Reflection for the First Sunday of Lent

We have just heard Luke’s version of the temptations. In his account Jesus, filled with the spirit, returns from being baptized in the Jordan and is led into the desert. Luke has Jesus’ encounter with the devil at the end of his 40 days of prayer and fasting, but I suggest he wrestled with the demon throughout that time.

Imagine for a moment, you have just been baptized and a voice is heard,

This is my Son, my beloved in whom I am well pleased. Listen to him.

And then you are led into the desert to spend time in pray. I imagine Jesus had a few questions. Why me? What does it mean to be God’s son? Who is going to listen to me, a carpenter’s son? How have I pleased God?

Oh sure, Mary and Joseph had probably told him some of the stories surrounding his birth and what was said by various folks whom they encountered those early years. Some pretty heavy and heady happenings, to be sure. 

Back to the desert, Jesus is feeling his humanness, he’s thirsty, he’s tired and he’s hungry. Those pesky questions keep making themselves known. 

Enter the devil. Is it in human-likeness? Similar to the one we have pictured here in our chapel? Or, like the olive-green one with pointed ears that I saw over and over again as a child? Or, was it a voice from within that kept pushing through those times of prayer. . . 

If I am God’s son, maybe I can make one of these stones turn into some bread – not a banquet, just a little bread. ONE DOES NOT LIVE BY BREAD ALONE.

What sort of power will I wield in the coming years? Will others look up to me as savior, the one who “can deliver”? YOU MUST WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD, AND SERVE HIM ALONE.

Isn’t God the Father with me, won’t he send his angels to look out for me if I am destined to redeem my people? YOU MUST NOT PUT THE LORD YOUR GOD TO THE TEST.

After I sat with these readings, the phrase that niggled at my heart was: YOU MUST WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD, AND SERVE HIM ALONE. What does God want to say to me? Why this verse? How can this quote direct my Lent?

I feel God is calling me to focus this Lent. To focus on loving and honoring my God, to focus on God’s unconditional love for me. Not just in my prayer times, but all the time – daily as I go around the monastery, while in the dining room and the community room, while with my living group, my friends, those sisters I encounter every day. Not only at home, but while at work — in the office, the classroom or the library and wherever else my day takes me. Being aware of another’s pains, joys and sorrows. Being aware of the many riches with which I have been gifted. Being mindful of those who don’t have these blessings, who suffer mightily just getting through the day or through the night.

Looking for concrete ways to worship my God, I draw from the reading from Deuteronomy in which Moses reminds us that our ancestors were wandering in a new land, living as aliens among people who once welcomed them before treating them unjustly and with cruelty. Calling out to God and being led into a new land, a land flowing with milk and honey, they were directed to bring a basket filled with the first fruits of the harvest to be placed on the altar of God.

This Lent we have three baskets waiting to be filled with the fruits of our Lenten promises. I can return the abundant favors of our God by adding my dollars with yours in one or more of the baskets. Maybe I can do without buying the next book in the series I am reading and wait patiently for my turn in the queue. What about that blouse I have my eye on, can I add that money to the baskets so someone may have a meal? 

What other baskets can I offer? A basket of time spent listening to another, one of caring for our earth, a basket of words not spoken in haste or malice. 

We have many opportunities to be tempted. How can we resist those temptations and come closer to our GOD this Lent?