Lead Us Not into Temptation
First Sunday of Lent Scripture Readings
“Money is the root of all evil,” we’ve often heard it said. …Or is it? That saying is based on a Scripture passage—specifically, Saint Paul’s Letter to Timothy [6:10]. Certainly, throughout his preaching ministry, Jesus was highly critical of wealth. After all, “It’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” [Luke 18:25] But the familiar saying isn’t exactly what Saint Paul wrote. What he really said was, “The love of money is the root of all evil.” Now, that’s something entirely different. Money itself isn’t the root of all evil, but rather, the misplaced love. The Buddha acknowledged the same thing when he identified craving and attachment as the root cause of suffering. Material things are never evil in themselves. It’s in our relationship to them where evil is spawned.
Today’s gospel shows Jesus’s temptations. This narrative is symbolic on several levels. The first level is the timing. It takes place almost immediately after Jesus’s baptism in the Jordan, where he is revealed as the Father’s beloved Son. The contrast between that revelation and Jesus’s temptations is meant to underline his humanity because “he was tempted in every way that we are…” [Hebrews 4:15] In this way, we’re given a peek at Jesus’s true nature, both human and divine.
The next level is the location of his temptations. At the beginning of his public ministry, Jesus goes out into the desert to fast and pray. The desert is always symbolically the place both of revelation and temptation. Israel wandered in the desert for forty years because of their infidelity. Moses fasted in the desert for forty days and forty nights before ascending Mount Sinai to receive the tablets of the law. Jesus, then, relives the desert experience of Israel, only with faithfulness, and becomes the new Moses, the giver of the new commandment.
So much for the recapitulation. Jesus’s temptation in the desert is also a prefiguring. The three temptations that the gospel writers identified are the temptations that dogged Jesus’s footsteps throughout his ministry and continued to hound the Church down to the present day. In fact, these three temptations are the fatal traps encountered by every human being alive. When we look at each of them, we would do well to keep in mind that the things offered to Jesus—and therefore to us—are not evil in themselves because God doesn’t make junk. In each case, it’s the desire for these things that causes us to fail.
In the gospel story, the devil is the tempter. The term that the Greek text uses to describe the tempter is significant. Our word “devil” comes from the Greek term διαβολος (diabolos). Its cognate, the verb διαβαλλειν (diaballein), literally means to throw or tear apart, used figuratively, it means to slander, to bear false witness, or to accuse falsely. In this case, the devil symbolizes the false promises that the temptations offer. The implication is that the promised solutions will not and cannot satisfy our human needs. The first temptation is to turn a stone into a loaf of bread. The bread, of course, is a symbol of material goods. People look to a wealth of goods to satisfy their hunger and fill their emptiness. Yet, chasing after wealth—great or small—is a fool’s errand. Our human hunger is far beyond anything the goods of this world can fulfill. Some call it the “God hole.” That’s why billionaires are so rapacious. The wealth they have is never enough because the satisfaction of their craving to be filled is misdirected.
The next temptation is for power, particularly political power. It’s a hunger that consumes the weak who imagine that by feeding their lust for power, they will at least feel adequate, strong, and in control. They live in panic because, regardless of their position, they’re incapable of running the show. As general managers of the universe, their limitations and failures only serve to remind them of their inadequacies. Should they ever stop to consider their actual situations, they would inevitably see themselves as the frauds they are. Powerlessness before God is the human condition, and surrender to it is the only sane response.
The final temptation is to perform a mighty deed in public to attract attention. This is, perhaps, the most insidious of the temptations. Who among us wouldn’t desire to receive the recognition and admiration of others? Our egos demand to be stroked. We crave others’ approval so that we can feel good about ourselves. Yet, if we’re looking to find our self-worth in the mirror of others’ approval, we’re bound to end up feeling worthless. Our self-worth does not and cannot depend on how others see us. Ask any famous person surrounded by flatterers. Fame is not only fleeting, it’s worthless.
In each case, it’s not the wealth, power, and prestige that’s the issue. The world has always had people of wealth, power, and prestige who have managed them skillfully and well. I’m thankful that we’re not in that position. We’d be beset by the same temptations Jesus faced: it’s the temptation to yield to our cravings for these things and our life-or-death attachment to them when they’re ours that prove deadly. In my homilies, I’ve often spoken about the problems caused by wealth, power, and prestige. Now, I hope you’re aware that it’s not the things themselves but the craving for and dependence on them that’s the real temptation. They bear false witness to the satisfaction that they seem to offer. They become idols to which we willingly sacrifice what matters most to appease them. We’ve seen what happens. We have only to look at the world’s political, economic, and social leaders to appreciate the damage to self and others that yielding to these temptations brings. Once again, we see ourselves in Jesus and Jesus in ourselves.
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