The Field of Goodness and Beauty

Homily for Sunday, March 9, 2025
The First Sunday in Lent
Deuteronomy 26:1-11
Luke 4:1-13 

This morning I am going to preach on to the Gospel lesson we just heard from Luke chapter 4, the story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness.  But first, this morning’s Old Testament reading from Deuteronomy chapter 26.

This morning’s lesson from Deuteronomy  26 – our first reading on the First Sunday in Lent – gives directions for enacting a story; it’s like a play.  This “play” has characters.   There is “you,” as in:  “When you have come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess;” and there is a priest. This play has props – fruit and a basket:  “You shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket.”  This play has blocking:  “You shall go to the priest who is in office at that time…” who takes the basket “from your hand and sets it down before the altar of the Lord.”  And the play has lines – or,actually, one long line:  “And you shall make this response before the Lord your God: ‘A wandering Aramean was my ancestor,’” it begins.  And the line isn’t just any line, but it tells the story of a people:  “[My ancestor] went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien...’” until “’The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm…and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.’”  

As we enter this season of Lent, it is easy to get caught up in Lenten words such as “temptation” and “sin” or “penitence” and “forgiveness” and to focus perhaps too closely on them.  Looked at too closely, these words might suggest that Lent is primarily about trying to avoid the “temptation” of “sin,” and that when we do sin, as we are “penitent,” no worries, God will “forgive” us.  While not untrue, such thinking risks too small a vision of Lent.  Focusing too closely on these words can lead us to get caught up on things such as food or sex or on whether or not “we become angry too easily” and so forth.  Such a Lent risks becoming a Lent of picking ticks off the dog, as it were:  we “sin,” we roll over, and God picks our “ticks” off.

Lent is bigger than God removing our “ticks.”  Our first reading in this season of Lent helps set the stage for a more expansive and perhaps more helpful vision of Lent, which is:  Lent helps to clarify our identity.  Lent tells the story of who we are, really; and who we are really is those called by Jesus to follow him as his disciples.  Knowing who we are, being clear about our identity, offers us hope, it offers wholeness, it offers confidence, and – both within ourselves and collectively – it offers a unity that has the power to heal, both ourselves and those around.

Back to this morning’s Gospel lesson and the story of Jesus’ temptation…  If Lent tells a story, this morning’s Gospel lesson reminds us that we have a choice as to whether or not to be in that story, whether or not to follow Jesus and to be his disciple.  

In his Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius of Loyola offers an exercise that might be helpful in contemplating this choice.  In this exercise (which is not dissimilar to today’s Gospel lesson), there are two “standards,” or flags, representing two camps of soldiers.  On the one side, imagines Ignatius, under the standard of the Enemy of Human Nature (the one whom this morning’s Gospel calls “Satan,”) is a field of darkness, with fire and smoke and things “horrible and terrifying.”  On the other side, under the standard of Christ, is Jesus standing in a lowly plain that is filled with light and that is green and beautiful.  If the Enemy of our Human Nature seeks to trap and ensnare people into his camp, Jesus in the other camp attracts people with his goodness and beauty.  “Into which camp would you choose to go?” asks the exercise.

Ignatius’ exercise speaks to a bigger vision of Lent in which Lent is not about the “ticks” that might need removing, but Lent is rather about the story we tell with our lives.  “Under which standard, in which camp, do I wish to live my life?”  “What is the story I want to tell with my life?”  “What is the identity I wish to have for this, my ‘one wild and precious life?’” Being counted among Jesus’ disciples and taking on the identity of one of his followers offers hope, wholeness, and – both within ourselves and collectively – offers a unity that has the power to heal, both ourselves and those around.  

For myself, I’ve discovered that I do better when I do my best  to follow Jesus as his disciple.  I’ve discovered, for example, that my days go better when each morning I take time to pray.  On those days that I pray, I feel more calm, I’m less grumpy, I make better decisions, I sleep better, I don’t snap as readily at people…  Life goes better when each morning I take the time to pray.  I’ve discovered, too, that life goes better when I regularly take time to spend with the scriptures.  When I spend time with the scriptures, I feel more anchored and rooted, I’m less anxious, and the scriptures help me sort through things going on within me.  If I don’t take time regularly to spend with the scriptures, I feel frayed around the edges.  Prayer and spending time with the scriptures are classic practices of Christian discipleship that I have tried and that I have discovered help my days to go better.  Being Jesus’ disciple is the identity I want to live.  And I have discovered that following him and being his disciple does indeed offer life and offers it abundantly (Jn 10:10).

I wonder, what would you say is your identity?  Under which standard or in which camp, do you wish to live your life?  What has been your experience of Jesus?  In what ways have you perhaps found being his disciple to be life-giving?  Lent is about helping us tell the story that we wish to tell with our lives, the identity with which we wish to live.  From my own experience, I know that doing my best to follow Jesus as his disciple,and knowing that I am his, offers me hope and wholeness and confidence and a unity that I find deeply healing.

Lent has many “props” to help us tell this story and to live into this identity:  we have ashes, we have palms, we have the darkness and the new fire of the Easter Vigil. In Lent we do “blocking:”  we do the Great Litany, we process with palms, we wash feet, we venerate the cross, we gather around the new fire.  Lent gives us lines:  “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”  “Bless the Lord who forgives all our sins.”   “Lord, have mercy.  Christ, have mercy.  Lord, have mercy.”  Everything about Lent is intended to help us know who we are, or “whose” we are, and to tell with our lives his most life-giving story. 

So this Lent I invite us to consider the “story” we are telling with our lives.  I invite us to ask the question, “Who am I?”  “What is my identity?”  “What has been my experience of Jesus?”  “Who is Jesus for me?”  And, “Am I making the choices and living the life I know will bring me what my soul most desires?”  Which is – if I may be so bold as to say – [which is] Jesus Christ and to live our lives as his disciple.