Love will win out in a time of testing

 ‘…Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness..’ (Luke 4:1)

Luke 4:1-13 (Year C: Lent 1)

A story of one man up the road in Beirut

The author of the book An Evil Cradling, Brian Keenan, recounted his experience over four years in captivity in Beirut in the late 1980s. For most of this time, when not in solitary confinement, he was blindfolded and chained by hand and foot. Not many human beings could go through such an ordeal without enormous reserves of faith, hope and love.  (My late uncle who spent time in a Chinese gaol in the 1940s was one such person.)

By various accounts Brian Keenan was not and is not a ‘religious’ person – at least not in the conventional sense. In an interview with the BBC some years ago he is quoted as saying:

In desolate empty spaces you can find an invisible portal which you can pass into. In a way this allows you to pass into yourself and look into yourself. That to me is a religious experience. This has nothing to do with all the riches of the church.

He goes on to say:

I can't find anything nourishing in churches great or small. I find religion is all about control not liberation. I go to church quite a lot because I am impressed by the buildings and what they are supposed to represent, but it is only in empty desolate spaces that I find whatever is luminous; whatever is holy, whatever this 'other' thing is.

A time and a place of struggle

This Sunday’s gospel reading is a typical start of Lent reading. It recalls Jesus’ 40 days and night in the desert where he was tried and tempted and where, we are told, he ‘ate nothing at all’ during this time. The desert (or the ‘wilderness’ as Luke calls it) is a place not only of refuge and withdrawal but a place of vicious struggle, temptation and for us – doubt. There are times where we need to retreat to a ‘wilderness’ and face our own inner thoughts and spirits – good and bad.  The evangelist Mark tells us (1:12-13) that Jesus was there in the wilderness ‘with wild beasts’. There are times when we find ourselves in a ‘wilderness’ not by choice but by circumstances or by compulsion from others, as in the lived experience of Brian Keenan. In that place, we struggle with some ‘wild beasts’ within often unseen, unnamed and unknown. In the wilderness we find ourselves alone – very alone.

Light relief?

It might be that every so often we find ourselves in a superficial place of desert without network coverage, wifi, social media, TV channels, the pub banter, the office kitchen table or the living room where family and friends tell stories and sing to each other on a Sunday evening (before TV arrived!). One remembers nostalgically a time when people went out for a meal to chat and update and gossip or admire the surroundings – all without peering into that little screen with 3 new notifications or likes on your latest post. 

Then again, it might be a case of entering into our own ‘dark spaces’ where we come face to face with who we are or who we think we are – not what others think. This is scary and most people (I reckon) are very disinclined to go there. But, there are plenty of quacks and sellers of spirituality to offer company into those spaces. A real anam-chara (not properly translatable but roughly the Irish for soul friend) is one in a million (or maybe 10 million - who knows?).

The devil, the world and the flesh

The wilderness plays a crucial role in the life and ministry of Jesus. As an infant he was escorted across the wilderness into North-East Africa. As a child and young man it is highly probable that he had occasion to cross some part of the wilderness with others.  At the start of his ministry after the baptism by his cousin at the river Jordan he made for the desert but did so ‘full of the Holy Spirit’ and ‘led by the Spirit’ (Luke 5:1).  After his trials in the desert he headed back to Galilee ‘filled with the power of the Spirit’ (Luke 4:14). In the gospel of Luke the Holy Spirit is everywhere.  And we believe that this same Spirit was with Jesus in his desert struggles. There, he struggled not with any demons inside him but the demons outside him or what is charmingly called the ‘devil, the world and the flesh’:

From al the deceytes of the worlde, the fleshe, and the devill: Good lorde deliver us. As it says in the Book of Common Prayer (the old version!).

Even ‘the devil can quote scripture’ and this passage of the gospel is one of those rare occasions when the devil is allowed to speak.  Quoting Psalm 90:11-12 (the devil knows his bible very well indeed):

‘If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, “He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you”, and “On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.”’

But Jesus stood firm and responded as follows:

‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test’.

There would be no further engagement with the Evil One until the appointed time at Gethsemane and Calvary which were ‘an opportune time’.   It was a case of the National Car Test or MOT that comes back to try us every so often:

When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until ‘an opportune time’.

Anam-chara

The challenge for us is that in many ways the things we struggle with are within –  planted there by upbringing, some bad choices perhaps along the way as well as distorted ideas and assumptions that may result from the actions or words of others. It might even be the case that we are burdened by ‘bad’ religion with its distorted and untrue images of God and righteous living.   But, we have to take responsibility for dealing what is there deep within. Moreover, we cannot deal with these things without the ever present help of the Holy Spirit who is the anam-chara of the anam-chara.  This is how we might discover the light, the goodness and the truth planted deep within us as it is within every human soul.  This is hard work and doesn’t get sorted out over 40 days and 40 nights.

Four methods of defence

In the ‘desert’ we have four forms of defence which also enable us to move forward:

1. Anam-chairdeas (spiritual friendship which, for example, was the stuff of early monastic life);
2. Heartfelt prayer even when we don’t feel like it;
3. Discipline of mind and heart which goes way beyond decisions about whether to take sugar in the tea; and
4. Generosity and compassion which are powerful and subversive weapons in this world.

And not forgetting angels

And what about references to angels ‘ministering’ to Jesus found in Matthew and Mark but not, here, in Luke? Perhaps God in his infinite wisdom and kindness sends angels to us at such testing times? And such angels may not have wings etc.

A Lenten reading suggestion

There is a practice in some Christian monastic communities of reading a special book for the period of Lent in addition to the solid diet of scripture. It is part of the Lenten discipline. I wonder if An Evil Cradling might qualify for Lent 2016?.

And I leave Brian Keenan speak a few lines here:

"There's a marked difference between aloneness and loneliness. I quite enjoy solitude but loneliness is different. We all need somebody to talk to, explain things to. If we don't have that we don't have validation and life lacks meaning."Having said that I think everybody has a place inside themselves that you alone can go to. You know how to get there because you've got a key. When you go there it can be deeply enriching- it can also be a bit disturbing because it forces you to look at yourself. That's what aloneness is to me."When you enter the power house of prayer you had better be wearing an asbestos suit because you are going to get roasted. I believe in prayer but you really have to know what you are doing because things will happen and then you have to deal with them."

Roll on Easter

Though we may have no choice in the matter; living in a dark space characterised by aloneness, struggle and doubt can be a time of grace. The truth is that:

• We are never alone when there is a mustard seed of faith and trusting;
• We are responsible in the choices we make and ‘yeses’ and ‘no’s’ that we give; and

 In the end Love will triumph over every adversity, every captivity, every sickness and every evil. Roll on Easter but we have to walk there through this wilderness.