K. Lebedev, Modern
Translation of the Epistle for the Seventeenth Sunday After Pentecost (Eph 4:1-6)
Brethren: I, the prisoner in the Lord, exhort you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all humility and meekness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, careful to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace: one body and one Spirit, even as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of all, Who is above all, and throughout all, and in us all, Who is blessed forever and ever. Amen.
Continuation of the Holy Gospel According to St. Matthew (22:34-46)
At that time, the Pharisees came to Jesus and one of them, a doctor of the Law, putting Him to the test, asked Him, Master, which is the great commandment in the Law? Jesus said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, and with your whole soul, and with your whole mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And the second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets. Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus questioned them, saying, What do you think of the Christ? Whose son is He? They said to Him, David’s. He said to them, How then does David in the spirit call Him Lord, saying, The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool?’ If David, therefore, calls Him ‘Lord,’ how is He his son? And no one could answer Him a word; neither did anyone dare from that day forth to ask Him any more questions.
The Saving Words of the Gospel.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Transcription of Audio
At that time, a doctor of the law put Him to the test, asking Him….
To put to the test; πειράζω (pĕirazō) says Matthew. This verb, πειράζω, means not only to put to the test, it also means to tempt, to try, to question illegitimately. Πειράζω. This man tempts God, and yes, God can be tempted, and we’ll see what that looks like. We are tempted by the world, the flesh, and the devil; we all know that, but what does it mean to tempt God? We see Our Lord, in His sacred humanity, was tempted in the desert, but at the end of it, He sends Satan packing by saying, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord, Thy God. And so, if there is a prohibition, if this is indeed a commandment not to tempt God, it must be actually possible. And here in the Gospel, we see a form of this divine temptation.
The man goes to Our Lord already knowing the answer to the question he’s going to ask. He doesn’t go in order to learn. He doesn’t ask in order to find wisdom and change his life. Like a lawyer, he knows the answer to the question even before he asks. And so, this is no way to treat God. We can scoff at him, and yet each of us is guilty of a similar insanity as that.
Aquinas says one way to tempt God is to omit doing our own part by delegating even what is demanded of us to God and just expecting Him to act without our own efforts. I remember hearing liberal nuns whose convents elicited no new vocations, and then, they shoved the responsibility onto God, saying, “Well, I guess God isn’t calling young women to religious life anymore,” as if it were His fault. On the other hand, I remember, as a young man, hearing a priest who was invited in the last moment to give a sermon, refused. He said, “No, I’m not prepared. I’m not going to tempt God.” And as a young guy, I didn’t know what he meant by that. “I’m not going to tempt God by giving a sermon when I haven’t prepared myself.” And so, this is tempting God to trust that, “Well, I didn’t prepare myself. I didn’t put my part in. I’ll just trust that God will make up for it.” Well, that’s not a healthy relationship. We don’t delegate our responsibility to the Almighty. That reveals a rather healthy relationship.
That’s not the only way to tempt God. There are other ways.
We see in the Gospel, this is really a sin of arrogance, where the man approaches Our Lord in this way to tempt Him. There’s another way to tempt God by asking for something superfluous just to see if He’ll respond. And this is what Thomas Aquinas would call the sin of curiosity, as if he were some sort of a performing flea. If we’re asking for something, it ought to be useful and urgent.
Thomas Aquinas says another way to tempt God is to enter prayer unprepared, and he mentions two dispositions. Number one, if there’s somebody I have not forgiven, because that’s a sure way to make our prayer useless and fruitless. Another way of entering prayer in a way that is sinful and tempts Our Lord is to not have proper devotion. These are sins of foolishness.
There’s a certain curiosity and ambition for miracles, mentions St. Augustine in one of his letters. He calls this the sin of the lust of the eyes, where we ask God to do something extraordinary because we just want to see it. And regarding externals, Paul, in his 1 Corinthians 1:22, complains about the Jews who demand signs from God. In fact, we don’t have to go to just St. Paul; we also see Our Lord complaining about the Jews wanting signs. In John 6, He said, ‘You are telling me you want a sign? I’ll give you a sign. I’m the sign.’ And then He gave them the Bread of Life Discourse. In other words, ‘This is the ultimate sign: the Eucharist.’ And they rejected Him, and they rejected it. Thus, making themselves enemies of the Logos, as we see in this discourse today.
To make decisions determined by exterior signs is precarious and reveals a lack of trust in Our Lord. Faith does not come from seeing, and hope regards invisible realities. To ask for a sign in order to act is a form of irreligion. And demanding something extraordinary is also a sin irreligion. Sometimes we forget who God is in this equation. Sometimes we can demand that God act in a certain way at a certain time, in a certain place, but according to our choosing. Again, who’s God in this equation? Where is the receptivity of faith?
Another common temptation of God is, says St. Augustine, that when we consider our own difficulties, our trials and our crosses, and we think that Our Lord is not concerned. He says, “This tempts God as well, because we’re happy to receive the blessings, but we don’t want to participate in the Cross, and we don’t trust that He’s actually operant in all of this.”
I would also add to what Augustine said, not that I can improve on him, but I would add that Our Lord takes our trials and our crosses upon Himself in a perfect way. We can distract ourselves, we can open the fridge, we can turn on the TV, we can take a nap, and forget about things for a moment. Our Lord doesn’t do that. He takes upon Himself our own trials in a perfect way and makes them His own, thus elevating them and making them channels of grace. So, if we lack trust, we’re losing all sorts of opportunities in the midst of our trials.
Some presume His mercy and tempt Him, perhaps choosing to sin on Tuesday and Wednesday, thinking, ‘I can go to Confession on Saturday or Sunday and everything will be fine.’ If I’m sinning and thinking at the same time that I can later go to Confession, this invalidates the Confession and makes it a sacrilege, and this is a temptation of God, also called the sin of presumption. Some people ask God to reveal His will, and then when they see it, they ask for more signs. They ask for more revelations. After He’s been so good in revealing Himself and His will for us, that should be enough. We should get about doing His will rather than further questioning Him. And this is really an insult to his goodness.
To tempt God in a few words means to initiate a challenge that’s born of distrust and pride, seeking to test God’s attributes and force His hand. It ultimately amounts to a rejection of faith. We are tempted by the world, the flesh, and the devil. We’re not tempted by God, but we are tried by God. And He allows trials and difficulties precisely by weaving into our lives those temptations that come to us from the world, the flesh, and the devil and He transforms them into trials, so that we can be trained to reveal to us an inner weakness, so that we can see precisely where we need His grace where we have to trust in Him more than ourselves, so there’s even a therapeutic element in the divine trials for our strengthening. If everything went our way, how would we live virtue? And so, our Lord takes these demonic, worldly, fleshly temptations and makes them golden opportunities to exercise our trust in Him.
Why does He do this? Because He’s the best of fathers. When Christ rises from the dead and appears to the Apostles who are fishing on Galilee, what does He call them? Παιδίον (paidiŏ). Παιδίον; little children, it’s a term of endearment, little children. And so, this makes all the difference. Recognizing our childhood in God, this divine filiation, takes away all forms of distrust. Recognizing that we are children of the best of fathers makes us stop questioning and simply accept what comes from His loving hand, and knowing that for every trial He gives us the grace to bear the cross and bear it in a fruitful way. We have to continually ask Our Lord for the grace of renewing our understanding of this childhood in Him, and then living according to this childlike trust, which is not mere acceptance but also requires action.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, the Holy Ghost. Amen.
~Fr. Ermatinger