Father Peter F. Hansen

Sermon for the 9 th Sunday after Trinity

August 8, 2004

Temptation

“Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. ”

And lead us not into temptation , but deliver us from evil… Mat. 6:13 The world, the flesh and the devil comprise a conspiracy against you and your life in Christ that is powerful, coercive, and quite unfair. But it is God who tests you. How do you stand in the testing of temptation?

    “The Devil made me do it!” shouted Josephine, a wonderful creation of comic Flip Wilson. She seems a kind of Holy Roller, but still a sinner who can blame the devil every time she does something wicked. It would be convenient if we could say of all our sins that the devil made us do it, and therefore we have no personal responsibility. The devil certainly has a hand in many of our sins, but sometimes we give him too much credit. We blame him for our weaknesses, for our own flesh calling us away from goodness, or for what the world of men presents us with.

     Temptation : such a familiar mine field we tread each day. Some days are easy, some days the howling winds of temptation deafen our ears and make us hopeless to resist. There are so many kinds of temptations; we may run from one right into the arms of another.

     In her wonderful treatment of personal and societal sin, Dorothy Sayers gave a speech to Parliament entitled: “The Other Six Deadly Sins.” By this she meant that there are at least six areas of sin we are tempted to other than lust. When we hear the word “ temptation ,” we may assume it to mean only one thing. The entire seven deadly list goes: Pride, envy, anger, covetousness, gluttony, lust and sloth. When we think of temptation , we may only conjure up an image of a Lady Godiva astride a glossy horse, with cascades of blond hair just barely hiding flesh, leaning toward us with a foxy look in her eye, and holding out an apple with just one bite gone . That is, my friends, such a worn-out stereotype for sin that we may as well laugh and turn the page on it. Temptation comes in so many different flavors today.

     And how are we tempted to pride ? Oh, pride has such inroads in us, in our psychological natures, it can disguise itself as family defense, manliness, moral indignance, wisdom, courage, or even shame . Pride causes us to forget Who God is, and who we are. That forgetfulness is the worst thing about it: for when it gets hold, we can't see it in ourselves . We are blinded by pride. Only the Holy Spirit can penetrate the fog it creates in us. When He does reach us, the test will be if we listen and become humble again.

     Envy is the devil's curse on our lives, and has yet more permutations. It's what we often inaccurately call jealousy , by which we may mean hating another for what they possess. Lucifer envied God in heaven the glory He had and wanted worship coming to himself instead . Envy and pride commingled are a deadly combination. Envy at a societal scale is class warfare , outrage of the have-nots against the haves. It gave rise to communism . The green monster lurks near your heart at times, and it is only charity , that greatest of gifts of God, that can defeat it in you.

     Anger is a beast called to defend your castle, an ogre under your bridge who lashes out against others and causes you to lose self-control. There is a godly form of anger, and Jesus showed this in the Temple where the coins were exchanged and animals sold, and when the Pharisees forbid Him to cure the sick on the Sabbath. His anger does not excuse us to be angry . St. Paul says: “Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath.” Ephes. 4:26 If anger is called for, don't let it stray into sinfulness, and a good safeguard is to be sure you cool off by nightfall. You may become angry reading the news. A root of bitterness over the world and its evil ways can go down deep in you, getting your goat every time you see it happen again. You have to learn to trust God , and let His living water quench those fires.

   Covetousness is wanting a Cadillac SUV because it looks cool. It's wanting yet another pair of shoes when your 40 or more are still in good repair, Amelda . The advertising industry would never work so well as it does without tapping into our covetous natures. If you are perfectly happy as you are, with your possessions, driving just the car you have and wearing your comfortable things, covetousness may not get hold of you. Thankfulness defeats this one.

     Gluttony is a double bacon triple-cheeseburger with super-size fries and a 32 oz. Diet Coke. What do you need all that for? This sin, and the temptation to it, covers all sins of intake—food, drink, drugs, and leads to couch potatoes and obesity. The unfortunate subjects of this sin often are easy to spot. But some gluttonous habits are merely to demand our small portion just so—dry toast please, just golden brown on one side and still soft on the other, with Spanish marmalade, Seville oranges and unsalted butter. Now please.

     Lust we already covered…

     Sloth is laziness. How is one tempted by that? Duty calls, chores are there to do, but our comfort is too important to us and we feel too much like taking it easy. Americans overwork, it's true, but then we over-rest as well . We hardly ever play, and recreation has become taking a nap. It was predicted 50 years ago that by now modern man would only work 2-3 hours a day, his hardest task finding ways to spend his leisure time. While that may not have happened, we do spend an awful lot of time before TV tubes and computer monitors, our bodies languishing into mere appendages meant to support these heads, hands and fingers for remote buttons and computer mice.

     Back to lust. While most of us don't have a subscription to Playboy anymore, we don't have to. An Internet hook up is all that the lustful need to see more than our fathers ever dreamed of, and satellite TV shows it all as well. In the quiet darkness of our homes, we are invited to look at things. These things are people, and what they want is unimportant to us: we control the search, and speed of images before us. What are we looking at? This is an arena no one predicted 50 years ago. It is the edge of a pit and the addiction is hideous. There is no “ other woman ” for the man sunk into pornography, and yet he is just as lost. And seeking to hide his secret, he must now buy expensive software that erases his tracks so his wife or employer can't find what he's been up to. And in the quiet house, all alone, the temptation comes again. “Who am I hurting,” he asks himself. Fool : he is tearing down his house, and creating a monstrously powerful industry for tricking other fools, and failing to provide for himself and his family a covering of righteous thought and desire.

     Temptation : it really has our number, doesn't it? The world, flesh and Satan call us back into the mire. But what power do they have, really? The beguilement seeks to have us forget God. God: how does He figure into being tempted? Remember the words of our Lord's Prayer : “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” He knew we would be tempted, but He instructs us to ask the Father not to lead us there. Does God lead us toward temptation? Here we must be careful of our meanings. St. James wrote: “ Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.” James 1:13-14 God does not offer us the apple, slightly bitten. But He may lead us over to where the lady sits astride her steed . God tests us. The temptations are always around us. That was what drove medieval men and women into cloisters, to live their lives under cowls, chanting endless Psalms. The Desert Fathers discovered, however, that even living alone in the wilderness, temptation stalks us. Jesus was led by the Spirit to a place where Satan tempted Him. Matthew 4:1 God puts us to the test, from time to time. And, says St. Paul, “ No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, that you may be able to endure it.” 1 Cor. 10:13 This may not comfort you, because you wanted to blame the Devil who made you do it. God always provides escape and God is there in the middle of your direst temptations. Let this comfort you . Your test may come to the breaking point, but God knew that before He brought you there. The test may have been to show you how you need Him. Next time remember God, in the middle of your worst temptation, and call out to Him before you fall . Surprise yourself with how His cool hand of comfort can douse the flames of passion or quiet the desperate voice of pride or envy.

     Temptation is for our benefit . That may be hard to believe. Sinning does not help us, and falling before temptation weakens us for the next turn at testing; but even in this cycle of sin, God can use our failures for our cure. Only at his lowest point of failure did the prodigal son turn his mind back toward home. Only when his lusts and wastefulness had taken their toll did he realize the value of his father's love. If so, then it might have been worth it. God works in such ways.

     So , “Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?” Romans 6:1 Of course not. Sin teaches us our need for God. It holds no promise of any real joy in this world, and certainly not in the next. That longing for the life of sin should , as we get older, be tempered with experience that the promised pleasures do not pay out as advertised, but carry a weight of sorrow and shame, guilty feelings and alienation that the momentary pleasure cannot possibly be worth.

    A man died in your place, and while He was dying, that little guilty pleasure of yours was laid on His wounded shoulders. You may stand before the Cross of Jesus and tell Him you're sorry, or you may say that you don't give a darn. But the next time you are tempted, remember His words with which He defeated Satan for a season: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God… Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God… Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.” Matthew 4:4, 7, 10 “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” PFH+