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Gospel Reflection 20070225

One person can make a difference.
Few things hold us back from responding to other's needs more than thinking, "The problem is so huge—what difference can I make?" Or feeling that even what we do to help a small problem won't really matter much. But both of these thoughts are terribly false!

Yes, many problems are giant-size. But look at the example of Jesus. He did not wipe out all the disease in the world, or even all the disease in Galilee. But he did cure many diseased people. His touch provided a golden ray of real hope. And then he told his disciples—including us —to go and do the same. We can't fix everybody's problems, but we can support and help people in lots of little ways. And these little ways can add up in unexpected ways!

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Constancy in Our Lenten Resolutions
February 25, 2007



First Sunday of Lent

Luke 4:1:13
Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days, to be tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and when they were over he was hungry. The devil said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread." Jesus answered him, "It is written, ´One does not live by bread alone.´" Then he took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a single instant. The devil said to him, "I shall give to you all this power and their glory; for it has been handed over to me, and I may give it to whomever I wish. All this will be yours, if you worship me." Jesus said to him in reply, "It is written: ´You shall worship the Lord, your God, and him alone shall you serve.´" Then he led him to Jerusalem, made him stand on the parapet of the temple, and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written: ´He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you,´ and: ´With their hands they will support you, lest you dash your foot against a stone.´" Jesus said to him in reply, "It also says, ´You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.´" When the devil had finished every temptation, he departed from him for a time.



Today is the first Sunday of Lent. The purple vestments tell us it is a time to pull back just a little from our hurried, harried lives, to fast a bit, abstain a little and to reflect on the meaning of our lives.
There are three basic questions of life: where did we come from, why are we here and where are we going. During so much of our lives you and I are preoccupied with matters that involve the next 24 hours. We seem to have neither the time nor the inclination to look past the immediate problems and give thought to the larger questions of life. Lent is a time when we are invited to reflect more deeply than usual on those three questions, which, when you come down to it, are the really the only questions in this life that have any lasting significance.
Where did I come from, i.e. who made me? Who is the one who made me? What is that person like? Secondly, why did he make me? Why am I here? Not why are we here but why am I here? I know why Thomas Edison was born; I know why Alexander Graham Bell was born and I think I know why Dwight Eisenhower was born. But why was I out of the millions of possible human beings that God could have I created, why was I chosen to be born? Have I got a job to do for the world? Have I done that job? Have I at least begun to do it? Finally, where am I going when I die? Am I ready for that journey?
Today we read one of the briefest gospel selections of the whole year. After He was baptized by John, Jesus went out into the desert for forty days, fasted, and was tempted by Satan, then returned and began His preaching in Galilee.
The liturgy uses Luke's account of Jesus' three temptations at the beginning of His forty days in the desert to indicate the inauguration of the Christian's forty days of Lenten observance. Jesus is led by the Spirit in continuation of His baptismal consecration in which His relation to Father and Spirit were manifest. The Spirit is with Jesus in His period of trial. The fasting of Jesus is not penitential, but is a sign of His dependence on God. The tempter is the devil, that mysterious, invisible personal being whose action against the spiritual welfare of humans can be revealed in temptations. In the three temptations Jesus always replies with a quotation from the Book of Deuteronomy to show that His life should be understood against the background of the Old Testament: Jesus, like any son of Israel, turns to God in moments of need. The first temptation is to interpret divine sonship in a selfish and materialistic way. The second temptation interprets divine sonship in terms of worldly power. The third temptation is expressed by the devil in words taken from today's responsorial psalm, but uses them in a distorted way so that they become an occasion of putting God to the test. Jesus' reply puts this lie in its proper context: one does not put God on trial.
The Gospel shows an example of the virtue of faith. Not simply faith in the sense of what we believe as heirs of the Old Testament tradition and believers in the New, but in the sense of how we believe as well. Belief implies a deep assent of the mind and complete trust in God in all of our trials. This is done by us Christians through Jesus who is our Lord. He is Lord for all humanity, the One to whom all are invited to turn. Many other gods appeal for our faith and our trust in the world of today. Lent is an appropriate time for prayer and reflection on just what these gods are in my own personal life and in the life of us Christians as a people. Fasting as a sign of God's sovereignty over our lives would be useful accompaniment of such prayer and reflection. The gods which stand around us and plead for our worship are such things as power for its own sake, sex for its own sake, money for its own sake. These and many other things can stand in the way of our service of the Lord Jesus. Only such service can give our heart true peace. Only by imitation of the Lord Jesus in His temptations in the desert can we arrive at the proper state of sharing in His divine sonship as men and women dedicated to God.
The free decision of Jesus to embrace in action the will of divine love, rather than the will of human or diabolical self-love, is another way of speaking of the temptations in the desert. Satan seeks to take divine words, the words of Scripture, in order to lure Jesus away from the divine will. But Jesus masterfully unveils the deceitful manipulation of Satan by revealing the true interpretation of Scripture. Scripture alone is not enough: it must be interpreted according to the mind of Christ, given to us in the Holy Spirit working in the Church’s Teaching Authority.
When we’re mediocre, we run no risk of becoming holy and spoiling Satan’s plans and thus, he has no concern for us. It’s when we start to strive for holiness that we will find ourselves face-to-face with temptation because the devil begins to put all sorts of obstacles in our paths.
The Church invites us in this Lenten season to a greater self-sacrifice. Sacrifice helps us to be more detached from the sources of temptation that can keep us from reaping the full fruits of Christ’s redeeming work and from loving God with an undivided heart. That’s why our Lenten sacrifice should really be something that purifies our hearts and makes us more generous with others. Our sacrifice should make us less self-centered. It should make us better followers of Christ.
Overcoming temptation is not an easy business. In fact, it’s impossible without God’s grace. When Jesus was tempted, he showed us what our reference point should be: God. All three times the devil tempted him in the Gospel, he answered by putting God’s word and God’s will first. In order for us to persevere in our Lenten resolutions, we must center ourselves on God and rely on his grace. That means living close to Christ in Scripture – especially the Gospels. It means staying close to him in the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist and Reconciliation.
Jesus’ struggle through all the temptations was to give up control even over good things, give up control and hear his father and follow what he heard with every fiber of his being, despite what he came up against. I may be tempted to say to myself that he did not really go through such tough temptations. He could not have really faced making another choice, he knew everything. If I say that, I am saying he was not fully human. So, I have to believe Jesus had to really struggle to give in, to understand a call which went beyond what he saw around himself. The story says he struggled in the desert. But the real struggle he experienced was in the same place we experience the temptations that shake our own resolve, threaten our identity as Jesus' community and tug us away from our life's true course. They happened in Jesus' mind and body, heart and soul. And they were not done until he died, for in the garden he asked to not have to do it, and on the cross he felt abandoned.
The wilderness we inhabit seems much less threatening than the one Jesus entered, no wild animals, no haven for bandits, and there is food. For many of us the desert is a world of commuting, homework assignments, deadlines, financial stress, shopping malls, job security, medical bills, TV programs, etc. These places can be both places of holiness, reflecting our Gospel commitment, or they can be the wilderness where we are tempted or try to tempt our God. Our temptations don't seem as dramatic as the ones described in this gospel scene, yet they are just as dramatic, maybe traumatic, for us. Our struggle with temptations of drugs, alcohol and food may be severe. Our temptations of ignoring someone in need may be significant.
We are entering Lent, a word taken from old English for lengthening of days, spring, a time for new hope, new growth. We gladly see spring and its promises, especially after the two months of snow cover we had this winter. But we might fail to see the promises of Lent. We seem tempted to make Lent a time we control with alms, prayer and fasting, instead of letting go and doing the same actions from a different perspective, the perspective of new growth and new bloom coming out of the lengthening of days. We can make Lent a time to let go of those temptations we like, a time to let ourselves be true to our God in the image of Jesus. He struggled and so will we.

posted by Mike Young @ 3:05 PM