The If/Then Temptation
Photo by Rui Silva sj on Unsplash
Our world is set around if/then propositions. From cradle to grave, behavior is corrected or encouraged based on how you respond to the if of the proposal. The then that follows is intended to elicit a specific behavior of the if.
As a kid, how many times were you told something like, "if you want dessert, then you had better eat all of your dinner."?
Teenagers throughout our community are cashing in on the if/then statements they have been told their entire adolescence: if you want to get into college, then you had better study, take as many AP classes as possible, and score a ten trillion on your SATs.
Adults, we are not immune to this order of our lives. We have been told that if we do better at our jobs – work longer (usually unpaid hours), producing more of whatever we are making for someone else, then a promotion or pay raise might be waiting for us.
Not all if/then propositions are bad.
If you want to lower your A1C3, then there is a pill for you.
If you exercise regularly, then you are less likely to deal with health-related issues later in your life.
If you subscribe to my podcast, then you will be blessed with conversations that can help you grow in faith without using stained glass language.
Not all if/then propositions are bad, but from where I am sitting, it seems as though if/then statements, more often than not, are used to control our behavior, our worse, are used by us to control the behavior of others.
Fresh off his baptism, after being filled with the Holy Spirit, after being declared beloved by God, Jesus left the banks of the Jordan River and went into the wilderness. Luke tells there the Devil tempted Jesus and that Jesus fasted for 40-days.
"If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread."[1]
"To you, I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours."[2]
"If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, 10 for it is written, 'He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,' and 'On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'"[3]
Mainline, well-educated, enlightened Christians get squirrely when we get to this story in the Gospels. The temptation of Jesus by the Devil, Satan, appears in all three Synoptic gospels. Matthew, Mark, and Luke agree that Jesus went into the wilderness for 40-days at the beginning of his ministry, where he fasted, and on day 40, the tempter laid out three if/then propositions for Jesus to consider. Each of the if/then propositions offered by Satan would have made Jesus wildly popular, so famous he might not have been run out of his hometown after declaring "the Spirit of the Lord" was with him and that his ministry was to bring good news to the poor, release the captives, give sight to the blind, free the oppressed, and proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.[4]
Temptation of Christ - James Janknegt
Had Jesus taken Satan up on the offer of turning rocks into bread, the feeding of the five thousand might have been a bit easier. Offering food to the hungry from the stone on the ground certainly would have given Jesus a boost in the polls.
At stake in our scripture reading is an issue of the most serious concern for Jesus' ministry and the church throughout the centuries.
Who is to be trusted, Satan or God?
Who is to be worshiped, Satan or God?
Before entering the wilderness, Jesus was baptized and declared to be God's beloved, and had Jesus given into the temptations presented to him. He would have been thumbing his nose at the One who sent him. Jesus would have been erasing the salvific work that began in his mother's womb.
The if/then of Satan would have derailed the ministry of Jesus just as he was kicking it off.
Chapter five of Fydor Dostoevsky's novel, The Brothers Karamazov, is an updated examination of the temptation of Jesus. Titled "The Grand Inquisitor," Dostoevsky explores Jesus' rejection of the offers made by Satan. Set in 16th century Spain during the inquisitions, Jesus returns and is arrested nearly immediately after he healed the sick – Jesus doing what Jesus does best. Jesus, Dostoevsky writes, opts for freedom.
Pressing Jesus after being arrested, the Grand Inquisitor states Jesus should have accepted the offer made by Satan in the wilderness. Because Jesus did not take the offer, the church now assumes the role offered by Satan. The church assuming this position assures humanity will experience happiness and security, and all we had to forfeit was our free will.
Satan's temptation in the desert and Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor seek to undermine the gospel by confusing the church's message, the basis upon which the church was built, about who Jesus is and what Jesus has done.
Namely, Jesus, the Son of God, firstborn of all creation, who once and for al cleared the balance sheet of our wrongdoing, and is now gathering all of humanity, all of creation in his grace.
Church historian Joseph Ratzinger, aka Pope Benedict, the retired pope, wrote, "At the heart of all temptations, as we see here, is the act of pushing God aside because we perceive God as secondary, if not actually superfluous and annoying, in comparison with all the apparently far more urgent matters that fill our lives. Constructing a world by our own lights, without reference to God, building on our own foundation; refusing the acknowledge the reality of anything beyond the political and material, while setting God aside as an illusion – that is the temptation that threatens us in many varied forms."[5]
What's more, we are often tempted, as Jesus was, to deny God as God, placing ourselves above God.
We are often tempted to deny the Gospel as good news, replacing it with if/then prerequisites. We are placing ourselves in a role within the church that does not belong to us.
The Good News of the gospel of Jesus Christ declares you unconditionally forgiven, loved, and saved while it is Satan who speaks in if/then conditions. We attach if/then strings to the Gospel all the time. And the church today often continues to repeat the words offered to Jesus in the wilderness.
If you repent, God will love you.
If you believe, God will have mercy on you.
If you do good, then God will bless you.
And when we, the church, when we add if/then prereq’s to the gospel, we’re wrong. We become like the Grand Inquisitor, stepping in where we believe Jesus was wrong. We’ve missed the point. We have failed to learn from Jesus’ own temptation.
We have begun our journey through Lent in the wilderness because Lent is a time of being in the desert, being in the wilderness. We live in the wilderness. We live in a world where the temptation to assume Christ's throne as our own is always present. We opt for the most reasonable decision, planned entirely, leaving nothing to chance, and in doing so, push God entirely out of the picture. God, relegated to the private, while we wander the wilderness seeking ways to ascend when the truth is that God has already descended to us.
Jesus Christ has descended to us, bring the divine gift of grace: unmerited, nothing you can do about it, no if/then's attached love, forgiveness, and mercy.
Many people view Lent as a season to get better through piety. So often, our Lenten practices are laden with the same temptations presented to Jesus in the wilderness – if you do this, then you will ascend, you will achieve, you will be blessed. And if you don't, then you are less than, not worthy of ascension or achieving.
The good news for us, during Lent and year-round, is that the One tempted in the wilderness is also the crucified One, sacrificing himself in your place, and the one who rose on the third day. The One in whom new life is made available, without prereq, no if/then's, for those who cannot resist the temptation. He gathers us up in his grace.