TEMPTING!

INTRODUCTION

The title and theme of my homily  for today is, “Tempting.”

T E M P T I N G. Tempting. Did I  spell  that  correctly? 

"Tempting."

How many times in our life have we said, “Tempting”?

“Tempting.” Haven’t we all said that word out loud or in loud at times?

The second piece of Black Forest Chocolate Cake. Tempting. The affair. The money is just sitting there. The comment – especially when someone is posing or bragging and we would love to cut them down to size. If only they knew, what I know, about them! Tempting. We would love to throw an imaginary banana skin on the floor and see them slip and fall so all can laugh at them. Uuum tempting.

Tempting. It’s the stuff of comedy. It’s the stuff of tragedy.

FIRST SUNDAY OF LENT

Every year the First Sunday of Lent has this theme of temptation. Jesus goes into the desert and he is tempted.

This year’s gospel is from Luke. Last year was Mark. The year before it was Matthew. Each gives their particular theology and reflection on what it was like. Matthew and Luke spell it out a bit more than Mark, who is always brief. Matthew and Luke each give three temptations – but they are presented slightly different.

The key is the 40 days. All three, Matthew, Mark and Luke, mention the 40 days. Jesus represents Israel going into the desert for 40 years. Well, Jesus, the New Israel, goes into the desert for 40 days and wrestles with evil and temptations.

Christianity is smart. It knows we can’t sustain the same thing over and over again. Too much of the same thing is often too much. The ongoing can go out of our consciousness or make us numb. And so we need vacations and weekends. We need breaks. We need to break the sameness. So we have holidays and holydays. So we have the Sabbath. And it’s good for Christians to attend a retreat once and a while.

We have Lent – 40 days – a lot of days – but it’s not all our days. The year has 365 or 366 when there is a Leap Year. To be human is to compartmentalize and break things down into weeks, months, seasons. The Moslems or Islam have the month of Ramadan – which is only 30 days. We have 30 + 10 days – that is 40 days of penance.

Lent is 40 Days. We all got marked with ashes on Wednesday as a community. Now as a community we do penance – but as Jesus said in the Ash Wednesday gospel, do the penance without tooting one’s horn.

So Lent is a time to desert the dessert table. It’s a time of fasting. It’s a time of turning off the TV more – fasting from that a bit. It’s a good time with the weather getting better and hopefully the snow disappearing to take a good walk – a lot of good walks away from the ordinary and into the extraordinary within us. Walking is good for the soul.

To walk down deep into the desert of our soul – and maybe it has been deserted – and God is waiting there as the Alone in the alone that is all of us.

So Lent is a good time to escape, to retreat, to walk away and walk into the temple of our soul.

Now the big message – the theme of this homily: if you go into the desert of your soul, expect temptations. They are part of the landscape. Temptations come with the territory.

RETREATS – TEMPTATIONS

For 14 years of my life I worked in two different retreat houses giving retreats.

Somewhere early on – on some retreat, someone asked me a question I had never heard before, “How come when I go on retreat,  I have a lot more temptations?”

That was the first time I heard that question. I didn’t know the answer.

Then someone else asked me the same question again. Once more I couldn’t give an answer. Then I started making 8 day silent retreats at the Jesuit Retreat House in Wernersville, Pennsylvania. Frank Miles, a wonderful Jesuit priest, asked me to reflect on Jesus’ temptations in the desert.

It was then I realized that’s part of what it means to become quiet and make a good retreat. What hit Jesus hits those who go into the desert of self: temptations.

When we go into the desert to get closer to God, surprise, we get closer to the devil.

It’s one of life’s “Uh oh’s.” No wonder people don’t make retreats. No wonder people don’t pray. No wonder people fill up prayer time with words, babble, reading. No wonder people avoid silence. 

The closer we get to God, the closer we get to the devil.

It brought me back to the great book by C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters. He says it all in there. He tells us how the Devil works.

It’s actually obvious. “Nature hates a vacuum,” as I’m sure you’ve heard. Benedict Spinoza said that in his Ethics, from way back in 1677. Turn off the distractions, and we turn on to other distractions. Turn off the TV and spend that gained time in prayer and the screen of our mind will show lots of things to think about. We have lots of channels and programs playing on the different stations in our mind.

So when people pray, I say, expect distractions. You don’t have to go to confession about them. They are part of the landscape of prayer.

So Lent is a retreat – a 40 day retreat – into the desert of self – and expect temptations.

Jesus retreated into the desert and had great temptations.

What are your temptations? What are your 3 biggest temptations?

THREE POINTS

So on this first Sunday of the 40 days of Lent that started with Ash Wednesday, when Ashes, our mortality, is rubbed in our face, the readings get us to face our temptations.

Luke talks about 3 temptations. Each First Sunday of Lent I wrestle with how to make sense of these 3 temptations. This year I found myself wording and working on them this way:

First Temptation:  The Easy Way Out or Laziness!

Second Temptation: Give Me the Power and The Glory!

Third Temptation: Taking Risks or Risky Behavior

In this homily let me spell out these 3 a bit more. The second one, “Power” is not that difficult to understand, but the first one, “The Easy way out” is a bit foggy and the 3^rd one, Risky Behavior” is not as clear as I would like. Sorry. It’s not you. It’s me.

1) THE EASY WAY OUT

The first temptation to reflect upon is, “The Easy Way Out.” To take the easy way out. To not do anything. To sit  back and be lazy.

Jesus is hungry and the devil tempts him to change a rock, perhaps the shape of a loaf of bread, into bread.

That’s the temptation to wish we could just snap our fingers and solve our problems – or let someone else do all the work.

To have our daily bread, we have to go and work and get to the store.

To have our daily bread, you have to buy the wheat seeds. We have to dig the soil, plant the seed, and then water it. Then wait. Then water. Then wait. Then water. Then we have to harvest the wheat. Then we have to crush it and make meal and flour – or however bread is made – then bake it and then slice it or break it.

Bread takes work and time.

Or okay, you’re not into baking, you buy packaged bread at the supermarket. You still have to get out of bed each day and get to work to earn your daily bread.

So too all the work in raising kids.

Things don’t just happen. We have to make things happen.

Life is the long struggle – but the temptation is to cut corners. The temptation is to avoid work. The temptation is laziness. To duct tape life. Sloppiness. Procrastination. To bury our talents in the ground. To put things off. To do nothing. To waste a life.

So that’s the first temptation – to be lazy and let things happen instead of making them happen.

2) GIVE ME POWER AND THE GLORY

The second temptation is to seek power and glory for ourselves – instead of using our powers and gifts to serve one another.

We have wonderful gifts and powers:

·       the power of speech,

·       the power of listening,

·       the power of imagination,

·       the power of money,

·       the power of sex,

·       the power of being a male,

·       the power of being a female,

·       etc.

How well do I use my powers and do I use them to build others up or to build myself up.

We’ve all heard the saying, “Give God the Glory!”

Power is tricky.

There is a temptation to Lord it over others – to act like God – out of laziness – or feelings of inferiority – or knowing down deep we are not God.

The devil asks Jesus to give him the power and the glory.

We’ve all heard the saying from Lord Acton of England, “Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Power is sneaky. It needs to be watched. It can corrupt us.

Those of you who are married know the power of sex. Do you use it well – to embrace, to help, to love one another?

You who are well married know that the word “intercourse” means to talk, to communicate, to use the language of love – that it’s not just a physical moment – but it’s a 24-7 communication – that love making needs to include working and walking with each other – cooperating and eating and sharing and communicating with each other. You know that using or withholding sex can be a powerful weapon – instead of a way of serving one another.

Money is power – the so called “God Almighty Dollar” – and it can be used to help or hurt folks.

A car has power – how well do I drive?

Alcohol has power – it can help folks relax in moderation – but it can also powerfully destroy human beings and wrap people around a bottle.

Here I am in the pulpit. As preacher I try to be wary of using the pulpit for my own glory – to let it go to my head. I have to be careful of the bully pulpit – to try to bully you – and you don’t have a voice back. I remember my sister saying, “It’s not fair. Sometimes as I’m listening to a sermon, I want to scream and I can’t. He’s got the mike and I don’t.”

I believe there are some topics that are more for an open forum than for a pulpit – for a forum where all can speak.

I have to be aware of the Golden Rule: What do I need from these readings if I was sitting there listening to these readings.

I have to be aware of the other Golden Rule for preaching: 10 minutes.

Power is tricky.

Look at the problem of priests who abused people. As I listened to people who have given us workshops on this, I kept on hearing that it is an abuse of power.

As I reflected on today’s gospel and the phase in it that we all know, “The Power and the Glory” – I wondered about Graham Green’s book by that title. I hadn’t read it in years. So I did a bit of research on it. It’s a powerful story of a priest – the so called, “Whiskey Priest” and his Calvary, his cross, his being hunted in Mexico at a time no priests were allowed. I remember reading it slowly and so much hit me – his dealing with redemption and pain and suffering. It’s a good read for Lent.

Well surprise, I found out something I didn’t know. Graham Green wrote the  book in 1940. 13 years later, 1953, a Cardinal Pizzardo in Rome condemned it. Then a Cardinal Griffin in England,  condemns it – along with two books other books, his so called, “Catholic Novels”. Brighten Rock and The Heart of the Matter. Evelyn Waugh, a friend of Graham Green said to him, “Why don’t you wait 13 years to reply?”

In reading about this I noticed the following: Graham Green meets Paul VI who said to him on the side, “Some aspects of your books are certain to offend some Catholics but you should pay no attention to them.”

3) RISKY BUSINESS

The third temptation is to take unhealthy risks.

The devil asks Jesus to jump off the temple and let the angels catch you.

We need to exercise and eat right. We need to get medical checkups. We need to take care of our health. Smoking and couch potatoing are not smart.

We need to drive carefully and wear seat belts and get our car serviced – and to check our tires.

Common sense  instead of a sense of reckless risk taking is the call of life.

We need to be aware of the danger of having an affair – that it can be endanger our marriages and our families.

We need to be wise with our spending – keeping without our budget.

We need to pray and have a healthy spiritual life.

And then there is the risk of hell. I don’t know about you, but I don’t worry about hell in the hereafter as much as going to hell in the here and now – thru risky behavior and risk attitudes.

It’s not smart to walk on the edge of the cliff of danger – expecting God to rescue me – or to blame God when we go over the edge.

I remember being stationed with a priest who slowly drank himself to death. We intervened. We tried to get him help – but he resisted strongly. I remember writing a poem called, “Slow Suicide.” He did not kill himself with one shot, but many shots.

Risky behavior.

Taking risks can be a dangerous temptation.

CONCLUSION

I didn’t practice what I preached – one of the regular sins of preachers – because I have gone over time.

So I conclude by saying, these 3 temptations are right there in the Our Father.

The first and third are in the regular part of the Our Father, “Give us this day our daily bread” and “Lead us not into temptation.” The second is found in the old addition to the Our Father which Protestants say right at the end of the Our Father and Catholics say at Mass right after a short prayer.

“For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours, now and forever. Amen.