The First Sunday in Lent
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
A wise priest once told me that Lent is the eye drop of the liturgical year.
And I really love that metaphor. Eye drops clear away dust and crust, they renew fatigued and dry eyes; they help us to see more clearly the world around us.
In Lent we repent, we fast, we examine ourselves: all so that we can clear away the dust and crust on our souls; so that we can renew our fatigued and dry souls; so that we can see God, and the world, around us more clearly.
In Lent, we are invited to deeply reflect on our lives, our actions, our thoughts, our ways of being.
We are invited to repent, which means confessing our sins, turning away from them, and reorienting ourselves to God.
We are encouraged to take up bodily practices and disciplines through prayer, fasting, and self-denial.
We are invited to spend more time reading and contemplating the Holy Scriptures.
Lent is the eye drop of the liturgical year.
And this week, we’re administering drops which help us to see temptation at work in our lives: What tempts us away from God and towards something or someone else? What words are being whispered, sweetly in our subconscious, to turn us from God’s will in our lives, to toss Christ and His saving work aside?
Temptation haunts the human experience, going all the way back to Genesis. In today’s reading, God gives humanity an entire world to steward, all the food of the trees to eat, except one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Immediately, temptation springs to action. A talking serpent slithers to Eve and convinces her to try the fruit, and she shares it with her husband. Of all the fruit they had to eat, the pair chose from this one.
The first sin. The “fall” of humanity. In one simple bite, brought about by temptation.
We tend to think that temptation is, primarily, about a temptation towards something: take, for example, the seven deadly sins: pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth.
And temptation does tug us towards our base desires within these categories.
But before even these things, temptation attacks our core: it attacks our identity.
The serpent which tempts Eve calls her identity into question: “When you eat of the fruit, you will be like God. You’re not enough yet. To really be more, you need to be more like God by eating this fruit. You are not enough.”
The serpent’s subtle inquiries call humanity to question its enoughness, its worthiness, its goodness in light of God, it’s identity.
And that is precisely what the devil tries to do with our Lord in today’s Gospel account.
Jesus fasts for 40 days and 40 nights in response to the Spirit’s leading. Immediately after, the devil comes to tempt him: first with satiation, then with security, then with absolute power.
But before these, the devil attacks the identity of Christ.
“If you are the Son of God…” then turn stones into bread. “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself off the temple.”
Temptation lunges for Jesus attempting to make Him question His identity.
If you say you are who you really are, then you can turn the stones to bread; if you are who you say you are, then the angels will prevent you from coming to harm. If you are who you say you are, then rule all the nations of the world, if only you worship me.
Temptation to sin comes for our identity first.
It can take many forms: If you really care about your family, you’ll abuse others and take their money to support them. If you really are an attractive person, then you’ll have as many partners as you can to demonstrate this. If you really are a powerful person, then crush those who stand in your way to success.
But temptation also attacks our identity through shame, guilt, deceit.
”If you really are a good person, then why don’t you do more to help people?”
”If you really are a healthy person, then why did you eat that cake last night?”
”If you really are smart, why didn’t you know the answer to that question?"
”If you really care, why didn’t you do more?”
These whispers of not being good enough, healthy enough, smart enough, caring enough, bubble up deep feelings of shame, guilt, and spite towards ourselves.
Temptation in this way also causes us to fold inward, to look only at ourselves. To form our identity and focus around ourselves.
Temptation this way can make us feel apathetic, cynical, nihilistic, and powerless.
Temptation can cause us to do horrible sins; and it can also paralyze us.
And right now there is so much going on in the world that we may experience temptation towards powerlessness: From Nancy Guthrie, the overwhelm and horrors of the Epstein files, continued abuses by our government towards migrants, to possible war with Iran, to global conflicts. The list and scale goes on and on.
The overwhelm may tempt us towards powerlessness, apathy, loss of hope that nothing we do matters, that we can’t stop what is happening.
But Jesus resists the tempters attack on His identity by fully trusting in His God-given identity.
“One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”
”Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”
”Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.”
Jesus constantly reorients the temptation back to God, rather than Himself.
The Gospel account reminds us that when temptation strikes we turn to God, particularly for where our identity is found.
St. Paul reminds us today that in Christ we receive “the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness” and “justification and life for all.”
That is to say, our identity is first and foremost rooted in Jesus Christ. It is Christ who gives us grace and righteousness and justification. It is God who created us in God’s own image. It is the free gift of God in whom our primary identity rests.
And when we know who we are in God - divine image bearers, grace-given, righteous-made, justified - then the attacks on our identity, our worthiness, our need for control can melt away.
When we know who we are in God, we resist the temptation to fold into ourselves and rest squarely on our own selves as the primary determining factor for who and how we are.
When we know who we are in God, we are liberated from the tempter's snare, to serve God, and to serve our neighbor more fully in freedom and grace.
Lenten discipline helps us train these muscles. Fasting from something creates a “safe space” for us to experience temptation bodily, name it, and turn to God - the stakes are typically very low when it is a self-imposed fast.
Lenten discipline is a training ground for us to experience temptation in a secure way, and exercise the muscle of trusting in God’s will over our own will.
And by experiencing it, we can then better resist temptation when it truly matters.
This is a first example of why Lent is the eye drop of the liturgical year. Our practices expose us to the tempter’s power clearly, and we turn to God.
And when we turn to God, we are liberated by the egoic desires of domination and cruelty, greed and power, shame and guilt, apathy and powerlessness; because it is by God’s own grace and power bestowed through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit that we find our true self, our source, our center.
We are liberated to to be who God calls us to be, trusting in our identity: beloved, grace-filled, righteous, not by our own selves, but by the merit and work of Jesus Christ.
Then we go out to the world restored, made whole, ready to be the hands and feet of Christ.
Amen.