Temptation

by Frances Young.

Having grown up in Methodism I couldn’t tell you when I first heard about that day when John Wesley felt his heart strangely warmed. It was certainly many years later that I read for myself the account in his Journal, and what struck me was this:

After my return home, I was much buffeted with temptations… They returned again and again … But now I was always victorious.

Two days later “my soul continued in peace, but yet in heaviness because of manifold temptations.” But next day “though I was now also assaulted by many temptations, I was more than conqueror, gathering more power thereby to trust and rejoice in God my Saviour.” What those temptations were is never divulged, but turning to John Wesley’s sermons, or indeed the recommended agendas for the early class meetings, temptation is a fairly constant theme.

So I wonder: have we lost something by reducing temptation to worrying about that chocolate biscuit offered with the coffee?

Temptation surely strikes at the heart of who we are. It being Lent, let’s start with the temptations that Jesus faced. The voice at the baptism has just revealed who he really is – the Son of God. The temptations go for that: how can he be sure? What does it mean? What kind of mission is he destined for? He has gone off into the wilderness to grapple with all that. His thoughts revolve around the powers suggested by that title, “Son of God” – surely his temptation is not simply selfishly to satisfy the hunger provoked by fasting, though that no doubt was a humanly physical factor prompting the thought; rather, isn’t the temptation to gain success

• by feeding the hungry (turning stones into bread),
• by getting celebrity through startling tricks (throwing himself from the pinnacle of the temple),
• by getting worldwide authority by worshipping worldly values rather than God (worshipping the devil)?

Yes, I have de-mythologized the devil to make Jesus’ human experience more like that which we might potentially recognize. Temptation lies in our thoughts. It only becomes sin if we act on our thoughts rather than resisting them – that point the desert Fathers of the 4^th century were quite clear about. It is an internal battle, none of which escapes God’s notice, for unto God all hearts are open, all desires known. Temptation strikes at the heart of who we are: “She has the faults of her best qualities,” I once found myself saying in a conversation about someone’s contribution to a particular situation.

Part of our problem, surely, is that we have generally de-mythologized the tempter. But even back in the 4^th century those desert Fathers recognised that even if you imagined a daemon insinuating itself into your mind, it was your “thoughts” which tested your commitment. And one of the chief temptations for them was akēdia. It’s a word hard to translate – the nearest is probably “despondency.”  It’s partly boredom, partly dissatisfaction, partly grief at loss, partly distraction, partly listlessness, partly restlessness – fundamentally it was the temptation to give up, to feel it’s not worth bothering with, to go back to living a normal life.

So was this peculiarly a temptation for monks? Hardly! Don’t we all know frustration with our circumstances? Do we never feel “fed up”, never look for a “let-out”? And what does that bespeak? Surely it signifies a primary anxiety about MY situation, MY position, MY role, MY adequacy, MY effectiveness, MY standing, MY comfort, MY future – you name it! – and also, surely, a lack of trust, a failure to find here and now the wonder that generates worship, eyes and ears closed to a Presence that transforms even the most challenging circumstances.

Those old desert monks would meet temptation by citing scripture – as Jesus did; and by dismissing the “thought” and buckling down in their cell to what they saw as their vocation – continuous prayer to banish the daemons and share in Christ’s victory over sin and death on behalf of all humankind. I sometimes wonder if we mistake our mission – that it’s not so much a call to convert every individual soul, but rather to engage in this struggle in prayer, in solidarity with all humankind, a struggle to realize who we really are in Christ.

A famous monk in the Egyptian desert was Evagrius, who wrote:

Steadfastness,

              and that one does everything with great care,

fear of God and perseverance, [these] heal

              despondency.

              Set for yourself

a goal in every task

              and do not rise from it

until you have finished it.

              And pray unceasingly, and express yourself concisely,

and the spirit of despondency

              will flee from you.[1]

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[1] Quoted from Gabriel Bunge, Despondency: The Spiritual Teaching of Evagrius Ponticus on Acedia, Yonkers, NT: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2011.