confronting temptation

Sunday March 1

Readings: Gn 2:7-9; 3:1-7; Rom 5:12-19; Mt 4:1-11

I’d be engaging in a near impossible task if I tried to sum up the first two readings – the first being the story of humans in the garden of Eden and the second being a very complex theology of sin put forth by St. Paul.  Yet both represent a profound wrestling with the idea of brokenness in the world and in our own lives.

Almost any time you hear the bible talk about “sin” it is not referring to personal sins.  Those are usually in the plural (because they are many!) but also because the biblical imagination differentiated it a little differently than our singular translation of the word.  “Sin” is one of the ways the scriptures talk about structural evil.  It’s not the little decisions we make so much as the macro arrangements that are made and built into the fabric of society that generally benefit one group and harm others.  Call it injustice, oppression, inequity, etc.

So when we read the gospel and hear that the “devil” is tempting Jesus, it is important to think about this story as a collective tale as well as what happens to Jesus.  Think of it, perhaps, as an inner conversation that Jesus is having with himself and the social structures of the world around him.

The setting is also very important here.  Jesus is in the wilderness.  He’s been there for 40 days – apprenticing himself to the land (which is our primal connection – although most of us in the United States have nearly lost this connection).   The wilderness is where the prophets emerged from.  The wilderness is where John the Baptist lived.  The wilderness is the place that we are called back to in order to be made wild again.

My friend Todd Wynward from Taos, NM, has been doing a lot of thinking in recent years about the need to “rewild” ourselves as followers of Jesus.  Read his words slowly when he describes the common expression of modern Christianity:

Try this on: Your native indigenous character as a child of God has been distorted by dominant culture.

If you’re a privileged North American like me, your mental and spiritual environment has been colonized by the agents of Empire. You’ve been tamed and domesticated, shackled and stuffed. Despite your professed values of love and justice, you often make choices that are unfair, unjust, and unhealthy for the world. You hoard too much, spend too much, work too much, worry too much, consume too much, attack too much, protect too much, waste too much. You love too little, share too little, forgive too little, risk too little, enjoy too little. You’ve become devoted to gadgets and diversions.

You’ve become enslaved by the tempting addictions, frenetic compulsions, and enticing attachments of the modern affluent lifestyle. If you’re like me, you’ve become addicted to Empire. Ours is not a new problem. For millennia, God’s people have too easily devoted themselves to idols of gold, submitted to Caesar, bonded with Babylon, and assimilated into Empire.

And so we meet a Jesus today who must confront these very same temptations of Empire: being successful (regardless of the cost), looking impressive or thinking of ourselves as superior/special/saved, and trying to dominate, be in control or be powerful and important.  Those are serious temptations and are supported by the world all around us.

And so we, too, must find a way to address them.

It’s also too big a task to try to write a paragraph on how we “re-wild” ourselves and resist the forces of Empire in our lives, but here are a few ideas to reflect on during Lent that might point us towards that end.

Spend more time outdoors.  Spend less time on our screens and more face-to-face time.  Practice Sabbath.  Buy local.  Eat what is in season from farmers in your area. Practice nonviolence in speech and action.  Listen to your dreams.  Pray for guidance.  Do things that ‘do not compute’.

In some translations of today’s gospel, the scripture says, “And the devil left Jesus and waited for another time to tempt him…” Like Jesus, we don’t just deal with this devil once.  It will keep coming back.  No doubt all of this will come up for us again this Lent.