First Sunday in Lent-Year C

First Sunday in Lent-Year C March 10, 2019 I don’t know if you noticed it or not, but we have lots of Deuteronomy in our readings for today. Deuteronomy is an interesting book that I have really never paid much attention to. It is presented as one long sermon from Moses to the people, his valedictory address, if you will. But it is actually three different sermons with some action interspersed in between. Deuteronomy is a re-visioning of the covenant laws that are presented in Exodus, and one of the constant themes throughout the book is for the people to remember—Remember the covenant. Remember God’s provision for you in the wilderness. The laws and rituals in Deuteronomy become a way for the people to have a living, daily reminder of their relationship with God and a reminder of God’s consistent care and provision for them. Our reading for today is actually a depiction of a ritual that landowners were supposed to do with the first fruits of the harvest. The ritual consists of three parts: 1. Experience and express gratitude toward God. 2. Remember your ancestors. And 3. Remember the past-how God has provided for you and brought you to this land of milk and honey. Then in the gospel reading for today, we have three different uses of Deuteronomy. Jesus has just come from his baptism—where Luke tells us that he has been baptized with others; the Holy Spirit has “descended upon him in bodily form like a dove” “and a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’” Then Luke tells us that Jesus, still “full of the Holy Spirit” is led by the same Spirit into the wilderness where for forty days he is tempted by the devil. Here’s what’s interesting to me in this. In each of the three temptations, Jesus’s response to the devil is to quote a different passage from Deuteronomy. 'One does not live by bread alone.'" is Deuteronomy 8:3; “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'" is Deuteronomy 6:13; and “'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'" is Deuteronomy 6:16. Over and over again, Jesus’s response to the temptations is to reiterate God’s care and God’s providence for God’s people. For our Wednesday night Lenten series, we will be reading Life of the Beloved by Henri Nouwen. The premise of this book is that Nouwen is trying to convince a non-religious friend of his that each of us has been claimed as God’s beloved and we are called to live out our lives in the light of that belovedness. This is a central teaching of our baptism, too, that in baptism we are saying yes to God’s naming of us as God’s beloved and promising to live our lives as beloved of God. The temptations of Jesus in the wilderness are all seeking to undermine his understanding of his status as God’s beloved, and Jesus’s response is to continually reiterate God’ promise of provision and care for God’s beloved, for God’s people. As I was reading Nouwen’s book this past week, I was struck by the following passage: how it speaks to our gospel reading for today and how it speaks to our lives and our Lenten journey. Nouwen writes, “Yes, there is that voice, the voice that speaks from above and from within and that whispers softly or declares loudly: “You are my Beloved, on you my favor rests.” It certainly is not easy to hear that voice in a world filled with voices that shout: You are no good, you are ugly; you are worthless; you are despicable, you are nobody—unless you can demonstrate the opposite.” He continues, “These negative voices are so loud and so persistent that it is easy to believe them. That’s the great trap. It is the trap of self-rejection. Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity or power, but self-rejection. Success, popularity and power can, indeed, present a great temptation, but their seductive quality often comes from the way they are part of the much larger temptation to self-rejection. When we have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions. The real trap, however, is self-rejection. I am constantly surprised at how quickly I give in to this temptation. As soon as someone accuses me or critics me, as soon as I am rejected, left alone or abandoned, I find myself thinking: ‘Well, that proves once again that I am a nobody.’ Instead of taking a critical look at the circumstances or trying to undermine my own and others’ limitations, I tend to blame myself—not just for what I did, but for who I am. My dark side says, ‘I am no good…I deserve to be pushed aside, forgotten, rejected and abandoned.’”i So, how might we take a critical look at the circumstances that cause us to fall into self-rejection and question our status of belovedness? One of my friends and colleagues shared with me recently about a practice that he uses for this sort of examination. It is called an Ignatian examen, and it comes out of the Roman Catholic Jesuit order that was founded by Ignatius of Loyola. It is comprised of 5 easy steps that each of us can do at the end of the day to review and to examine how we have lived that day (or how we have not) out of our belovedness. It helps us to see the places where God has been especially present in that particular day and the times when we have acted more out of a place of self-rejection than out of belovedness. The steps are 1. Ask God for light. I want to look at my day with God’s eyes, not merely my own. 2. Give thanks. The day I have just lived is a gift from God. Be grateful for it. 3. Review the day. I carefully look back on the day just completed, being guided by the Holy Spirit. 4. Acknowledge the moments of grace, and also face your shortcomings. I notice where God has been especially present in my life this day, and I face up to what is wrong—in my life and in me. 5. Look toward the day to come. I ask where I need God in the day to come.ii (You don’t have to remember all of these. I have some cards for you today with the steps printed on them that you can take with you. They’re in the narthex and on the bench by the side door.) This self-examen is something that you can do in about 15 to 20 minutes and could be a type of Lenten discipline to help you live more fully into your life as God’s beloved during this season and beyond. i. Nouwen, Henri. Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World. Crossroad: New York, 1999, pp26-27. ii. https://www.ignatianspirituality.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/17