Homily for the 1st Sunday of Lent
Two images dominate today's liturgy: the Jewish thanksgiving ritual for their deliverance from Egypt and the Temptations of Jesus in the Desert. The forty days Jesus spent in the desert obviously echoes the forty years his ancestors wandered in the wilderness. At the heart of both images is struggle, rebellion and an effort to come to terms with reality.
The people of Israel, we are told, spent forty years wandering in the desert. They blamed their predicament on lack of leadership. They rebelled against Moses: "Why did you lead us out here to die in the wilderness," they objected. "At least we had bread to eat in Egypt." Jesus spends forty days in the desert and he too is confronted with temptations and soft options. He was offered all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.
The image of the desert represents different realities for different peoples. Ghosts, banshees and devils have all but vanished from our culture. They do not hold the same terrorising power over us as they did in our grandparent's generation. Rural electrification exorcised them. But, as Mr. Adams said about another type of malignant shade: "They haven't gone away you know." Most writers today would say that the devils and ghosts have been internalised, that we now find the desert within us. There is common agreement that this present generation is as harried and haunted as any of their ancestors.
Superficial sophistication may mask this reality but it cannot change it. The wastelands are within. It is within that the metaphorical beasts now roam; it is within that chasms of emptiness open up before us, threatening to devour us.
The desert is a place of testing, a place of rebellion.
Writers have often identified similarities between the history of the People of Israel and the biography of each individual human being. Adam and Eve were blissfully happy in the Garden of Eden, just as every infant is happy when its primal needs are satisfied. No labour is demanded, no decisions have to be made, and no responsibility has to be taken. All of that is done for us. But the time came when Adam and Eve had to be thrown out of the Garden.
The bible tells us that they were thrown out because 'they had eaten of the tree of knowledge'. Both we are told became conscious of their own nakedness. In other words they had passed out of infancy and were approaching an adult state of self-awareness. Adam and Eve had grown up. They had shed the innocence of infancy. But they had also shed its irresponsibility. They have eaten of the tree of knowledge. As alert, self-conscious adults, they must now make their own decisions and take responsibility for themselves and their own lives. Now as every parent knows, and as psychologists and educationalists tell us, when we come under pressure in adult life, we tend to revert to our state of infancy, to throw the tantrums we threw in childhood. But the bible tells us that God put an angel with a flaming sword at the gate of Eden. In other words, there will be no returning to infancy, there will be no going back to blissful, irresponsible paradise. We struggle towards maturity. Lent and the desert represent that struggle.
Each of us must struggle with the God we inherited form our childhood days. Most of us associate Lent with 'doing difficult and painful things', 'giving up things we greatly enjoy'. This may leave the impression that God is best pleased when his creatures are having a hard time. Such thinking can lead us to the conclusion that God's will must necessarily be the opposite to our own, and yet we must love God 'with all our heart, soul, mind and strength'. But, as adults, we must come to accept that Lent is not about getting yourself uncomfortable so that God may be pleased. Lent is about seeking the real self, the self that is not sustained by artificial props. The issue is not one of being sin¬less or perfect - but of being self-aware and integrated. Jesus had no trouble with life's failures, those lost on the margins, or locked in their bad habits. Because it was for them he came. It was with the hypocrites that he lost his temper. The question that Lent, the sea¬son of truth, asks is: "How much reality about myself can I bear?"
The desert is part of human experience, it is that part of growing up which will remain with us throughout our lives. Every human being who seeks out God and maturity must walk through the desert. Indeed human experience itself tells us there is no gain without some pain. But, as today's gospel reveals, God does not leave us to struggle alone in our desert. In fact he struggles with us. The Eucharist is of course the great symbol of this truth: God himself sustains us as we struggle towards him.