Rev. Jared Buss
Pittsburgh New Church; January 21, 2024
Readings: Genesis 39:1-23; Arcana Coelestia §§5036.3, 4274
Our next reading is a continuation of the story of Joseph in Potiphar’s house. As we’re starting to see, the whole first half of the Joseph story is made up of a series of rapid ups and downs. His brothers sell him as a slave, but he rises up and becomes Potiphar’s greatest servant. Now, in the part of the story that you’re about to hear, Joseph is cast down again. We read: [Gen. 39:7-23].
The teachings of the New Church tell us—unsurprisingly—that this story is about temptation (AC §4961). So today’s sermon is going to be about temptation. And the idea that we’re going to focus on today is that if we find ourselves in a state of temptation, that doesn’t have to mean that we’re doing everything wrong or that our lives are a mess—though we may feel that way. Strange as it may seem, temptations often arise because we’re doing the right thing. When we’re in temptation, we might feel like our spirit is in a hopeless condition. But the truth is that that temptation probably means that at some point we started doing something good—and we need to hold on to that good thing.
People sometimes speak as though the word “temptation” means “feeling naughty feelings,” or “being seduced by naughty desires.” But temptation is both simpler and more serious than that. A temptation is a spiritual test, or a spiritual conflict. To put it simply, if we’re in a state of temptation, that means that good loves and evil loves are duking it out inside of us. These battles are uncomfortable; they’re attended by feelings of anxiety and unrest. But they need to happen. Temptations are about making choices. Good and evil are clashing within us, and we’re put on the spot: which side are we going to put our weight behind? The purpose of temptation is to enable us to confront and reject our evils. If we don’t confront our evils this way, they stay with us. So, in the Heavenly Doctrine of the New Church, we’re told that “no one can be regenerated unless he also undergoes temptations” (AC §5036.2, see §8403.2). Temptations aren’t fun, but they’re a necessary part of spiritual growth. They’re also a sign that spiritual growth is happening.
We’re going to use the story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife to illustrate two different aspects of temptation. First we’re going to look at “the bad guys”—or what it is that we fight against in temptation. Then we’re going to look at the course of temptation, or the way that temptation tends to unfold within us.
As far as the “bad guys” are concerned, the thing to note is that temptations aren’t about fighting evil in theory—they’re about making actual changes in our lives. Which means that temptations are likely to center around specific patterns or behaviors that we need to change—specific evils that we need to shun, specific ideas that we need to let go of, and so on. The enemy—or the changes that we need to make—might be really obvious, or they might not. The evils that we need to fight might be behaviors that are visibly wrong, or they might be more subtle.
In the literal sense of today’s story, Joseph has to resist an obvious evil: he is invited to commit adultery with Potiphar’s wife (Gen. 39:7, 12). Lots of people have fought that battle, and it’s a good battle to fight. Or they’ve fought to quit pornography, or to control their temper and stop yelling at people, or to escape an addiction, and so on. Sometimes the battle is about an action that we wish we could take.
But in the internal sense of today’s story, Potiphar’s wife stands for something much more subtle: she symbolizes “unspiritual natural truth” (AC §4988). What this means is that she stands for ideas that were good enough, or true enough, once upon a time, but aren’t good enough or true enough anymore. The Heavenly Doctrine gives us two examples of unspiritual natural good: the first is getting married to someone because you’re physically attracted to them, and not for any spiritual reason (AC §4992.2). The second example is doing good to someone because they’re your friend, without giving any thought to what this friend is like—whether they’re a good person or a bad person (ibid.). In both of these examples, there’s room for growth, but the problem is subtle. You don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. If you realize that your marriage is founded on a shallow kind of attraction, the solution isn’t divorce—the solution is to invite the Lord to bring new life to your marriage. If you realize that your relationship with a friend is persuading you to endorse that friend’s bad behavior, the solution isn’t to shun your friend—the solution is to learn how to love someone’s good qualities, while at the same time resisting their bad qualities.
In the internal sense of the Word, Potiphar’s wife stands for truths—or ideas—that support the old patterns that we need to let go of. So she might stand for the assumption that physical attraction and physical intimacy are the “point” of marriage. She might stand for the belief that friendship involves absolute loyalty to your friends, no matter what those friends do (see AC §5008.3). At a certain point in our lives, ideas like these are acceptable. But then we grow a little more, and we find that they aren’t acceptable any more—they’re unspiritual, and they’re holding us down. We have to let go of them. But that involves separating ourselves from our old way of thinking, and that’s hard. So we fall into temptation.
A lot of temptations are centered around these kinds of internal shifts. Often we don’t even see what it is that our spirit is wrestling with—we just know that something’s going on. One takeaway from all of this is that we shouldn’t expect temptations to look a certain way. They come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes we’ll know exactly what they’re about, and other times we’ll feel lost. One way or another, the point of temptation is to give us the opportunity to reject our own junk and turn to the Lord. We can’t go wrong with choosing to put it all into His hands.
But now I want to look at what the story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife has to teach us about the course of temptation, or the way that temptation tends to unfold within us. If we look at this story superficially, it’s the archetypal temptation story—a story about seduction. Potiphar’s wife tempts Joseph with her beauty. But if we look more closely at the story, it becomes obvious really quickly that Joseph isn’t tempted by Potiphar’s wife’s beauty. He flat-out refuses her the first time she approaches him (Gen. 39:8, 9). When she physically takes hold of him, he physically runs away from her (v. 12). This isn’t an illustration of temptation—this is an illustration of rejecting evil. The part of this story that illustrates temptation is the part that comes next—when Potiphar’s wife accuses Joseph of approaching her inappropriately (vv. 14-18), and Potiphar’s anger is aroused (v. 19), and Joseph is thrown in prison (v. 20). Being falsely accused, having someone else be angry with you, and being put in prison are three things that symbolize temptation—three things that illustrate what temptation feels like (AC §§5035-5037).
The point is that this story isn’t about Joseph doing the wrong thing—or even wanting to do the wrong thing—and plunging into temptation as a result of that. On the contrary, this story is about Joseph doing the right thing, and getting put into a situation that represents temptation because he did the right thing. If Joseph had done what Potiphar’s wife wanted him to do, she wouldn’t have gotten him in trouble. When we do what the hells want us to do—that is, when we do evil—they do their best to keep quiet. They don’t want to interrupt us. They don’t want us to reflect on what we’re doing.
But when we do the right thing, they attack us. If they can’t lead us into evil, they try to at least tear down our efforts to do good. If they can’t find any actual dirt on us, they start inventing dirt—they come at us with false accusations. They dredge up every bad inclination and every unclean feeling that we’ve ever had, and treat us like we are those bad desires. In fact, the Heavenly Doctrine says that evil spirits will plant evils and falsities within us, and then turn around and accuse and condemn us for the very evils and falsities that they whispered to us (AC §§761, 1917). Which is pretty much what Potiphar’s wife does: she tries to commit adultery with Joseph, and when he refuses her, she turns around and accuses him of trying to commit adultery with her.
So if we find ourselves in a state of temptation—if we find ourselves being persecuted by evil spirits—that probably means that we’ve been doing something right. The hells wouldn’t feel so threatened if they liked the direction that we were moving in. Of course being in a state of temptation doesn’t mean that we’re saints. Temptation is a conflict between good and evil—a real conflict, a conflict that could go either way. If we’re in temptation, that means that hell still has power in our lives. But it also means that heaven has power in our lives. Here are two different passages from the Heavenly Doctrine that speak to this idea. Both of these passages are printed in the worship handout. First we read: [AC §5036.3].
What we’re being taught in that passage is that we aren’t allowed to enter into temptation until we’ve experienced enough spiritual growth that it’s possible for us to actually “win.” That is, we aren’t allowed to enter into temptation until it’s possible for the angels to defend us in temptation; and they aren’t able to defend us until something spiritual has started to take hold within us. The next reading from the Heavenly Doctrine makes this idea even clearer: [AC §4274].
If we don’t care about anything good or true, we won’t be tempted. If we don’t care about anything good or true, then there’s nothing to fight about. Hell will just have its way with us. If we find ourselves in a state of spiritual turmoil, that means we’ve got some work to do. But it also means that something good is putting up a fight within us.
And this is why the Lord, in the New Testament, tells us over and over to endure, to carry on, even in the face of persecution. When we start trying to do the right thing, hell will try to stop us. And the Lord’s message is “stay the course.” He says, “Now brother will deliver up brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death. And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved” (Matt. 10:21, 22). And in the Sermon on the Mount He says: “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven” (Matt. 5:11, 12).
As for Joseph: Joseph was put in prison, and in that prison the Lord was with him (Gen. 39:20). The Lord was able to make him a blessing to the people around him, even while he endured the tribulations that he had to endure (vv. 21-23). And the Lord had no intention that Joseph should move backwards—that he should go back to being a slave in Potiphar’s house. The path forward took Joseph through that prison to something better on the other side.
Amen.