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First Sunday of Lent, March 5, 2017

READINGS: Genesis 2:7-9, 3:1-7; Psalm 51:3-6, 12-13, 17; Romans 5:12-19; and Matthew 4:1-11

“And suddenly you know: It’s time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings.”

—Meister Eckhart

In the 1980s, I finally made my first trip to Ireland to teach and explore my roots as a second generation Irish woman. I had my genealogy mapped out and started in one of the Northern countries, going from pub to pub, asking the local about those who might have known members of my father’s extended family over seven or eight decades ago. It was proving more difficult and elusive than I had originally thought—there were so many folks sharing the name. After weeks, I entered a pub late in the afternoon and started asking the bartender who I should talk with and was directed to a group of six or seven men in the corner. I brought a round of drinks and took out my list. For the first time—when I mentioned names and who was married to who, children, and siblings, I saw recognition on their faces. For them, these names were real people. Excitedly, they started asking me questions. Then, a question I wasn’t ex-pecting was directed straight at me: “Girl, do you know who you are?” Stumbling, I said, “Uh, I think I do.” More back and forth and I was informed that my grandfather’s brother was one of the saints. I didn’t know what to say. Then, I was given a short, intense history lesson on the Easter Rebellion of 1915 and, as I listened, all sorts of things in my life started falling into place. Then there was another silence and I was questioned again: “Do you know who you are, girl?” And this time I was beginning to suspect who and what was part of my history and my becoming who I was—and here I was in my forties!

This is the question of the First Sunday of Lent for all of us—“Do you know who you are, girl/boy?” We be-gin with our roots. We begin with our genesis and our becoming living beings drawn forth out of clay and enlivened by the breath of God. We were created seeking to know what is good and what is evil, born to seek wisdom—being born in the image of God, dwelling in a garden. And we were created to take responsibility for our choices, live with the consequences of our actions, and participate in God’s continual creation and presence with us. As believers, we were born again in the waters and the Spirit of baptism. Lent has been the season of “making Christians” when the Church experienced the last steps of the initiation of new members of the

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Body of Christ. And the “elder” Christians sought to return to the intensity of their first love; their initial com-mitment and obedience to Jesus’ way of being human so the whole community could renew their living, dying, and rising to life with God at the Easter Vigil.

With this in mind, it makes sense to return to our baptismal promises and let the Spirit lead us into the desert to begin with testing, with temptations, and with being questioned on who we are at our roots. In baptism, we become the children of God, the brothers and sisters of Jesus, the dwelling place of the Spirit of God, servants with Jesus of our Beloved God who has given birth to us. It is time to examine where we stand and how we live. As with Jesus there will be three questions, all three of which can be predicated by the words: “If you are the son/daughter/child of God—Let’s see if you are now.”

The tempter, named the devil or Satan, does the questioning face to face, blunt and to the point. The word “satan” means the hinderer and in that sense can be an obstacle, a wall, a crossing point where the one confronted must decide, must choose what they will do; to continue as they have or to change course. And it will be worded as though it is a promise that will be kept, a way of living, a way of revealing who you are and where you stand now.

The probing seeks to examine where we stand on fundamental beliefs and practices. The first is sur-vival: what we live on, how we procure what we need, the basic necessities of life, and what we all hunger for that fulfills us as human beings. This first question is visceral. Jesus is hungry. As hu-man beings we are hungry, every day, every night. Prove you’re a child of God. So here are stones: make them loaves of bread. Command them to change. Surprisingly, Jesus changes course and quotes what is essential: “One does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). Jesus needs just a piece of bread, not loaves. What is sufficient, what is enough; not quantity, excess. He corrects. He takes care of what is needed by depending on God’s intent first. All human needs are taken care of in relation to God.

“Today, both as individual believers

and together as the Body of Christ

in the world, we are asked again:

‘Do you know who you are?

Does everyone else know

who we are from the way we live?’

We share a common humanity.

All of us are made

in the divine image.

All of us share

the same human dignity.

We are all one in God.

Every one of us was created

to reveal something

of God’s likeness.”

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Next, we look at our relationship to God. If we mean that much to God that we are called children, sons, and daughters, how is God going to be with us? From the pinnacle of the temple he’s baited: throw yourself down. Let’s see if you are protected from harm, from destruction, from suffering and dying. Again, Jesus quotes scripture: “You shall not put the Lord, your God to the test” (Luke 4:12). All of living is under the watchful eye of God. We are born. We will die and we will experience all that is to be known of life between those moments, with God. It is the fullness of life, not life without suffering, pain, loss, evil, lack, harm, or death.

Lastly, we are reminded of our vision and God’s vision of the world and all its powers. Matthew’s Gospel is all about power and authority and whose power is greater and who we chose to obey. In a moment there is a glimpse of all history, all the earth, and the rise and fall of power and kingdoms, governments and societies, in their magnificence and invitation. And it’s put on a platter, offered by the hinderer. All this belongs to me. The hinderer says, “All these I shall give to you, if you prostrate yourself before me and worship me” (Matthew 4:9). Take it. It’s yours. Again, refusal lies in committing publicly to where you stand, who you obey and who you worship. Jesus proclaims, “The Lord, your God, shall you worship and him alone shall you serve” (Matthew 4:10). The only power or person that we are to obey and worship whole-heartedly is God, the God of Jesus.

With Jesus we’ve taken the test. We proclaim our testimony. But this is the beginning. For now the hinderer leaves and Jesus is ministered to by angels. Now we are committed once again to living out our baptism, to living as children of God, in the way that is pleasing to God, in the way of Jesus. And, the Spirit of God has been given to us as God’s first abiding gift that will remain with us as we make those promises our reality in the kingdoms of the world. We, too, will know the coming of ministering angels—all those we share this life of the Word, the Bread, the Spirit, and the Power of God within the Body of the crucified and risen Lord.

Today, both as individual believers and together as the Body of Christ in the world, we are asked again, “Do you know who you are? Does everyone else know who we are from the way we live?” We share a common humanity. All of us are made in the divine image. All of us share the same human dignity. We are all one in God. Every one of us was created to reveal something of God’s likeness. We are initially blessed with an inalienable and transcendent God-given dignity. Just by existing we reveal divinity and we are related to one another. We are sisters and brothers, the children of God. We understand our God to be Trinity, who holds all together in one communion. We image God not only as individual persons but in communities and as one human family. Our nature is communal and all human rights belong to everyone. This is our grounding, our foundation.

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Photo Credit: Megan Mckenna

Each and every human person is holy and our religion, our spirituality, our ritual, our worship, our ethics, and our morality all seek to express this inherent dignity and to encourage its development from the womb to the tomb. We are created to live together with one another as our God lives together, intent on the fullness of life for all.

The three tests are good places to begin each year, each season, each Lent, each week, and every morning. Our faith and its roots are in the Hebrew prophets and what we learn of God who hears the cry of the poor and witnesses to the affliction of his people, knows oppression and suffering, and comes down to rescue them from these powers and leads them to freedom (Exodus 3:7). From the beginning, through the making of a people that belongs to and serves God, we are prepared to learn that life, the processes of conversion, and transforma-tion, leadership, and structures must imitate God’s imperative that we are to pursue justice if we seek the Lord (Is. 51) and to bring glad tidings to the poor and afflicted; to bind the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives and release to prisoners and announce a year of favor from the Lord (Isaiah 61:1-2).

These are the opening words of Jesus’ preaching on why he was baptized, why we are all baptized; this is the way of Jesus; the way God’s power is known and expressed in the world, is visible and shared. This is God’s will: justice for all; fullness of life for all; freedom for all. It is to begin with the poor; the stranger and the alien; the outcast and the sinner; those who are hungry and thirsty; the naked and the prisoner; the sick and the oppressed; the refugee and the immigrant; and all those who suffer oppression, violence, and injustice (Matthew 25:35-45). This is what the Church declares as Catholic social teach-ing on justice, the understanding of and development of the tradition of Jesus’ way, truth, and life, and how it is to be lived, structured, and practiced in our contemporary societies.

The tempter leaves us. Now is the time for us to be min-istering angels to one another as we seek to live as the beloved children of God, as brothers and sisters to Jesus, as kin to all that has been created along with us, shouting and whispering the dignity, the justice, the glory and the power of our God. We begin Lent with hope, with expectation and a renewed commitment to our belief. These words of Rainer Maria Rilke (Sonnets To Orpheus: II, 12, stanza 1, translated by David Steindl-Rast) propel us on our way:

Desire change. Be enthusiastic for that flame in which a thing escapes your grasp while it makes a glorious display of transformation. That designing Spirit, the master mind of all things on earth loves nothing so much in the sweeping movement of the dance as the turning point.

We turn from our testing to face the world, with Jesus and our companions, on the way.

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REFLECTION QUESTIONS: TO STRETCH YOUR HEART AND SOUL

l Thomas Merton wrote, “What we have to be is what we are.” What does it mean for you to see your-self as being a child of God, brother or sister, to Jesus, and to look upon every other human being in the world as family?

l “One’s life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation, and compassion,” wrote Simone De Beauvoir. Are you aware of other human beings, individ-uals, and groups that you do not value or appreciate? Do you look at each person and group as revealing

something singular about our God?

l The first principle of Catholic social teaching is to respect all human life as sacred. Where do you feel human life is being threatened today? Where do you stand on these issues—which are, in fact, the plight of human persons—desperate poverty; lack of health care; capital punishment; war and genocide; mass mi-gration, immigration, and refugee resettlement due to violence; euthanasia; the right of all to basic human

needs for survival; a living wage; the justice system and incarceration; and the destruction of the earth?

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PRAYER“You dwell in us. Help us to preserve this openness and to fight for it with all our hearts. Help us to realize that there can be no understanding where there is mutual rejection. Oh God, in accepting one another wholeheartedly, fully, completely, we accept You and we thank You, and we adore You, and we love You with our whole being, because our being is in Your being, our spirit is rooted in Your spirit. Fill us then with love, and let us be bound together with love a we go our diverse ways, united in this one Spirit which makes You present in the world, and which makes You witness to the ultimate reality that is love. Love has overcome. Love is victorious.” Amen.

— The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton

FAITH IN ACTION: SHIFTING INTO NEW PRACTICES

l The first test we all face on a daily basis is providing for the necessities that constitute what sustains our life. Make a list at the end of each day this week of what you bought, or acquired that you needed. Make another list of “extras,” luxuries, or things you just wanted. Lastly, make a list of what you shared or gave away to someone who needed it more than you did.

l The second test requires that we examine what we expect God to do for us in the face of disappointment, suffering, pain, loss, all that threatens us. Take some time to reflect on your understanding and trust in God. How would you describe this connection? Do the following words of Rabindranath Tagore reflect your sense of trust? “Let us not pray to be sheltered from dangers but to be fearless when facing them” (http://bit.ly/2j0i4vr). If not, try to put your trust and fears into your words. Then, ask a few people how they feel when dealing with difficult situations and moments.

l The last test is perhaps the most demanding, even threatening to look at honestly. Who do you obey? What powers on earth do you bend before that you should perhaps be thinking twice about: institutions; governments; laws; culture; group attitudes in regard to race, sex, nations, other religions; economies; and life-styles? Another way of looking at this is to struggle with what power or forces rule your daily choices. When push comes to shove and you are forced to choose. Do you stand with and do you oppose issues that involve the quality of life for other human beings? In a small group, talk about who you have strong negative feelings toward and discuss how others deal with this reluctance to treat all people with dignity and acceptance.