The First Sunday in Lent Year A

Lent 1A_2020 March 1, 2020 “Trust God. Trust the process.” This was the advice given to me by a priestly mentor when I had just learned that I was going to be put on hold in the ordination process for an entire year. “Trust God. Trust the process.” I clung to these words like a mantra, and whenever I would feel myself growing anxious about the future, I would repeat them to myself: “Trust God. Trust the process.” I’ve been thinking about trust lately—what it means to trust God and to trust other people, how we build trust and how that impacts our relationships. A colleague recommended a book that I’ve been reading titled The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by Dr. John M. Gottman. Gottman has spent years doing research in a scientific study of different couples, and as a result of this, he has identified 7 principles for making marriage work. (I’m only on principle #3, but so far, it all seems to be reflective of what I know from my own marriage and of walking with others in pre-marital counseling and in times of crisis.) I was struck, this week, by #3, because it is, essentially, how we build or break trust in a relationship. Principle #3 states: “Turn toward each other instead of turning away.” It seems so simple, right? But Gottman details how often couples miss the cues from one another when they are asking for attention or seeking help. When a member of the couple turns toward the other as a result of such a bid or request, then trust is built, but when the bid is missed, and the other member turns away, then trust is fractured. Gottman writes that bids are usually missed for one of two reasons: 1. The bid is wrapped in anger or some other negative emotion or 2. The one who should be receiving the bid is distracted—most often by the wired world. There’s much more to the chapter about how to address these issues, but it’s important for our purposes to remember that trust is strengthened when we turn toward, and trust is fractured when we turn away. On this First Sunday in Lent, our Old Testament and Gospel readings both focus on trust, but they are widely different in their results. The first, the Genesis story, is the story of what happens when we turn away, and the second, the story of Jesus’s temptations in the wilderness from Matthew’s gospel, is the story of what happens when we turn toward. In the Genesis reading, Adam and Eve have been given a pretty clear job to do. They have been placed in the garden to “till it and keep it,” and they have been given minimal boundaries about what they can and cannot eat: “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.” (In hindsight, it seems like a pretty clear bid from God. If you just avoid this one tree, then you will turn toward me in trust and our relationship will strengthen.) But they become distracted by the questions of the serpent. Through the way he asks the questions, the serpent actually sets up God as a rival to Adam and Eve, and when they turn away from God’s bid, then they break the trust and face the consequences. In our gospel reading for today, Jesus faces the same dilemma. He is offered three temptations by the devil in the wilderness, and each one of these is an attempt to get Jesus to turn away from trusting God and to see God as a rival. Jesus, who is still dripping from the waters of his baptism and with his ears still ringing with God’s naming him as God’s beloved son, continues to turn toward God rather than turning away from God. And in this way, Jesus remains steadfastly God’s—the very essence and definition of trust. So, what does all this have to do with us? Lent is a season of self-reflection and penitence; it is a time to examine the ways in which we have turned away from trusting God, seeing how we have been tempted to view God as a rival to our own ambitions and selfishness. God’s bid has always been and continues to be that we love the Lord our God with all our heart and mind and strength and to love our neighbors as ourselves. Your invitation this week is to pay attention to the ways that God’s bid shows up in our lives on a daily basis, and to honestly assess in our decisions and actions, if we are turning toward God in trust or away from God. At the end of each day, reflect on the day, and in hindsight, consider the bids of God that you missed throughout your day because you weren’t paying attention or because you misunderstood the invitation. Reflect on the ways that God’s clear instruction to love God and to love your neighbor are at odds, almost set as a rival to your own desires and ambitions. And remember and give thanks for those times when you accepted God’s offer of love in your life that day.