Homily for the First Sunday of Lent

Homily for the First Sunday of Lent
Genesis 2:7-9, 3:1-7
Romans 5:12, 17-19
Matthew 4:1-11

These are rich scriptures for a preacher to break open.
The first reading gives us naked people in a garden of paradise –
an interesting place to begin!
The second reading is thick with theology but it’s St. Paul in top form,
comparing Adam and Christ.
And then we come to the gospel
and the drama of Jesus going one-on-one,
mano a mano, with the devil himself!
And at the heart of all this is temptation
–and- the invitation to conversion, to turning one’s life around.

Spiritual writer Thomas Merton tell us:
It is relatively easy to convert the sinner.
But good people are often completely unconvertible
- simply because they do not see any need for conversion.
(Thomas Merton in Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander)

I think that might be many of us,
and I know it would be me, much of the time.
I’m a good guy!
People tell me I’m a good pastor (well, most people do).
What conversion do I need?
What needs to be turned around in my life?
And how about YOU: you’re good folks!
‘Nary a drug-dealer, bank-robber or murderer among you.
You work hard.
Or you’re retired and resting from having worked hard.
You try to do right by your families.
You believe in God.
Hey! You’re in church, right?
Why would you need conversion?
What needs to be turned around in your lives?

But this was precisely the problem
of the naked couple in the garden of Genesis.
They tried to justify themselves by the measure of their own goodness.
They tried to justify themselves by the measure of their own goodness.
Jesus is tempted in just this way by the devil in the desert.
There’s the devil saying,
“Look! You’re the Son of God. You’re powerful: you’re good!
You can do these simple things – no sweat!
So, could you just turn these rocks into bread?
Would you call up a choir of angels to dance on the head of a pin.
Just give me a tip of your hat
and all the kingdoms of the world will be yours!”
The devil is tempting Jesus to justify himself
by the measure of his own goodness.
And the goodness of Jesus is forever.
But at each temptation Jesus points away from himself, as the measure,
and points to the goodness of God, his Father.
He says to the devil:
“We don’t live on bread alone,
but on every word that comes from God’s mouth.”
“You shall not put God to the test.”
“Only God is to served and worshipped.”

Constantly putting the measure of goodness outside himself
and pointing to it,
even Jesus, the Son of God, would not justify himself
by his own measure.

Lent is a time, a season for us to ask,
“By what measure do I justify myself?
By what measure do I take stock of my life?
Is there anything in my life in need of conversion,
in need of a ‘turn around’?
Or have I slipped into thinking that
because I’m not a thief, a drug-dealer or a murderer
– I’m good enough?
Lent is a season for asking myself,
by what measure do I measure my life before God?

I can’t think of three better ways of getting at these questions
than the simple Lenten exercises
of prayer, fasting and serving the poor.

They’re all ways in which we point away from ourselves:
prayer - in which we discern God's measure of our lives;
fasting - denying ourselves to find the measure of God's presence in us;
almsgiving - serving the poor as the measure of the love God asks of us.

Jesus surrendered his own goodness for our sake
by laying down his life on the Cross, the measure of his love,
offered to us now in the bread and cup of this table.

May the sacrament we celebrate and receive here
strengthen us to examine our hearts and lives this Lent.

And perhaps even to find out that we need – a little conversion…

-ConcordPastor