Temptation. What really causes temptation? The common theory around temptation is that it is connected to desire. The more we desire something the more we are tempted. I want to propose a different theory for the basis for temptation, namely this: the foundation of temptation is our avoidance of suffering. Let me explain. This past Sunday during my sermon time I brought out a box of Timbits. I took out a glazed chocolate Timbit and joked, “does anyone feel any temptation right now to eat one of these Timbits?” I asked them, “What is the basis of that temptation? Most people would say that desire is the root of temptation. It seems that way, but is it? Then I ate half the Timbit and ask them, “since I have eaten half of this Timbit, will my temptation to eat the rest of the Timbit be the same as it was a moment ago, or greater? The general consensus was that the temptation would be more. Why is that? Is it because there is more desire…or is there some other dynamic going on? Let me suggest that the issue at the root of temptation is not desire but the very opposite, namely avoidance. When I held back from eating the rest of my Timbit, I experienced “frustrated want”. I want to fulfill my desire, but I don’t, and that frustrated desire is actually very hard to live with. It is a form of suffering. A major part of the human condition revolves around avoiding suffering. “Let me finish eating that Timbit so that suffering goes away." Once the suffering disappears, so does that temptation. For those who are familiar with addiction, my claim that temptation is based on avoidance of suffering is no huge revelation. When one works at breaking an addiction, the suffering around “frustrated want” in the pain of withdrawal is profound. The greater this suffering, the bigger the temptation is to take another drink or have a second helping of food or smoke another joint or have another sexual fling, to do the very thing we are trying to stop. This idea that the foundation of temptation is the avoidance of suffering should not surprise those of us who are part of the Christian tradition. There is a Jesus story that teaches this very truth, although it often isn’t applied this way. When Jesus took his disciples to the Garden of Gethsemane, the gospel writer Luke records Jesus saying this to them: "Pray that you won't give into temptation." Then we read that Jesus withdrew from his disciples and entered a time of prayer. Here we read Jesus dealing with the temptation to avoid suffering by praying, “take this cup of suffering from me”. But then he adds, “not my human will, but God’s will be done”.That is, “If this suffering is part of God’s plan, then I will resist the temptation to avoid it.” Sunday March 10 was the first Sunday of the Christian season of Lent in 2019. On this Sunday, Christian preachers often focus on the Jesus temptation story where Jesus spends 40 days in retreat in the wilderness (Matthew 4: 1-11). When we understand temptation as the avoidance of suffering', this story takes on new meaning and relevance for living. I find it interesting that God’s spirit led Jesus out to the wilderness where he experiences temptation. The “going out into the wilderness” involved Jesus disengaging from his normal daily routines and facing his inner world, the inner world of his soul including his mind, heart, will, and body. For those of us who value going on retreat like I do, we know exactly what this wilderness is like. For the past 12 years, I have attended Diamond Approach retreats, many of them 4 or 6 day retreats. And like Jesus, I feel drawn by God’s spirit to attend these retreats each year for I find them quite meaningful and healing. But these retreats are no picnics but rather times when I face the inner wilderness of my soul. I confront the unhelpful voices/thoughts in my mind along with the ego patterns that structured my heart and will that keep me from being the person I was born to become. When these wilderness experiences are emotionally intense on retreat, I feel the huge temptation of wanting to avoid these uncomfortable feelings. I still remember the very first Diamond Retreat in Toronto, a weekend retreat in March, 2006. It was an introduction weekend, a chance for people to learn about the Diamond Approach and how it could become a spiritual formation school for them. On Friday night, the room was packed to overflowing, close to a hundred people, many of them counsellors in hope of finding new counselling techniques for their practices, others people looking to get some quick insights that could help their lives now. But this is not how the Diamond Approach works. Instead, people are encouraged to lean into and hang out with their negative feelings and experiences, that is, embrace their suffering, and in dong so, they open up doors that lead to organic experiences of understanding, insight, compassion, grace, etc. and bring gradually healing and transformation. By Sunday morning, over half the group was gone, no longer interested. Many of them gave into the temptation of avoiding their suffering. For me, I was hooked for I knew, through my own difficult life experiences, that spiritual transformation involved embracing our sufferings rather than avoiding them. Let me focus on two of Jesus’ temptations in this temptation story (Matthew 4: 1-11) because I think they bring new understanding to the experience of temptation. In the first temptation, 'the tempter came to him and said, "Since you are God's Son, command these stones to become bread."' There is a tempting lie in this first temptation. “Jesus, you should not have to suffer. My goodness, you are the supposed Son of God. You don’t need to suffer hunger. Turn this stone into bread and eat.” How many people, especially religious people, believe that they should not have to suffer? How many people believe that hunger, anxiety, fear, tiredness, depression, pain, guilt, shame, aloneness, hurt, all the negative experiences in life, should not be part of life? That there is no godly purpose to suffering? No good reason why pain or suffering is happening to us? If we believe this to be true, what is the huge temptation? To take away that suffering…by eating something, doing something, saying something, buying something, taking something, denying something, blaming someone. What would happen if we gave into this temptation and never allowed ourselves to experience pain and suffering and thus God’s spirit could never minister to us and transform this pain/suffering? One image that comes to my mind are zombies. Zombies are dead people who walk around alive but have no feelings. I went looking for zombie images on the internet…and many of them were all gory and bloody. But people who are numb to their pain and feelings are often like that, very insensitive and hurt many people around them. Pain and blood follow them. What is Jesus’s response to this temptation….from that tempting voice? “It is written, “People don’t live by bread alone, but by every word spoken by God.” Interesting. Jesus is saying that people don’t just live on physical food. There is actually another type of food available that people need, another type of our hunger, This hunger requires spiritual food, experiences of truth and comfort shared by God’s spirit to us in the midst of suffering. If we quickly take away our hunger, we loose access to this spiritual food that comes from God’s spirit in response to our hunger, our suffering. Lets move to another of Jesus’ temptations. “The devil brought him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. He said, "I'll give you all these if you bow down and worship me." The second temptation is around power. The reason people and we are attracted to power is because by experiencing power, we avoid experiencing a feeling we hate, namely the feeling of vulnerability which people confuse with the experiences of powerlessness and weakness. The power we often see practiced in the world is one of invulnerability, the belief that no one can touch us, question us, hurt us. We can do whatever we want. We have absolute power. As Christians, there is a part of us that wants to believe that Jesus had this type of power. To this temptation, Jesus replied, “It is written in scripture: you will worship the Lord your God and serve only God.” This is an interesting response. People often assume that God has this type of power that the devil said Jesus had, a power that is almighty, invulnerable, unmovable, that God can do whatever God wants. But Jesus says, “No, Devil, I can’t use power in the way you would use it. I worship and serve only my Lord God, and this God using power differently.” This begs the question, what does God’s power actually look like? As a Christian pastor, the story that captures God’s power most clearly for me is the story of Jesus clearing the religious temple. In this story, Jesus confronts the injustices happening in the main temple in Jerusalem. Seeing how the temple system and religious leaders had made religious care into a money-making business, Jesus was furious, upsetting the money changer tables and yelling: ”this sacred place is meant to be a place of prayer, but you have made it a den of robbers.” After this confrontation around truth, love, and justice, Jesus retreated, but that confrontation set the stage for the suffering that he, in the end, would experience. Jesus practiced a power based on truth and love and that means using power in vulnerable ways, ways that may in the end bring pain unto us. If Jesus had chosen to follow the ways of the Devil, he would have used power, in whatever way was necessary, to attain his goal. There are lots of leaders in our world currently who use power in this way, a power that does not embrace vulnerability and avoids suffering at every turn. In our politics right now in Canada, we are actually seeing this conflict play out between two power systems, one based on truth and vulnerability and one based on power and avoidance of vulnerability. I remember thinking, when Jody Wilson-Raybould publicly shared her experience of the interactions with the Prime Minister’s office, how brave she was for sharing her truth, but feared that her testimony could destroy her political career. She chose not to give into the temptation to avoid suffering, but instead entered a place of vulnerability by sharing her truth. Jane Philpot made a similar choice when she chose to step down from the government cabinet a few weeks ago due to her discomfort with how the Prime Minister’s office was handing this whole affair. Thankfully, what is happening in Canada is different than what has been happening in the US where anyone who risks being vulnerable by speaking their truth and resisting the temptation to not suffer, has been fired and kick out of the government. I think of the Me Too movement, and some other protests movements. All of these people who are risking to share their truth in vulnerable ways are resisting the second temptation Jesus faced. Instead, they are worshipping and serving the God, we as Christians, worship, whether they realize it or not. The final observation I want to make about the temptation story of Jesus is how it ends. The story ends with these words, “The devil left him, and angels came and took care of him.” The Bible story where Jesus prays, “take this cup of suffering from me” ends in a similar way, “ Then a heavenly angel appeared to him and strengthened him.” Both of these stories teach us that God’s spirit ministers to us in the midst of temptation. When we resist the temptation to avoid vulnerability, hunger, suffering, negative feelings, conflict, and change/growth, we open the door in our soul that makes it possible for God’s spirit to minister to us, either directly or through people that God brings into our life to comfort and guide us. We may hear gentle thoughts and voices in our mind. We may have experiences of compassion, love, grace, and strength that touch our soul. We have may special people enter our lives at the right time to provide us the support or whatever we need for the difficult experiences we find ourselves in. When this happens, we know that God’s angels have been ministering to us…in the midst of our time of temptation.
Questions to Ponder 1. When have you experienced wilderness times in your life, when you confronted the inner world of your soul full of unhelpful voices/thoughts and structured patterns in your heart (feelings) and gut (motivations). What was that like for you? What temptations did you experience? 2. When have you experienced the temptation to avoid suffering? What negative experiences (feelings, conflict, change/growth, etc.) were you trying to avoid? 3. What type of power do you admire and seek after? How do you avoid vulnerability and the experience of vulnerable power? 4. How has God’s spirit ministered to you in the midst of your temptations? What insights did you receive? What fruits of God’s spirit or essential qualities did you experience that brought healing and blessing to you?
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