[My format looks weird today because of the way that this homily was set up and presented. It just worked better this way. Sorry if it is hard to read in this format!]
Homily:
1st Sunday in Lent – Cycle A
Okay,
friends, today, on this first Sunday of Lent, we are going to shake things up a
bit and start off with a little pop quiz based on the readings we’ve just
heard. Don’t worry about it, though,
because you’re going to know most of the answers and there are no grades. Ready or not, here we go!
- Is humankind
responsible for the presence of suffering and death in the world, yes or no? [YES]
o
Even though it
wasn’t included in the reading today, we all know “the rest of the story”, that
Adam and Eve were punished and expelled from the garden so that they couldn’t
eat from the tree of life and, thus, would have to suffer death.
- Has humankind
been able to eliminate suffering and death from the world, now that they are
present in it, yes or no? [NO]
o
Just look
around. Suffering and death are still
very present here.
- Is there any reasonable
hope that humankind will ever eliminate suffering and death from the world, yes
or no? [NO]
o
Suffering and
death have been part of the human condition for as long as history has been recording
it.
- Who is the only
human being that ever existed who died, but then raised himself back to life? [JESUS]
- Is it reasonable
to expect that this could be possible for any human being ever, yes or no? [NO]
o
Again, human
beings have been around for 200,000 years and we ain't figured it out yet!
o
Why then do we
stubbornly act like we will? DON'T
ANSWER THAT!
- If this Jesus has
done something that no human being has ever been capable of doing nor will ever
be capable of doing, then he must have super-natural powers (that is, powers
beyond natural powers), true or false?
[TRUE]
- Since this Jesus
has done something that no other human being has ever been capable of doing,
something that we cannot reasonably expect any present or future human being as
being capable of doing, is it, therefore, reasonable to think that this Jesus
could also do the other thing that humankind has been incapable of doing: that
is, is it reasonable to think that Jesus could also eliminate suffering and
death from the world, yes or no? [YES]
o
It is reasonable
to think that because we don’t know the limit of his powers.
- Has this Jesus
revealed the secret to unlocking resurrection (that is, the secret for
overcoming suffering and death) for each and every one of us, yes or no? [YES]
- What is that
secret (hint: it’s in the Gospel reading today)? [OBEDIENCE TO THE WILL OF THE FATHER.]
o
Saint Paul said
it in his letter to the Romans:
o
“For just as
through the disobedience of one man the many were made sinners, so, through the
obedience of the one, the many will be made righteous.”
§ The one who was disobedient was Adam and we were
reminded of that in our first reading today.
·
Eve said, “We may
eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; it is only about the fruit of the
tree in the middle of the garden that God said, ‘You shall not eat it or even
touch it, lest you die.’”
·
They ate it, in
clear disobedience of God, and suffering and death entered the world.
§ The one who was obedient was Jesus and we were
reminded of his first great act of obedience in our Gospel reading today.
·
Satan said to
him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down… Jesus answered him, …'You
shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.’”
·
Jesus countered Adam and Eve’s disobedience by
his perfect obedience.
·
His final and
culminating act of obedience was his passion and death.
- Friends, this is
what Lent is about: returning to the garden through obedience.
o
If our Lenten
practices are not freeing us to give our obedience more fully to the Father,
then we should stop them and choose practices that will!
o
The first
practice, of course, is giving up sin!
§ None of us should be giving up chocolate unless we
have first decided to do the work of giving up sin!!!
o
Once we’ve done
that, however, we take on physical discomfort (that is, giving up something
good that we enjoy or taking up a good task that, perhaps, we don’t enjoy), so
as to do two things: a) to show God that we are truly sorry for our sins, and
b) to face our spiritual discomfort that God is calling us to still greater
holiness (...a call, by the way, that never ceases!)
§ I think that we get “a)” no problem, but how
many of us have ever really faced “b)”?
§ Not sure what I mean? Let me give you an example.
Last Friday afternoon, I was working in my office and I had an e-mail that I had to write that was important and complicated to compose. I was tired and really didn’t want to do it. So there I am, staring at my computer screen, not wanting to do the thing that I knew I needed to do, and so what did I do? Well, I opened up a new tab on my browser and hovered over the Facebook link. Before I clicked on it, however, I remembered that I decided to fast from social media on Fridays during Lent and so I stopped myself and went back to my e-mail. Soon, though, I was in a new tab hovering over the Facebook link again. Once again, though, my commitment to what I was giving up one over and I went back to my e-mail. Finally, I dug in and wrote the e-mail. The point being that, if I hadn’t chosen to give up a physical comfort (checking out what was going on with my friends on Facebook), then I wouldn’t have confronted my spiritual discomfort (completing the work that I had been given to do). Fasting from social media, therefore, showed both that I was sorry for my sins and made it so that I could confront this spiritual battle.
o
We have to give
up sin, of course, but then we should give up (or take up) something good, both
to show God that we are truly sorry for our sins and to face our spiritual
discomfort that God is calling us to greater holiness and so put ourselves to
work to do it!
§ THIS, in a nutshell, IS OBEDIENCE!!!
§ Obedience, Jesus has shown us, leads to
resurrection and eternal life.
Okay,
a couple of more questions a then we’ll call it a day.
- Is Jesus still
alive, yes or no? [YES]
- Will we meet him,
face-to-face, one day, yes or no? [YES]
- What, then,
should we do during Lent?
o
A question you
must answer yourself.
o
Whatever your
answer is, it should be something that leads you to deeper obedience to the
will of the Father so that, when Easter comes, you’ll be ready to die with
Christ and so rise with him again.
Given at Saint Mary’s Cathedral: Lafayette, IN –
March 1st, 2020
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