1st Sunday of Lent A

See Commentary on Matthew 4:1-11

Homily 1 – 2005 

White ants have got into the flooring in the presbytery at Nhill.  We didn’t know they are there until they had gone.  Remember the rabbit drives of the forties – they hardly made a mark on the rabbit population.  Myxomatosis came on the scene, but they eventually managed to adapt to that.  Then came the calici virus, and I believe they have developed immunity even to that.  In the old days when domestic cats weren’t seen to, we had a female cat.  Every so often, when she was in season, we would have the nightly chorus of all the local tom-cats courting her.  All dad’s efforts to put them off rarely succeeded.  The kittens kept coming.  What is all this about?

There are three basic instincts hard-wired into God’s animal kingdom: the instinct to stay alive, to find food and drink; the instinct to protect life, to defend life; and the instinct to continue the species.  We humans, who derive from that animal world, share the same instincts.  But in human persons the instincts develop and expand: our need for food and shelter becomes the desire for comfort, convenience, variety and choice, wealth; our need for security becomes the desire for independence, control and power; and our need for a partner becomes the desire for acceptance, prestige and honour in the wider community.

However, there a negative reaction in us that comes from somewhere: some would say it is the result of original sin that infects the whole race.  We tend to mistake our desires for needs.  I desire a mobile phone, but I don’t need it.  It may be a necessary part of some other life-style I could have chosen, but for me it is not a real need.  There is no harm in having desires: for a new car, a more up to date computer, a bigger house, designer clothes, or whatever.  The danger is confusing desires for needs, and therefore making an absolute of what is really only a priority I have freely chosen.  

But we are more than animals.  We have what we call an inner spirit, and because of this spirit, our animal needs for life, security and survival have their spiritual counterparts: our need for life becomes a need for integrity, for moral righteousness, and a realisation that our life is to be lived not simply this side of the grave but beyond it as well; our need for security is coloured by our capacity to recognise our basic dependence on God; and society’s need for children matures into the recognition of a deeper need to love, and our ability to love unconditionally, to forgive, and to respond to violence non-violently (as Jesus has shown us).

As there is a negative tendency in us to equate desires with needs, so too there is another: to ignore our spiritual nature, and consequently to subordinate our genuine spiritual needs to our animal needs: to compromise integrity or  principle for comfort or popularity; to be driven by a need to control rather than learn to trust God or to relate in intimacy; to put pleasure before fidelity, hurt before forgiveness

The two drives are so powerful, and yet so deceptive, so difficult to be in touch with.  Their power lies not simply in our own unconscious, but is bound up, too, with the power of culture.  They are so destructive and so deceptive, that people right through the ages have wondered if there is some intelligent, powerful and malevolent person behind them - a devil? There is no doubt that we all feel it.  The authors of the Genesis story that we read today captured it so well in their story of Adam and Eve.  Jesus felt it, as Matthew described so well in his story of Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness.  Most of us do not encounter temptation put into words for us by a serpent, or visible devil. Perhaps if a devil did appear we would at least see it for what it is: on the other hand we might be terrified out of our wits and lose our will to resist.

The more normal response that we need to make to the continuous temptations that face us is not all that mysterious, even if it is not always that common: We need to learn to recognise our drives: to be able to discern desire from need (and to wake up to our capacity to fool ourselves), and then to sort out our priorities... To do this, we need to learn wisdom; and to learn wisdom we need space,  time to pray.  It also helps enormously to have an astute person, an experienced guru, who can help us to see ourselves from the inside.

Mary allowed life to touch her, but she drew her experiences into her heart, and pondered them.  Her guru was the wisdom of her Hebrew tradition.

 Homily 2 - 2008

We are familiar with the story, and the temptations.  Turn these stones into loaves of bread.  Why? to feed himself? but one stone into one loaf would have been enough for him.  May the temptation have been, rather, to give the people what they want: give them bread?  Is that what we are up to with Project Compassion – give them bread? economic development?

Jesus felt the temptation; but he insisted that human persons do not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God – but they do need bread!

On one occasion in Jesus’ life, Mark’s Gospel recounted: Jesus saw a large crowd; and he took pity on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd, and he set about to teach them at some length … His disciples came up to him and said, This is a lonely place, and it is getting very late, so send them away … to buy food for themselves.  He replied: Give them something to eat yourselves…  Then he took the five loaves and the two fish, said the blessing, and began handing the loaves to his disciples to distribute among the people.

People were in need, so he gave them bread.  But his first response to their deeper need was to teach them at some length – human persons do not live on bread alone.

What did he teach them? If people live on every word that comes from the mouth of God, what do those words say? In a nutshell, Jesus taught them that God is love, that God loved them, each of them individually and all of them collectively; that, because they were loved, they had a profound dignity.  He taught them that, because they were loved by God and empowered by God’s love, they, too, could love..  Indeed, that their truest dignity as human persons was lived as they began to love, to love each other, as they moved beyond self-interest and family-interest to build community – or, as last week’s Gospel put it, to be merciful, to be peace-makers.  That empowers life, beyond survival.  Interestingly, by his feeding the five thousand, Jesus showed them in practical terms his conviction of their worth and dignity.

During this time of Lent, as we reflect on almsgiving and respond to the opportunity provided by Project Compassion, we recognise that development aid must be given in ways that do more than permit survival.  The giving that empowers life must respect and foster human dignity, and promote and strengthen human community.  We can be grateful that Caritas Australia (which distributes the income raised through Project Compassion), deliberately concentrates on community-based projects: projects requested by communities, run by communities, for the direct benefit of communities.

Caritas Australia has faced the temptation of raising money by the generally successful and lucrative means of sponsoring children – and has chosen not to follow that path out of concern for what it might do to the sense of dignity of the father and mother, and the rest of the children, in a family where one of the children becomes the conduit of the family’s livelihood.  It has also been concerned about the effect on community of some family or families being helped financially, and other families missing out.  As well, it questions the practice of a child writing to thank a donor when, in many cases, the incidence of widespread poverty is the result of the indifference and sometimes injustice of the nation to which the donor belongs.

We move now into Eucharist, where Jesus comes to us sacramentally as bread and wine.  He is not present to nourish us simply as individuals, but to shape us into community.  We share Eucharist together.  We remember how, at the Last Supper, he took the bread and gave it to his disciples, and said: Take this, all of you, and eat it…. Then he took the cup, gave it to his disciples, and said: Take this, all of you, and drink from it.  The whole thrust of Jesus’ redemptive action – his turning around of the power of sin – is to call individuals beyond themselves into community, and to make us, together, his Body, as he draws us into the powerful dynamic of his own love.

Homily 3 – 2011 

Well, we’re racing! We’re into Lent – a time, not so much of penance as of conversion.  Conversion – change, opening to changing, hoping for change.  To change not so much behaviour (that will follow), but my ever-growing sense of God.  Lent is an invitation to keep searching, searching to know God, to break open my constricting ideas about God and to be drawn more deeply into Mystery.  But there is a problem – bigger than me.  There is an inertia - not of my choosing, a confusion – that has always been there – something getting in the way.

Today’s First Reading spoke colourfully of the serpent.  The Second Reading spoke of sin (capital “S” Sin).  The Gospel used the graphic image of Satan.  The serpent planted desire, and muddied the waters: You will be like gods.  Sin brought death – the negation of truly living.  Satan offered himself for worship! - sowing confusion.  It’s a confusion we inevitably fall for.  So easily we confuse God with Satan! (or, is it more that we confuse God with ourselves?)

Perhaps, we can’t avoid it.  How else can we get a sense of God other than by reflecting on our experience, or accepting the fruit of others’ conclusions?  The meanings I attach to words like father, like love, like justice, and particularly the feelings the words trigger, very much depend on my past and present experience – my history.  I can’t see anyone other than through my own filters.  I see God through my filters.

The Hebrew word Satan means Accuser in English.  It is so easy, so usual for us, to get things so terribly wrong that we see God, essentially, as the accuser – focussed, on the one hand, on our guilts, our shame, our sin, or, on the other hand, counting our merits or measuring our goodness.

Certainly, sin is bad for us – it destroys us; it eats into our relationships; and undermines our communities.  God wants to free us from that – just as God wants to free us from wanting to count on our own merits and goodness.  God is not into assessing but setting free.  Sin doesn’t get in God’s way.  It gets in our way.  Our turning from sin doesn’t change God’s attitude towards us.  It changes our attitude to God.  Merits don’t persuade God to love us.  God can’t love us any more.  God loves us relentlessly, always, unconditionally.  Those of you who are happily married – those of you whose love has matured – know that that is the way even human love works.  Am I right? Right enough, I hope.

But life is an ongoing exploration into mystery, a moving beyond, a letting go – and I haven’t yet reached the end (and perhaps never will, even in eternity).  I’ll keep searching.  And that, to me, is what Lent is about – one more reminder to convert, to turn, to change and to go deeper. 

Today’s Gospel passage situates us in the days immediately preceding Jesus’ public life. He had just experienced that mysterious moment down by the Jordan river where John the Baptist had been at work. As if in answer to the plea made centuries beforehand by Isaiah: “Oh that you would split open the heavens and come down..”, as Jesus had come up out of the water, the “heavens suddenly opened” and Jesus saw “the Spirit of God descending … and coming down on him”. More than that, through the opened heavens a voice declared: “This is my Son, the Beloved; my favour rests on him”.

What might it have been like for Jesus to hear that supernatural voice say of him: “You are my Son. I love you dearly. You delight my heart”?

He needed time — time and space and stillness — to allow the message to sink deeply into his heart and mind. He went out alone into the nearby Judean wilderness to be with “the Spirit of God” that he had seen “coming down on him” back at the river.

Homily 4 - 2023

Today’s Gospel passage said that Jesus stayed there for about six weeks, after which “he was tempted by the devil”. Matthew creatively described three basic temptations that confronted Jesus: to focus on his own selfish interests; to manipulate people’s attention and admiration; and to adopt the familiar power politics of other popular leaders.

They are the temptations we all face in one shape or other as we go through life. We seek personal security — and wealth if possible. We seek acceptance and popularity — whatever the cost. We seek influence and control over others.

Jesus, however, had other priorities. His focus was God, expressed particularly in respect and care for others. He was especially sensitive to people pushed to the margins, excluded from the world’s fruitfulness and productivity.

Within days, Jesus would be proclaiming to all who would listen: “The reign of God is close at hand. Repent. Trust the Good News!”

Trust God! Take time to get to know God personally! Reverse your values! Trust God and God’s ways! Get to know God’s ways! Let go of control!

Jesus was convinced that there is one way to experience joy. Let go of our fruitless fixations on pleasure. Learn to love; but take the trouble to learn what loving really means. Loving is not what most people think it is. It is worth the effort.

We are into Lent. Its observance has been part of the Church’s experience for centuries. Our bishops recommend that we look once more at three priorities.

1. Focussing on those at society’s financial margins. Project Compassion is one very concrete and effective way of doing that — and there are so many other projects operating in similar fields: the local St Vincent de Paul Society, Rural Australians for Refugees, etc. However, it is important that we that we are quite conscious of why we support these projects. Our support needs to be the expression of our love for people and for our world.

2. Our prayer. We need to listen to Jesus’ recommendation: “When you pray, go to your private room … and pray to your Father who is in that secret place.” The purpose of prayer is to deepen our personal friendship with God — not to gain points.

3. Fasting, or other works of penance. Their purpose is not to test or to prove ourselves, but to develop self-control; thereby to strengthen those virtues that assist our practical love for others.

And the why of it all, the good news of the Gospel, is that, just as God loved his Son, the Beloved, the same God loves you with that same infinite love; and the God who loves you loves everyone else in the same way. In our case, God’s love inevitably takes the necessary shape also of unconditional forgiveness.