Temptation

(Katie) I am on the brink of finals week. As a recovering over-achiever, perfectionist, especially in academia, I am tempted to once again "prove" myself in the form of getting "A's." While rationally I know this to be utterly ridiculous as I already have a Master's degree and getting "A's" isn't the point, I am still struggling to overcome the temptation to find my identity in my grades.


God has a funny sense of humor. In the midst of fighting this mental battle, I am spending the weekend with Parker Palmer, reading all of his work. Ironically, in his writing, I came across his reflections about the temptation to be relevant. 


Temptation. Although this word is often a negative one for us, it actually has an instructive root. The Latin temptare means to try or test, to feel experimentally. I think within this word is the profound truth that there are some things we must act out to discover who we are in relation to them. As I read the story about Jesus being tempted in the desert, I am reminded of the educative potential of temptations. 


In the first temptation Jesus faces, the devil says, "If you are the Chosen One, tell this stone to turn into a loaf."  I find it interesting that the devil prefaces his challenge to turn stone into bread with a taunt that takes a familiar form: "If you are the Chosen One...." The tone of this taunt is unfortunately all too familiar to me (as I would assume it is for you as well) as it reminds me of the outward and inward voices in my life: "If you are talented...," "If you are an A student....," "If you are a real woman..," "If you truly care....," "If you are a good wife...." The root temptation here is the temptation to prove our identity. 


While this is an irresistible temptation for all of us, lets pause for a minute and return to Jesus' context as it must have been exceptionally intense for Him. The coming of the Messiah was a long-expected event in the history of Israel. The "Chosen One" expected by the Hebrew people was to come in the form of a warrior King who would destroy the leaders who threatened Israel's life. So imagine Jesus in the emotional turmoil of this historical event as the devil keeps taunting, "Go Ahead and Prove it." Jesus has the opportunity to prove His calling to himself and others with dramatic flair and finality. He could have easily won more believers by giving them evidence of who He was. How often in our own lives do we feel expectations, from work...graduate school...relationships...marriage....to "Go Ahead and Prove" ourselves?


Parker Palmer wisely says, "If Jesus had made stone into bread, He would have been acting mechanically, caught in the cogs of cultural expectations, compelled by circumstances to act  a role. By refusing to do so, He demonstrates and extends His transcendece over the context of His action" (p. 106).


Jesus is redefining "Chosen One" to suit his own sense of truth without regard to cultural expectations. Jesus did not regard himself as accountable for his calling to any other voice except God's. I am going to repeat this again: Jesus did not regard himself as accountable for his calling to any other voice except God's. So in his refusal to "prove" anything to devil, He was actually proving that He was in fact the "Chosen One." Jesus' ability to see through this illusion is clearly at the core of his resistance to the devil. 


At the end of the temptations, the Bible says, "having exhausted all the ways of tempting him (Jesus), the devil left him to return at the appointed time." This reveals that the temptations did not go away, despite what Jesus has been through. They will arise over and over in Jesus' life as they do in our own. Temptation is not a one time thing; they are the dynamics of the life process itself. As someone who is daily tempted to "Go Ahead and Prove" my identity, I am encouraged that Jesus has overcome this temptation on a much larger scale. The battle has already been won!