Where Do We Stand? - A Homily for the First Sunday of Lent

        A lion used to prowl around a field in which four oxen would graze.  He tried many times to attack them, but whenever he approached, the oxen turned their tails toward one another so that the lion was met by horns on all sides.  One day, the lion had an idea.  He started spreading rumors among the oxen, lying to them about what one had said about another.  The oxen began to quarrel, and each went off to graze alone in separate corners of the field.  The lion then attacked them one by one and soon made an end of all four.[1]  The moral of this story is “United We Stand, Divided We Fall.”  Our readings challenge us to ask ourselves, “Where do we stand?”

 

          In our Gospel passage, we find Satan trying to tempt Jesus, twisting God’s word for his own evil purposes in an ill-fated attempt to separate Jesus from the Father.  Jesus, of course, resists temptation because he knows that our help is in the Lord, and he knows that when we stand united with God and with each other, Satan doesn’t stand a chance. 

          The devil’s evil ways are evident in his names.  “Satan, ‘Satanas,’ means the accuser.  Devil, ‘diabolus,’ means the one who tears things apart, the divider.”[2]  And so, Satan does everything in his power to accuse us before God and one another, and to divide us, to separate us from God and from each other.  He goes so far as to try to convince Jesus to “play the games of accusation and division.”[3]

Satan failed with Jesus, but unfortunately, he’s had his successes with us.  “Temptation is a universal human experience.”[4]  We find Satan’s strategy of divide et impera – divide and conquer – woven into the fabric of human interaction.  Machiavelli advises in The Art of War “that a Captain should endeavor with every art to divide the forces of the enemy, either by making him suspicious of his men in which he trusted, or by giving him cause that he has to separate his forces, and, because of this, become weaker.”[5]  Sound familiar?  We see the devil’s strategy at work in our world every day.  We see it in politics, in our social interactions, and even in religion.  Let’s face it, how many of us have blamed our assistant when we’ve forgotten a meeting?  How many of us have allowed our spouse to think that our child did something that we did?  And worst of all, how many of us have blamed the dog?  We succumb to temptation; we neglect our Gospel values; we accuse, and we divide.

Why do we do this?  The short answer is that we do it out of a feeling of insecurity that manifests itself in many ways.  When we feel inadequate, we try to elevate ourselves by tearing down our colleagues.  When we’re hurt and angry, we lash out at our loved ones.  When we’re so frustrated that we can’t express ourselves adequately, we resort to name calling and slander.  When we’re guilty, we point fingers at the innocent to deflect attention away from ourselves.  And in the hyper-connected cyber-world we live in, we can accuse and divide incessantly, anonymously and with little accountability, joined by legions of other insecure people who are more than willing to pile on.  We accuse and divide to help ourselves feel better, but the only one we help is Satan.

So what can we do about it?  We have to put our faith in God, as Jesus did.  As in all things, Jesus is our role model for resisting temptation.  Jesus was fully human, so he knew what it meant to be tempted.  And faced with temptation, “Jesus allowed himself to be led by the Spirit.”[6]  He turned to Scripture, knowing that God’s word “is a bulwark against evil and essential for spiritual growth and conversion.”[7]  Scripture calls us to radical trust in God and gives us all the evidence we need to put our trust in Him.  Scripture tells us that God hears the cry of his people and rescues us from slavery.  (Deuteronomy 26: 98-9)  Scriptures tells us that no evil shall befall us for God’s angels guard us in all our ways.  (Psalm 91: 10-11)  Scripture tells us that “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”  (Romans 10: 13)  Scripture tells us that we have every reason to feel safe and secure when we stand united with God and with each other against temptation and sin.  “If God is for us, who can be against us?”  (Romans 8:31)  All we need to do is repent and believe the Gospel, which is exactly what we’re called to do during Lent.

Lent is a call to conversion; it’s a time to examine our consciences; it’s a time to find and eliminate everything that separates us from God.  It’s a time to renounce Satan and all his works and all his empty show.  We’ve just witnessed a beautiful Lenten conversion this past Friday when Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill held the first-ever meeting between a Roman Pontiff and a Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church in the more than 950 years since the Great Schism.  Their embrace in Havana International Airport has been billed as the “hug heard ‘round the world,” but I can assure it was felt most profoundly in hell, as nearly a millennium of accusation and division was conquered by a moment of unity in Christ.  Let’s follow the example of Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill this Lent.  Let’s use this Lent to set aside accusation and division and adopt forgiveness and reconciliation.  Let’s use this Lent to stand united with God and with each other, resisting temptation as Jesus did.    

          Our Gospel reading “is a strong reminder that  . . . there is a cosmic agōn or struggle taking place for the human soul.”[8]  United with God and with each other, we stand together tails turned inward to meet Satan with horns on all sides.  Separated from God and divided from each other, we fall prey to the devil’s temptations.  The question that remains for each one of us, then, is, “Where do we stand?”

Readings:  Deuteronomy 26: 4-10; Psalm 91; Romans 10: 8-13; Luke 4:1-13

---

[1] Aesop, The Lion and the Four Oxen.

[2] John Shea, The Relentless Widow:  The Spiritual Wisdom of the Gospels for Christian Preachers and Teachers, Luke Year C (Collegeville, Liturgical Press, 2006) at 65.

[3] Id.

[4] R. Alan Culpepper, “The Gospel of Luke,” The New Interpreter’s Bible, vol. IX (Nashville, Abingdon Press, 1995) at 100.

[5] Niccolò Machiavelli, The Art of War, Book VI, http://www.constitution.org/mac/artofwar6.htm.

[6] Shea at 101.

[7] John W. Martens, “God Alone,” America, vol. 214, no. 4 (February 8, 2016) at 39.

[8] David Lyle Jeffrey, Luke (Grand Rapids, Brazos Press, 2012) at 66.

A Trying Time – An Ash Wednesday Reflection

In recent years, I’ve grown to appreciate Ash Wednesday much more than I ever did as a young adult.  You see, I used to think that Ash Wednesday was just a day when the super pious would walk around with dust on their foreheads to remind everyone else how super pious they are.  But once I started receiving ashes myself, and especially when I began distributing ashes as a deacon, I came to realize how wrong I was.  From my new vantage point, I see people from every walk and circumstance of life – the young and the old, the rich and the poor, the super-religious and those who may just be hedging their bets –  humbly submitting themselves to the sobering rite where we remember that we are dust and to dust we shall return.  I see people who are trying – trying to be humble; trying to connect with God; trying to change for the better.  Lent is exactly that:  a trying time.

During Lent we’re called to conversion.  We’re called to change – to set aside our bad habits, repent, and believe the Gospel.  But truly believing the Gospel isn’t simply a matter of words; it’s a way of living.  To believe in the Gospel, we need to live the Gospel values.  That means we need to place ourselves in proper orientation with God our creator and at the service of our fellow man.  In other words, we need to love God and love our neighbor. Through the disciplines of prayer, fasting and alms-giving, Lent offers us a special opportunity to try a little harder to be a little better in our relationships with God and our neighbor.

 

Lent also offers us the opportunity to acknowledge that others are trying, too.  Let’s face it, It’s a lot easier to be judgmental than trying to figure out another person’s circumstances, motivations and intentions.  So we spend a good part of our day angry:  angry at the slow driver who made me late for work; angry at the store clerk who once again forgot to double-bag my groceries; angry at the guy who hogged the stepper at the gym.  It’s easy to assume that others are being the way they are just to tick us off.  But maybe, just maybe, that slow driver was bringing her newborn home from the hospital for the first time; or that store clerk has special needs; or that guy on the stepper was recently told that if he didn’t lose weight soon, he’d have serious health issues.  Maybe, they’re all just trying, too.

 

          Lent, then, is also a great time to love God and neighbor by trying to add a little more forbearance and forgiveness to our repertoire.  We can’t always know a person’s circumstances, motivations or intentions.  So maybe we should give them the benefit of the doubt.  If we do, we’ll certainly be a lot less angry, and maybe we’ll grow to appreciate that we’re all living in a trying time.