Temptation, desire, and self-denial

Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7

15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”

     1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.’ ” 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die, 5 for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.

Matthew 4:1-11

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tested by the devil. 2 He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterward he was famished. 3 The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” 4 But he answered, “It is written,

‘One does not live by bread alone,    but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ”

5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, 6 saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written,

‘He will command his angels concerning you,’    and ‘On their hands they will bear you up,so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’ ”

7 Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ”

8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, 9 and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” 10 Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written,

‘Worship the Lord your God,    and serve only him.’ ”

11 Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.

Temptation is one of those words seems to have dropped at out of my vocabulary.  To emphasize temptation seems to play into a worldview in which life is a kind of battlefield full of landmines, or - in more spiritual terms - a dangerous realm lurking with demons eager to harm us.  The world is an essentially negative place, and we resist the temptations lurking around every corner by avoiding interaction with the world.  This version of the faith makes evil more prevalent than good, the devil more present than God, and must be rejected.  

But then it also must be said that the foundational story in the Bible is explicitly a story of temptation, and it is succumbing to temptation which results in the curse of creation.  Or, at least, that’s one way of describing this inexhaustibly rich story.  God created Adam and Eve in God’s image and placed them in the Garden of Eden.  They were to enjoy creation, to be fruitful and multiply.  But there was one prohibition: “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”

One of the standard questions is why God would place such a tree in the garden?  Does not this tree present the very possibility of temptation?  And without it, would there have been nothing to tempt?  And the standard answer is something like, that without this tree - without an alternative, without the possibility of rejecting God - that there can be no embrace of God.   It is the presence of this tree which makes free will, human autonomy, a reality.  

And, indeed, Adam and Eve do indeed possess the capacity for disobedience, to hear God’s command and reject it, to decide that they know best.  But this temptation arises not as their own idea, but as introduced by an outside agent, the serpent.  And why is there a sinister snake in the garden?  How is there a creature already subverting God’s purposes even before the humans have gone astray?   Has not then “the fall” already happened and the humans merely catch a ride on the way down?  

This story can be endlessly explored, but it can be pushed too far.  The essential purpose, to my mind, is to give an account of creation as creation - the human condition in particular - and God’s relationship to it.  And the story expresses what we each experience, both the beauty and the brokenness of the world, the sense that this is our home while it also is not, that something has gone wrong which needs to be made right, that we are estranged from one another because we are estranged from God.  

The serpent represents the the reality of evil in the world, a reality which, again, sure seems to precede humanity’s disobedience.  We might say that, while Adam and Eve are guilty, they are nevertheless also victims, that the root cause of the problem is the serpent.  

And this gets to the heart of the matter: how do we think about evil in the world?  How do we account for our own sinfulness, the will to power, etc.?  The danger in this story - or at least the danger in one way of making sense of it - is that it locates evil outside of us, it renders evil a force that works upon us, extrinsic to us.  The man caught in sin can try to get himself off the hook protesting, “It’s not my fault!  The devil made me do it!” 

But the obvious reality to anyone who’s looked inside her or his own heart is that we are all full of desires which we can’t really blame on any other, which belong to us, which, in a sense, are the very substance of who we are.  

The story of the serpent in the garden captures the complex reality of the way that sin works in our lives.  The serpent presents a possibility before Adam and Eve, encourages them to entertain it, yes, but they do indeed find the possibility attractive, they desire it.  The serpent lies, but they also want to believe.  

The temptation that Adam and Eve faced is more or less the same one we all do - perhaps never more so that those of who live in this media saturated world.  We might say that in one sense we are victims of our inescapable culture, of social media and omnipresent advertising, even as might also recognize that the desire for what we see in those images really does belong to us, even that we can’t understand ourselves apart from it, that we must take responsibility.   Some attractive possibility is presented to us and we want it, even when it’s a lie.  The difficulty - the seeming impossibility - is finding a way out, of recognizing that what we desire is not what truly gives life.

Jesus was led into the wilderness by the Spirit to be tempted by the tempter.  Again, this is presented as an outside agent acting upon Jesus even as this is somehow part of God’s purpose.  The three temptations are essentially one and the same, the temptation for Jesus to use his power to exalt himself, to reject the path that leads to the cross in favor of an easier way.   If he would give the people bread, they will love him, if he would throw himself down from the temple, create a public spectacle, people will see and believe, if he would establish himself as king, people will worship him (it’s a dubious claim that the kingdoms of this world are even the devil’s to give).   All three times Jesus responds by quoting Scripture.  Where Adam failed, the new Adam succeeds.

There’s a bit of a theological disagreement as to whether Jesus could actually be tempted, if disobedience exists as an actual possibility, even if it’s one he always resists.  I’m ambivalent about this question, but it seems significant that Jesus prays in the garden that the cup would pass from him; he’s open to plan B.  And it’s not hard to imagine how the devil’s temptations would’ve been attractive, an apparently much easier and more direct path to the goal.  

Sometimes we do consciously experience temptation - like we are aware of what’s happening in the moment - and we find ourselves wrestling between what we actually desire and the calling to something higher.  Sometimes we are strong and successfully resist, but other times we succumb to the temptation then either rationalize our decision or feel pangs of guilt and regret.   It’s true that Christianity writ large has often over emphasized guilt and regret, but it’s also probably true that many of us have over-compensated the other direction.   It might actually do many of us some good to feel bad when we do bad, to demand better of ourselves, not out of fear so much as a desire for the good.  It might help to name the struggle we’re in and to steel ourselves against the forces that lead us astray.  

But it would also be a mistake to construe the moral life merely as a personal struggle against temptation, as if success or failure depends upon summoning the necessary willpower.   For as often as we are aware we are being tempted, the real problem is that very often we’re not even aware of just where our desires are coming from, we don’t even see that we’re choosing the wrong thing because we imagine no other path and so its not really a choice at all.  We experience many our desires - both the good ones and the bad ones - unreflectively, just as a matter of fact.   Not only do we fail to resist what we know we ought to resist, worse, like Adam and Eve in the garden, we fail to recognize what is the good, what is worth desiring.  

This is why Jesus is essential to the moral life.  We might take some inspiration from the way that he resisted the devil - we might even commit ourselves to memorizing some Scripture so we’ll be ready whenever temptation presents itself.   This is all well and good, but even more than this Jesus reveals to us what is truly desirable and shows us what a life oriented to the highest good looks like.   Stuff only looks tempting when you’re confused about what the good actually is.  One we have comprehended the good, what formerly tempted us no longer has any attraction.  The challenge always before us - and especially during this season - is to learn that the way of Jesus, the way of self-sacrifice, the way of faithfulness, the way of the cross, is the way that lead to life.   And if we want to become people who can embrace the good - who embrace God - then practicing self-denial is a good place to start.