First Reading – Deuteronomy 26:4-10 ©
Responsorial Psalm – Psalm
90(91):1-2,10-15 ©
Second Reading – Romans 10:8-13 ©
Gospel Acclamation – Matthew 4:4
The Gospel According to Luke 4:1-13 ©
(NJB)
Listen!
God does not intervene in human affairs, having
made human beings and the whole of creation free. There is no coercion force in
the divine. God did not give any land to the Israelites, they took it for
themselves; God does not love war or condone bloodshed. The way of God is the
way of peace.
It is always good to give thanks for the good
things that come to you; just as it is wise, not to despair when bad things
befall you, but do not pray for or count on God to intervene in your affairs,
to free you from danger, or to rescue you from peril. You must take of yourself,
relying on your family and friends, your community…even strangers if you must, and
failing that do not despair, your perseverance must be through faith, for this
life is not the end of things, it is merely the beginning.
Be mindful of the teaching of the apostles,
they are often wrong. Learn from their errors; reflect on what it means to be
saved: to be made well.
We are not saved by thoughts and words. It is
not right doctrine, right belief or a magic-formula of mystic utterances that
saves us or brings us near to God. Neither are we saved by good deeds or by any
of our accomplishments.
We are saved because God loves us, and there
is nothing more to it. God loves us in the same way that God loves all
creation. God’s love, which is utterly dependable, is the agent of our
salvation, the catalyst and the cause.
Have no fear.
God, who created the universe; God will save
you no matter what you confess and no matter what you believe or don not believe.
You were marked for salvation when you entered into life. Christian or not;
salvation is yours, because Christian or not, you are God’s child and God loves
you.
Remember this!
We are not Gnostics.
We do not believe that our salvation is
dependent on our possession of special knowledge. You do not need to know anything
about God to be saved by God. The divine hand reaches out for you with healing because
God loves you. It is as simple as that.
Be mindful.
There is no devil, no Satan. The only deceiver
that you need to contend with is the voice of deception that speaks to you in
your own heart, and that voice is yours. We are endowed with the ability to
know the truth and to discern good from evil, but God has also given each of us
the ability to deny the truth, to reject it and deceive ourselves.
The lies we tell, both to ourselves and to
other’s always originate in our own hearts. We tell them first to ourselves,
before we try to convince others. And when we believe the lies that other
people tell us, it is not them we believe but the voice within us that tells us
that expresses its desire to believe them.
The path to wellness is found by cleaving to
the truth and rejecting the sugar-high of the expedient-lie, we come to it by savoring
the hard truths that are made plain through the contemplation of the divine.
Consider
the Gospel reading for today, but prepare yourself first, and approach tit with
clarity of mind, and a fulsome appreciation for our liability toward
self-deception., for this is the lesson that the reading is meant to impart.
Know
that what you are reading in the Gospels is not the literal truth. The tale of
Jesus’ temptation in the desert is an allegory, wrapped in myth and rifled with
metaphor.
Jesus
was not tempted by the devil. We know this because there is no devil, and because
we know that God did not create a universe at war with its creator, neither is
God a banker tracking our credits and debits in some kind of glorious ledger.
God
is not a king, God does not have armies, there are no legions of the damned,
there are no hosts of fallen angels. There is only God, the creator, and the
creation which God loves, existing within and sustained by that love from end
to end.
The
antagonist in this story is Jesus’ own self, it is the same antagonist we all
face when we struggle to know and do the right thing in the face of the
temptation to do wrong.
We
are our own enemy.
The
voice of temptation does not come from without. It comes from within.
In
the narrative Jesus set out to fast. His first temptation was to break the fast.
He was tempted by hunger, not the devil, and he surpassed it.
Be
mindful of the power of hunger, hunger can bring a person to do terrible
things.
The
second temptation Jesus faced was the temptation to transform the movement he
had begun into a political one. This would have meant taking up arms against
the Romans, and even his own people his own people.
Jesus
knew in his hear that this was not the way, he also knew that his
closest followers would have gladly taken up arms for him. This was the temptation
to possess worldly power, it was born from his own doubts and he rejected it.
It
is sad to note how in the centuries that followed the Church that was founded
in Jesus’ name would not worldly power or the temptation to wage war to expand
and defend it.
The
third temptation that Jesus faced was of a more esoteric nature; it was the
temptation to believe the things that people were saying about him, to believe
that he was a divine being, to believe that he had special powers, to believe
that the mission he was on was given to him by God, and therefore it could not
be stopped, not even if Jesus were to throw himself off of a high wall.
This
was the temptation of vanity, which Jesus also rejected.
Throughout
the temptation narrative Jesus demonstrates self-control guided by wisdom and
humility. He rejects vanity, he rejects political power, and he rejects the
power of hunger to dissuade him.
In
each case, the enemy was not an extrinsic force or a supernatural being. The
enemy was altogether ordinary, it was the voice of hunger, the desire for
power, and the appeal of vanity; these are temptations that each of us face
everyday…each in our own way.
First Reading – Deuteronomy 26:4-10 ©
The Creed of the Chosen People
Moses
said to the people: ‘The priest shall take the pannier from your hand and lay
it before the altar of the Lord your God. Then, in the sight of the Lord your
God, you must make this pronouncement:
‘“My
father was a wandering Aramaean. He went down into Egypt to find refuge there,
few in numbers; but there he became a nation, great, mighty, and strong. The
Egyptians ill-treated us, they gave us no peace and inflicted harsh slavery on
us. But we called on the Lord, the God of our fathers. The Lord heard our voice
and saw our misery, our toil and our oppression; and the Lord brought us out of
Egypt with mighty hand and outstretched arm, with great terror, and with signs
and wonders. He brought us here and gave us this land, a land where milk and
honey flow. Here then I bring the first-fruits of the produce of the soil that
you, the Lord, have given me.”
‘You
must then lay them before the Lord your God, and bow down in the sight of the
Lord your God.’
Responsorial Psalm – Psalm
90(91):1-2,10-15 ©
Be with me, O Lord, in my distress.
He
who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
and abides in the shade of the Almighty
says
to the Lord: ‘My refuge,
my stronghold, my God in whom I trust!’
Be with me, O Lord, in my distress.
Upon
you no evil shall fall,
no plague approach where you dwell.
For
you has he commanded his angels,
to keep you in all your ways.
Be with me, O Lord, in my distress.
They
shall bear you upon their hands
lest you strike your foot against a stone.
On
the lion and the viper you will tread
and trample the young lion and the dragon.
Be with me, O Lord, in my distress.
His
love he set on me, so I will rescue him;
protect him for he knows my name.
When
he calls I shall answer: ‘I am with you,’
I will save him in distress and give him
glory.
Be with me, O Lord, in my distress.
Second Reading – Romans 10:8-13 ©
The Creed of the Christian
Scripture
says: The word (that is the faith we proclaim) is very near to you, it is on
your lips and in your heart. If your lips confess that Jesus is Lord and if you
believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, then you will be
saved. By believing from the heart you are made righteous; by confessing with
your lips you are saved. When scripture says: those who believe in him will
have no cause for shame, it makes no distinction between Jew and Greek: all
belong to the same Lord who is rich enough, however many ask his help, for everyone
who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
Gospel Acclamation – Matthew 4:4
Praise
to you, O Christ, king of eternal glory!
Man
does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of
God.
Praise
to you, O Christ, king of eternal glory!
The Gospel According to Luke 4:1-13 ©
The Temptation in the
Wilderness
Filled
with the Holy Spirit, Jesus left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit through
the wilderness, being tempted there by the devil for forty days. During that time
he ate nothing and at the end he was hungry. Then the devil said to him, ‘If
you are the Son of God, tell this stone to turn into a loaf.’ But Jesus
replied, ‘Scripture says: Man does not live on bread alone.’
Then
leading him to a height, the devil showed him in a moment of time all the
kingdoms of the world and said to him, ‘I will give you all this power and the
glory of these kingdoms, for it has been committed to me and I give it to
anyone I choose. Worship me, then, and it shall all be yours.’ But Jesus
answered him, ‘Scripture says:
You
must worship the Lord your God, and serve him alone.’
Then
he led him to Jerusalem and made him stand on the parapet of the Temple. ‘If
you are the Son of God,’ he said to him ‘throw yourself down from here, for
scripture says:
He
will put his angels in charge of you to guard you, and again:
They
will hold you up on their hands in case you hurt your foot against a stone.’
But
Jesus answered him, ‘It has been said:
You
must not put the Lord your God to the test.’
Having
exhausted all these ways of tempting him, the devil left him, to return at the
appointed time.
The First Sunday of Lent (Year C)
