are you tested?

Homily for the 1st Sunday of Lent Year C
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center
21 February 2010

Sherron and Cole are experienced. They have been tested. They have national championship rings. We can trust them because they have been through this before. And that makes KU the favorite to win the national championship this year.

Well, we hope this is true, don't we? We want to believe that our Jayhawks have been tested enough, that they are ready for whatever adversity may come. Many think the Jayhawks need to lose again before the NCAA tournament, that they need to be tested more, in order to fully be ready. Well, we are all experts on KU basketball. We all think we know what the team needs, when in reality, we don't. But we do know that testing is important.

We know that testing is important because it shows our true colors. Testing shows what we really know. It shows what and in whom we have placed our trust. We know that testing will show whether we have put our trust in parties or in the library. Testing is necessary in life if we are to have any chance of fulfilling our mission to live the best and most beautiful and most sacrificial and most inspiring life that we have always promised ourselves we would live. Temptation always tries to get us to feed our ego rather than our mission. Sin is feeding our ego and neglecting our ultimate mission and vocation to love. Temptation tries to get us to settle for less than the best that is within us. We believe the Jayhaws are the best team, but we know they must be tested for their greatness to be solidified and purified. We know winning the national championship will not be easy, but the highest goal, and the greatest amount of testing, will draw forth the very best out of each player. We know that our beloved team is being tested today, and will be tested tomorrow, and they will have to keep overcoming temptation to settle for anything less than a national championship. We are rooting for them.

That being said, as much as we want to trust in the Jayhawks, we know it is not right to idolize them. We are to idolize God alone, and to trust in God alone, and in tonight's Gospel we see the tremendous strength of Jesus in whom we Christians place our ultimate trust. Unlike the agony in the garden, and the despair that we will hear from the lips of Jesus as he is tempted beyond all telling on the cross, tonight's Gospel is a mismatch. It is Jesus covering the spread, and dominating the devil quite easily. And Jesus does so after forty days of fasting. When he was presumably most weak and most open to temptation, Jesus is unbelievably strong. His detachment from the things of the world have attuned His Spirit completely to the voice of His Heavenly Father. On the outside, after forty days in the desert without human companionship and without any earthly comforts, Jesus appears to be alone. And the devil sees his opportunity to tempt. But the Gospel turns out to be a no contest. It's a blowout. Jesus shows that his prayer and fasting have left him not more lonely, but less lonely, and even less susceptible to temptation because by the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus is in deep conversation with His Heavenly Father. Jesus is not alone.

And that is the spiritual source of Jesus' strength. The moral life is easy for Him because He is strong in the spirit. Pope Benedict teaches in his book Jesus of Nazareth that to understand the actions of Jesus we must understand his identity as one who always speaks face to face with the Father, as with a friend. The key to Jesus' strength is that He is never alone. He is never tempted to serve his ego rather than his mission because that original loneliness that makes us vulnerable to sin is something that is completely healed by His relationship with the Father.

Our success in the moral life as well ultimately depends on our trust in God, on our intimate conversation with Him, on our finding a way to live a spiritual life. This is not to take away from the seriousness with which we must approach the moral life, and the necessity for us to do everything we can possibly think of to refuse to be mastered by sin. Beset as we are by weakness, we must stay away from evil as much as we can, avoiding the near temptation of sin, being as cunning as the devil Himself in not allowing Him to deceive us, and knowing that whenever we play with fire, we get burned. Sin avalanches in our lives so quickly that we must avoid it at all costs. And our prayer, fasting, and almsgiving this Lent must be done with fervor and sincerity if we are to detach ourselves from sin and reattach ourselves to God, who is our lasting hope and peace.

Yet even in praying to God to lead us not into temptation, and to deliver us from evil, lest sin become the master of our lives, we know that temptation will still be there. Even as we aim to avoid any unnecessary temptation, the meaning of our lives will still ultimately be a test as to whether we serve our ego or our mission. Jesus' temptation in the desert is both an example and a challenge to us to be strong in the face of temptation. But more than that, it is a demonstration that the spiritual life dominates the moral life, like KU dominates K-State in basketball. The victory over sin is not our willpower, for we do not have power of sin, but is our relationship with God. The victory over sin is our spiritual life, which enables us to speak to Christ in faith face to face, as with a friend. His victory over sin is something He is always ready to share with us. His relationship with the Father, which was strong enough to free Him from every temptation, is a relationship He is ready to give to us, his disciples, through the power of the Holy Spirit. The temptation of sin is ultimately the test of where we are in our relationship with Christ, for if we are in a deep and abiding friendship with Jesus, we can defeat sin in our lives as easily as He defeats the devil in tonight's Gospel. The temptation to serve our ego or to serve God relates to who we know ourselves to be. Are we alone, or are we not? Answering this question is the key to winning the battle against sin. +m