First Sunday of Lent: Disordered Love, Pears and Tempting Jesus

Today at the market you can’t help but notice the National Enquirer. What is going on with the formerly royal couple anyway? In the pages of that periodical you can learn about the personal behavior of any number of people you don’t really know. It is probably fair to say that the pages are filled with human sin and weakness and who doesn’t want to read about that?  My grandma had a subscription. 
 
In the 4 ^th Century there was no National Enquirer. Instead, Romans had St. Augustine’s Confessions. Like the Enquirer though, Augustine was willing to let it all hang out. Here is the dirt he dished on his mom, St. Monica. That’s it. Turn the volume down and lean in closer because you aren’t going to believe this. Here is what he said.

… something had stealthily snared your handmaid, as she told me, her son—a furtive fondness for wine: for whenever, in accord with custom, her parents sent this responsible daughter of theirs to draw wine from the cask by dipping a cup in through an opening near the head, she would take a tiny sip by brushing it with her lips before pouring it into the decanter. Repugnance prevented her from taking more, for she was acting not from any real craving for drink, but from a certain exuberance of youthful naughtiness, which is apt to erupt in playful behavior, and is usually curbed when it appears in children by the authority of their elders. But by adding to that modest allowance daily modest allowances—for one who allows himself license in little things is ruined little by little, she had fallen at length into the habit of avidly quaffing near goblets-full of wine.  St. Augustine. The Confessions (1st Edition; Study Edition). New City Press. Kindle Edition.

 The choice you have in life is not between God and the Devil. The choice is between God and you. The battle is fought out for the believer in the choices we make between a disordered love and a rightly ordered love. Lust, gluttony, avarice, sloth, anger, jealousy, envy and pride are all in some way a disordered love of things, others or self. At the heart of Lent, is our desire as disciples to bring order to those parts of are life that are frayed or actively distorted by disordered loves. St. Monica is a great saint and the patroness of worrying moms for 15 Centuries. Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future. But how do you start? I am going to dish it all out for you on OVC and I am Fr. John Arnold
 
St. Augustine and Disordered Love
One of the most famous books, other than the bible, is the Confessions by St. Augustine and it is written about disordered love and salvation. The Confessions is an auto-biography that Augustine wrote when he became bishop of Hippo in North Africa. The reason he wrote is that in North Africa it was known that he was a former Manichean, that is a heretic. Augustine wrote to explain his conversion to Christianity. What makes the book so powerful is that Augustine does not hide embarrassing facts about his past. In the Confessions he reveals that his parents had a very unhappy marriage, his mom drank in the middle of the day. 
cup
 
He was an unhappy child, was prone to theft and dishonesty, hated study and formal education, became addicted to sex at an early age, abused food and alcohol, an enjoyed, what we think of, as pornography. He studied off-beat philosophies and religions that rationalized his behavior and was a single parent who abandoned the mother of his son.  
 
The story he tells, is when he was running around with a group of his buddies and they snuck into a farmer’s orchard to steal pears. Here is what he said about the theft,

O good God, creator of all things and more beautiful than all of them, those pears we stole did have a certain beauty because they were your creation—yours, O God, who are the highest good and the true good for me. Those pears were beautiful, but they were not what my miserable soul loved. I had plenty of better ones, and I plucked them only for the sake of stealing, for once picked I threw them away. I feasted on the sin, nothing else, and that I relished and enjoyed. Even if some morsel of the pears did enter my mouth, it was only the criminal act that lent it savor. St. Augustine. The Confessions (1st Edition; Study Edition) . New City Press. Kindle Edition.

 Augustine had a great ability to reflect on his experience and see it for what it was. Whether it is how his mother fell into drink or how he relished, not the sweet taste of pears, but sin. During Lent, we, as did Augustine before us, practice the penance and discipline of prayer, fasting and almsgiving. Where does our understanding of sin come from? Did we just make it up? I am going to dish the dirt so stay tuned.

Jesus and the Devil: Lent begins by considering temptation and resistance
Why was Jesus tempted for 40 days?
In the Bible, 40 days or 40 years is always a period of purification.  In the story of Noah and the Ark, it rained for 40 days and 40 nights. Moses lead the people through the wilderness for 40 years. Elijah fled from Ahab and Jezebel for 40 days. Jesus, like Noah, Moses and Elijah, submitted himself to the test for 40 days.
 
Why are these three temptations offered by Satan and not some other?
Let’s consider each temptation:

1. The first temptation is to serve himself by using his power for himself.

“If you are the Son of God,
command that these stones become loaves of bread.”  Mt. 4:2

After 40 days without food, his natural desire is to satisfy his hunger. Satan tempts him to use his power with food.  Jesus quotes scripture

He said in reply,
“It is written:
One does not live on bread alone,
but on every word that comes forth
from the mouth of God.” Mt. 4

2. The second temptation is to perform a deed of power, levitation, in front of all of Jerusalem to show that he is of divine origin.

Then the devil took him to the holy city,
and made him stand on the parapet of the temple, and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written:
He will command his angels concerning you
and with their hands they will support you, lest you dash your foot against a stone.”  Jesus answered him,
“Again it is written,
You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.”
Mt. 4

Even the devil quotes scripture. Psalm 91 is a psalm of exorcism and protection from evil that says that “God will give his angels charge of you and they will bear you up less you strike your foot against a stone.” It is a Psalm of protection from evil and was, apparently, used in exorcisms.

You who dwell in the shelter of the Most High, who abide in the shade of the Almighty, Say to the LORD, “My refuge and fortress, my God in whom I trust.He will rescue you from the fowler’s snare, from the destroying plague, He will shelter you with his pinions, and under his wings you may take refuge; his faithfulness is a protecting shield.” Ps. 91:1-4

At his crucifixion, Jesus would be tempted by those crowding around his cross. “"You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!" Mt. 27:40, see also Lk. 23:37, Mk. 15:30.

3. The third temptation was to commit idolatry to achieve a good end.

Then the devil took him up to a very high mountain,
and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their magnificence, and he said to him, "All these I shall give to you,
if you will prostrate yourself and worship me.”
At this, Jesus said to him,
“Get away, Satan!
  It is written:
The Lord, your God, shall you worship
and him alone shall you serve.” Mt. 4

Remember, the mission of the Messiah is to save the world. Here is a shortcut for Jesus that does not involve crucifixion. The world, however, can’t be saved by worshipping evil. We have choice. Adam and Eve had a choice also.

Lent begins in the Garden of Eden and ends in the Garden of Gethsemane
Lent begins in a Garden and ends in a Garden. Jesus promises paradise to the thief at his crucifixion. The Greek word ‘ paradeisos’ comes from an Old Avestan (Iranian) word for and enclosed park or garden. Lent begins and ends in a garden where she is tempted by the serpent. There are three aspects to the temptation of Eve and Adam.  

So when the woman saw that the tree was [number 1] good for food, and [number 2] that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be [number 3] desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; Genesis 3:6

 St. John in his first letter, (1 Jn:2:16) described this triple lust as a disordered love.

For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world passes away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.

St. Augustine’s description of disordered love is based on this description of sin that first comes to us from the book of Genesis, describes Jesus three temptations in the wilderness and we live with today. Later Christian monastic writers would also talk about the seven deadly sins. Lust, gluttony, avarice, sloth, anger, jealousy, envy and pride. I know what you are thinking. Fr. John, is OVC telling me that there used to be only three sins, but now we have seven?  Not so fast. The seven deadly sins are organized into the three categories coming from Genesis and 1 John.

• The sins of the flesh, that is the lust of the flesh, are: Lust, gluttony, avarice, sloth.
• The spiritual sins, that is the lust of the eyes, are jealousy, envy and anger.
• The pride of life? Well that is still pride, the deadliest sin, the root of all sin. Pride is to be autonomous from God. Pride is when you are under water and drowning. It is Satan’s sin.

This human conversation about sin has been going on for much longer than 3,000 years. Reduced to its simplest form sin is a disordered loving things and people in the wrong way and preferring ourselves to God. So what to do?

Bringing order to disorder
We need to clean up our lives. The way our Lord commands is to pray, fast and give charity to those in need. When we fast we control our appetites and combat our tendency to misuse things. When we give charity, we learn to love others who can’t pay us back and start to order how we love those in our family, friend and workplace. When we pray, we worship rightly and order the relationship between us and God. Prayer, fasting and almsgiving are the disciplines of Lent
 
Adam and Eve endured three temptations: lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh and pride of life – and failed; in his 40 days in the desert Jesus triumphed where Adam and Eve failed. The Catechism teaches that

By the solemn forty days of Lent the Church unites herself each year to the mystery of Jesus in the desert. CCC 538 – 540

It is a beautiful and powerful way to live the Lenten season. The cross is where Jesus completely overcomes those three temptations, because he is going to go to the cross and he is going to suffer. He will feel pain, rejection and absolute abandonment by God. He was ready for the challenge. Lent is a time of preparation for us also.