St. Gregory’s Church Woodstock
Sunday 23 August, 2009, Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost
The Rev’d Susan Auchincloss
The readings from Joshua and John share a
common setting. In both, people are being tested. Whom will they follow? Joshua
puts the choice to the people of Israel bluntly, saying, “Choose this day whom
you will serve.” Jesus does not demand a choice in so many words, but his
teaching has reached a point where his disciples can no longer follow with their
rational minds. What should they do? Go ahead with Jesus on faith, or leave him
and turn back to familiar ground? This morning I want to focus on the issue of
testing, because I want to clear up a common misunderstanding in the Lord's
Prayer; that is, the final supplication which says, “Lead us not into
temptation, but deliver us from evil.”
The prayer works poetically, but it does not work theologically. It leaves the
clear implication that God might lead us into temptation if God had a
mind to. That raises questions about God's reliability, which in turn can
undercut our wholehearted trust in God. Before I go on, though, I want to
acknowledge that this will not so much be a sermon as a teaching; but I think
the topic is too important not to tackle it head-on.
The Lord's Prayer, as we typically say it, comes to us from the King James Bible
of 1611. Since that time translators have improved their understanding of
Hellenistic Greek, both vocabulary and grammar. Not only that, but scholars now
take into account the earlier translations, namely those from the original
Aramaic or Hebrew into Greek – translations from the earliest days of the
Christian church. Jesus, of course, probably spoke Aramaic, and if not that then
Hebrew, which is closely related. This point matters particularly when we come
to discuss the meaning of “lead us not into temptation.”
The semitic languages work with great economy. For instance, to say 'lead' they
would not need to invent a whole new word, they would take the pre-existing word
'enter' and, by adding one or two characters to the verb, change its meaning. It
would then read 'make-to-enter' – in other words, lead. So “do not make-to-enter
us into temptation” became in the minds of those early Greek translators, “do
not lead us into temptation.” But suppose they misplaced the word 'not'? Suppose
the way Jesus actually meant it would have translated the 'not' like this:
“Make-us-not-enter into temptation.” In other words, “keep us from entering into
temptation.”
The first translation sees us as helpless victims of God's whim: “do not lead us
into temptation.” The second puts the responsibility on us, saying in effect: we
are prone to enter into temptation; please, save us from ourselves. The second
translation puts the Lord's Prayer in accord with Jesus' other teachings. In
fact it is almost identical with his parting words to his disciples in the
Garden of Gethsemane: “Pray, so that you do not enter into testing.” For Jesus,
God was an ever-present loving, responsive Presence, and he gave his life so
that we might come to that same realization.
What does this have to do with our two readings? We see that in both cases the
people were being asked to make a significant choice – one that would affect
their whole lives. It was a moment of testing. We trivialize moments such as
these if we call them temptations. I could say I was tempted if I wanted to pick
a flower in a park near a sign that read, “Do not pick the flowers.” If I
succumbed to the temptation, I would acknowledge my fault and resolve to do
better. No big deal. Besides, another person might not be tempted at all. In the
Greek the word we translate temptation comes from a root word that could equally
well be translated as 'test' or 'assay', as when a miner brings his ore into the
assayer's office to test if it really contains gold. The difference between
temptation and testing is one of degree. A testing affects everyone present, for
better or for worse, with lasting implications. The people in our readings were
not being tempted, they were being tested.
Joseph Conrad captures the terrible consequences of a wrong choice in a time of
testing. His Lord Jim chose to join the other officers and abandon their ship in
the middle of the night when it appeared to be in immanent danger of sinking.
With only one life boat they saw no point in alerting the 800 passengers to
their peril, much less see them through to safety. Unfortunately for Jim and the
other officers, the ship did not sink, but got towed into port. Shame and the
pain of being an outcast followed Jim the rest of his life. In a more real way,
in my own life I have imagined being a German citizen in Hitler's day. Would the
testing have been to much for me? Would I have sold my soul and gone along with
the regime? I seriously do not know. I can pray with all my heart that I never
face such a choice, such a testing.
What makes these times of testing so terrifying? The sheer magnitude of the
forces arrayed against us. In Lord Jim's case the hull had been breached below
the water line, and the bulkhead that kept the water from flooding the entire
ship appeared to be giving way. In the case of Germany, the whole power of the
state stood prepared to crush a protester. In the case of Jesus' followers, they
felt their very sanity was at stake, their entire worldview. Choosing to follow
Jesus, under conditions such as these, would test us to the limit.
John's Gospel addresses just these situations in the first chapter. He invites
us to contemplate a light shining in the darkness. Picture yourself out in a
night so dark you cannot see your feet. Imagine lighting a candle. Compare the
vast extent of the darkness – it could feel like the whole universe – to that
one tiny flame. Astonishing as it seems, all that darkness cannot overcome the
one little light. The trick for us, as we face a time of testing, is to keep our
eye on the light, not the darkness.
Easier said than done, you say. Yet today's passage from the letter to the
Ephesians is about just that. He calls the forces arrayed against us “the cosmic
powers of this present darkness.” No doubt their sheer magnitude could mesmerize
us. So how do we keep our eyes focused on the point of light? He lists a number
of spiritual practices that will stand us in good stead. I will reword them.
Seek truth. Act without guile. Be eager to share the Gospel. Practice your
faith. Remember that you have been saved. Steep yourself in the Word of God.
These he calls metaphorically the whole armor of God. The image works well,
because a warrior cannot start to assemble protective clothing when the enemy is
in sight; the armor needs to be ready to hand at any time. So, too, with these
practices.
One final point needs to be made about temptation and testing. We do not pray
not to be tested; testing is a given for a person of faith. However, a person
without faith cannot be tested. I'll give an image. Imagine that you are
following someone who has learned their way through a vast bog. It matters
absolutely if you follow in that person's footsteps, because quicksand abounds.
But suppose you decide to take your chances and forget the leader; then you can
wander where you please and follow your own convenience; no one can say you are
“off the track.” If the trail leads up too steep a hill, you can go around. You
may suffer, but you won't be tested.
Let me sum this up. We are among the people who believe that life is like a bog.
It holds places that can suck us down. We further believe that Jesus has learned
the way through the bog. We have chosen to follow him, even when to do so seems
to make no sense. We realize that we shall surely face testings, from minor
temptations to major commitments and all in between. We do not pray for
the testing to be taken away; we pray not to fall away as we make our way
through the testing. If we want to continue as people of faith we cannot avoid
testing, but with God's help we can keep it from sweeping us off the track laid
down by Jesus. Jesus says pray for that help; the writer to the Ephesians says
keep up your spiritual skills with steady practice. The unspoken promise is
this: testings and temptations have the happy side-effect of bringing us closer
to God.