Gifts of the Dark Wood: Temptation
a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Virginia McDaniel
March 13, 2016 – Fifth Sunday of Lent
2 Corinthians 5:16-19 and Luke 4:1-13
We usually know what we can do,
but temptation shows us who we are.
Thomas à Kempis
Lately we’ve been exploring the “gifts of the Dark Wood,” gifts that we don’t always want to
receive, but which if we receive them well we’ll want to keep. As I have pointed out, the
obstacles that life places in our path may be just that… obstacles. Or they may become
opportunities to deepen our relationship with God and our own self-understanding. Nowhere
is this more true than with the gift we’re exploring today.
Have you been tempted lately?
Well, it turns out that if you are regularly tempted, you could be a spiritual giant! Temptations
offer us a way of defining ourselves in the world, depending on which way we choose, going
one way or another. And the more times that we’re allowed to choose—that we’re faced with
those choices—the more definition our lives gain. Temptation is a “gift” when it helps us to live
with more integrity.
Our biggest temptations typically aren’t the temptations that have to do with evil. I’m not
talking about resisting the urge to do “naughty” things, or giving up things that are bad for us
(like giving up chocolate or alcohol during Lent!). The temptation I’m talking about is the
temptation to do the good that is not ours to do. You heard me right. We’re more often undone
by the good we are tempted to do, not the evil.
Jesus himself struggled with this temptation.1
After his baptism in the Jordan River, it is said that Jesus entered the dry and barren wilderness
where for forty days he fasted and was tempted by Satan, or the “Adversary” in Hebrew. As the
story goes, the Adversary first challenged Jesus to turn stone into bread. Jesus refused, stating
that humans do not live by bread alone. Next the Adversary showed Jesus all the cities and
kingdoms of the world, offering that they’d be his if Jesus just bowed down and worshiped
him. Jesus refused, declaring that we are to worship God alone. Finally the Adversary took
Jesus to the highest point of the Temple in Jerusalem, challenging him to jump off and let angels
save him. Again, Jesus refused, stating, “Don’t test the Lord your God.” Defeated, the
Adversary left Jesus to await “the next opportunity.”
Jesus wasn’t exactly being tempted to do evil. Of course, this is not a historical narrative. No
one was there with him, after all! But in a mythical kind of way, the story suggests that Jesus
could, if he wanted, do all those things that were laid out in front of him like a tasty
1
paraphrasing Luke 4:1-13
smorgasbord… magically turn a stone into bread—maybe enough to feed every person in the
world who was hungry, or rule the world—turning it at once into “the kingdom of God,” or do
impressive miracles, miracles that would provide certainty, that would make people believe in
him.
Jesus didn’t want superpowers. But even if you read the story metaphorically, the things Jesus
is saying “No” to are definitely good things! Jesus says no to the adversary not because these
are bad things but because they are not his to do. His job is not to be superhuman but to be the
best kind of human he can be.
That’s the way I want to look at temptation this morning, discerning the path that is truly ours
to follow—the world of difference between “doing good” and “doing the specific good that you
are called to do.” And through facing that temptation we will discover how to live in this world
wholeheartedly rather than living exhaustedly. Have you been exhausted lately? Then perhaps
you are suffering from having chosen wrongly the temptation to do good. Perhaps there’s a
different good you’re supposed to be doing.
Parker Palmer, a Quaker educator and author, and founder of the Center for Courage and
Renewal, tells of a doctor who attended a “listening circle”—a particularly Quaker approach to
sorting through our life’s options and discerning our “true path.”2
Palmer begins by comparing the soul to a wild animal… an insight that came to him during one
of his lifelong bouts of depression. In depression, he observes, all our normal resources fail us –
our will, our intellect, our emotions – all those faculties are useless to us in the midst of
depression. But he discovered in the “Dark Wood” of his own life a primitive little spark of life
that wanted him to stay alive. Palmer likened that spark of life to a wild animal. A wild creature
has two equally important sides, he observes. On the one hand, a wild creature has to be
resourceful and resilient so it can survive in hard places where there is little to eat. But a wild
animal is also very, very shy. If you want to see a wild animal, the last thing you want to do is
to run shouting into the woods. You must sit quietly, at the base of a tree, breathe with the earth
for a while, and then… maybe… this precious thing may put in an appearance. That’s the soul,
our inner voice. You may catch only a glimpse out of the corner of your eye. But if you see it,
you’ll never forget it. It will enliven you and broaden your understanding of yourself.
Palmer says that all too often we go running and shouting into the woods instead of waiting for
this precious thing to come out—especially in places like the church which claim to specialize in
cultivating the soul! At the Center for Courage and Renewal their goal is to create “safe spaces”
for people so their soul can show up and make its claim on their lives.
Stay with me here… this really is a story about temptation!
In a circle that Palmer was facilitating one time, a circle of about 25 physicians, one of the
physicians spoke out of a long period of silence and said, “You know, the health care system in
2
From an interview with Parker Palmer, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7DwXe-OADQ accessed 3/11/16
which I work has me right on the edge of violating my Hippocratic oath, two or three times a
week.”
There was more silence, because out of respect for “the shy soul” they train people not to jump
on something like that. They learn to listen, to hold what they hear and treat it with reverence.
Then the physician spoke a second time out of the silence and he said, “You know, that’s the
first time I’ve ever said that to a group of peers in medicine” – which is a scary thing to do, isn’t
it? Acknowledging to a group of colleagues in your field that you have a problem at a very
fundamental ethical level!?
There was more silence and he spoke a third time. He said, “The truth of the matter is that’s the
first time I’ve ever said that to myself.”
Was the doctor talking about violating the Hippocratic Oath in some egregious way? No, he
later elaborated that what he was struggling with was that he was constantly “tempted” to cut
deals with the system. He probably worked in a health care environment that gave him seven
minutes per person, with every meeting with a patient being tracked on the computer. But what
if a patient needed an hour to be heard into speech, and to be treated in a deeply healing way?
Then what does he do? Cut a deal with the system to keep his billing rate up? Or does he find
some way to call the “system” to a higher standard? He wasn’t talking about blowing
something up, or—in terms of this passage from Luke—of jumping off a high building and
expecting to do any other than splat onto the ground.
The realization put this physician, of course, on the edge of a very challenging decision: “What
do I do with this truth I just heard? I didn’t hear it from another person; I didn’t read it in a
book; it wasn’t laid upon me by some authority. It arose from within.”
I think people in every line of work and every walk of life have their equivalent moral code, the
voice of the soul calling them to “show up” in whatever they are doing with their identity and
their integrity intact. What do we do when our shy soul makes an appearance and speaks of
“our” truth? Stuff it? Pretend we didn’t hear it? Or do we act on it in some way that might help
to bring our lives in more congruence with the truth we have heard from within?
What will you do when you have a moment like that? … a moment when you have to decide
whether you are going to say “Get away from me, Satan!” or whether are you going to cut some
kind of deal with the Devil? Or maybe we aren’t even aware of the deals we are making!
Jesus says, “You shall not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of
God.” How do we “hear” God’s voice? God doesn’t speak with an audible voice. It’s the voice
that the soul knows that emerges shyly from the Dark Wood like a wild animal. It’s the voice
that said to the physician in that discernment circle, “Hey! This is not who you are. This is not
the good that you are supposed to be doing. You are trying to work for all these other goods,
like cooperating with the health care system to maximize the number of patients you can treat,
keep your billable hours up so you can make your mortgage payments and take care of your
family. Those are all good things. But the good that you are called to do is other than that.”
There’s a difference between “doing good” and doing “the good we are called to do.”
Frederic Buechner famously said “Your vocation lies at that point where your deep gladness
meets the world’s deep need.” Isn’t it interesting that he begins with “your deep gladness”?
He’s not talking about what keeps us happy in a superficial way, but about something that
brings us a sense of fulfillment, of having shown up as our true self. He starts with our deep
gladness and then invites us to discover where that deep gladness intersects with the world’s
deep needs.
Why? Because there are an endless number of deep needs out there. The world needs every one
of us! But if you start with the deep needs, you get lost in a forest of possibilities. If instead you
start with your own deep gladness… that which brings you a sense of identity and integrity,
showing up as your true self—your God-given self, with the gifts that you were born with…
then you intersect the world at this point rather than that and that and that.
Of course not every voice within us is a voice of truth, not every voice within us is the voice of
God, not everything has a legitimate claim on our lives, even when we think we are saying yes
to “our good” rather than some other good we might do. So the paradoxical truth about this gift
is that while we need to let our own shy soul make an appearance, we also need to “test” our
inner leadings in community, to test them with others who know us, to test them in worship
and in dialogue and in respectful silence.
The path through the Dark Wood is rarely clear or certain, but those who dare to follow it will
discover what their path is. Sadly, many people never allow themselves the joy of following
their best, their truest, path because they think it would be too enjoyable and therefore selfish.
Or they assume it is more godly and self-sacrificing to follow a path that is not central to their
deepest yearnings, never guessing that God has placed these yearnings within us for a reason!
Eric Elnes concludes his chapter on this gift with these words: We will never rid ourselves of
restlessness or yearning, but traveling in the Dark Wood can reveal to us a path that leads to
“peace, joy, and lightness of being such as we will never experience following the Adversary’s
wide, brightly lit roads and paved, well-marked streets. Those well-marked paths may lead to
the next tavern, but the Dark Wood’s paths will lead us home.”3
Thanks be to God for the gift of temptation!
3
Eric Elnes, Gifts of the Dark Wood, p. 124.