Lent I, Year A

Genesis 2:4-9,15-17,25-3:7
Romans 5:12-21
Matthew 4:1-11

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The owner of a fashionable L.A. boutique took a week's vacation at a spa in the mountain wilderness. (1) She had a rigid schedule. Each morning, she woke before dawn for yoga, had a scrambled egg and half an apple, and then went on a demanding hike for the rest of the morning. Following lunch – six pieces of vegetable sushi with brown rice, she engaged in another five hours of intense physical activity. At the end of the day, she received a bowl of lentil soup before collapsing in her Spartan accommodation. Her vacation cost $3500.

From what I read in the paper, one of the new trends in the vacation industry is this kind of experience – deprivation of some creature comforts, intense meditation, rigorous physical activity. A Beverly Hills travel agent explained, "The point is to work your system to the point where you feel purified." After a similar week at a different spa, a jet-setting young woman said, "Being deprived of basic luxuries makes me appreciate the little things and let go of stress, commotion, and the things I think are important, like the need to go to a nice restaurant or spend $500 on a bag." Even non-religious people discover that fasting may feed the soul, that self-denial may improve self-awareness and gratitude, that discipline may expand our perspective and order in life.

A P.R. executive said, "I was so busy. I never stopped. My whole life was talk, talk, talk. I was always entertaining others, managing a staff, . . ." He went off for a week of silence and meditation and, after a few days of resisting urges to escape and get a beer, he began to figure out what's important in life. He said, "It sounds hokey, but I saw things about myself I never knew." The week changed his life. He came home, sold his part of the business so he could pursue a more meaningful career, and he mended his relationship with a former girlfriend, and then proposed to her.

Every year the Church gives us a long, fancy vacation: Lent. If you don't take Lent seriously, I can easily understand, and even admire, why you'd drop several thousand dollars for a mini-boot camp or meditation center. All human beings need a time for concerted renewal. If we take Lent seriously, it will renew us and change our lives. Keeping a holy Lent will make us better followers of Christ. It means repenting once again – once again turning our lives back to be focused on Christ, to put him at the center. It requires us to be committed and to sacrifice. We have to intensify the primary elements that mark our spiritual lives.

God calls his people to pray, to fast, and to give alms – especially in Lent. First, we should discipline ourselves to increase our prayer. This could mean attending an additional mass during the week, or saying intercessory prayers for our enemies – holding them as well as our loved ones in our hearts, or adding fifteen or thirty minutes of meditation on scripture to our weekly, if not daily, routine. It could mean taking on morning or evening prayer, or praying parts of them. We can add more spiritual reading to our day, be it scripture reading or religious books. We should engage in some self-reflection; we should examine our consciences; we should consider making a sacramental confession.

Second, we fast. We deny ourselves. We cut down on the amount of food we eat, and we abstain from some kinds of food, be it sweets or meat or animal products entirely. I've even heard of people giving up alcohol – but I don't particularly recommend it unless it's a problem for you. We can fast from other indulgences, particularly indulgences that aren't good for us, like television, which is arguably a greater threat to civilization than Al Qaeda. We can re-double our efforts to conquer a vice or a bad habit, or to try to cultivate positive manners.

Third, we work on improving our almsgiving. In other words, we increase our stewardship of the time, talent, and treasure with which God has blessed us. This means giving more money to charities and/or spending more time working for them, be they the church or secular organizations. The idea is to do something for others, to keep ourselves from being the center of our existence. It may be resolving to do at least once a week during Lent a good turn for a stranger. Or perhaps even better, we could do something kind for someone we don't like.

Prayer, fasting, almsgiving are the cornerstones of any spiritual life. They are the marks of being a disciple of Christ. If you want further explanation or recommendations about what to do to keep a holy Lent, please do not hesitate to discuss this with me. Please also keep in mind that our spiritual disciplines don't make us sad; they will improve our lives. We engage in spiritual practices not arbitrarily, not as punishment, but because they make us more like Christ. It's a privilege – like vacation.

Becoming more like Christ requires us to confront and attack our sin. Our culture avoids dealing with the true nature of human beings. The Church is honest about the full reality of human beings. Sure, there's a lot of goodness and love in us, but not enough. We're not satisfied with the way we are, and we shouldn't be. That's one of the reasons why we come to mass. The truth is that each of us is full of wickedness. We are not what we ought to be, or even what we want to be.

A few nights ago, I went to the theater and saw Lorenzaccio. Perhaps the best line of the play comes from the wilful, all-powerful Duke of Florence, whose every whim is indulged. He says in great frustration something like, "Everyone says to me ‘As you please, sir,' and nothing is as I please.'" Even if things go exactly as we want them to be, we are not pleased. Our natural desires are not trustworthy. We are self-absorbed and petty and dishonest and vicious. We are sinners. Even when we recognize our sin and renounce it and repent from it, we still sin. S. Paul says, "I do not understand my own actions. I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing that I hate." (Rms 7:15) We can't help ourselves.

There's only one help for our sin, only one way to satisfy ourselves. That's what the temptations show us. First, the devil tempts Jesus to turn stones into bread. Human beings have basic material needs for life – food, shelter, clothing, as represented here by bread. But human beings possess life only because it is God's will. Indeed, often bread, the material life, distracts us from the true riches of existence. Humanity is not merely limited to that which is material and edible and tangible and visible. As we heard in Genesis today, what really distinguishes us and gives us life is God's breath in us. We aren't tempted to turn stones into bread, but like Jesus here, we are tempted not to rely upon God, not to trust God, as we face difficulties. Our faith is imperfect.

Second, the devil tempts Jesus to cast himself down from a pinnacle of the Temple. Jesus refuses to put God to the test, to manipulate him, to make him show his love and protection. Love never coerces or exploits. Faith does not require proof of God's love and care. Few of us would likely climb onto the church roof and threaten to throw ourselves down, but like Jesus here, we are tempted to question God's love and care for us when things aren't the way we want. No person is wholly happy with the way things are, and Christians especially should not equate what they want, or even what they think God wants, with the reality of God's will. Our will is not God's will.

Third, the devil tempts Jesus to fall down and worship him, and then the devil would give Jesus the kingdoms of the world and all their glory. The devil is a liar. The world is not his to give away. But even if it were, Jesus does not divide his loyalty. He knows that can't serve God and mammon. It's one or the other. Like Jesus here, we are tempted by the seductions of worldly glory. We forget that our true meaning and purpose is not in the world, but only in God, in his love and mercy, in his cross, not in worldly success. Our loyalties are divided between the false glory of the world and the true glory of God's love on the cross.

The temptations don't only show us our sin, they show us who Jesus is. They show us what God is like, what we hope to be. In Lent, as we seek renewal through more intense and purposeful spiritual disciplines, as we confront our sin, renounce it, and turn again back to Christ, let's keep focus on why we're doing this, on the goodness we hope to become, the goodness and love God promises for us. Lenten holiness shows us our future. We need not dread it, but happily embrace it.

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

1. This story is from ‘No Talking. No Fun. It's Called a Vacation.', The New York Times, 16 January 2004. This article is the source of the first three paragraphs.