Here we are in Lent, the season of penance and fasting. A good time to disconnect from the information vortex of the world and social media and attempt to connect more fully with God. We do that through the three pillars of Lent: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. We try to conform our lives more freely to the life of Christ by spending our own forty days in the desert, just as we find Him doing in the Gospel today. This is how Jesus began His ministry. Before undertaking the process that would lead to our salvation and restoration to the right relationship with God, He went into the desert to prepare Himself for the way to come.
Then the devil comes along and begins to tempt Jesus. Will Jesus be the kind of Messiah the world wants? He is tempted by the devil to stand in glory, to be a man of luxury, wealth, and power. This is what the temptations and the desert are all about. Will Jesus win the people by granting them what they immediately desire, or will he thrust them into suffering by the divine ideals demanded of them? That’s kind of the message we get from the world, isn’t it? We are supposed to focus on ourselves. On our own lives, our careers, our mental health.
You can find in all these temptations the four simple things that we typically substitute for God. Power. Wealth. Honor. Pleasure. These are the kinds of things that we, in some combination or other, try to use to fill up the void in our hearts. It’s as if we have a God-shaped hole inside of us that can only be filled by Him. The world is full of addictive rushes of endorphins that are more than willing to step in and take that place too, isn’t it? Video games and apps, television shows that we can binge entire seasons of in just a few hours, a news cycle that never stops. Our devices allow us to be more connected to information than at any other time in history, but if we don’t use them properly, they only draw us further away from God.
That’s the first key to this mission into the desert. “Jesus was led by the spirit.” He didn’t go alone. He didn’t face the devil until after forty days of praying and fasting. He spent time preparing, consuming nothing but the love of God. Then when the devil came to Him, He was prepared to respond with the word of God. Because the devil will twist scripture, he will cherry-pick it and leave out parts to make it seem as if what he is saying is good. He even dared to misquote it to the living Word of God, Himself! He will try to do the same for us.
After all of this, Jesus rejects the proposal to be the Messiah of the gaudy and marvelous, even though this is the Messiah so many people want. Salvation is to be attained in the heart of the humble. That’s why Lent isn’t supposed to be a patch, it’s not a Band-Aid. It’s supposed to be lasting change, steps toward becoming more like Jesus, and less like the world. I find it helpful to get my mind out of the “giving up” and into the “cultivating a relationship” mindset. We are in a covenant with our God. A personal but very public one. Just like marriage is a covenant. So, the things I give up or add aren’t to punish me or for a temporary injunction out of self-loathing, but to explore my life to see what is standing in my way of living as the Bride of Christ. Where am I acting like a “single person” instead of one in a committed relationship with God? Then those things are what I remove or add to my life.
The antidote to this struggle of ours, the way to reorient our lives away from the desires for power, wealth, honor, and pleasure can be found in those three pillars of Lent. The church, led by the Holy Spirit, gives us a simple guide through the desert. Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving. Each of these helps us to fight those innate desires and to order them more rightly to the will of God.
So, I want to encourage you, or maybe even challenge you to add a little more. Prayer. It is in prayer that we fight the desire for honor and power. We get on our knees in humility and admit that we are not in control. It’s when we place ourselves solely in the hands of God and give Him our concerns, our fears, and hopes. Spend 5 more minutes in prayer each day than you already do. That’s not a lot. I spend that much time just doing the Wordle or scrolling through the news each day, but it’s a step, right? It adds up. If you spend five minutes in prayer a day, you’ll pray an extra 30 hours a year.
Fasting. Fasting helps us to fight against the desire for pleasure. But, remember fasting isn’t always about food. It can be from activities, habits, and things. I want to encourage you to fast from noise. Turn it all off. The radio in the car. The music in the shower. The iPod shuffle while you run. Find some time for silence. God comes to us in the silence and it’s hard to hear someone talking to us if we never take the time to listen.
Almsgiving. In giving away, we fight against our desire for wealth and a surplus of things or blessings. Give something away every single day. It doesn’t have to be a “thing.” Though for many of us giving away an item every day can be cathartic. My book collection seems to grow quite a bit every year and needs to be thinned out again. What I mean, though, is to give a smile to a stranger. A hand to someone carrying their groceries. A hug to the grieving. A compliment to a friend. Give compassion and try to see the world through the eyes of God.
Above all, remember that these changes aren’t supposed to be temporary. They are supposed to lead to a lasting change, to a pathway to holiness. Because we too are being tempted in the desert of this world. By listening to the Holy Spirit, speaking through the Church and its liturgies, we too can have the strength to reject Satan and all his empty promises.
A homily for the First Sunday in Lent: March 6th, 2022