A woman was shopping for a new dress and found the most stunning creation she had ever seen, but it was outrageously expensive…$500. Still, she knew she just had to have it. If she didn’t snap it up, it would soon be gone. Despite the many overdue household bills, she bought it. That evening, she modeled it for her husband, who asked, “How much did it cost?” She told him and he ranted. “How could you? You know we’re scrimping to pay our bills!”
She explained that she was tempted beyond her ability to resist. Her husband said, “When you’re tempted, tell the devil to get behind you!” “I did,” she answered, “And he bent close to my ear and said, ‘It looks great from the back, too!’”
Being human, we have the freedom to make our own choices and as makers of our choices, we live with the consequences. Some decisions may be trivial; others can be far-reaching. What I ate for breakfast this morning may seem inconsequential, but sooner or later, I would become a prime candidate for a heart attack if I habitually ate bacon, eggs and buttered toast. Such a diet would endanger my physical well being. Listening to the wisdom of nutritionists and my doctor shapes the decisions I make.
What Adam and Eve chose to eat on that fateful day in the Garden of Eden left an enduring impact on humanity. In choosing to ignore God’s wisdom, they introduced the reality of temptation and sin into our lives. They are as much a part of human experience as death and taxes. No one escapes the daily challenges of temptation, not even Jesus.
Adam and Eve’s sin resulted from their decision not to trust God. God had provided them with everything, but they felt He was keeping something from them. There was something out there even greater than everything they had. The serpent lured them into believing that by eating the forbidden fruit, they would become like God.
They were right. God was keeping something from them, namely an awareness of evil and its consequences. After experiencing sin, Adam and Eve realized they had lost their innocence, the innocence like that of a three year old who runs around the house in his or her birthday suit was now replaced by the embarrassing awareness that they were naked. By rejecting God, they had become vulnerable.
Temptations arise when we are most vulnerable. They entice us to put our own desires and needs first, to do what we think is best for ourselves at the moment, to give into our impulses without seriously considering the consequences of our actions. Resisting temptation is really a matter of resisting self-centeredness. Like Jesus, we must surrender ourselves to God, who alone should be the center of our lives. To make any other choice is to choose false gods.
Like Adam and Eve, we must wrestle daily with the fact that we can and do introduce evil into this good world made by our loving God. More often than not, we are too attracted to the prize, as was the wife who purchased that expensive dress, to consider the consequences before hand. Instead of serenely and happily enjoying what was allowed, Adam and Eve were lured into eating the fruit that was off limits. They never considered the possibility that God was protecting them from harm like any loving parent would, and from more than they could humanly deal with.
Too often, we see God in the same way, not as a loving parent who seeks to protect us, but as a rival intent on limiting what we perceive as our freedoms. We fail to appreciate the fact that God’s commandments are meant to protect us from harm. When we have experienced the consequences of our evil choices, we might then begin to better appreciate God’s wisdom.
A temptation is a suggested course of thinking and action that is not in our best interest or in the best interest of others.
When one arises, we often feel that we are being pulled along too quickly. We do not have enough time to think it through and to see all the implications involved. This is because speed and pressure are essential features of most any temptation. Temptations convey the message, “You have to do it now and if you don’t, the consequences will be serious.” When we look back, we feel we have been led astray, which is true. We went along with the devil because we could not apply the brakes of self-restraint.
We often think of temptation as an enticement to sin but the gospel suggests yet another meaning: testing. When a temptation arises, we are being tested, as was Jesus, to place God at the center of our lives.
In the war against drugs years ago, we often heard the line, “Just say no.” That is the underlying message in these readings. We are responsible for much of what goes on in our lives. We can say no to our bad habits, our inclination to blame others for our misfortunes, our waste of time and/orgoods, or our impulse to not trust God. We can say no to anything we want; after all, we say no all the time to the things we don’t like or want.
Consider saying, “Yes,” to what God asks of you. As Jesus said to Satan, “The Lord, your God, shall you worship and him alone shall you serve.” As one desert father said in the 4th century, “Draw near to God and Satan will flee from you.”