Homily First Sunday of Lent Milton Today s readings are all about covenant. In the first reading, God says to Noah: I am

Transcription

1 Homily First Sunday of Lent Milton 2009 Today s readings are all about covenant. In the first reading, God says to Noah: I am now establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you that includes you and me and with every living creature. And because of Noah s fidelity to that covenant, he and his family were saved from the Great Flood. In the second reading, Peter sees this first covenant as a prefiguration of baptism. He writes: God waited patiently in the days of Noah during the building of the ark, in which a few persons were saved through water. This prefigured baptism, which saves you now. Just as Noah and his family were saved from the destruction of the flood by means of the Ark, so are we saved from the destruction of sin by means of baptism. Baptism is our Ark: it carries us through tempestuous waters. Every year, on the First Sunday of Lent, Jesus goes out into the desert. This year we have Mark s version. Mark s says very simply that Jesus was tempted by Satan, without saying what the temptations actually were, as do Matthew and Luke. Mark says of Jesus: He was among the wild beasts. The desert was a place of danger, where wild beasts dwelt and revolutionaries hid out; it was seen as the dwelling place of demons and evil spirits. In the Old Testament, it was a place of testing for Israel on their journey from Egypt to the Promised Land. Alone in the desert, you don t have all the supports and protections that you have in society; you re at the mercy of the dangers that lurk there. There in the desert, during those 40 days, Jesus struggled with his

2 covenant with God, and he resolved to be faithful and obedient to the Father s will Most Scripture scholars see these temptations as a kind of summary of many that Jesus endured through his life all of which culminate in his temptation in the Garden of Gethsemane, as he prayed that the chalice of suffering pass him by. These readings give us a model for addressing Lent this year. The Opinion Page of Thursday s Wisconsin State Journal carried a cartoon by Joe Heller: A man and his wife are at the kitchen table. On the table is a foreclosure notice, a pink slip, a car payment past due, credit card bills, a heat bill, and food receipts. The man says to his wife: So, what are we giving up for Lent? She responds: Voluntarily or involuntarily? That s the question before us as we begin this grace-filled season of Lent: What are we giving up for Lent? What are we doing for Lent? I have a few suggestions: First Suggestion: Go to the desert: strip away a few of the non-essentials from our lives: for example, give up indiscriminate television watching. Commercial television is designed to create needs, and to make us buy what we don t really need. Much of it is filled with soft and hardcore pornography, and values that are contrary to the gospel. We can t really absorb those powerful images and secular values day-in and day-out without being affected by them. I m not saying cut it out entirely, but limit it. In its place, do

3 some good spiritual reading: read from the bible; check a book out of our library; pick up a good Catholic magazine. We all have non-essentials in our lives that we can set aside for 40 days. This is one way to fast. Second Suggestion: This week all the kids in our Faith Formation program will bring home a rice bowl. Put the rice bowl, or a coffee can or some other container, in the middle of the family table, and every day have each family member empty his or her change into it. Everything that goes in there goes to the poor. This is almsgiving. Third Suggestion: At least once a week, say an encouraging word at home, at work, at school. Say something positive and upbuilding to another person. Make them feel good about being alive. Make them feel appreciated. Fourth and Final Suggestion: Reconnect. Put aside a little time every week or two, to reconnect with a friend, a spouse, or a family member. This is, after all, the reason we do everything we do all the work and all the running around: we do this not just for ourselves, but so that we can have good relationships. This is best illustrated by a little story Fr. Bill Bausch tells in one of his books (Once Upon a Gospel, pp ). It s the story of a woman named Marjorie Tallcott. She was married and had one child during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The family managed to scrape their way through one particularly rough year, but as Christmas approached, Marjorie and

4 her husband knew they would not be able to buy any presents. So, a week before Christmas, they explained to their six-year-old son, Pete, that there would be no storebought presents this Christmas. But I ll tell you what we can do, said Pete s father, we can draw pictures of the presents we d like to give each other. It became a busy week, as Marjorie and her husband set to work drawing the pictures. Christmas Day arrived, and the family rose to find their little tree made magnificent by the picture-presents they had adorned it with. There was luxury beyond imagination in those pictures: a black limousine and red speedboat for Dad, a diamond bracelet and fur coat for Mom, a camping tent and a swimming pool for Pete. Then Pete pulled out his present, a simple crayon drawing of a man, a woman, and a child with their arms around each other, laughing. Under the picture was just one word: US. Years later, Marjorie wrote that that Christmas was the richest, most satisfying Christmas they ever had. Pete s card summed it up: US. No things, notice. Just people. Most of the time, it s not people, just things, lots of them. Lent is a time for us to go out into the desert, to get back to the basics, to discover what s really important what gives meaning to life and truly fills us. Like Jesus, we have 40 days to do that. On Easter Sunday, we will be challenged to renew our baptismal covenant as we are asked the questions: Do you renounce Satan? And all his ways? And

5 all his works? And all his empty promises? Do you believe in God the Father, in Jesus Christ, in the Holy Spirit? We live in a time that calls for great faith. We can be secure today and swamped tomorrow. It s a time to listen carefully to the message of today s readings, and a time to cling to the covenant that our God has so lovingly offered to us.