We have heard the story of Adam and Eve and the story of Jesus’ temptation in the desert every year we have been born. So, as we do every Lent, we hear these stories one more time. And, I believe every year, we may find that we hear the same old “yadda, yadda” about the major temptations that all human beings encounter in their lives. So after all the homilies, sermons, and major dissertations on the subject of Adam and Eve and Jesus’ desert temptations, what are we to glean from them this year?
As human beings, are we not always seeking the ultimate? We define what we mean by “ultimate” in many different ways. It might be the ultimate technology. It might be the ultimate meal. It might be the ultimate sport event. It might be the ultimate entertainment, sensual delight, power, prestige, wealth. We are always looking for the ultimate, and, never finding satisfaction or fulfillment.
On this first Sunday of Lent, we are reminded of this predilection of needing the ultimate and it always falling short in the allegorical story of Adam and Eve. What was the ultimate for which they sought? It was this innate desire to become gods, to be independent from the One who created them, that led them both to eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge. It is ironic that in their tasting of that fruit, the wisdom they gained was not that which they had hoped. More than discovering nakedness, in their eating from the tree of knowledge, their true selves were laid bare for them to see.
The temptations about which we hear every year is all about those myths we create. Like Adam and Eve we would so like to become gods and are willing to use every means to become gods. All the things laid out for Jesus to see in the desert are the means by which human beings attempt to create paths to their own divinity. Any student of history knows, many of those who devoted their whole live in pursuit of a human created divinity always fell short, their lives an utter and complete failure. Jesus succinctly sums this up in one sentence in Mark’s Gospel, “What profit is there for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?” (Mark 8:36, NAB)
We don’t need to live austere lives in a barren, dry, hostile environment like a desert in order to find “the ultimate” our hearts desire. However, that environment has a way of stripping away all the pretense, all the falsehoods and myths we like to construct for ourselves for others to see. That is the reason for the fasting, the almsgiving, and the prayer aesthetic of Lent. These practices are aids to strip away the myths we have created and end up believing about ourselves. We need the “desert” experience to get down to who we truly are, to quit believing our own inflated press, so to speak.
I believe that the ultimate for which we seek, we already possess, plain and simple, with emphasis on plain and simple. What will be revealed to us is that the divinity for which we seek can be found by the simple act of looking in the mirror.
As we gaze into the mirror the divinity of God that exists within us can be seen looking back at us and loving us. From the moment of creation, when God’s life was breathed into the universe, forming life from nothingness, God’s breath became the breath of all living creatures. God’s DNA became an intricate part of all carbon based life, animal, mineral, vegetable, water, air, earth, human. The pebble we hold in our hands contains the incarnate God. Bird song is the voice of God singing. The richness of God is revealed in that indescribable scent of rich loam turned over in the Spring awaiting the planting of seeds. Every breath we inhale and exhale is the breath of God who lovingly animates us.
The temptations that Jesus and we experience are attempts to distract us from the real presence of God above us, below us, to each side of us, and within us. The temptations are an attempt to blind our senses from knowing that the ultimate for which we all seek is already here. This Lent is an exercise in sharpening our vision, our hearing, our smelling, our tasting, our touching the God for which we so long.
Maya Angelou composed a beautiful which, I think, speaks to our Lenten journey.
Alone
Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don’t believe I’m wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.
There are some millionaires
With money they can’t use
Their wives run round like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They’ve got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone.
But nobody
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Now if you listen closely
I’ll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
‘Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.
From Oh Pray My Wings Are Gonna Fit Me Well By Maya Angelou. Copyright © 1975 by Maya Angelou. Reprinted with permission of Random House, Inc..
As we strip away all the pretense, all the myths, all the distractions we find that we are never alone. With every breath we take, with the song of birds filling the sky, with nature being revealed beneath the melting snow, with the reassurance and care from others, and within the quiet of our souls, we will find God, the One who created us in love and infused within us the divinity for which we long.
