On this first Sunday of Lent, we hear about temptations, those of our first parents and those of Jesus. Temptations are very much a part of life and we all experience them, otherwise we would not be truly human. A man in Alabama learned the hard way that they can really cause trouble. He broke into a house and began bagging the valuables. While handling a pistol, he accidentally shot himself in the leg. Despite the pain, he wasn’t about to seek medical help. Just then, the homeowner walked into the house.
The burglar felt that he had no choice but to tie her up. That added seriously to the original burglary offense. Wounded, the man now needed a car so he stole the homeowner’s car. Now he was also guilty of grand theft. The loss of blood and pain caused him to drive erratically. This caught a cop’s attention.
The burglar pulled over and the cop pulled up behind him. Now desperate, the fleeing criminal shot through the windshield of the patrol car and wounded the officer. Once in the woods, he apparently came close to a moonshine still. At least that might explain why someone put three .22 slugs into the guy’s rear end.
By the time the police finally captured him, he had been wounded four times. He faced charges for attempted murder, armed robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, and grand auto theft, all because he was initially tempted to simply rob a house.
Hopefully your temptations never get you into such a mess, but they certainly have the potential to do so. As the first reading reveals, temptations have been around from the beginning of human existence. No one can escape the daily challenges of temptations, not even Jesus.
When you think about them, the temptations Jesus faced after spending 40 days in the desert were much like ours. How often are we driven by the quest for bodily comforts and pleasures, the esteem of others, and/or the pursuit of wealth and power?
Temptations are always lurking, waiting to ensnare us when we least expect them. We can be tempted at any age, with any degree of sanctity. Believe me, Pope Benedict wrestles with temptations just as much as we do. In all likelihood, though, he does a better job of resisting them.
Some of us are not so resistant to temptations. Instead, we make excuses for our sins, the consequences of giving into temptation. As a confessor, I have listened to a fair number of excuses. We may see ourselves as victims of circumstances, genetics, our upbringing, or hormones. Like Flip Wilson, the comedian who often cracked, “The devil made me do it,” we might blame Satan or others for the wrongful choices we make. Whatever our excuse may be, however, the choice to sin is ours.
When we sin, we are choosing not to act as a child of God by ignoring God’s commands. That was the choice Adam and Eve made when they listened instead to the serpent, who committed the world’s first sin by lying. In his struggle with temptations, Jesus rebuffs Satan by quoting scripture. Finally, he tells him outright, “Get away, Satan! It is written: The Lord your God, shall you worship and him alone shall you serve.”
His resistance to temptation is placed before us today as an example for us to strengthen our resistance to temptation. If we want to resist temptation and rebuff Satan, then we need to pray, just as Jesus did. Like him, we need a desert where we can encounter God, away from blaring TVs and other distracting electronics. We need to retreat to our inner space and be still so that we can give God the chance to speak to us. We can create this setting in a quiet corner of our home, in a local park, here in this church, or even in our car on a ferry crossing.
If you aren’t in the habit of examining your conscience, consider making that part of your daily prayer. If you aren’t in the habit of praying alone, start simply, like praying before going to bed or upon waking up. Make prayer a part of your daily routine like brushing your teeth. Take time to thank God for the gift of a new day, then reflect on how you can be more Christ like in what you say and do, thus becoming less likely to give into temptation.
Think of Lent as a forty day retreat. That is why this season began centuries ago. Move beyond praying quickly by putting aside at least 15 minutes of quiet time to dialogue with God even in your own words. Is that really asking too much of your time, considering that all the time you have is God’s gift to you?
Is it possible for you to attend daily Mass, even one day a week? If not, how about Stations of the Cross on Friday afternoons or Taize prayer on Wednesday evenings after the soup supper? If you can’t get out of the house, turn off the TV or the computer and spend time alone reading the bible or other spiritual writings. Prayer enables us to be mindful of God in all that we do each day so that when faced with temptation, we are more apt to follow Jesus’ example and rebuff Satan.
Years ago, there was a campaign against drugs, in which the motto was, “Just say no.” That is the message which Jesus is giving us today. We are responsible for much of what goes on in our lives. We can say no to our bad habits, like laziness or procrastination; our destructive addictions, like gambling or gossip; or our inclination to blame others. We can be as resistant to temptation and sin as we want to be. The choice is ours. We have the power to say no all the time to the things we don’t like or want, so why not say no to temptation by saying yes to God’s invitation to pray as his son did for forty days?