Overcome the Temptation of Mind
by Rev. Cory Coberforward
Matthew 4:1-11
Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:
“‘He will command his angels concerning you,
and they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”
Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”
Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”
Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.
Psalm 66:8-12 (responsive reading)
Praise our God, all peoples,
let the sound of his praise be heard;
he has preserved our lives
and kept our feet from slipping.
For you, God, tested us;
you refined us like silver.
You brought us into prison
and laid burdens on our backs.
You let people ride over our heads;
we went through fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance.
Read the written message below with music videos
The are many traditions that encourage fasting as a form of spiritual practice, from the fasting rituals of Islam’s Ramadan to Yom Kippur within Judaism. Christianity has a funny one, in a way, in that within the fasting traditions of Lent, Christians are often encouraged to “choose” a fast instead of primarily fasting from food. Perhaps this has its roots in the various forms of temptation that Christ encountered during his 40 days of fasting in the wilderness. The mystic Emanuel Swedenborg believed that even within the detail of “40 days of fasting” there was a deep symbolism, indicating that Christ underwent what he calls “a full state of temptation,” and that we too are all called to overcome “a full state of temptation” by realizing that all of our power is from above (read: within), and also that we serve our minds – when it should be the other way around.
Within Tibetan Buddhist scriptures, fasting is sometimes highlighted as a way to release our attachments and discover the peace and joy of being. It can be said that other traditions use fasting in a similar way: intentionally or not, using fasting as a method of rediscovering our inherent nature as children of God. In Christ’s story in the Christian gospel, we can see fasting used in this way, serving to allow Christ’s sources of temptation to be revealed and overcome.
How does he overcome temptation? Often, we point to his deep wisdom in his poignant responses, which is true, but in the end, they all boil down to one simple response – he refuses to follow temptation: he says “No.” This is a fundamental aspect of fasting itself and holds deep wisdom as to how we might start to overcome the burden of our overthinking and yearning, what the text calls “the devil.”
Experientially, what is “the devil” for each of us? Like Christ, in many of our situations, it is this voice in our ears, the urge in our minds, asking us to do things that we know are wrong and that the Lord hasn’t willed for us. We can lay any evil that befalls us at the feet of God calling it Providence, but the voice of yearning and even destruction in our heads in any given moment seems like our responsibility to cast away, as Christ did saying, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’” Often, instead, we find it hard not to serve these voices, calling them our own.
Indeed, even the act of obeying these voices is initially out of our control. How often have you done something that you knew you shouldn’t, or that you didn’t feel like you really wanted? At the start, our fast must begin with our identification and our investing. In part, this means coming to realize that our mind’s workings are largely outside of our control, even the sense “I can control myself,” comes unbidden from… somewhere. We have to release our hold on our constant feast on “I am this” and “I am doing that.” This may seem philosophical, but it is actually more practical than a good story: look within yourself, are you the observer or the observed? Isn’t your “sense of doing” just that, a feeling or a belief that arises to you?
Christ told us to release this limiting idea of ourselves and to realize that we are the very light of God. He said this plainly and in experiential terms, but he also used parables to help with our understanding of this as well. One analogy he used was that we should allow our light to shine, and his Gospel story presents many examples of people caught up in addiction that he counsels to help find their freedom and their true nature, their oneness with God. Sometimes this is someone who seems addicted to jumping in and out of relationships with people, at other times this is someone possessed by demons called “Legion.” Some are addicted to religious traditions or certain morals and enforcing them, and the list goes on. These are stand-ins for us, carrying the “legion” of addictions and perhaps demons that we call “habits” and “opinions,” if we care to call them anything at all.
We often can’t break free from our “really bad” habits until we realize that our entire way of being is often dictated by the whispers of addiction in our ears, what we call our minds. Our society places some addictions or coping mechanisms on the fire while letting all of our other tendencies to be slaves to our heads slide. Our situation is what Swedenborg believed was represented by the Israelites’ 400 years of enslavement by the Egyptians, which he described as our “spiritual” centre being put in servitude to our “external” self. The repeated use of the number 40 wasn’t lost on him, either, as he points out that it is consistently used within Biblical scripture to represent the hounding of temptations (see also the Israelites 40 years in the wilderness, or Noah’s 40 days and nights of flooding).
So, let’s break free. We are each called, no matter our tradition or beliefs, to call that inner Moses into position. As children of God and beings of God’s very light, not at all truly separate from God, we have the power to overcome our tendency to be slaves to our thinking and feeling. Just like Moses, our fundamental nature has never been enslaved to Egypt (you could call this our even deeper, loving “heavenly” core), and we can turn to it to uncover our way to freedom. Just as with Moses and the burning bush, there is a Divine Fire in our hearts at the ready to lead us from our confusion and, eventually, to the promised land.
In Christ’s experience of “being led by the Spirit” into a place of fasting, he allowed scriptures wisdom and the wisdom of God and the sages to speak to him. Like Moses, he listened to the shining fire within himself and allowed that to lead his life and help save his fellow humans, the other “children of God.” In our own being led, we have this same power, the power of Christ (known by many names) within us. It is the power of love itself and is synonymous with life, unity, peace, awareness, being, and wisdom – and it is this that watches our minds: it’s who and what we are! At first, this may seem like a tough fast, turning to the peace of being instead of being so invested in our thinking and reacting, but just as Christ said, we can rely on every word from “the mouth of God,” as well as God’s ever-present closeness to always support us.
Peace and love,
Cory