“Lead us not into Temptation but deliver us from Evil”

Felipe is a young man in his late twenties. He has been homeless since he was eight. He asked me once if God allowed the children and youth to be homeless in order to test their faith. This is a topic of discussion among our youth when we are not around. They often wonder why they are homeless. They don’t lament about it. They don’t want to blame anyone for their situation. They just need to know for themselves. They want to know if all this is part of God’s plan.

In the New Testament, there is a distinction between trials and temptations. Sometimes trials can be seen as something coming from God but not temptation. God never tempts people. However, if we were to think that God made our children and youth homeless just to test their faith, it would make Him look rather cruel and callous. We need to be careful. We don’t want to inadvertently turn God into a demon.

The Bible doesn’t help much but makes things a little complicated. The story of Abraham and Isaac and of course, Job, give us the idea of a God toying with the lives of His children. This is a complex issue. I am not going to delve too deeply into it here. It is something theologians and philosophers have dabbled with for centuries. I am not going to make a fool of myself and try to come up with a simplistic answer. However, as priest, I have to find a way to interpret this in a manner consistent with the image of God revealed to us in the gospels. Especially to Felipe and the other homeless youth.

Jesus revealed to us a Heavenly Father who waits for those who rejected him to return home. He receives them back unconditionally. He is a Father who drops everything to seek the one who is lost. He is willing to give us His Son to reveal His divine Love to the world. Most importantly, at the Cross, we have an image of our God who would rather suffer injustice and die a brutal death than to justly destroy humanity for its wickedness. Therefore, it seems incoherent to say this God would make children and youth suffer just for the sake of testing them. Besides, God does not need to create situations and circumstances to make people suffer. This world does a great job making life miserable.

Jesus left His Life as carpenter in a small village and confronted the broken world. He suffered the consequences and become the beacon of Hope and Salvation for all humanity. God did not make Jesus suffer because He was testing Him. The world made him suffer but it could not stop Jesus from becoming the source of Living Water. Therefore, when the Bible says God is testing us, let us consider this possibility. It does not mean God is tormenting us to drive home a point. It means to say that suffering and pain cannot stop us from discovering the abundant Life Jesus promised. However, if we live our lives constantly in fear of the harsh realities of Life, then we will lose out on discovering the eternal Love which is able to overcome all things.

Perhaps this is not a perfect argument. Maybe it is a little weak if confronted with philosophical arguments. It satisfied our youth who felt deeply the injustices of living in a fragmented world.

Now, let us confront temptations.

The epistles of James tell us that God never tempts anyone. Temptation is an enticement to do and become evil.

Let us put aside the caricature of evil which is often portrayed in this world and seek more biblical understanding of evil. In the Bible, evil refers to anything which dehumanizes the person. It seeks to destroy the very thing God created us to be; images of God.

In our ministry, we are confronted with evil regularly. We see many people treat the homeless as if they are invisible. I have to say that indifference and apathy are the worst form of evil. They are an attempt to deprive the person of an existence. We also see our own homeless youth engaging in acts which dehumanize the other. They dehumanize their victims without any consideration for their pain and suffering. It is vanity to imagine that we are not affected by evil. It is contagious. It attempts to seduce us to accept its logic and reasoning. It constantly tempts us to give up hope and accept things as they are. Sometimes we are tempted to submit to evil’s lies and normalize terms like “necessary evil” or “fighting evil with evil”. It is constantly trying to seduce us into believing that the “other” doesn’t deserve to be treated as an image of God.

Last year I was punched in the face. It is not a metaphor, it really happened. Mary and I stopped a group of police who were brutally beating up a homeless man in public. His crime was that he sat in an area reserved for tourists. He refused to leave and they got violent. However, it wasn’t the police who hit me. It was passerby who took delight in the brutal act of violence. He was upset that we stopped the scene and punched me. At the moment, evil took dominance of my heart. Thanks be to God, Mary yelled out, “If you love me you will not do anything.” This brought me back to my senses but my heart was filled anger and hatred. Then we met with our homeless youth. My lip was swollen and bleeding. I related what happened. Then one of the the young people said, “Just let it go, (Uncle) Stephen, we are not like them. We don’t act in violence.” At that precise moment, I felt my soul being delivered from evil. I was also proud of the young man. He became an instrument of God and delivered my soul from evil.

The Lord’s Prayer is a communal prayer. When we pray to be saved from the lures of temptation and deliverance of evil, we are putting ourselves in a position to become God’s instruments to help each other from straying into the path of evil. The community who prays the Lord prayer should not be lamenting how evil has triumphed in this world. The Lord’s Prayer gives the confidence to confront evil and together we can overcome it. It is not based on our strength and wisdom. We can overcome it because we have a Lord who showed us exactly how to overcome this world with Love. The Cross triumphed over all the lies and deceit of this world. God has not abandoned this world. However, we have to stop looking for deliverance from evil in the wrong places. For me, it came from a place least expected. Now, I wear the punch on the face as a medal. God has revealed to me where to look for His comfort and love when temptations assail me.

“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us.”

This part of the Lord’s prayer touches on the subject of sin. It is interesting that our Lord addresses the question of sin only towards the end of the prayer. Furthermore, He emphasizes forgiveness and not punishment nor condemnation. In the streets where we do our ministry, there are many street preachers. They meet at the same spot every day, in the same vicinity as where we meet with the children. These preachers like to highlight specific sins, especially those they perceive in others. It is often a message of fear and condemnation. It promotes isolation rather than reconciliation. Jesus never addresses sin without forgiveness and hope. Besides, whenever Jesus talked about sin with his disciples, He always taught them to address their sins first and never the sins of others.

“Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?” Matthew 7:3

The Lord’s Prayer follows this teaching. Jesus teaches us to pray that God will forgive the “log” in our eyes so that we can forgive the “speck” in the eyes of our neighbor. Before we can do anything in the name of the gospel, it is essential that we are aware of our own sinful nature. The purpose is not to restrict us nor make us feel guilty or small and insignificant. To the contrary, the purpose is to liberate us so that we can do great things for the Kingdom of God. Sin limits us. It restricts our mind. It impoverishes our soul. The Lord’s Prayer, on the other hand, is about liberation.

The Old Testament tells us a story which illustrates the concept of sin expressed in the Lord’s Prayer. It is taken from the calling of the prophet Isaiah. Incidentally it is also part of our Anglican liturgy. The prophet sees a vision of God worshipped in His majesty and holiness and the angels and archangels proclaiming;

‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory.’ (Isa. 6:3)

Isaiah was confronted by the holiness of God and he realized that he was a sinful man. It wasn’t just his personal sins. This would have been an easy problem to solve. However, he became aware of his inevitable state of sin. He confessed,

“Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!’”

The Lord’s Prayer takes us through the same journey the prophet, Isaiah, took. First, it reveals to us the true nature of God. He is our heavenly Father. He manifested Himself in this world as our Father.Then it reveals to us His glory. God’s kingdom is being established and His will is irresistible. It is not a kingdom like the kingdom of violence and dominance of this world. It is a Kingdom of a Loving Father. It reminds us that God is our Providence. He will give us everything we need to proclaim His Fatherhood and His active presence in this world. Now, we come to the obstacle. The only thing which could hinder us from fulfilling our divine vocation is our sin. The sin here is quite specific. It is not our misgivings and faults. It transcends these concepts. It is actually our mindset. We often forget that we live in a broken world and we are broken people. Therefore, our thoughts and ideas are fragmented too. In other words, like Isaiah, we need to be constantly purified by the Holy Spirit.

I went into this ministry with the mindset that the homeless children and youth are a problem that needs to be solved. I forgot that God is the Heavenly Father. He never waits around for anyone to show His Love to the world. I lost track of this God. I was so busy trying to solve a problem which no one asked me to solve that I was not able to perceive God’s active presence in the streets. Consequently, I did not have anything significant to communicate to the homeless youth. I could not testify of God’s love because I did not see it. I did not see it because I was too busy trying to be God instead of participating in what God is doing.

I also lost my own personal humanity in the process. The very essence of being a complete human being is found in the enjoyment of the presence of another human being. I could not enjoy the presence of our children and youth if I only considered them as problems needing to be resolved. I needed to take the log out of my eyes so that I could clearly see who these young people are in the Father’s eyes.

We live in a broken world. Only our Heavenly Father who is perfect and holy can create something new and perfect in the midst of the ruins of this world. He is creating something new. He has been doing this from the very beginning of time and has never abandoned His project. Unfortunately, if we hold on to our broken views and ideas, we may not see it clearly. The Pharisees were not able to see something new and wonderful in the person of Jesus because they refused to let go of their broken thoughts about God and the world. They did not see the “log” in their eyes. The Lord’s Prayer teaches us to give up our sinful way of thinking so that we will be liberated to see the great and wonderful things God is doing in our midst.

The prayer also requires us to forgive those who have imposed their limited and broken mindset on us. If we recognize our limited mindset, then it would be only natural for us to understand why others insist on holding on unto it. We should look at them with compassion. We should be able to understand how easy it is to be locked into an old way of thinking. However, recognition of one’s sin can only come from a direct encounter with God. It is not something we can convince others. It is something that only God the Father is able to bring about in our souls. Remember the preachers in the streets. They have spent decades talking about sin. No one listens to them because there is no hope in their message. Hope comes from God and God alone.

Our homeless youth are no different from us. They formulate their ideas about themselves and God from this same broken world.

A person once said that fifty percent of what the homeless youth say is lies and the other fifty percent is untrue.

Bruno loves to talk about movies especially the classics. If you were to meet him, he will tell you upfront that his favorite actress is Bette Davis. It doesn’t matter if you are interested in movies. He will tell you everything about movies that you never wanted to know. After a few minutes, you might be convinced that he is genius who just got lost in the streets. There is no doubt about his intelligence. However, it is doubtful if he has ever watched a movie from the start to finish. He definitely has not seen any movies with Bette Davis. At first, we found his lies a little draining. Then we realized that Bruno wasn’t lying to be deceitful. He wanted us to think highly of him. His whole life is one of rejection. He believes that he would be accepted if he could prove his worth to us. He embraced this genius persona so that he could be recognized as a person. We have known Bruno for more than ten years. The sad reality is that he will never leave the streets. The day he was placed in an orphanage, he completely lost his sense of identity. He never understood why his mother rejected him. His lies are just a way of finding someone to accept him. Today he lies less. Sometimes he knows that we know he is lying. However, it doesn’t matter. We took the log out of our eyes and saw Bruno is just like us, living in this broken world and trying to find someone who would accept him unconditionally. I believe Bruno is discovering that he is accepted. We are discovering that God’s love knows no boundaries. All this because the Holy Spirit gave us the courage to remove the log out of our eyes and discover our Heavenly Father acting in a manner beyond what we can imagine with our broken fragmented mind.