Reflection for 1st Sunday in Lent
At that time Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was hungry… (Mt 4:1-2)
Today’s Gospel is both consoling and disturbing. It is consoling because Jesus does not give in to temptation. It is disturbing because all the temptations presented in it are temptations to do good.
And, to cap it all, they are temptations presented to someone who is vulnerable (hungry) and therefore potentially not able to make a wise discernment.
Jesus is tempted to turn stones into bread, to test whether God will save him, and to worship the devil in return for power and riches. We might sum up the three temptations of Jesus as the 3 Cs: charity, charisma and compromise.
In the first, he is offered the possibility of winning a following by showing great charity: feeding the starving (a temptation to anyone who, like him, is hungry).
This is the temptation of the idealist or the philanthropist.
In the second, he is tempted to win friends by showing off his power: how easy it would be to abandon the normal, often slow and tedious, practices of winning over friends and enemies alike and in doing so to gain control of a situation.
This is the risk faced by any religious or political leader: to hide behind charisma and use it to dazzle followers into obedience.
The third, and perhaps the most dangerous, is to acknowledge that one is constrained by the world in which one lives and to tailor one’s message to what is possible.
This is the temptation of the professional politician.
For someone weakened by hunger in whatever form be it for food, for material goods, for love or for power all three are great temptations unless guided by a greater sense of vision, which we might see as the action of the Holy Spirit.
But Jesus is a Spirit-filled person. He sees through the temptations and proceeds on his path that will lead through success and failure, adulation and conflict, to the Cross and Resurrection, his ultimate vindication.
As we look upon South Africa, and upon those who led us and lead us, we need to examine how their policies shape up. We need the wisdom to discern between quick-fixes and policies that will bear long-term fruit.
Has charity created dependence on the largesse of leadership, or has it empowered entrepreneurship? Has charisma left us in awe of leaders or has it untapped our own inner strength? Has compromise been a tool for realism and reconciliation, or a weapon used to preserve an unjust status quo?
A prayer: Lord, create in us a discerning eye that we may see through the false consolations that illusions bring, and may we see instead those things that bear good and lasting fruit. AMEN.
- Saint Paul and the Bible - July 29, 2019
- Religious Orders: Then and Now - November 6, 2018
- A Brief History of Religious Orders in South Africa - October 25, 2018