By Fr. Glenn Jones:
Hmph. Someone brought cookies to work. Again, dang it. Well … how ‘bout just one? Well … another one won’t hurt. And before long, it’s “Is that the last of them?” Blast.
A trivial example, but … oh, the temptations of life! Always those seeking to be good persons, whether they be Christians or no, must battle those pestilently persistent deadly sins: lust, gluttony, envy, wrath, pride, greed, sloth—all, of course, rooted in selfishness. Even when we know what is right and good to do, sometimes our passions—coupled with bad judgment—lead us to surrender the will to that which departs from the Right and the Good. Always the need to swim upstream against that strong current of immediate self-interest over that which is of virtue and, simply, much better.
We take heart, though, in knowing that even the great saints fought this constant fight. We remember the agonized confession of even apostle Paul: “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate… I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do … I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin … Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:15-25) Who among us cannot identify with Paul’s struggle?
Yet the list of saints is simply a roll call of those who battled temptations just as we do; after all, we are all continual works in progress. Even Jesus had to resist temptation as we read in the Gospels, and read also: “…we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sinning.” (Hebrews 4:15)
Even in our own world, are we not inspired by those who resist temptation: the politician or policeman who refuses bribes or to act unlawfully, the spouse who rebuffs the advances of a third person, the person who won’t stab a co-worker in the back for his own advancement, or one who withholds wrath against one who does him wrong?
But, even for the Christian, we cannot rest on “the laurels of faith”, as it were. In the same Gospel passage from which we have our title, Jesus cautions: “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it. For what does it profit a man, to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?” (Mark 8:34-36) What does this mean but to strive to live the Way of the Gospel rather than on the way of the world which often views those seven deadly sins as things admired: accumulation of wealth, promiscuity (“body count” is a term used nowadays), retaliation for wrongs, etc.
One thing the Christian must be mindful of, as Jesus expresses above, is that true faith is manifest in one’s actions. We may be forgiven of transgressions in this life by God, but there are still consequences to actions. We cannot paint ourselves with a thin façade of Christianity, not actually trying to live the faith and not expect some consequence. It’s easy to “put on a holy face” for an hour in church like the “whitewashed tombs” of the hypocritical Pharisees that Jesus excoriates. To actually live the faith 24/7 is an entirely different matter. That is the cross we’re called to bear. That is what true faith is.
“But I know I’m saved!”—something commonly held by many Christians these days. But then we read of Paul urging his charges to “work out your salvation with fear and trembling,” (Philippians 2:12), and Paul says of himself: “I do not even judge myself. I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me.” (1 Corinthians 4:4) As Jesus noted, it’s easy to say “Lord, Lord”, but to recognize Him truly as such requires “doing what I tell you.” (cf. Luke 6:46)
“Forgiveness” is not interchangeable with “no accountability”, which is certainly not in scripture. From cover to cover the Bible speaks of accountability for actions and that judgment will be by “what you have done”, even though God so magnanimously offers forgiveness. But to use God’s promise as an excuse to do wrong is hypocrisy and presumption itself.
As author Walter Henrichson observes, the unfaithful Israelites in the Exodus suffered painful bites and death from the seraph serpents; God did not remove the serpents, but offered a remedy via the raised image of a bronze serpent so that they would not die. (Numbers 21). And “Adam and Eve’s sin resulted in man’s fallen nature; when we repent of our sin, God does not remove the fallen nature; He provides a source of healing.” (“Seeking to Understand the Christian Life”, chap. 11) Likewise, we suffer the consequences of sins and evils we do nonetheless, but He has given remedy in Christ.
The tauntings of temptations, while indefatigable, are not irresistible. We are tested in this life like gold in a crucible to see whether we are devoted to goodness … or not. It just depends on what—and whom—we love the more.
Editor’s note: Rev. Glenn Jones is the Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe and former pastor of Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church in Los Alamos.