To Rationalize 0r Obey

O Lord, in thee have I trusted; let me never be confounded. 

Little used vocabulary words – we sometimes hear them, but often assume their meaning and give them no further thought.  When I was young, and visiting with some Episcopal nuns, I heard the quote “Let me never be cofounded.”  What on earth did it mean?  Confounded wasn’t a word with which I was acquainted.  Turns out, it means confused – but confused in a very special way.  “Confusion,” so the saying goes, “is the devil’s game.”

How does the devil confuse us?  In today’s first lesson from Genesis, we have a perfect example.

Eve is an innocent, God created her that way, and she has been given instructions by God, one of which is, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; 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.” 

That is as clear as anyone can be.  But Eve, being curious, takes a look at that forbidden tree and sees the beautiful, ripe fruit on it. She must have been wondering how it could possibly kill her – it looks so good. The serpent sees Eve looking at that fruit and immediately seizes the opportunity to speak to her about the tree.  When she tells the serpent what God has told her, the serpent [says] to the woman, “You will not die…” 

She is tempted – and now she is confused, because that’s exactly what she wanted to hear, just as it would have been exactly what we would have wanted to hear.  And there you have it – who is right?  The fruit looks good – and the serpent says it is safe.  So, Eve does what we do when what we want comes into conflict with what we know we are not allowed to have – she rationalizes.  We know exactly how she thinks it through.  Fruit looks good.  Serpent says it’s OK.  I want it!  End of problem.  God has given her free will – and so - she eats the fruit, and she not only eats it herself, she gives some to Adam. 

The serpent, the devil, didn’t force Eve to take the fruit, didn’t do more than offer a more appealing alternative to what God had already commanded.  The temptation was before her.  The choice was hers, and, though it must certainly not have seemed like it to her at the time, she chose death.

Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. 

We heard about Eve in our first reading today, now we hear about Jesus who is sometimes called “the second Adam”.  In today’s Gospel reading He is lead into a place that is the exact opposite of the Garden of Eden, of that place where Adam and Eve were tempted and failed to resist.  When we hear these two lessons, we’re meant to make that comparison, between the first man and woman who sin in the abundant garden, and the one man, Jesus, in the desert, who does not sin.

Alone, without provisions, in the wilderness, Jesus is hungry, so the devil tries to convince Him that the solution is simple.  He can relieve His hunger by using His power to turn the stones into bread.  Sounds reasonable! The mere mention of bread was probably difficult for Jesus to handle given how hungry He was.  What would we do?  Even during Lent, when abstinence is requested of us, how hard is it for us to turn down the second helping, the extra sweet?  We know how hard it is to resist desires of the flesh.

And when we are thus tempted – what do we do?  Some of us are able to say “no” some of the time, but the temptation is always to rationalize.  It’s a “special occasion” or “so and so made this special meal or dessert so we must certainly try it” – the list of excuses is long, but the bottom line is the same.  We give in.  What can it hurt?  We aren’t even hungry when we take that second helping or eat the rich, sweet dessert, and as we do so we rationalize that it’s OK.  We certainly don’t think about offending God, we just figure we can diet tomorrow.

But Jesus, who is starving, says, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”  To the temptation, He says, “No!”

In the second temptation Jesus is taken to the pinnacle of the Temple and invited to throw Himself down in order that the angels may save Him.  Now this might seem like an easier one to resist, until we take into account just how isolated Jesus must have felt from everyone, both after such a long time in the wilderness, and after such a long time as a human being away from His heavenly company. How wonderful it would have been for Him to experience the presence of that heavenly company, to have their support in this difficult time. 

We know how that works.  We want people around us in both bad times and good.  We want support when we face situations that frighten us, i.e. that trip to see the doctor or dentist, that procedure we must undergo.  If we can’t find someone to go with us, rather than trusting our Lord to help and support us, we may decide to stay home.  And when something good happens, when we do a great job or a good deed, we want some applause.  We want friends around us to congratulate us.  Who needs courage or humility when we can call on friends to be our support or our cheering section?

But Jesus again says “No”. Jesus denies the opportunity to reach out to others, to be reminded just how much He matters. Jesus said to the devil, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”.

Finally, Jesus is shown all the kingdoms of the world, which are offered to Him in exchange for worship. Jesus, on the precipice of embarking on His ministry and building His movement could have much more easily taught and influenced the world from this place.  The devil is doing more than just offering Jesus power, he is actually offering Jesus the world.

We often imagine what it would be like to be offered the world as we daydream about winning the lottery.  We don’t have to think twice about this temptation. What we wouldn’t do with the power that money would give us.  We’d pay those bills that worry us, the ones we can’t seem to entrust to God’s providence, help out family and friends, thus winning points with all of them.  We’d take a vacation. 

But Jesus again says, “No.” - ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’”

All well and good, we think, Jesus was and is God. He had greater strength than do we, and thus a greater ability to resist sin and temptation.  And we’d be right in that, unlike Jesus,  our strength alone is not sufficient to resist the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil – but Jesus’ strength is.  St. Paul tells us that God has said, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness." It is a promise that He will always be there to support us when we choose to do His will.

And we immediately want to rationalize again.  We tell ourselves that we aren’t holy enough to tap into the strength that Jesus offers us, that we aren’t “religious” enough to do so.  It is always much easier to not do what Jesus, what God, wants us to do, and to let ourselves off with one rationalization or another.  But if we unpack it – what we’re saying is that we won’t make the time for prayer, for spiritual reading, for quietly and humbly doing works of kindness and charity.  Not we can’t, we won’t.  We say we don’t have the time, but what we mean is we will not make the time, because we think our worldly commitments are more important.

It is Lent. The invitation to the season, which we heard on Ash Wednesday, says - The first Christians observed with great devotion the days of our Lord's passion and resurrection, and it became the custom of the Church to prepare for them by a season of penitence and fasting…  We are the Church and we are invited therefore to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God's holy Word.

And so we choose.  Will we keep a holy Lent, doing our best, relying on the strength provided by God, or will we decide not to.  We dare to call ourselves Christians, but as such, choosing God over everything else is the decision that faces us every day.  We are human, we will certainly fail if we rely totally on ourselves on own strength, but we are Jesus’ followers and He will help and strengthen us.

And so are put before us this day and in this season, good and evil, life and death.  Have a good and holy Lent.  This day choose life. 

Let us pray:

Almighty and eternal God, so draw our hearts to You, so guide our minds, so fill our imaginations, so control our wills, that we may be wholly Yours, utterly dedicated to You; and then use us, we pray you, as you wish, and always to Your glory and the welfare of Your people; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen