Gn 2:7-9; 3:1-7

Temptations for a Fast-fix and Hard Miracle

Feb.10, 2008, 1^st Sunday of Lent: the Temptations of Christ

Genesis 2:7-9; 3:1-7 Romans 5:12-19 Matthew 4:1-11

To the churched and unchurched[1]

gathered in a church not built by human hands[2]

First Reading
The temptation of Adam (Gen 2:7-9; 3:1-7)

The Lord God formed man out of the clay of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and so man became a living being. Then the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and placed there the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground the Lord God made various trees grow that were delightful to look at and good for food, with the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the animals that the Lord God had made. The serpent asked the woman, “Did God really tell you not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?” The woman answered the serpent: “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; it is only about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, ‘You shall not eat it or even touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman: “You certainly will not die! No, God knows well that the moment you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods who know what is good and what is evil.” The woman saw that the tree was good for food, pleasing to the eyes, and desirable for gaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized that they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together

The Gospel

Alleluia, alleluia.

A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew

Glory to you, Lord.

The temptation of Jesus, son of Adam (Mt 4:1-11)

At that time, Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the Devil. There he fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was hungry. The tempter approached and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become loaves of bread.” He said in reply, “It is written: One does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.”

Then the Devil took him to the holy city, and made him stand on the parapet of the temple, and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written: He will command his angels concerning you and with their hands they will support you, lest you dash your foot against a stone.” Jesus answered him, “Again it is written, You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.”

Then the Devil took him up to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their magnificence, and he said to him, "All these I shall give to you, if you will but bend your knee before me and worship me.” At this, Jesus said to him, “Get away, Satan! It is written: The Lord, your God, shall you worship and him alone shall you serve.” Then the Devil left him and, behold, angels came and ministered to him.

The Gospel of the Lord.

Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
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Introduction

The three temptations of Jesus

In Dostoyevsky’s Brothers Karamazov, the Grand Inquisitor asks Christ, “Dost thou think that all the combined wisdom of the world could have invented anything in depth and force equal to the three temptations put thee by the wise and mighty Spirit in the desert?” (Chapter on The Grand Inquisitor) Scripture’s formulation of the three temptations of Jesus as found in Matthew, Mark and Luke is always recounted on the first Sunday of Lent ( Cycle A in Mt 4:1-11; Cycle B in Mk 1:12-13; Cycle C in Lk 4:1-13).

St. Mark describes the temptations of Jesus only generically. Matthew and Luke, on the other hand, list three specific attractions to sin: that of bread, self-vindication and glory. Those are the temptations of all of us, and those were the temptations of Jesus, a son of Adam.

The Devil tempted Jesus with bread. The Grand Inquisitor in Brothers Karamazov aptly characterizes bread as temptation when he tells Jesus, “Give the people bread and they will run after thee like a flock of sheep, grateful and obedient." After his forty-day fast, Jesus was hungry, and the Devil enticed him to turn stones into bread (Mt 4:3-4). Jesus resisted the temptation. Instead, he quoted scripture: “Man does not live by bread alone” (Dt 8:3).

The Devil then tempted him with self-vindication. He winged Jesus high up to the pinnacle of the Temple. There he challenged him to prove himself as God’s Son by jumping off and trusting that God would rescue him from certain death below (Mt 4:5-7; Ps. 91: 11-12). Again, Jesus resisted the temptation. Again, he quoted scripture: “You must not put the Lord your God to the test (Dt 6:16).

Finally, the Devil tempted Jesus with glory and wealth. He took him up to a very high mountain where they could see the glorious kingdoms of the world spread out before them. There the Devil promised to bestow all the glitter and gold of those kingdoms upon Jesus if he would only fall to his knees and worship him (Mt 4:8-10). Again, Jesus resisted the temptation, and again he quoted scripture: “You shalt do homage to the Lord your God; him alone shall you adore” (Dt 6:13). The Devil finally gave up on Jesus, and angels came to minister to him exhausted by the ordeal of temptation.

St. Paul’s Letter to the Hebrews immediately comes to mind: “Our high priest [Jesus] is not one who cannot feel sympathy with our weaknesses. On the contrary, we have a high priest who was tempted in every way that we are, but did not sin. So let us confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and favor, and to find help in the time of need” (Heb 4:15-16). On the first Sunday of Lent we are consoled with thought that the Lord has great sympathy for us sinners, for he himself knows what it means to be tempted.

The temptation for a fast-fix

The Grand Inquisitor in Dostoyevsky’s Brothers Karamazov was right to claim that the combined wisdom of the world could not have invented anything in depth and force equal to the three temptations put to Jesus by the wise and mighty Spirit in the desert. This scripture passage is mystical, and it lends itself to different interpretations depending on who we are and where we are in our life’s journey.

Sometimes I see the three temptations as simply that ever-present human temptation of ours for the fast-fix. The Devil’s command that the hungering Jesus change stones into bread is a fast-fix for bread. But there is no fast-fix for bread. There is only the long haul: seed grown into grain, grain grounded into flour, flour kneaded into dough and dough baked into bread.

The Devil’s command that Jesus prove himself to be the Son of God by jumping off the pinnacle of the Temple and then counting on rocky ground below is also a fast-fix. We prove ourselves to be sons and daughters of God as Jesus did: through a long haul.

The Devil’s command that Jesus fall to his knees and worship him, and then all the glory and gold of the world would be his is, indeed, a fast-fix. Glory and gold come not through a fast-fix but through a long haul. The glory and gold of the world Olympics or of the recent Super Bowl victory by the New York Giants are the reward of a very long haul.

Blessed are they who resist the temptation for a fast-fix which often does not fix anything, and sometimes it is even lethal. Blessed are they who give themselves to the long haul; they shall, indeed, fix what needs to be fixed. The Lenten task before us is to give ourselves with hope and courage to whatever long haul our journey is asking of us.

The temptation for a hard miracle

St. Thomas Aquinas speaks of first class miracles and second-class miracles. By first class miracles he means the really miraculous miracles -- the “hard” miracles which defy the laws of nature and are granted once in a lifetime (if at all) -- miracles like the multiplication of five loaves and two fish into enough food to feed five thousand hungry people, or like changing gallons of water into the best of wine at a wedding feast. Aquinas’s first class miracles would certainly include turning stones into bread, leaping harmlessly off high peaks and laying hold of earthly glory and gold by a simple bend of one’s knee.

Aquinas speaks also of second-class miracles. Those are the “soft” miracles which do not defy the laws of nature but rather glory in them. They do not so much fill us with surprise as with wonder and awe. The birth of a child filling a father with wonder and awe is a soft miracle. The birth of a new day with the rising sun splashing its glory over Lake Michigan filling us with wonder and awe is a soft miracle. The soft miracles of life do not happen just once-in-a-lifetime; they abound daily, as birth and sunrise daily abound.

Sometimes I see this mystical gospel for the first Sunday of Lent simply as a challenge to resist the temptation for a fast-fix. Sometimes I see it more profoundly as a challenge to resist the temptation for a hard miracle!

It is strange especially for Catholic spirituality, hagiography and theology (which abound with the miraculous) to speak of miracle as a temptation. But whenever we have an overwhelming need for a truly miraculous miracle and make a stout demand for one, then miracle becomes a temptation for us. It sets us up for anger at and even rejection of a God who does not intervene miraculously in the critical and desperate moments of our life. Those are moments when we are faced with a loved one beset with cancer or autism, or when we or someone very dear desperately needs liberation from an over-powering addiction, or when we are about to lose our home because we can’t pay the mortgage, or when we have a son or daughter, husband or wife who stand daily in harm’s way in the battlefields of Iraq. The miracle we overwhelmingly need and stoutly demand is a temptation; it leads to anger at and rejection of a God who didn’t work the miracle we desperately needed and ardently prayed for.

The task of Lent is to resist the temptation of the hard miracle. The task of Lent is to resist the temptation to be angry at or reject a God who does not intervene miraculously in our lives when the chips are really down. The task of Lent is to pray as Jesus prayed in the garden when he beseeched God to deliver him from his suffering, and no miracle was granted him: “Father, not my will but thine be done!” The task of Lent is to forgive God our Father for not having miraculously intervened in our lives at a very critical moment, just as Jesus forgave God for having forsaken him on the cross (Mt 27:42).

Conclusion

Many miracles for those who love

The task of Lent and the Christian life is to leave the hard miracles to God and to attune ourselves to the soft ones. The soft miracles do not defy the laws of nature but rather glory in them. They are not granted just once in a lifetime but abound all through the years of our journey. They are not granted us out of the hardness of our hearts demanding a miracle, but out of our hearts’ softness. Under the picture of a magnificent velvety rose, an inscription reads, For those who love there are many miracles.

[1]] By the “the unchurched” is especially meant not those who have left the church but those whom the church has left!