Lent 1

Readings: Gen 2:7-9; 3:1-7; Rom 5:12-19; Mt 4:1-11

VIDEO

We know that the devil is a liar,
and that when he tempts us
he does so by lying.
Sometimes he lies by telling us
that something evil is in fact good,
so that our will is drawn to things
that are harmful to us.
But our first reading and Gospel today
suggest that there is another sort of lying 
by which the devil tempts us:
he lies about God,
telling us that there is some good thing
that God wants to deny to us
that we should grab for ourselves.
This sort of temptation
stands at the head 
of the story of humanity,
suggesting that perhaps this 
is the more fundamental kind of temptation,
because it involves the more fundamental kind of lie:
the lie that God is stingy with the good.

In the Garden, 
where God has lavishly provided for humanity, 
there is a tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
a tree from which God has forbidden 
the man and woman to eat.
The serpent tells the woman,
“God knows well that the moment you eat of it
your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods
who know what is good and what is evil.”
The serpent tells the woman that God 
wants to keep godlikeness to himself,
that God wants to keep 
wisdom and insight to himself.
But this is a lie.
Indeed, God has already 
breathed his Spirit into humanity
so that, unlike any other earthly creature, 
they might live by sharing in God’s own life.
God has already given them 
a share in godlikeness,
which will grow and develop
into full wisdom and insight
if only they can recognize that it
can never be anything other than a gift,
can never be something that they
reach out and grasp for themselves,
can never be claimed as their right 
or their private possession.
The forbidden tree 
is there in the Garden
to remind them of that.
And, when the woman and the man eat,
the only knowledge that they gain
is knowledge of their own nakedness,
knowledge of their own vulnerability,
stripped as they are of the gift they have lost
only because they refused to receive it as a gift.

In the desert too 
the devil tempts Jesus to think
that there are godlike goods 
that God wants to keep from him,
and that he ought to reach out
and grasp for himself:
the good of miraculous works,
the good of divine protection,
the good of power over kingdoms.
But Jesus knows 
the deepest truth about himself,
in a way that Adam and Eve did not.
Jesus knows himself to be 
the beloved Son of God the Father,
born of the Father before all ages,
born in time of the Holy Spirit 
and the Virgin Mary. 
Jesus knows that his existence itself,
in both eternity and in time, 
comes from the overflowing generosity
that is the very essence of the one he calls Father.
He knows the truth,
and so he is immune to the devil’s lies,
for he knows his Father is not stingy,
because he shares divinity itself 
with his Son and Holy Spirit.

And in the events that follow in Jesus’ life
we see the devil’s lies revealed.
Jesus would prove his Sonship
not merely by turning stones to bread
to satisfy his own physical hunger,
but by feeding multitudes 
with five loaves and two fish,
by healing those afflicted with diseases
or possessed by the devil’s minions,
by calming storms and raising the dead.
Jesus would show his trust 
in God’s care for him
not by throwing himself down
from the top of the Temple,
but by letting himself be raised
on the tree of the Cross,
mocked by those who would say,
“He trusted in God; 
let him deliver him now 
if he wants him,”
handing himself over in love
for us and for our salvation. 
Jesus would gain power
over the kingdoms of the world
not by bowing down before Satan
but by enduring his passion and cross
so as to be raised up 
as the one who now reigns
in the kingdom of heaven,
a kingdom whose beauty outstrips
all the kingdoms of the world 
in their magnificence.
Jesus knew himself,
and so he knew that all 
that the devil said 
God wanted to deny him
was already his.

And it is already ours, as well,
if we but know ourselves truly
as beloved sons and daughters of God.
All that is good is already ours
because it has been given us in Jesus Christ.
St. Paul tells us:
“if by the transgression of the one, 
the many died,
how much more did the grace of God
and the gracious gift 
of the one man Jesus Christ
overflow for the many.”
The story of the capitulation 
of Adam and Eve to the serpent’s lie 
that God would not give them
every good gift
has been overwritten 
by the story of Jesus’ faithfulness,
his fierce conviction that he is 
the Father’s gift of life to the world,
overflowing for the many.
Our first parents reached out their hands
to grasp the fruit of the forbidden tree;
Jesus Christ extended his hands 

to embrace the tree of the Cross,
becoming himself the fruit that hung upon it,
the fruit upon which we feed in the Eucharist,
the bread of immortality that makes us godlike.

So let us enter into this season of Lent, 
not fearful of the devil’s temptations
or beguiled by his lies,
but confident in the gift of God
that is given to us in Jesus.
Let us turn from the lie
that we have only
what we can grasp for ourselves,
and turn toward the God 
who desires nothing more
than that we might be made 
partakers of eternity.
And may God in his mercy
have mercy on us all.

Ash Wednesday

Readings: Joel 2:1–2, 12–17; 2 Cor 5:20-6:10; Mt 6:1-6, 16-21

“As having nothing 
and yet possessing everything.”
This is how Paul concludes 
the series of paradoxes
by which he describes to the Corinthians
his ministry as God’s servant,
an “ambassador for Christ”
entreating them to be reconciled to God.
Having lost all to afflictions, hardships, calamities, 
beatings, imprisonments, riots, 
labors, sleepless nights, and hunger,
he is the possessor of purity, 
knowledge, patience, kindness, 
holiness of spirit, genuine love, 
truthful speech, and the power of God.

What about us?
Can our lives as Christ’s servants
be described as having nothing
and yet possessing everything?
There is, of course, a problem.
The problem is that we have lots of stuff.
Indeed, we might say that we have everything
yet possess nothing;
because we ourselves are possessed 
by all the stuff we have.
And we are possessed by the stuff we have
because we don’t realize that in having this stuff
we don’t really possess anything, 
much less everything.
For the stuff we have is dust
and to dust it shall return.

Many, many years ago,
when I was a college student,
I lived in the home of a professor
who, whenever he acquired something new,
liked to joke that the worship of stuff
was his true religion:
he was, he said, a “stuffist.”
He was actually a Quaker,
and a pretty serious one,
but he was self-aware enough to realize
that he was sometimes more driven 
by his desire to collect art and music and books
than he was by his spiritual convictions.
Of course, there is nothing wrong
with art and music and books,
except that, measured against 
the scale of cosmic history—
not to mention eternity—
they last only an instant.
They are made from dust
and to dust they shall return. 
Even if we had everything,
we would still possess nothing,
because time inexorably 
pulls our stuff from our grasp.

But we like to hide from ourselves
this fact about the stuff we have.
We like to hide this fact from ourselves
because what is true of our stuff
is also true of us.
We are dust
and to dust we shall return.
On NASA’s astrobiology website,
in a lesson plan on matter 
for first and second graders,
the punchline is the declaration,
“We’re all made of the stuff from stars!”—
complete with an enthusiastic 
exclamation point
at the end.
True.
As Joni Mitchell sang years ago,
“we are stardust, we are golden.”
But despite enthusiastic punctuation
or beautiful melodies,
such declarations cannot quite conjure away
the nagging voice that reminds us
that, as impressive as they may be—
and, make no mistake, 
stars are extremely impressive—
they will go cold, or flare out.
And the stars’ fate is our fate:
we too, as impressive as we may be, 
as much stuff as we may acquire,
will go cold, 
or flare out.

Jesus says, “where your treasure is, 
there your heart will be also.”
It’s a basic principle of the Hebrew Prophets
that you become like what you worship.
If you worship dead idols,
then you yourself become spiritually dead.
If you hold as your treasure those things
that moth and rust consume 
then you too will be consumed,
will return to the dust.

But you don’t need to wait for death
for this to happen.
We feel even in our present life the effects
of joining our hearts to earthly treasure,
as we try to convince ourselves 
that we can possess our stuff securely
if only we can grasp it tightly enough,
if only we can keep at bay anyone
who might take it from our grasp.
So we draw boundaries around ourselves,
and around our families and nations,
borders secure enough to keep our stuff safe
and to keep out the moth and the rust,
the needy neighbor and the threatening stranger.
And locked within those borders 
we live in an isolation that is already
a kind of death of the spirit,
the loneliness of oblivion.

As Pope Leo said 

in his homily this morning in Rome:

“Today...we perceive 

in the ashes imposed on us 

the weight of a world that is ablaze, 

of entire cities destroyed by war. 

This is also reflected in the ashes 

of international law 

and justice among peoples, 

the ashes of entire ecosystems 

and harmony among peoples, 

the ashes of critical thinking 

and ancient local wisdom, 

the ashes of that sense of the sacred 

that dwells in every creature.”

And so the Church gives us 
this season of Lent
to remind us of the truth 
that we have nothing,
and to give us the hope 
that we can possess everything.
The Church tells us the truth:
of yourself you have nothing 
that will not pass away;
of yourself you are nothing 
that will not pass away;
of yourself you are dust, 
and to dust you shall return.
But this bad news is simply 
the prelude to the good news:
if you worship not the dead stuff of idols 
but worship instead the living God,
then you will live as God lives;
if you seek not 
corruptible treasure on earth
but the reign of God and his righteousness,
then you will have treasure in heaven.
If you can learn to see that, 
however much stuff you own,
you actually have nothing,
then you can possess everything,
in this life and in the life to come.

We might think of the traditional Lenten practices
of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving
as the path we follow in coming to this realization.

We must pray, 
not in the performative way
that Jesus condemns,
but as a way of entering into 
what St. Catherine of Siena calls
“the cell of self-knowledge”:
the knowledge that God is the one who is
and we are the ones who are not,
the knowledge that we are simply nothingness
that God has loved into existence,
and that separated from that love
we will fall back into nothingness.
We must pray in order to know God,
and so know ourselves as beloved dust.

We must fast,
not in the ostentatious way
that Jesus condemns,
but as a way of moving
the self-knowledge we gain in prayer
out of our hearts and into our flesh,
of feeling in our bones that we are dust
and of cultivating in a practical way
a detachment from the stuff
that possesses us,
and which demands our constant service
to protect it from moth and rust,
from needy neighbors and threatening strangers.
We must fast in order to erase 
the protective borders we draw
not only between ourselves and other people,
but between ourselves and God.

We must give alms,
not in the self-congratulatory way
that Jesus condemns,
but in the freedom and joy that are found
from knowing ourselves to be dust
that is held in life by love divine,
from possessing that life so securely
that we can tear down the borders we erect
to secure our stuff.
We must give alms as the outward and visible sign
of the inward and spiritual grace
of being called by God to be ambassadors of Christ
in whom we have been reconciled.

Let us pray that God will use this season
to draw us more closely to God and to each other,
to help us to know that we are beloved dust,
so that we who have nothing
might possess everything, 
and that God, who is merciful,
might have mercy on us all. 

6th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Sirach 15:15-20; 1 Cor 2:6-10; Mt 5:17-37

VIDEO

Here we are, once again,
poised on the brink of Lent
and I find myself, once again,
unprepared.
I haven’t decided 
on what, if anything, 
I might give up.
I’ve made no firm plans to take on
any extra spiritual disciplines
or any extra acts of charity.
Like I always seem to do,
I’m stumbling into Lent 
and will stumble through it,
thinking it will probably be okay,
except for the mild sense of regret
that I didn’t make more 
of the opportunity.

This shambling mediocrity 
with which I typically approach Lent 
seems to stand is striking contrast
to our first reading,
in which the wise man Sirach
presents our choice
with crystalline clarity:
fire and water,
life and death, 
good and evil.
There they are before us, 
so that all we have 
to do this Lent
is reach out our hand
and make our choice,
grasp the good.

But my excuse-making skills to so finely honed
that I can even recruit Jesus in the effort
of justifying my own spiritual mediocrity.
If the choice were actually as clear
as Sirach says it is,
I would find it less tempting 
to procrastinate or prevaricate.
But don’t the words of Jesus in today’s Gospel
suggests that it is not simply a matter
of making the right choice?
It’s not so simple as murder or mercy;
I’ve got somehow to root out anger from my heart.
It’s not so simple as adultery or fidelity;
I’ve got somehow to root out lust from my heart.
It’s not so simple as perjury or oath-keeping;
I’ve got somehow to plant truth so deeply in my heart
that I need take no oath in order to be believed.
Rooting out anger and lust?
Planting truth within my heart?
These tasks seem so vast 
that one hesitates to even start.

So I procrastinate and prevaricate.
I say that by raising the bar on the choice
between good and evil,
life and death—
by making it not just about 
choosing to act in a particular way
but about the feeling and being 
from which my acting comes—
Jesus has made things too complicated.
How can I possibly figure out how to live
the days between now and Easter 
so that I root out anger and lust
and plant truth within my heart?
No wonder I stumble into 
this season of conversion we call Lent.

But, if you will forgive me
for making you listen
to me talking to myself,
there are a few things I’d like to tell 
my procrastinating and prevaricating self.

First, self, Jesus is simply telling you the truth,
not providing you with an excuse.
How you act flows from who you are,
and if you want your actions to be different
you have to become, in some sense, 
a different person—a new creation in Christ.
This is, after all, what God really cares about:
not a checklist of actions 
but a heart that chooses life,
a heart that wants so much to live 
that it will die to itself
so that it might live in God.
You procrastinate and prevaricate
not because Jesus has made it too complicated,
but because he has made it so simple
that you have nowhere to hide.
You ask yourself, “what should I do?”
but the answer is clear: die to yourself.
This is the wisdom of God of which Paul speaks, 
mysterious and hidden,
but revealed to us in the Spirit
through the crucifixion of the Lord of glory.
You shouldn’t pretend that the question is too difficult
just because you don’t like the answer.

Second, self, the choice that Sirach places before you
is stark in its framing—good and evil, life and death—
but maybe not so stark in its living out.
God wants your wholehearted “yes,”
by if the best you can manage is 
“well, I guess so”
God can work with that.
You may stumble into Lent,
but at least you’re stumbling 
in the right direction.
Maybe you could stumble into a small act of kindness.
Maybe you could stumble into the confessional.
Maybe you could stumble into a moment of prayer.
Everything else has to be the work of grace.
Perhaps the real discipline of Lent
is not so much giving things up,
or taking on extra spiritual disciplines
or acts of charity,
but letting God drag your stumbling self
all the way from here to Easter.

Finally, self, maybe you ought 
to stop making things so much about yourself
and the steps that you take.
You know, if you let God be the one who leads,
then even your stumbling steps can become
part of God’s dance.
Maybe you need to remember 
the words of Thomas Merton
that you read many years ago
as you were just beginning 
your decades-long stumble as a Catholic Christian:

For the world and time 

are the dance of the Lord in emptiness. 

The silence of the spheres 

is the music of a wedding feast. 

The more we persist in misunderstanding 

the phenomena of life, 

the more we analyze them out 

into strange finalities 

and complex purposes of our own, 

the more we involve ourselves 

in sadness, absurdity and despair. 

But it does not matter much, 

because no despair of ours 

can alter the reality of things; 

or stain the joy of the cosmic dance 

which is always there. 

Indeed, we are in the midst of it, 

and it is in the midst of us, 

for it beats in our very blood, 

whether we want it to or not.

Yet the fact remains that we are invited 

to forget ourselves on purpose, 

cast our awful solemnity to the winds 

and join in the general dance.

And may God, who is merciful,
have mercy on us all.