In Matthew's gospel, right after baptism, Jesus goes to the wilderness and is tempted by the devil. Pastor Michelle noted this sequence of events in today's sermon, and quoted part of a memorable sermon she heard in her past, "Baptism is more like recruitment experience than an insurance policy." Jesus' ministry begins in the wilderness, a state of the soul where the are no familiar bearings to guide him. This experience is not about a commitment to piety but to learn how to be a participant in bringing about God's reign. Jesus is committed to waiting for the word of God and to do God's will without completely knowing how that will be made manifest.In 375 CE Evagrius Ponticus defined various forms of worldly temptation. He developed a comprehensive list in AD 375 of eight evil thoughts (λογισμοι), or "Eight Terrible Temptations", from which all sinful behavior springs.
According to Evagrius, "The first thought of all is that of love of self; after this, the eight patterns of evil thought are gluttony, greed, sloth, sorrow, lust, anger, vainglory, and pride." While he did not create the list from scratch, he refined it. In 590 AD, Pope Gregory the First revised this list to form the more commonly known "Seven Deadly Sins", where he combined acedia (discouragement) with tristitia (sorrow), calling the combination the sin of sloth; vainglory with pride; and added envy to the list of "Seven Deadly Sins".
Looking for an appropriate image of the wilderness temptation for this blog entry, most pictures show a calm, and often omniscent-looking Jesus together with a depiction of the devil as either a black face hooded figure or a horned, hoofed, dark-winged creature. For me, images like this drain all the power out of the temptations in the wilderness. Who is tempted by anything visibly looking like these stereotypical images of the devil?
We also imagine every response of Jesus to the devil who quotes scripture as immediate responses to the devil's words. Can Jesus be tempted, even for an instant, and still be Jesus? While on the surface his immediate responses appear to validate the Christian belief of Jesus truly being God, they also imply there really is *no* temptation (or certainly not how most of us experience temptation anyway). The devil stereotypes and Jesus-in-complete-control assumptions come to most of us more from Sunday school lessons rather than life and so, unfortunately, it becomes hard to take what is presented under serious consideration and apply it to our lives.
Pastor Michelle asked the congregation what are today's temptations. In our Adult Ed, the author of the article we studied, Parker Palmer, cited money, faction and fear as what we must fight against to restore the fabric of democracy and these are what tempts us away from doing good. A moment in the Adult Ed that seemed to be about this topic was Eva talking about her experiences as an immigrant being terrified by choices when she came to this country after living her life with those decisions being made for her. When I thought back to the sermon I realized with choice comes terrifying temptation.
How often, when confronted with doing something we know in our bones strays from God, are we told and comforted by someone saying "We have no choice"? That is temptation. When we enticed to a bad choice regarding making more money and someone says "Anyone would choose to do this.", that is temptation. When confronted with acting on one of the Eight Terrible Temptations and someone says or we think, "It is only 'common sense' to act this way because that's the way life works'", that is a true temptation that guides us away from listening to that still, small voice of the Holy Spirit within.
In Pastor Michelle's sermon she also said, "When we open ourselves up to listen to the voices that sow the seeds of discontent and distrust in our hearts, then we, like our ancestors Adam and Eve, end up separating ourselves from our God and from each other…" Discontent and distrust of others and of God are temptations. In Adult Ed we talked about values that come from our core (a word which derives from the Latin word cor meaning heart). Temptations, as discontent and distrust, come from our heart as well. Temptations will come from those we trust or cherish or a value we live by.
Let's examine the first wilderness temptation. The devil tempts Jesus to act from his own self-will rather than God's. There may be other reasons for Jesus to refuse the devil here but let's assume for a moment that the devil appears to Jesus in the form of a young child. The child, rather than appealing to Jesus' personal appetite and needs, pleads "I'm hungry, please turn these stones to bread for me to eat". Is this the same temptation? Can the same response by Jesus be applied?
This may be get more to the heart of what we pray regarding temptation in the Lord's Prayer.
Consider Dietrich Bonhoeffer's moral decision to kill Hitler. Bonhoeffer either was tempted to follow the Ten Commandments and his personal Christian morality or to become a participant in the plot to kill Hitler and, perhaps, follow what his heart heard as God's voice, even though it flew in the face of scriptural law. Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac is another temptation or test of this kind.
This, to me, embodies the terrible power of temptation and shakes me to my soul. God help me and lead me not into temptation.
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