|
 |
|
Homilies are posted no later than during the week
prior to the Sunday they are needed |
| |
1 Lent
|
First Sunday of Lent -
A Cycle - Matthew 4:1-11
A woman phoned God and bitterly said she didn't understand
Him. God replied, "Good, madam. That makes us even." Then He hung up.
Monks in the Holy Land fast forty days yearly on the
mountain where Jesus fasted.
Is it possible to fast forty days and live to tell the
tale? The New York Times says the average person can go for thirty days
without eating. Gandhi and the Irish prisoners in British jails in
Belfast fasted even longer. Mitch Snyder, the US advocate for the
homeless, fasted fifty-one days.
Like Jesus, these men took liquids.
Not only Matthew but also Mark and Luke write of the
famous temptations. We have reams of raw material to work with.
The only eyewitness to these terrible temptations is Jesus
Himself. But why did He tell His followers of them? He told us so
little. We know about only one hundred days in His life. About the
twelve thousand others, we know almost nothing. What was His purpose in
telling us about His chat with Satan?How do we break the
code?Tread lightly, for we deal with the autobiography of
Christ. This Gospel is heady stuff.
The temptations mark the beginning of His professional
life. He was anxious to get in shape and get the fat off His body and
spirit. Before He would preach to us, He wanted to prove what He
preached He practiced. He entered the forty day retreat. He would not
take food. Prayer would provide nourishment. From this fast comes our
forty days of Lent.
Dostoyevsky writes that the three Gospel temptations
govern human history and underline the contradictions in us. The
temptation of the bread speaks of the desire of our bodies to be
pampered. The gross term "pigging out" fits comfortably into our
language. Each of us likes to be stroked. If others to our dismay will
not do it for us, we eagerly volunteer.
The leap from the temple suggests we are anxious to forget
our human condition. So, we want to take off and fly. Adults
leave the ground with vodka. Their teen children will not be outdone.
So, they wrap themselves around a six pack of beer. Kids in the ghettos
use drugs to fly over tenement ugliness. Children sail away through
daydreaming.
The temptation to call the world one's own speaks to our
Orwellian Big Brother. We want to dominate those who are weaker. We can
pick the weak off miles away. How else does one explain husband
baiting, wife beating, and child abuse? (Domestic violence is the
leading cause of injury to women in the US.) And the biggest power of
them all is abortion, capital punishment, and war.
Every mother's child of us has the seeds of these
temptations within us. We eat too much, drink too much, and spend too
much on ourselves. We want everything even though we have no place to
put it. Conversely we give away so little of our money or leisure. We
fast seldom. Do I have to tell you we infrequently pray?
Is it surprising that God does not understand us? He has
given us so much.
Today we open the book on a fresh Lent. For some, it will
be our last. Jesus issues everyone a license to hunt. The quarry is our
honorable or perhaps dishonorable selves. Remember Plato's great line:
the greatest victory in the world is that of self-conquest. That line
was written 400 years before Christ. It remains true today.
This then is the ultimate reason why the usually taciturn
Nazarene told us of His own temptations. The final score was Christ 3
and Satan 0. Jesus is saying, "As I, so you."
Each one of us should have a Lenten program. Here are some
hints. Call someone who's lonely and say, "I'll be over tomorrow to
take you to lunch or take you for a walk or run errands." Go to
Confession. Smile more. Read the Gospels. Forgive an enemy. Love
someone who doesn't deserve it. Quit smoking. Stop drinking. Lose
weight. Be kinder than is necessary. Exercise. Live one day at a time;
make it a work of art. (Unknown)
When Lent is done, we should be more interesting
Christians than we are now. But it would be a pity if on Easter Sunday
thepolice arrest us on the charge of impersonating Christians.
A pilgrim asked Mother Teresa, "What's wrong with the
Church?" She replied, "You and I, for we are the Church."
Reflect this Lent that there is no neutral ground in the
universe. Every square inch, every split second, is claimed by God and
counterclaimed by Satan. While Satan is out of style, he is not out of
business. (CS Lewis)
|
|
http://www.st.ignatius.net/pastor.html
1 Lent
|
Whatever Happened to Original Sin?
I
would like to delve somewhat deeply into theology with you today and,
hopefully, relate this to our daily lives.Let’s look at that
first reading for this Sunday from Genesis, the Fall of Man.This
is the reading about original sin.Now there is a term we haven't
heard for a long time.Whatever happened to original sin?
I'm not asking "Whatever became of sin?”as Dr. Karl Menninger
asked in his famous book of 1974, but, simply, "Whatever happened to
original sin?" Did original sin just go away?If not, why don't
we speak about it as much as we did years ago?
The
doctrine of original sin is still a fundamental part of our theology,
but the terminology has been modified because it is easy to confuse the
sin that people commit every day with the state of turmoil our lives
have been put in by the very presence of sin in the world.
Catholic doctrine insists that revelation teaches that the first human
beings who were the antecedents of the present human race brought sin
into the world.They did this by resisting God's offer of love.
These first humans lost the original justice with which God had endowed
them. Original justice refers to the perfect ordering of the person to
God and the resultant harmony and integrity of the person's inner life.
By their sin, the first human beings lost the state of original justice
and the ability to transmit this state to their progeny. Original sin
in us is not a positive inclination to moral evil, but the absence of
the ordering of our persons to God and the interior harmony which such
an ordering brings with it. This lack of harmony is evident in our own
personal sins. Every sin plunges us into turmoil.We tell a lie
and spend significant energy trying to convince ourselves and others
that the lie is true. We choose to let our tempers get our of control,
and we upset our home and our inner life.
In
the reading from Genesis, the heart of sin was not that Adam wanted an
apple, it was that Adam wanted to demonstrate his ability to be
separated from God."God does not want you to eat the apple," the
serpent tempts, “because then you will be like Him.Do this and
show the world that you can stand on your own.Show the world
that you do not need God.Be like God, self sufficient.” And so
Adam committed sin.The decision for sin disrupted the harmony of
union with God.Original sin brought turmoil into the world.
Before they sinned the first parents were the culmination of God's
creation.They were the only creatures that could claim to have
been made in God's image.They were indeed like God. They could
choose.They could love.And they could choose not to love.
When
they chose not to love, when they chose to reject God, to push him
aside, they sinned.Then, instead of being like God as the devil
tempted, they were all that God could never be, all that it would be a
contradiction to be.They were in turmoil.They had no
inner harmony.They were dead to the Lord of Life.They
were exposed to hate and immediately focused it upon each other.
Adam and Eve blamed each other. Cain killed Abel.The inner
turmoil of refusing union with God had terrible effects upon all
people.
It
is ironic, but as soon as Adam and Eve decided that they did not need
God, they immediately realized how much they did need Him.They
realized that they were naked: exposed, defenseless, needing cover and
protection.Even though they had rejected God, God did not desert
them.Still, Adam and Eve would never be the same again.
Their sin, as all sin, brought turmoil into their lives.The
image of God they were created to be on earth was now totally marred,
for rejecting the Lord of Life means choosing death.
The
story of the first reading is far more profound than the simple
terminology of a man, a woman, a garden, an apple and a serpent. The
word "Adam" means 'mankind".The word 'Eve" means "mother of the
living".Mankind, by deciding that he really does not need God,
by relegating God to a place of insignificance in his life, became an
aberration.We are created by God.But we have lost the
intimate union with God we were created to enjoy.That is an
aberration. The turmoil, the chaos that we suffer within ourselves and
in the world is the aberration of Gods plan that mankind has brought
upon itself.That is what we mean by original sin. Only God can
remake us into new beings, the beings we were always meant to be.
Only by accepting God's choice of us, only by baptism whether this be
the actual sacrament or the spiritual baptism of desire, only in
baptism can the life of God, his spiritual harmony be instilled in
us.
That
is why on Easter Sunday we celebrate our sharing in the New Life of the
Lord.
I
know that I have written in some rather deep theological terms today.
Hopefully the theologians among you will agree with me that our adults
need to know more about original sin than apples.If we look into
our own lives, we see the relevancy of the effects of original
sin.All sin is a plunge into chaos.All sin is a statement
that we really do not need God.For example, a person who steals
and cheats may know that this is wrong, but may also scoff at the
thought that his wickedness is bringing evil into the world.This
person may claim the battle cry of every sinner, the battle cry that,
sadly, I certainly have made and I am sure that in honesty you can also
claim.That battle cry is: “What I am doing is not that
bad.Everybody is doing this.”And I, and you, give in to
the very temptations placed before the Lord in the Gospel reading for
today.Our desire for things, self-gratification and power, even
if it is only the power of asserting ourselves within our families, all
this become more important than the peace and harmony of union with
God.With every sin, we demonstrate the reality of the original
sin.
The
search for inner peace, for harmony with God led Jesus into the desert
for forty days.He had to prepare for the mission of restoring
harmony to a world in chaos.He had to convince people to accept
a whole new way of living.He had to take upon himself the chaos
of the world so that the world could once more have peace.Can
you now understand the profound significance of His first words to his
disciples after his Resurrection: “Peace be with you.”
We
join Jesus in the desert for the forty days of Lent.We seek the
inner harmony with God which our baptism makes us capable of achieving.
We look for the causes of disharmony: how it is that we have allowed
sin into our lives?We seek union with God by revitalizing our
prayer life.We choose this union over our own selfish desire. We
demonstrate our union with God by making His Healing Hand present among
the poor.Repentance, prayer, fasting and almsgiving, works of
charity, these are the cornerstones of Lent.Theyare the
ways that we join Jesus in the desert as we also prepare ourselves and
the our world to celebrate the restored harmony with God, the new life
of Easter
|
|
http://www.geocities.com/seapadre_1999/
* available in Spanish - see Spanish
homilies
1 Lent
|
The Devil is a Logician
(February 10, 2008)
Bottom line: Satan uses logic to tempt Jesus - and us. Logic can take a
person only so far; we need poetry to bring us home.
G.K. Chesterton said, "Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do." The
tragic life of Bobby Fisher illustrates that saying. He was one of the
most brilliant chess players of all times, but he went off the deep
end. When he faced a legal problem, he denounced America and abandoned
his native country. He fell into a bizarre and bitter anti-Semitism,
even though he himself had a Jewish mother. Chesterton thought that
chess-players sometimes went mad because chess is a game of pure logic
- and that logic by itself can drive a person crazy.* The remedy, he
thought, was poetry. "Poetry is sane," said Chesterton, “because it
floats easily in an infinite sea; reason (logic) seeks to cross the
infinite sea, and so make it finite. The result is mental
exhaustion..."
I don't know how seriously to take Chesterton's theory about
chess-players and poets, but it does seem this Sunday that the devil is
a logician - a chess player who has one goal: to trap his opponent. The
temptations he proposes to Jesus are pure logic: You're hungry? Turn
these stones into bread. Are you really who you say you are? Then throw
yourself down and let the angels catch you. So want to save the world?
Just a simple act of homage and you can have it all.
To respond to the devil's logic Jesus used a kind of poetry. Chesterton
said that poetry floats easily in an infinite sea. Each of Jesus'
responses point to infinity, to God beyond all limits: "Man does not
live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of
God... You shall not tempt the Lord, your God...You shall worship the
Lord, your God, and him alone shall you serve."
Logic can take a person only so far. We need poetry to bring us home.
Our mother Eve, unfortunately, tripped on logic. The devil said to her:
"Why deny yourself any experience? Think about the knowledge you will
have." That seems reasonable. Our young people - and some not so young
- get involved in illicit drugs and illicit sex because they don't want
to miss the experience. What the devil doesn't tell them is that by a
certain self-denial they could have an experience that so much greater,
wider, better.
You and I constantly want something we can hold on to, that we can say,
"it's mine. It belongs to me." That sounds reasonable, but it can lead
to terrible distortions. Once a guy who had a new car said, "She's
beautiful and she's mine. And if someone so much as touches her, I wish
smash his hand." Ownership is legal and logical - but it can drive a
person mad. The devil is a logician. He wants to use logic to destroy
us. But God wants to free us from narrow logic. He wants to give us
everything. He wants to give us himself. He wants us to give us poetry.
**********
*In the end, Bobby Fisher requested to be buried in a Catholic cemetery
in Iceland. It's unclear whether the request was based on anything more
than the feeling that the "countryside would be perfect as his final
resting place." Whatever the motive, it strikes a hopeful note. Should
we not offer a prayer that Bobby Fisher might at last find rest?
Spanish Version
|
|
http://www.agreeley.com/homilies.html
1 Lent
|
February 10th 2008
First Sunday of Lent Matthew 4:1-11
Background:
Matthew's version of the temptation of Jesus in the desert
incorporates his view of Jesus as the one who relives the history of
Israel. He is the New Moses. We often associate the forty days in the
desert as a sign of forty days of fasting for Lent. However, Matthew
does not see the fast as penance but as recalling the forty days in the
Sinai. Jesus only experiences hunger at the conclusion of his period of
solitude. Then the tempter approaches and seeks to lead the Son of God
into a denial of his sonship. Jesus responds* to each of the three
tests with a quote from the Book of Deuteronomy demonstrating that he
is the true Son of God who does not fail as the old Israel failed. He
refuses to play the political and social Messiah. He does not misuse
God's promise of protection. And he will not practice idolatry but
reminds us that we are to worship only the one true God. Matthew
emphasizes that there will always be false Gods seeking our homage. The
only response to this is to seek to understand God's message in
scripture and live according to it.
Story:
Once upon a time a certain mother was tempted to quit – quit her
job, quit her family, quit her parish, quit everything. When the parish
priest suggested she read about the temptation of Jesus, she said that
she had already and that all the demands which were made on her,
presumably with God’s approval and even connivance were about the same
as being asked to jump off the parapet of the temple. How was she
supposed to do everything in the family – bring in money, cook the
meals, clean the house, worry about the kids, help with the home work,
keep an eye on the TV the kids were watching – when no one else seemed
worried about these things. She loved her job and she loved her family,
but she was tired and all she wanted to do was quit. Well, said the
parish priest, why not go on strike. The woman thought about that and
decided she would. She contracted a case of blue flu – too sick to go
to her job, too sick to take care of the house, too sick to help with
homework, too sick to worry about the kids, to sick to do anything but
lay in bed and watch TV. The doctor was summoned and suggested that she
needed a long rest. You know what happened then? The mother found that
it was all BORING. The daytime soaps were particularly BORING! So she
improved rapidly, especially when everyone promised that they would
help (which they did, but often just made the mother’s task more
complicated). Temptations said the mother look a lot better before you
give into them than afterwards.
|
|
http://www.saintvincentarchabbey.org/homilies/index.lasso
1 Lent
|
Feb, 10, 2008
Matthew 4: 1-11
Campion P. Gavaler, O.S.B.
First Sunday of Lent
Gospel Summary
In this brief passage Matthew captures the essence of the trials Jesus
would endure and over which he would triumph throughout his life.
The tempter urges Jesus to turn stones into loaves of bread. Jesus
rejects the temptation to reduce his divine mission to satisfying
immediate, temporal needs. The tempter then suggests that Jesus prove
he is really the Son of God by jumping off the parapet of the temple:
God would send his angels to save him. Jesus rejects the temptation to
put God to a test. Finally, Jesus rejects the temptation to idolatry,
even if that worship would enrich and empower him with all kingdoms of
the world.
Matthew is affirming that Jesus remains faithful to his deepest
personal truth, revealed when he came up from the water of baptism and
the Spirit of God came upon him: "This is my beloved Son, with whom I
am well pleased." (Mt 3:17).
Life Implications
The Letter to the Hebrews can help us discover a crucial life
implication of this gospel: Jesus is truly one of us. "For we do not
have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but
one who was tempted in every way that we are, yet never sinned."
(4:15).
Jesus, enduring his trial of faith in the Garden of Gethsemane, knew
that the three disciples who were with him would soon be tempted to
abandon their trust in God. Jesus, in "sorrow and distress," realized
that it was through prayer that he would remain faithful in his trust.
That is why, able to sympathize with their weakness and ours, he said
to them and says to us now: "Watch and pray that you may not undergo
the test" (Mt 26:41).
With gratitude we welcome the good news that we are not alone in our
test of faith, whatever it may be. Because the Holy Spirit also came
upon us when we came out of the water of baptism, each of us is truly
beloved son or beloved daughter. Through this divine grace we can live
in hope of sharing the faithfulness and triumph of Jesus. "For the sake
of the joy that lay before him he endured the cross, despising its
shame, and has taken his seat at the right of the throne of God." (Heb
12:2).
Campion P. Gavaler, O.S.B.
|
|
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
JGHealey@aol.com
1 Lent |
|
|
http://www.christusrex.org/www1/mcitl/lowhome.html
Meeting Christ in the Liturgy
1 Lent
|
First Sunday
Genesis 2, 7-9; 3, 1-7; Psalm 51; Romans 5, 12-19; Matthew 4, 1-11
Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
"The greatest hunger is the hunger for love." Mother Teresa said this
often, and, after her years of experience living among, feeding,
clothing and caring for the poorest of the poor, she is an expert on
human needs. Jesus Christ is that love incarnate for which every human
being has been created. Every human being will satisfy their hunger for
God only by seeking satisfaction in God. Jesus Christ is that bread,
truly present among us: the Bread of Life. "The bread that I shall give
is my flesh, for the life of the world." And in this Bread alone can
our thirst for love be satisfied.
The Catechism offers a meditation on our Lord's teaching in today's
Gospel, and on the petition of the Lord's Prayer for our "daily bread."
This petition, with the responsibility it involves, also applies to
another hunger from which men are perishing: 'Man does not live on
bread alone, but...by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God,'
(Deut 8:3; Mt 4:4) that is by the Word he speaks and the Spirit he
breathes forth. Christians must make every effort "to proclaim the good
news to the poor." There is a famine on earth, "not a famine of bread,
nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord." (Am
8:11) For this reason the specifically Christian sense of this fourth
petition concerns the Bread of Life: The Word of God accepted in faith,
the Body of Christ received in the Eucharist.(Jn 6:26-58) (CCC 2835)
God is love, and we possess the love of God by possessing his life,
receiving His Body and Blood in the Communion of the Mass. "Unless you
eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, you have no life
in you." With this gift we lack nothing in this world, for infinite
love is ours.
Let us pray for one another until, again next week, we "meet Christ in
the liturgy"---Father Cusick
( Publish with permission.) www.christusrex.org/www1/mcitl/
|
|
http://www.ctk-thornbury.org.uk/
1 Lent |
Today Matthew gives us
his account of the temptation of Jesus in the Desert. He tells us that
Jesus fasted forty days and forty nights.
I suppose in the world of today the people who keep a strict fast that
we know most about are the Moslems during the month of Ramadan when
they fast from dawn to dusk. This is OK if you live in the tropics but
perhaps a bit of a problem if you are living in Finland and Ramadan
happens to fall in the summer.
The phrase Land of the Midnight Sun doesn’t sound quite so romantic if
you have to fast from dawn to dusk!
So how did Jesus manage fasting for forty days and forty nights—it
would have been medically well-nigh impossible. But then we remember
that Moses, when he went to get the Ten Commandments, was up on the
mountain with the Lord for forty days and forty nights as recorded in
Exodus 34:28.
We begin to realise that Matthew is speaking figuratively and stressing
not only the severity of Jesus’ fast but also its purpose—to be with
the Lord.
After saying that Jesus fasted forty days and forty nights Matthew then
prosaically adds: after which he was very hungry! You might think that
Matthew was stating the obvious; but a person who fasts as much as this
is only hungry at the beginning after a short while they become
physically unable to eat.
But we shouldn’t think of Matthew as being just plain wrong as that is
using this as a literary device to lead into the temptation about the
bread.
There are lots of other inconsistencies such as these in this account
of the temptation. For example: Is it possible that the Devil has power
over Jesus so that he could transport him to the pinnacle of the Temple?
The point is not that we should focus on the literal details of the
story but on what it signifies. Jesus went to the desert to spend time
in prayer and fasting—to be with his Father. And besides being divine
Jesus is also fully human and he experiences temptation just as we do.
It is interesting to note that Jesus went into the desert
immediately after his Baptism. The Baptism is the moment of truth which
marked the beginning of Jesus' ministry. It is a moment where he takes
the initiative and puts himself forward for baptism intending it to
mark the beginning of his work. There is a divine response as the dove
from heaven rests on him and the voice of God says: This is my beloved
Son, my favour rests on him.
It was a high point in Jesus life. But like high points in our own life
we are often immediately faced with a downer. Here immediately after
this exhilarating incident Jesus naturally enough wants to be alone and
there in his aloneness experiences temptation.
To be technical for a moment, there are actually three biblical themes
from which this account of the Temptation is derived: 1) the
temptations of Israel in the wilderness (Dt 8:3; 6:16,13) 2) the
parallelism between Moses and Jesus (Dt 9:9-18) & 3) and the
protection of God given to the hero mentioned in Psalm 91 which is
frequently referred to, Matthew clearly sees here a parallel with
Christ.
It is also generally thought that the text of the dialogue between the
tempter and Jesus is in the form of a Rabbinic controversy. We can
believe that members of the Early Church were involved in disputations
with the Rabbis as to whether or not Jesus was truly the Messiah and
Matthew is using this same type of argumentation to prove that he was.
According to Matthew Jesus, in his confrontation with Satan, triumphs
over temptations similar to those which Israel succumbed in the desert
and so proves himself to be the Messiah and the one who carries
Israel's destiny on his shoulders.
This is all very well and really quite interesting, but it doesn’t help
us too much right now. We have different questions. Most of us are more
worried about how to resist temptation in our everyday life.
We are all too familiar with the phrase: I can resist anything except
temptation!
There is a Chinese proverb which refers to temptation: You can’t stop
birds flying over your head but you can prevent them from nesting in
your hair!
Temptations are a part of life and we all experience them and we
wouldn’t be truly human without them. Perhaps one of the most important
lessons of this Gospel account is that it shows that Jesus suffered
from temptations just as much as we do.
However, Jesus’ temptations don’t seem to have much connection with our
own temptations today. We are tempted by other things, to indulge our
greed, to lust after money, food and sex.
We are tempted to give vent to our ambitions and find ourselves
stabbing a competitor at work in the back.
We find ourselves unable to resist the temptation to gossip about
others, we frequently attempt to demonstrate that we have inside
information and belong to a privileged ‘in-group’, thereby putting
others down.
There are lots and lots of things that we fall prey to, many, many
temptations which come our way each day. And society doesn’t help. All
those adverts tell us to indulge ourselves and every TV programme
presents us with another new life-style to aspire to. It’s not so much
Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous as Ground Force and Changing Rooms
that we need to worry about.
You can’t stop birds flying over your head but you can prevent them
from nesting in your hair. We can’t stop experiencing temptation, it is
an ever present part of the human condition. But we can stop them
nesting in our hair; we can refuse to dwell on them.
We don’t have to get ourselves into such a state over our desires that
we simply must fulfil them. What we need is a sense of perspective—we
have to see these things as they really are: ordinary desires and
fancies not necessarily to be indulged.
We are able to train ourselves, we are able to defer gratification, we
are able to resist temptation once we have identified it and looked at
it from the outside.
Yes, we can see the birds, and why not—but we don’t let them nest in
our hair.
|
|
Contact Father at cbonar@cfl.rr.com;
information about his book of homilies is available at www.clydebonar.com.
1 Lent |
First Sunday of Lent, Cycle A
Readings: Genesis 2: 7-9; 3:1-7; Romans 5: 12-19; Matthew 4: 1-11
Don't Let The Devil Win
Introduction
Adam and Eve eat of the tree of knowledge, and
God kicks the first couple out of the Garden of Eden. Why? Because they
did exactly what God asked them not to do. That's original sin. Adam
and Eve gave in to temptation, flaunted what God commanded, and chose
their own will over God's will.
Our Gospel reports how the devil tempted
Jesus. Unlike Adam and Eve, Christ resisted his temptations. Jesus did
all God the Father asked him to do.
Almost daily, each one of us is tempted to
sin. Like Jesus, we are to resist what tempts us. God calls us to
holiness. God says, "You shall be holy, for I am holy" (Leviticus 11:44
and 1 Peter 1:16).
Go For Instant Gratification
Jesus "fasted forty days and forty nights, he
was hungry. The tempter said to him, ... command that these stones
become loaves of bread."
The first temptation. The devil wants to catch
Jesus in a moment of weakness. We can almost hear the devil telling
him: Why suffer the hunger pangs. You're starving. Use your divine
powers, zap some food for yourself. A nice lamb chop, with some mint
jelly. Rolls, hot from the oven, topped with melting butter and
strawberry jam.
Today's modern world prods us with the same
temptations. We expect to get what we want, and get it fast. Instant
gratification.
Problem is, we never get satisfied. In fact,
instant gratification leads to more demands. Think about roller
coasters. Years ago, Six Flags had the best. Long, steep drops at
lightning speed. Then, other roller coasters added loops, and we're
head down, looping over the top at breakneck speed, not once, but three
times. Now, roller coaster seats have no floor, our feet dangle. What's
next? Someone's already designing the next roller coaster. Faster, more
exciting.
Drug pushers exploit this temptation. The
first pill is free. Even the second and the third. Until you're
addicted. Then, pay the price. And pay more, then pay more, because
each high makes the addict yearn for a higher high. Until, the drug
controls. The addict will lie and cheat and steal to get his drugs.
That's the first problem. What we want keeps escalating.
A second problem with instant gratification:
sin too easily follows. The athlete, tempted to use drugs or steroids
to get stronger muscles faster, an extra boost of energy just when
competition gets toughest. With corporations, the temptation to quick
profits. Recall the Enron scandal, using questionable accounting
practices, possibly downright illegal. Top management taking huge
personal payouts while the company crumbles.
Cater to whims and the whims just get more
demanding. Sometimes so demanding we start to sin.
Christ knew, "One does not live on bread
alone." To counter the first temptation, we fast. We feed on the Word
of God. Planted within our souls, God's Word has the power to save our
souls (James 1:21). When we fast, we find ourselves closer to God, we
lose interest in the never ending chase of thrills.
Jesus kept his fast. His goal, to open himself
to God the Father. To clear his mind for prayer. We fast for the same
reason, to get closer to God.
Win Friends By Entertaining the Crowd
Then the devil took Jesus to the top of the
temple, and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself
down from here." Don't worry, the devil says, with their hands, the
angels will support you.
The second temptation, entertain the people.
Jump off the top of the temple, and land with the lightness of a
butterfly. That trick will draw a crowd anytime. Satan tells Jesus, Go
for it, impress the crowds. Do a little miracle, and the people will
flock to see you.
Christ will have none of it. Jesus will not
use his messianic powers for sensational demonstrations.
Because, Christ knew amazing acts of daring
stunts only hold the crowd for the moment. Quickly people get bored.
And drift on to the next splashy event.
We see this with our children at their
birthday parties. Friends from school and the neighbor come to
celebrate with cake and ice cream. Parents rent a moon walk for the
day. Finally, time comes to open the gifts. One after the other. We
watch. Each gift gets a quick glance. With a short pause to say,
"Thanks." Then, open the next gift.
Magicians have to continually come up with new
and more dangerous tricks. We were amazed the first time we saw the
magician plunge swords through a box with a beautiful assistant inside
the box. Then we learned, the lovely assistant has twisted her body
into contortions to allow the swords to pass through without harm. That
old trick can only be used early in the show. The audience wants to see
the chained and padlocked magician suspended upside-down in a glass
water tank. Each season, the magic show needs more sensational stunts.
That’s the only way to keep the audience.
Christ tells the devil, "You shall not put the
Lord to the test." When faithful to our prayers, it's easy to know what
is "good, pleasing, and perfect" in God's eyes (Romans 12:2). To stay
God-centered, we Christians pray.
Christ would not entertain. When Jesus worked
a miracle, he showed love and compassion, gave care for the sick,
helped the outcast. Jesus came to show us "God is love" (1 John 4:8).
He needed no tricks to get peoples' attention.
Get Rich, Be Powerful
Then the devil "showed him all the kingdoms of
the world." A third temptation. "All these I shall give to you, if you
will prostrate yourself and worship me," so says the devil.
How stupid of the devil. Christ doesn't want
power, he doesn't need riches. Why, I'll bet Jesus never played the
lottery! Yet, the lottery dangles riches in front of us, and we bite.
And, the bigger the jackpot, the more we play. No problem getting a
lottery ticket when the jackpot is a mere $6 million. Let it roll-over
and hit $84 million, and the lines go around the block. People fly in,
just to buy lottery tickets.
We forget the odds: we have a better chance of
getting hit by lightening than we do of winning the lottery. But, how
we fret. What numbers to pick? Or, should we let the computer pick the
numbers? Oh, what to do.
We're tempted with get rich quick schemes.
And, with power. But, power only coerces. Power does not evoke love.
Power forces compliance. Who loves a dictator or a boss who acts like a
dictator? With Hitler or Stalin or Pinochet, crowds cheered because of
fear. Obey, or a knock on the door and you're gone, never to be heard
from again. A dictator boss does the same. Cross him, and you're
history.
Sometimes the boss tries to control by making
all decisions himself. A billboard advertisement for cellular phones
reads, "In touch, in control." The boss knows, let someone else take
the initiative, make a decision, and things will get messed
up.
Why take a chance? Keep that cell phone
ringing. That's control. Net result? Again, fear. Everybody's afraid to
do anything without asking the boss for permission.
Christians follow Christ by another discipline, we give alms. And not
just the few coins we might have left over after every need has been
met, after we have pampered ourselves with useless excess. We offer
"first fruits" to God. By giving alms we put God first. Christians
chase after neither power nor control.
To the third temptation, Christ retorts, "Get
away, Satan! The Lord, your God, shall you worship and him alone shall
you serve." Jesus wants no one to fear him. Christ chooses the path of
weakness, of sacrifice, so as to woo love.
Conclusion
We will always be tempted. "When the devil had
finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time"
(Luke 4: 13). Three Christian disciplines guard us against temptations.
We fast, to clear our minds for prayer, to say
there is more to life than the instant gratification of our slightest
whim. We give alms, remembering that God promised to care for us
always. We don't have to accumulate wealth and power. We pray, to keep
ourselves centered on God.
Christ was tempted, and remained faithful to
God the Father. When we are tempted, we are to stay Christ-centered,
God-centered, always faithful.
|
|
|
|
These
homilies may be copied and adapted for your own use;
however, they may not be commercially published without permission of
the author.
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
