FIRST SUNDAY OF LENT C

[cappie]

Lent is a season marked by three activities: Prayer, fasting, and the giving of alms. In Lent, we don’t just pick a single category — we do all three.  

All of this sounds relatively doable, but in practice, it’s challenging. What’s more, it’s all pointless unless we also attempt to fast from sin: Fast from giving ourselves over to anger, to greed, to lust; to any of the passions which so often control our actions.  

In today’s Gospel, we see Jesus in the desert. He has fasted from all food for 40 days, and we are told that he was hungry! Jesus, in his human nature, is weak with hunger and exhaustion when the enemy comes to him saying, “You’re hungry, you have to eat. It’s all very well to be highly spiritual, to be contemplative, to be a good person, but when it comes down to it, survival is more important. You’ve got to take care of number one first. Much better to dispense with all of this fasting, have a good meal, and come back to prayer when you’re refreshed and can really focus on it.”

From this perspective, loving God and neighbour are like hobbies; it’s great to indulge in these after you take care of the important things in life, but ultimately, they come last. Be a Christian, but only after you take care of your work obligations, your family obligations, answer all the emails, fold all the laundry, and then see if you have a little time left for God. 

But Jesus looks the enemy in the face and says, “No.” One does not live by bread alone. We, in the season of Lent, join our fast with that of Christ so that we can also say no to the enemy.

Your passions may sometimes tell you that you just have to get angry in this moment. You have to respond to the insult, you have to fight fire with fire, to give hate for hate, but in Christ, you have the freedom to say, “No. I may feel angry, but I will respond in love.”

The enemy may tell you that you have to hoard your wealth, to pile up money to keep yourself safe. He may whisper in your ear, “If you help one person, you’ll have to help others, and pretty soon you’ll have nothing left for yourself,” but in Christ, you have the power to say no and simply give to all who ask of you.

 In Lent, we want a little treat. We can’t stop thinking about the brownie, the drink, the luxury item that an internet ad dangles before us. It seems like we will go crazy or die if we can’t have it, but we stop ourselves, trust God, and wait to see what happens.

 In Lent, we get hungry, we  feel like the world will come to an end if we don’t just give in and do what everyone else is doing, but we don’t; we trust God and we see what happens.

And at the end of our lives, we face death, and the world will be either trying to hide our death from us, telling us that everything is really fine, or will be sobbing for us, telling us that we have now lost everything. Rather than joining in the lament, we simply trust God, give ourselves to God in life and in death, and we see what happens.

For “One does not live by bread alone,” continues the passage from Deuteronomy which Jesus quotes, “but by every word which comes forth from the mouth of God.” We are fed by the Word of God, we live through the Word of God, and it is the living Word, Jesus, who is all that we need. When we worship not food, not wealth and power, not the devil and not ourselves, but God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – we have life and have it abundantly.

Why do we read this story on the first Sunday of Lent? Because like the biblical sign of forty  the forty days of Lent are a time of trial and purification. Lent is to teach us what we hear over and over in today’s readings. “Call upon me, and I will answer,” the Lord promises in today’s Psalm.

This Lent, accept the challenge of prayer, almsgiving, and fasting. Trust God and see what happens.