INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily is, “Alone!”
“Who’s there?”
“Just me.”
“Are you alone?”
“Sometimes.”
As I reflected on today’s readings – by myself – alone – many themes and thoughts hit me.
What themes and thoughts hit you as you heard today’s readings for this First Sunday of Lent?
THREE READINGS
Today’s three readings have serious issues to think about.
As I looked at the various reading materials for Lent I noticed that the articles and booklets suggest fasting from trivial pursuits – no not the game – and then use 5 or 10 minutes of that saved time for reflection and prayer on the Bible – the Holy Scriptures – sometime during your day.
Grab your Bible. Find a quiet place where you can be alone. Read a passage or story or short section of scripture. Think about it. Talk to God in prayer about what your thoughts are.
When you’re reading and reflecting, you’re alone. When you move into prayer – you are no longer alone. “The Lord be with you.”
That’s doable. And today’s three readings have heavy questions to think about. In fact, all the readings for Lent are very challenging.
As I sat there with today’s 3 readings, the thought of being alone hit me.
FIRST READING
Today’s first reading from Genesis – is great stuff. It uses part of the beginning of the Second Creation Account. (Cf. Genesis 2:5-25) We know the First Creation Account where God creates the whole universe and the whole world from a distance – one day at a time – and on the sixth day, male and female he made us. (Cf. Genesis 1: 1-2:4.) The Second Creation Account is much earlier literature. It’s more primitive – more earthy. And it gets its hands on issues we need to face.
In this earthy, second, more primitive creation account, God is all alone and forms man out of the clay of the ground and blows into his nostrils the breath of life. Now God is not alone. This new person, Adam, is now part of God’s story.
Then God plants a garden in Eden, where he places this man that he has created. Then God makes the various trees grow and they are delightful to look at – and they have good fruit on them.
We can picture the whole story. It’s like we’re at a play and the curtain opens and the story unfolds.
Next comes the twist – the turn – the possibility of tragedy or comedy – the reality of good and evil – and choice – freedom of choice. This is good story telling.
The storyteller wants us to hear the story, so we can hear our own story.
In the middle of the garden there is the tree of life – as well as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
In movies, plays and novels, this is what is called, “Foreshadowing.”
You know the old rule. It’s called Chekhov’s Principle, “If there is a gun on the wall in act one, you have to use it by act 3.”
So the two trees are in the story for there for a reason.
Today’s first reading tells us all this and then jumps to the snake. It jumps from Genesis 2:9 to 3:1 – leaving out the great text, “It is not good to be alone.” It leaves out the great story of God creating all the animals – cats and dogs, “Bow wow!” and “Meow!” – birds and wild beasts – but none were suitable. The man was still alone. So God cast the man, “Adam” in Hebrew, into a deep sleep, and while he slept God created woman out of the man’s rib and wow was he surprised when he woke up. Bill Cosby in his renditions of these great stories in Genesis loves to say, “Adam went, ‘Wooooman!” and that’s where the word “woman” comes from. In using word plays, he’s close to what the Hebrew words are doing.
You know this folk tale – about the woman being formed from the man’s rib. You’ve heard it at many weddings. It’s good story.
Back to today’s first reading – the part that comes next – that we heard today. The woman is all alone and the snake sneaks up to her and asks, “Did God really tell you not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?”
Notice she’s naïve – and the snake is most cunning. She tells the snake, "We can eat of the fruit of all the trees – except the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden. If we do, we shall die.” Then the sneaky move by the snake, “You certainly will not die! No, God knows well that the moment you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods who will know what is good and what is evil.”
The woman takes the bite – and the snake was right. She now knows good and evil.
Hasn't this happened every time we took forbidden fruit? When we realize what we did or what another did to us, how we hurt another or ourselves or vice versa, haven't we said to ourselves, "Now I know evil?"
Notice the man, Adam, is no leading man. Notice he’s presented as the follower – stupid – and goes along for the fall. This is good story telling – certainly getting a laugh every time – with women elbowing their husbands in the ribs – as the story is told.
“Then,” the text says, “their eyes were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.”
Great story. It’s the human story. It’s an eye opener.
Relationships, marriages, trips, vacations, adventures, conversations, jobs, life, all start so beautiful – then the temptations – then the wrong moves – then the cover ups.
SECOND READING
Today’s second reading from Romans gives Paul’s deep reflections on this.* Here are a few short comments - and obviously, shallow comments, compared to the depth of what Paul is saying here. However, I hope I catch the main points.
Those who fault Paul from some of his women statements, please notice he puts all the blame on Adam – for bringing sin and death into the world – into the story.
Paul gives us the bad news first.
Then comes the good news, the good story, “Godspell,” in Old English, “gospel’ in later English: Christ, the New Adam, the gracious gift from God, comes and overflows into our world.
The Old Adam brought sin and death; the New Adam brings grace, gift.
The Old Adam brought condemnation; the New Adam brings acquittal.
The Old Adam was disobedient; the New Adam is obedient.
The Old Adam messed it all up for us; the New Adam can make all things right.
In Genesis the story takes place in the garden; in Paul the story takes place in every human heart. Each of us commits our own original version of the old original sin. Each of us is called to hear the call that Paul heard – to meet Jesus on the roads of our life – especially as we move towards evil – and to have an eye opening conversion and a new take on life in our fall.
GOSPEL
Today’s gospel continues and develops these thoughts.
The setting is the desert – a total contrast to the setting for the first reading: the garden.
Instead of food everywhere, there are only sand and stones. Moreover, Jesus fasts for 40 days and 40 nights. There are no trees with fruit. There is no tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That will come at the end of the story – the end of the gospel - where the great tree, the cross, will be the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil – the great tree which we stand under and hear the words not from the devil, but from Jesus, “Take and eat!” (Cf. Matthew 27:32-56; Matthew 26:26-29.)
Back to the desert, back to the beginning of the story. Jesus is all alone in the desert. He has left John the Baptist and his Father's Voice and the crowd that he was surrounded with in his baptism. (Cf. Matthew 3:13-17)
Then come the temptations – just like in the Genesis story. The devil is called, “The Tempter”.
Jesus knows good and evil – and resists the devil and his three big temptations.
The different gospels present these temptations in various ways. Jesus was the one there – all alone – except for, “The Tempter.”
It’s up to us to read them and see what they trigger within us.
What are our three big temptations?
I like the theme that everyone has to take time to be alone – to find deserted places – to take long walks, find quiet chapels or churches, quiet car rides, go fishing, and deal with the great temptations of life.
I spent 14 years of my life working in two different retreat houses – and met lots of men and women who made an annual retreat. At one retreat house, San Alfonso Retreat House in New Jersey, I noticed men – not there for retreat – who would pull up into the parking lot in the back – facing the ocean – and just sit in their cars for 15 or 20 minutes – and just be – and then head for work or home.
Where do you go when you just want to be - just want to be alone?
What are your temptations?
When alone – we see them better.
So sometimes, it’s good to be alone – and obviously at other times it’s not good to be alone.
At times I see Matthew’s 3 temptations that Jesus faced in the desert to be the temptation for stuff, splash, and power or control.
1) Stuff is good. We need homes and gardens, bread and wine, apples and apple trees, but there’s more to life than stuff.
2) Splash and flash – are not good. By that I mean faking it – making a splash – instead of substance. The devil asks Jesus to jump from the temple top and the angels will catch you and the crowd will go “Wow!” – and they’ll all follow you – The Great Wonder. I know that temptation: when preaching to give splash instead of substance. A father or mother or anyone can use splash and flash with their kids and really not be there.
3) And the third temptation – the temptation for power – for many is the temptation to control – to want to control everything – spouse, children, life, basically not being able to let go - not being able to put life outside our hands – and into God’s hands and cooperation with others. This last temptation is a big temptation: making ourselves the only one on the planet – being all alone - making ourselves a god with a small “g” – as if we are the only person there is. Now that’s a powerful – as well as a very lonely temptation.
CONCLUSION
The title of my homily for today is, “Alone”.
I’m suggesting that all of us fast from something we’re spending too much time with – and use that gained time for some scripture reading or little book reading 5 or 10 minutes each day during Lent and then turning that into prayer - not being alone, but being with God.
Okay, if you’re married – and you’re in the same place in the garden with your spouse, bite into the same reading together and see what that tastes like and then do some praying together – rib to rib. Amen.
*Cf. Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, Oxford University Press, London, Oxford, New York, translated from the Sixth Edition by Edwyn C. Hoskyns, reprint 1972; Vincent Taylor, The Epistle to the Romans, London, 1955; Joseph Fitzmyer, S.J., “The Letter to the Romans” page 830-868 in The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, 1990.
