jesus himself had to overcome when the devil attacked him in the desert after his baptism. These are the three great barriers that get in the way of understanding who Jesus is and what he asks of each of us.

The first temptation or obsession has to do with the misuse of practical everyday power: “One does not live on bread alone.”

Will we, like Adam and Eve in the famous garden story, be seduced into loving the gifts God gives us in life more than God himself? Will we be seduced into making the everyday pleasures of life into false gods that overtake our hearts?

The second temptation or obsession involves the fascination we have with prestige: “I shall give you all this power and glory.”

This temptation involves our desire to be glorified, to have “all the kingdoms of the world” notice us and praise us. It is the fascination we have with our own importance, with “self-worship,” as Luke puts it.  Will we be seduced into thinking that we are the center of attention, that our needs are more important than those of others around us, especially the forgotten people of our society? Do we find ourselves using people for our own self-interests and our own personal gain?

The third temptation or obsession is about our addiction to possessions/wealth. Are we so immersed in the matters of commerce and business that the language of spirituality becomes almost incomprehensible? Has the acquisition of money blinded us to the really important values of life, like the need to share, to be generous, to be aware of the desperate conditions of the less fortunate?

These temptations are powerful, compelling – even addictive. So much so, that the Bible itself begins its tale of the creation of man and woman by depicting how Adam and Eve, who represent each of us, “saw that the tree was good … pleasing to the eye, and desirable.”

Doesn’t that accurately describe all temptations? Good. Pleasing to the eye. Desirable.

Actually, it’s precisely because temptations are so captivating and seductive that we need a time of the year called Lent.

The whole purpose of Lent is to give full recognition to the power of temptation by asking each of us to, in effect, call time out on the field, go into a huddle, and look deep inside ourselves so that we can more clearly see what is truly “in our hearts.”

To help us do that, we do as Jesus did:

We go into the “wilderness” for forty days. We pray. We fast. We open our hearts to the needs of those in pain around us. And, we remind ourselves again to be faithful to our true calling:

“The Lord, your God, shall you worship, and him alone shall you serve.”

Ted Wolgamot, Psy.D.

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2/28/19