Since I was ordained a
priest almost 22 years ago, one of the temptations for me and I’m
sure most priests, has been to wish that God would do more
spectacular things through me, which would convince people of the
presence of God. I believe that God does extraordinary things through
the priesthood, such as becoming present in each mass when the bread
and wine becomes the Body and Blood of Christ, but as you know it
happens in a very humble and hidden way. It is not spectacular and if
you don’t believe in it, then it just seems to be a strange
religious ritual. So why doesn’t God do something more spectacular
every to help us believe?
The account of Jesus’
temptations in the wilderness gives us the answer. This is an
extraordinary story because it must have come directly from Jesus
himself, since no one was with him during this time of temptation. At
some stage he must have told his apostles what happened there and
what he had to go through.
Jesus was about to embark
on his public campaign to teach people about God and to win people
over for God. For any campaign you must choose the weapons you are
going to use. Jesus must have been aware that he had extraordinary
powers, or otherwise Satan wouldn’t have tempted him to use them.
There would be no point in tempting any of us to throw ourselves down
from a great height or to turn stones into bread, because we know we
couldn’t do it anyway. So this must have been a very real
temptation for Jesus, to misuse his power.
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| Wilderness of Judea |
His first temptation was
to find satisfaction in material things. ‘Give people the material
things that they want and they will love you.’ In this case it was
bread to a man who was starving. But Jesus said, ‘No. Man does not
live on bread alone.’ The human being is not satisfied by material
things. Jesus was saying, ‘I am not going to try and win people
over by offering them just what they want.’ This is what our
society does. It tells us that if we have enough money and enough of
the right products, then we will be satisfied, but we won’t. We are
much deeper than that and we can only be fully satisfied by God,
because we are spiritual and not just physical.
Jesus’ second temptation
was to work signs and wonders for the people. ‘Throw yourself down
from the temple since God will save you.’ If he started doing this,
then no doubt he would have thousands of followers in no time, but
Jesus also rejected this, because he knew that the way he had to take
was the way of service and the way of the cross, which would win
people over heart by heart. You cannot buy love and that is why Jesus
chose the humbler way, and left it open to us to see what God offers
us and then to freely choose to follow him or not.
The third temptation was
to compromise with evil. This is a big temptation for most people.
When you hear people say ‘The Church needs to get with the times’
this is often what they mean. The Church needs to ‘adapt’
(compromise) some of its teachings to the more difficult moral
demands of our age. It is always a temptation for me as a priest to
water down the teachings of God so that they are easier to swallow,
to keep people happy. But that is not what we are asked to do and
when Jesus was tempted this way, he rejected it outright. He was
being tempted to compromise with evil, just a little bit, so that it
would be easier for people to be convinced. But right is right and
wrong is wrong. We must not compromise on the ways of God. Yes, it is
more difficult, but if it is the truth then it is better to struggle
with it, than to try and change it to suit ourselves. The teachings
of God don’t need to change; we are the ones who need to change. I
don’t understand some of the teachings of Christ, but I will try
and accept them because they come from him. That is why the teachings
of our Church don’t change, because we believe they come from God.
The first reading is the
account of the Fall of Adam and Eve. They represent our first
parents. The tree of good and evil can be understood as the limits
that God sets for us. We must not be the ones who ultimately decide
what is good and evil. God shows us what is good and evil and we need
to listen to and accept his teachings, or we will get ourselves in
trouble. ‘Recognise your limitations. Don’t play God.’ But
Satan—the Deceiver—tempted them to ignore the word of God and
they did. As a result they opened up a whole world of sin and evil.
See how he twisted what God had said: ‘Did God really tell you not
to eat from any of the trees in the garden?’ That is not what God
said at all. They decided to listen to Satan, over God. They rejected
God’s word. We continue to do the same today. We think that we know
better than God’s teachings and that we can decide what is
ultimately good and evil. People justify abortion in all kinds of
ways, yet God’s law says, ‘You shall not kill.’ So much of our
country has abandoned the ways of God and look at our society. It is
falling apart. Constant killings, for no apparent reason and we still
defend our rights to be able to kill and lie and cheat.
It is good to ask
yourself, ‘Who do I listen to?’ Whose teaching will I live by?
Will I keep going back to God’s commandments—commandments, not
suggestions—or will I listen to the opposite, which is from the
deceiver? Living by the ways of God may seem ‘impractical,
unrealistic,’ but they are what makes our society work. We are
still quick to justify a different way, but whose voice do you want
to listen to? We will be tempted again and again, to compromise, just
as Jesus was in the wilderness, but we have to go back to whether we
accept God’s teaching as God’s teaching, or not. If we want to
live by God’s law, which is what works, then we have to keep going
back to it and listening to it, to make sure we are not just taking
our version of it.
In many ways I would still
love it if God worked spectacular signs and wonders now, so that
people would be easily and quickly convinced, but that is not how God
works, and I think it is good to remember that, especially when we
live in times of great change when God often seems to be very quiet.
The Lord knows what He is doing and He puts it to us continually to
follow him freely. No one is going to force us.
"Man does not live on bread
alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God".
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