early 13c., from Old French tempter (12c.), from Latin temptare "to feel, try out, attempt to influence, test."
Temptation. It sounds so, well... tempting. After all, it's not like I'd ever really choose something i felt was really wrong.
But the real temptation isn't sleeping an extra few minutes, or a decadent dessert. Where temptation gets tricky is when I see so many ways of doing good. Isn't it good to push limits, to make a difference? Surely there's nothing wrong with that.
The first Sunday of Lent is coming, and the story is about Jesus in the wilderness, a liminal space, nowhere in particular really. Wilderness isn't just desert or desolation. It's that pause between one way of being and another. Adolescence can be a wilderness. So can the time after the last kid leaves home. A relationship ends, or a job. Wilderness.
We have plenty of "in between" times when we know just what Jesus is feeling. There are choices to be made, directions to set. New paths to travel. Good to do.
But how to choose? So many paths are tempting.
Temptation is rarely about choosing good vs. evil. I don't know of anyone who seriously chooses what they think is evil. We are tempted by things we see as good. Stone into bread? I see the good in that. Make me ruler of the universe for a day? I'd set a few things right.
Sometimes it's better to follow the advice our mothers never gave: "Don't just do something, sit there." It takes a certain level of trust that the universe will survive without me. First trust. That's what I see Jesus doing into wilderness. Faced with temptation of multiple goods, he remembers first to trust in God.
Lord, lead me not into temptation. I can find the way there very well all by myself. Help me instead, when faced with so many choices, good choices, so many possibilities about how I might make a difference in the world, first to place my trust in you. Lead me through, then out of, the wilderness with a new sense of humble purpose and hope.
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