1st Sunday of Lent: Cycle C 21-22

FIRST SUNDAY OF LENT

Deuteronomy 26:4-10 | Romans 10:8-13 | Luke 4:1-13

Grant, almighty God, through the yearly observance of Holy Lent, that we may grow in understanding of the riches hidden in Christ and, by worthy conduct, pursue their effects.  Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever, amen.

There’s something exciting to me about the work that God has asked me to do, and that is to dig as deeply as possible into these stories, the images of the stories and look for and seek what is hidden, what is there that is so obvious once we see it, but it was often easily missed.  At least it was in my life as I used to read these stories and not find much in them other than maybe some word would trigger me on a topic, and then I would give the homily on that topic that weekend. But as I’ve grown as one who preaches and teaches from these stories, I realize that the surface is just the beginning, to go deeper, deeper, deeper, and you’ll find a consistent, simple, direct message that goes right to the heart and ignites something in the heart that the heart already knows.  

So let’s begin with the image of the first reading, because here we are, as I said at the beginning of the program, looking at some of the most basic teachings of scripture.  And I love this first reading, because it summarizes pretty much the whole Old Testament story, and it’s a simple story of freeing human beings from slavery and bringing them into freedom.  And the slavery they were caught in was something that kept them from being who they were called to be.  To be a slave to someone means that you don’t have the choices that you need to have in order to grow and develop who you are, and so you’re constantly doing what you’re told, constantly doing what is demanded of you.  And if there’s a good image of a negative way of understanding religion, no matter what religion it is, that instead of igniting in someone a journey that is engaged directly with the divine, we’re told about the things we should do, how we should act, and it ends up being a kind of issue of being controlled behavior.  And nothing could be further from the truth as far as the heart of this beautiful story of salvation history.  It reveals who we are.  It’s not people who are forced to behave in a certain way but people who are invited into a relationship that is so radically transformative that the memory of who we were before just fades into almost nothingness.  

So what is this first story about?  It’s about a people who are taken on a journey, and they were formed by God and placed in a place, but in that place, they became slaves to something outside of themselves, the Egyptians.  And the promise that God has given to them is, “I will take you on a journey, and the journey will take you from a place of slavery,” which is a pretty clear image of being forced to do things because you’re told to, “To a place filled with milk and honey.”  And that image of the place of milk and honey is so clearly, if you’re agrarian culture, that it’s a place of security and money and wealth or something.  It means, “This is what you need in order to do the thing you’re called to do.”  So these people were farmers.  They were herdsmen, and so to know that there was green grass, there was water, there was good soil — but all those images refer to something in the human spirit that is needed before it can really flourish: a place.  I’ll call it a place of security, place of knowing that somehow we are deeply loved, that we’re safe, and that we have value.  That conviction  creates in a human being an environment in which then we are open to receive this incredible message of the Divine as it’s revealed in a person, a human being called Jesus.  

So there’s something that has to happen first in a way, and I would call that our gift from God, the gift of our human nature that is designed to be connected to the divine Spirit.  We’re made for that, and it’s only with the indwelling presence of God that we have this sense, that is not logical but more mystical, that we are truly a people that God has created, that we’re an individual that God has created that has dignity and value and that that is our inheritance.  And when anything is there that tries to rob us of that, we know that that is not God’s will, and yet God’s will is the strongest of all powers in the world.  So that’s where our confidence comes from even though I don’t understand fully what it means as I look at myself to say — I look at what I see, and I say, “Oh, it is so lovable.  It is so beautiful.”  And I don’t.  I see the negative.  I see the sin.  I see the imperfection, and even God sees that, but it doesn’t keep him from being the source of this new place, this land that we’ve been given, the fertile land of openness to divinity and openness to the destiny that we’re called to live and the ability to live it.  So think about that first reading then as creating an image for us of a disposition that is our inheritance.  We’ve earned it, not individually, but the human race has been struggling for it and longing for it.  And we have found a way to find it, and it’s been revealed to us by God.  And how this all works is through a connection, an intimacy with the Divine.

So it’s interesting that we begin this series of importance gospels by looking at the man Jesus, the human being, and at a certain point in his life — I think it’s fascinating to think about the life of Jesus.  What was it like?  Did he, once he reached the age of seven, did he realize, “Oh, I’m the Messiah, and I can do these miraculous things.  And I am divine.  I am human, but I’m also divine”?  I don’t think it was that way at all.  He, like  us, went through the human experience of growing and evolving and beginning to understand who God really is and his relationship with God.  And then at some point, it had to be so clear to him that he was the unique one called to experience God’s indwelling presence in a way that no human being had ever done it.  Now, I’m not saying that, at Jesus’ baptism, he became the Messiah, but it seems that at baptism, as a human being, he became very aware of what was happening to him.  And so the people around him knew something was special about him, because there was, as you remember, at the baptism of Jesus, the words of God spoke in a thunderous voice.  They heard it.  “This is my Beloved Son.  This is the one I’ve sent into the world to reveal who I am in you.”  And there it was, a manifestation in the imagination of a human being called Jesus of who he was and what his destiny was to be about.  And then he had to deal with his humanity, and that’s what the gospel is about and the second reading. 

Let’s look at the gospel first, and what do I mean?  It’s there.  Here it is: Jesus, after he is receiving this awareness, this consciousness of God inside of him, he is taken to a place of reflection, whether it’s the desert literally or not, but it was his mind racing to figure out, “What does all this mean?”  And if you don’t think he grew like a human being, you don’t understand.  That’s the way it’s described so clearly in scripture.  He grew in age and in wisdom.  He didn’t have all his wisdom at the beginning.  Otherwise he wouldn’t be fully human, and now he’s facing a temptation, a set of temptations and the classic resistance in all of us to this mysterious indwelling presence.  What do we do with it?  What’s it for?  How do we respond to it?  So the devil that I call that evil, self-centered part of all us, though I’m not saying there isn’t really a devil, but anyway, there is something in us, the human part of us, that cries out for self, always for self first.  I speak to you often about the evolution of human beings, and there’s a lower level, which is all about us being safe, being cared for, being — getting everything that we need for ourselves and even getting things from other people.  And then there’s a higher level, which we’re there to give and give life and give hope and direction to other people.  But the self-centeredness is what first raises its head when we open ourselves to a power that is given to us, and the first thing that Jesus seems to be tempted to do, as I would be and you would be, if we have this new power, use it for comfort.  Use it for everything I need to make me more comfortable in this world.  The image, turn these stones, these heavy, rock-like burdens, into bread, life-giving, soft, fresh, melted butter on it bread.  That’s the temptation we have with any gift that you’ve been given by God.  And these gifts are first there — we don’t realize they are the presence of God in us, but there’s something really powerful about recognizing that these things are not for us, just for us.  So the first temptation is, “I’m not interested in using this power so that my life will be more comfortable and more, more — easier,” let’s say.  

And the next thing is the temptation where the devil awakens in Jesus, the human Jesus, that there’s a great deal of benefit from being powerful and strong and mighty and famous and a celebrity, all the things that the world tends to offer us that gives us a sense of our own self-importance.  He says, “I can give you all that.  I can give that to you.  It’s easy.  If you want it, it’s there for you.  You’re talented.  You’ve got great charisma.”  If he’s playing on Jesus’ humanity, it’s not just some generic thing that he’s being tempted in.  The devil’s playing on Jesus knowing he is a gifted man, and he said, “So let’s do it in a way that brings you fame and fortune.”  Jesus said, “No, I’m not going to worship — I’m not going to give myself over to the rules and laws of this world that we live in that’s not truly truthful or life-giving.”  

And then the last one is so important.  The devil takes him to a high parapet, an edge of the temple, and says, “Jump off.”  I think it’s interesting he’s jumping off the temple of all buildings, but that’s another issue you can use your own imagination with, since the temple was the thing that he was not happy with.  But it’s — what he’s saying in this last temptation is, “Okay, if you’re going to do the thing that God is asking you to do, then be sure you test everything that he’s going to ask you to do before you do it,” which is almost saying, “Look, you don’t have to be convinced of this.  In fact, it’s impossible for you to be convinced of it unless you have proof.”  He’s playing to the logical mind of Jesus, and so he said, “Test everything first.”  And then it really hits to the core of Jesus is, because, “No, no.  No, my idea is be convinced — to convince that this God that I believe in, this Father that I know is mine is there for me and will never, ever disappoint me.”  

And then Paul says, from the second reading, “This kind of belief is not something that the mind does.  It’s not logical.  It’s not anything other than your heart being awakened to something that it alone can understand, because the mind will come up with arguments against it.  It’s being so convinced that it dwells in your heart, this realization of who I am in God, and all the things that the Psalm said God will do for me, he will do for me.  He will never let me fail.”  That’s the most beautiful conviction that we can have in terms of living out our life.  It is difficult.  It is painful.  It is something that we would like to have, some kind of power in the world to change the things that might be causing us pain, but if we are deeply convinced, as we are invited to be by this grace of God living inside of you, if you have that conviction, then those decisions of me turning away from the things that are the most easy out from pain and suffering and difficulty and loneliness, they just melt away.  In its place, we have this inner conviction.  Our heart knows, and when it knows like that, then you’re in that land of milk and honey.  You’re there with a conviction that you are loved, and you are safe.  And you know what?  You are deeply, deeply valued, because God is using you to bring life to a hungry, lonely, needy world.

Father, we get confused, and we’re often in the dark.  And we don’t realize — we often feel that we have to be the person you call us to be before you’ll be there for us, we have to prove to you our goodness before you enter us to make us good.  Free us from that.  Let us know, in our broken and loneliness and our selfishness, that there you are for us and with us, and you will make us into who you call us to be.  And we ask this in Jesus’ name, amen.