Monday, February 27, 2023

1st Sunday of Lent, Year A The temptations of Christ in the desert (Gospel: Matthew: 4:1-11)

 


 



Since I was ordained a priest almost 25 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 become 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.

 

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. Sooner or later our physical bodies will die and disintegrate. Only our soul will live on. Think of all the time and energy we put into making sure our bodies are healthy and yet within a few years all of us here will be gone to the next world. How much time do we put into preparing our soul—the only part of us that will survive—for the world to come? Are you helping your children to be equally prepared for the world to come, or are you just focusing on their success in this life, which will soon be over, and perhaps sooner than you expect?

 




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.

Think of the many miracles that Jesus worked. He always played them down and asked people not to talk about them. He didn't want people coming after him to see signs and wonders. When He fed the five thousand people with five loaves, they came back the next day for more. But he said, 'You are only coming after me because you have enough bread to eat (material things).' Then He said, 'Don't work for food that won't last, but the food that lasts forever.' In other words, look for spiritual fulfillment because material things can never fulfill us. Not even our dearest loved ones can completely fulfill us. Only God can do this. If we look to material things, and even to people hoping to find fulfillment, we will be disappointed.

 

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 with 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.

Remember Jesus' teaching on the Eucharist in St. John's Gospel. 'Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you cannot have life within you.' It says that when He taught this the people were so shocked that many of them said, 'This is too much. Who could accept that?' And from that time on, many of the people who had followed him to that point left him. But what is interesting is his reaction. Nothing! He didn't change anything He had said, He just let them walk away. His teaching is his teaching and it doesn't change because it is truth. We can accept or reject it, but it stays the same. 

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. But they chose to listen to Satan instead of 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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