Sunday March 6, 2022

First Sunday Of Lent

With Jesus in the Desert

At our baptism, through our godparents, we said NO to Satan and his temptations before we said YES to the covenant of love, which God offered to us. There we joined Jesus in his NO to Satan and his temptations that tried to make him abandon his mission of restoring people to God’s covenant love. During Lent we are challenged to make this YES and this NO come true. Like Jesus, are we willing to be faithful to our mission in life, to join Jesus in his NO to all evil and in his YES to God and  and to our truest self?

 

First Reading: Deuteronomy 26:4-10

The priest will take the basket from you and place it on the Altar of God, your God. And there in the Presence of God, your God, you will recite:

A wandering Aramean was my father,
he went down to Egypt and sojourned there,
he and just a handful of his brothers at first, but soon
they became a great nation, mighty and many.
The Egyptians abused and battered us,
in a cruel and savage slavery.
We cried out to God, the God-of-Our-Fathers:
He listened to our voice, he saw
our destitution, our trouble, our cruel plight.
And God took us out of Egypt
with his strong hand and long arm, terrible and great,
with signs and miracle-wonders.
And he brought us to this place,
gave us this land flowing with milk and honey.
So here I am. I’ve brought the firstfruits
of what I’ve grown on this ground you gave me, O God.

Then place it in the Presence of God, your God.

 

Second Reading: Romans 10:8-13

Moses wrote that anyone who insists on using the law code to live right before God soon discovers it’s not so easy—every detail of life regulated by fine print! But trusting God to shape the right living in us is a different story—no precarious climb up to heaven to recruit the Messiah, no dangerous descent into hell to rescue the Messiah. So what exactly was Moses saying?

The word that saves is right here,
    as near as the tongue in your mouth,
    as close as the heart in your chest.

It’s the word of faith that welcomes God to go to work and set things right for us. This is the core of our preaching. Say the welcoming word to God—“Jesus is my Master”—embracing, body and soul, God’s work of doing in us what he did in raising Jesus from the dead. That’s it. You’re not “doing” anything; you’re simply calling out to God, trusting him to do it for you. That’s salvation. With your whole being you embrace God setting things right, and then you say it, right out loud: “God has set everything right between him and me!”

Scripture reassures us, “No one who trusts God like this—heart and soul—will ever regret it.” It’s exactly the same no matter what a person’s religious background may be: the same God for all of us, acting the same incredibly generous way to everyone who calls out for help. “Everyone who calls, ‘Help, God!’ gets help.”

 

Gospel: Luke 4:1-13

Now Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wild. For forty wilderness days and nights he was tested by the Devil. He ate nothing during those days, and when the time was up he was hungry.

The Devil, playing on his hunger, gave the first test: “Since you’re God’s Son, command this stone to turn into a loaf of bread.”

Jesus answered by quoting Deuteronomy: “It takes more than bread to really live.”

For the second test he led him up and spread out all the kingdoms of the earth on display at once. Then the Devil said, “They’re yours in all their splendor to serve your pleasure. I’m in charge of them all and can turn them over to whomever I wish. Worship me and they’re yours, the whole works.”

Jesus refused, again backing his refusal with Deuteronomy: “Worship the Lord your God and only the Lord your God. Serve him with absolute single-heartedness.”

For the third test the Devil took him to Jerusalem and put him on top of the Temple. He said, “If you are God’s Son, jump. It’s written, isn’t it, that ‘he has placed you in the care of angels to protect you; they will catch you; you won’t so much as stub your toe on a stone’?”

 “Yes,” said Jesus, “and it’s also written, ‘Don’t you dare tempt the Lord your God.’”

That completed the testing. The Devil retreated temporarily, lying in wait for another opportunity.

 

Prayer
God, you want to be near to us,
you lead us with your Son Jesus
to the desert of questions and temptations
that you may speak to our heart
and bring us back to you in loving trust.
Open our eyes, our minds and our hearts
to discard all that leads us astray
and to look for you and for the plans you have
for us and for the world.
Let your Spirit give us the mentality of Jesus,
that we may seek your will in all we do
and serve you in our brothers and sisters.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.  Amen.

 

Reflection:

A temptation to be a god of the world

Every year, as Lent begins, we reflect on the temptations of Jesus lest we run the risk of making choices contrary to those indicated by the word of God. We all experience this inner conflict, which St. Paul presents in Romans 7, where he says, “I am not doing what I want to do but what I detest.” This inner conflict between good and evil, the Spirit and the flesh, is a reality. We find this conflict in the life of Jesus.

In the baptism scene of Jesus, a voice was heard saying, “You are my Son, the Beloved.” It is the voice of recognition and assurance from the Father. However, soon after, the evangelist would present the temptations of Jesus in the desert. The devil deceives and questions the very assurance Jesus received from the Father: ‘If you are the Son of God…’

Jesus’ journey into the wilderness recalls the exodus where the people of Israel spent 40 years in the desert. Forty indicated the period of a whole generation. Jesus spent 40 days in the desert, indicating the number of his whole lifetime. In this world, Jesus experienced all the necessities of biological life; he hungered for bread, water, shelter, clothing, social relationships, and good health.

From this hunger for material food and goods arises the temptation. The temptation was to satisfy the human hunger, and to prove before the world that he was the Son of God. The world wants a god that satisfies the hunger for food, house, health, profession, success, and being well. If you place your abilities at the service of the people’s material needs, everyone will love you because people want this and nothing else.

We experience the same proposition today. The devil would tell us that everybody will consider us a god, provided you help them fulfil their hunger; If not, you are nobody. And this voice is very strong.

How often do we hear people say, ‘I prayed, I am not cured, so why should I pray and why should I believe?’ Jesus’s response to this evil voice is to focus on the life that does not require material bread. Be nourished with the word, with the wisdom of God that comes from heaven.

Lent is a precious time to reflect on how we relate to the goods of this world. Either as believers or as pagans who only believe in material life. Let us then ask ourselves if certain expenses are compatible with the choice of the Gospel, certain investments, certain fabulous sums left as an inheritance to our children, certain pleasure trips, certain bank accounts. Let us be careful to be content with the daily bread so that all may have what is necessary to live, and we defeat the temptation to accumulate goods.

 

Video available on Youtube: A temptation to be a god of the world