Lk 4:1-13
“Come let us worship the Lord
who for our sake endured temptation and suffering.”
Every morning during Lent the liturgy of the hours begins with this antiphon. It reminds us that Jesus was like us in all things but sin. He knew hunger, thirst, grief, sorrow, and profound fatigue. He knew temptation and suffering which are part of what it means to be human, they are part of the human condition. Were our lives free of temptation and absent of suffering we would be incapable of experiencing joy.
The use of tempted in Luke's gospel presents a challenge for English-speakers. Many automatically define temptation as negative, illicit, something we cannot resist, and synonymous with sin. But the Latin, Hebrew, and Greek roots of the word translated as temptation are neutral. Those roots include “trying,” “testing,” or “proving.” Indeed, some versions of the Our Father pray 'do not put us to the test' rather than the more familiar, 'lead us not into temptation.'
Unlike Adam, Jesus, the New Adam, was obedient to the Father in all things, even to accepting death on the cross. Satan offered those temptations when Jesus was hungry from fasting, tired from prayer, and disoriented by the harshness of the desert.
The Evil One tests us when we are in similar states of hunger, fatigue and confusion. We are tested when disoriented by the unfamiliar geography of the personal deserts in which we find ourselves: newly widowed, diagnosed with a terminal disease, the confusion when abandoned by others. We confront these temptations when we are dissatisfied with the status quo, when we are frightened or angry, when preoccupied or overwhelmed with things of the world.
The challenge to create bread from stones was not simply to relieve hunger. It was the temptation to arrogant self-sufficiency and illusory freedom. It was the temptation of taking care of oneself to the exclusion of all else. That temptation to radical self-sufficiency looms large in our lives in ways that are unique to each of us.
Putting God to the test is an all-time favorite indoor sport. God is not a divine puppet master who pulls our strings so as to make us dance. Nor is he a marionette we can control with long strings of prayer. God does not "cause" things to happen for the entertainment value of watching us struggle. And yet we ask . . .
"Why did God give me cancer?"
"Why is God allowing this or that war?"
"Why did God take my child?"
"Why? Why? Why?"
We cannot control God through prayer. “If my prayer isn't answered in the way I demand, I am through with God.” Those understandings of God are appropriate only to a child. How often do we test God in this way? How often do we demand that God answer our prayers in very specific ways, according to a highly detailed script of which we hold the only copy?
Dostoevsky wrote in 'The Grand Inquisitor' section of The Brothers Karamazov: “. . . man seeks not so much God as the miraculous. And as man cannot bear to be without the miraculous, he will create new miracles of his own for himself and will worship deeds of sorcery and witchcraft.” The late Jesuit Father Stanley Marrow, accurately observed that, '. . . our appetite for signs is insatiable. We are forever testing to see if God is still there, to check whether our prayers are getting through.'
The Faustian bargain, “Sell your soul." I will give you great power.” was the final temptation. Power. Prestige. Money. Control. Being a celebrity, or at least an influencer. These idols have replaced God in many lives. The lust for power drives both major political parties in this country and indeed most of the world. The false idols of power and prestige, money and control have contributed to diminishing the quality of our lives in many dimensions with both parties equally to blame.
Despite the attractive temptations offered him, Jesus freely chose to obey the will of God the Father. In so doing, he made it possible for us to imitate Him in our own exercise of freedom and free will, the gifts that, along with speech, set humans far above all lower animals at a distance that will never be diminished.
Freedom is wildly misunderstood. It is not a release from restrictions, rules, or responsibility. This is freedom as understood by a college student away from home for the first time. Freedom is not the opportunity to choose anything whatsoever, whenever, and to make those choices without consequence or criticism. Dogs, monkeys, and all lower animals have no free will and, as they are driven by instincts, they bear no responsibility for their actions. Freedom is not the ability to adopt individual or idiosyncratic attitudes toward life or morality. Human freedom is not the right to decide who shall live and who shall die, at the beginning of life, the end of life, and anywhere in between.
Rather than being freedom from, human freedom is freedom for. It allows us confront the temptations the evil one or the world, throws in our way. Free will allows us to say yes or no. It allows us to decide for or against ourselves. It allows us to maintain our integrity or to choose to sabotage it. Only we can decide for or against God in freedom. Only we have sufficient understanding to choose to reject sin.
In describing her adolescence, St. Edith Stein wrote: "I consciously and deliberately stopped praying so as to rely exclusively on myself; so as to make all decisions about my life in freedom." Years later, now a Carmelite nun, she described how she had been released from the self-imposed shackles of atheistic pseudo-freedom to find radical freedom in the science and shadow of the cross.
“Come let us worship the Lord
who for our sake endured temptation and suffering.”
Fr. Jack, SJ, MD
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