The Final Test

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/100516.cfm

Galatians 2:1-2, 7-14
Luke 11:1-4

Very few translations of Luke’s version of the Our Father end with the line we heard today, “and do not subject us to the final test.” Most lean to copying the Matthew ending, opting for, “do not lead us into temptation.” I went through 25 different popular bibles. (It’s fairly easy to do online.) Both the Catholic NAB and the NSRV, the common graduate study bible for most seminaries, use the wording “final test” rather than “temptation.” 

This may not sound like a momentous difference, at first. I think the NAB and the NRSV have it right. Luke intentionally chose test, or trial, to orient our attention to the purpose of prayer. In his choice, a much deeper well has been drilled by Luke.

The full phrase in the Our Father according to Matthew is, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” Luke, who simplifies the Our father into short, curt pleas, helps explain the meaning of Matthew’s Our Father with, “Do not subject us to the final test.” How is this shorter phrase so much more rich than Matthew? 

I believe that Luke means to tell us that a life joined at the hip with God will bridle the constant chaos of temptations. Fed by God, and forgiven by God, we then live lives of mercy, just as God lives for us. Joined at God’s hip means to live in continual prayerful relationship. Without prayer, we will inevitably suffer a life riddled with desire-filled gauntlets, and we will succumb. We will run into the arms of evil, because the allure of evil can only be conquered by a relationship to God. Most of us don’t realize that under the weight of temptations we are bound to falter, and might even fail to know and love God completely. 

The test of facing temptations, and failing, does not have to take place. We can move through temptations with ardent prayer, and avoid the consequence of falling under the spell of evil.

Here, and in other places, Luke almost demands that we grasp that prayer forms a force field against evil gripping our heart. Otherwise, a life without prayer, understood as a moment by moment relationship with God, subjects our hearts to evil. In the eventual pain and misery of a tempted life, we capitulate, and eventually come to even believe that such evil is just part of the normal path of life.

When a serious crisis upends us, and it will, — a debilitating cancer, the death of a loved one, a serious car accident, an untimely loss of a job, or mounting financial woes — we will have walked a practiced life that will put us on one of two paths. 

One, trusting that all things are under the watchful eye and careful nurturing of God, we walk fearlessly toward our Father. We feel him carry us, and know his loving presence. A final test, where we are forced to admit our need for God, requiring a valiant rescue by the full community of Father, son and Spirit, will not be necessary. God will already be in our midst, and we in God.

Or two, we practice a life where we single-handedly take on evil, tasting what we consider acceptable and avoiding only the heinous stuff. We increase our management of everything that touches us, grasping at solutions we believe that we control. We are bound to fail, because temptations will have already overwhelmed us, and we didn’t know it. The truth comes out when we are faced with the disastrous realities of life. We will despair at our weakness, and be confused, wondering why our lives have not avoided terror. Our final test will evoke so much fear, that even our friends will ask us to cry out to God who seems to have abandoned us. In fact God was there all along.

In both scenarios, we do not fully understand what’s happened to us, but in the first practice our relationship to God strengthens even more, and our faithful believing friends rally with us in shared prayer. In the other practice, we know that something has gone woefully wrong, and we frantically reach out to God or we despair. 

Temptations are allowed by God because the bulk of us exercise a free will that will ultimately shift our desires from God to things we hold more dear. God will work even with our sin, though, in order to awaken us when we fail to overcome the lure and lies of evil. At some point, hopefully, we hear him, and know our only hope is in a saving God. 

But, Luke tells us, Jesus urges us not to accept the path of unbridled temptation. It’s not a necessary road to walk upon, no matter what is happening to us.

When we look at our lives here as a test, as a trial, we imagine somehow that we are on a quest to earn heaven. We hope that we can pass the test of this life. “If only we could buckle down and do better,” we tell ourselves. Luke, though, is not using temptations as a test or trail in that way. He’s using test or trial as a metaphor of faithfulness in the face of evil.

In looking at his full Gospel, Luke appears almost obsessed with Jesus’ admonition about us, his followers, to pray that we not be subject to the test, or trial, of temptation. It’s not just temptation that Luke emphasizes, but the test of faith put upon us by temptation. 

Behind the test of our faith, Luke reveals that we can be assured that God is in control, as our Father. Luke clearly makes the case that temptation must be allowed by God in order for us to know his love and mercy. Our constant prayer to the Father, Jesus outlines, should end with our plea to God to keep temptation at bay, and avoid a subsequent trial by fire, where our faith is put on the line. 

Though many translators prefer on using the Matthew’s traditional words in Luke’s verses, stating the occasion of sin — do not lead us into temptation — Luke practically insists on the wording of test or trial to pinpoint the effect of temptation. That is, when tempted we are being subject to the evils we have already raced after. Prayer repairs our relationship with God and other believers. We will see that God is watching us, and turning every instance of our sinfulness into an opportunity, a trial of faith.

At the Mount of Olives, as Jesus began to pray in earnest that the cross may not be in his future, he asked his disciples to, “Pray that you may not undergo the test.” And then a bit later, when the disciples fell asleep, he said to them, “Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray that you may not undergo the test.”

(Lk 22:40 and 46)

What is so important about avoiding a test of faith? And, more specifically, the “final” test that Luke speaks of in his reporting of Jesus’ Our Father prayer. This test refers to our faith, but what could be so damaging?

If we look to the previous words taught by Jesus, we get a clue. “Give us each day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us.”

Luke recognizes that we should not desire to experience the consequences of our guilt. Forgive us our sins, we request, just as we desire to forgive others. If we are not of such a mind, forgiving the debt of others, then we will surely be allowed temptation to teach us that sin has a hold on us. 

Both Paul and Peter add meat to Luke’s notion of the trials we go through.

No trial has come to you but what is human. God is faithful and will not let you be tried beyond your strength; but with the trial he will also provide a way out, so that you may be able to bear it.

(1 Cor 10:13)

Beloved, do not be surprised that a trial by fire is occurring among you, as if something strange were happening to you. But rejoice to the extent that you share in the sufferings of Christ, so that when his glory is revealed you may also rejoice exultantly.

(1 Pe 4:12–13)