However, no matter how I look at this story for what it may say about Jesus, the gospel narrative also is a mirror in which I see my reflection. So, inevitably, when I think about my temptations to do less or other than what I believe I’ve been called to do, I often wish they were as clear as those Jesus confronted and that my responses were as forthright.

But it hasn’t been – and doesn’t seem to work – that way for me. Yes, I’ve had moments when my temptations were obvious and the solutions clear. But most of the time, it’s not clarity I experience, at least, not immediately, but rather, ambiguity. (Well, I must confess that there are times when my temptations are clear and surrender is at least as attractive as resistance, which reminds me of the story of an old southern preacher who thundered, “Why do people sin?!” to which he, in an equally thunderous voice, said, “Because they like it!”) My choices, as I perceive them, often are not between right and wrong or good and evil, but rather, bad and bad or good and good. Moreover, I don’t live, for the most part, in the allegorical desert places of my life where the landscape is so barren I can see things clearly. Nor on the proverbial mountaintop of revelation where on a clear day I can see forever. Most of the time, the color I see is gray. Most of the time, I stand in the shadows.

So, when I look at the world and the larger church in which we live, the issues and the decisions often feel like a Sophie’s Choice^[5] between two costly options…

Iraq. Withdraw our troops as a sign of our national confession that the stated predicates for war were false, as an humble admission that we have exacerbated Middle Eastern and worldwide tensions, and, even more, to save the lives of our women and men in uniform or remain so to forestall an escalation of sectarian violence and a deepening descent into civil war, and the further disintegration of what’s left of a nation.

The environment. Establish and enforce more effective global anti-pollution standards, closing down, if need be, the worst offending industries or do potential harm to the aspirations of the poor nations of the two-thirds world that still long to have the benefits of our western history of industrial development.

The Anglican Communion. As an Episcopal Church, continue to proclaim a gospel of love and justice, one expression of which is the full inclusion of our lesbian and gay sisters and brothers in the life and labor of the church at every level or seek to restore and strengthen the frayed bonds of affection in communion with our sisters and brothers of the Global South.

In the midst of this life, we often are faced with an intractable dilemma of trying to discern what is the less bad or more good choice. When I look to the Bible for guidance and, particularly, this temptation story, I am oddly comforted that, however clear Jesus’ temptations and his responses may seem, I don’t see definitive ethical instruction for every eventuality. It’s simply not the way Jesus seems to have taught and it certainly isn’t the way I read the Bible. However, what I do see is an outline of the shape that temptations often take – and in discerning the outline, some sense of where I stand – to forget my self and forsake my cause, to seek success more than faithfulness, to compromise easily when standing firm is difficult, and to ignore, at all costs, the call of sacrifice.

In the midst of this life, I often am faced with the intractable dilemma of trying to discern what is less bad or more good. It’s never easy. But perhaps just knowing what my temptations look like often enough is enough.

[1] See Luke 3.21-22.

[2] See John 6.24-26.

[3] See John 6.1-15.

[4] See John 7.3-5.

[5] Sophie’s Choice. A 1979 William Styron story (upon which a 1982 movie was based) of a Polish woman, Sophie Zawistowski, who, during World War II having been sent to Auschwitz, was forced to choose which child would live and which would die.