First Sunday of Lent 2022

 

Lectionary readings: Deuteronomy 26:1-11 and Romans 10:8-13 and Luke 4:1-13.

Jesus is in the wilderness. He has been there for forty days and nights, reading and mediating on the Book of the Law, which we know as Deuteronomy, Moses’ great exposition of the covenant between God and the people of Israel on the eve of their entry into the land God had promised to Abraham’s descendants. Forty days reflecting on the covenant faithfulness that bears the fruit of life, and covenant-breaking infidelity that bears the fruit of death. Savouring the taste of the sweet and the sensation of the bitter on the tongue. And after forty days, he still hungers. He knows that this is nourishment for his understanding and his very being. And after forty days, one of the angels is sent to test him.

The first test is to turn a stone into bread. Jesus passes the test, not by transforming a stone into a loaf, but by reciting Deuteronomy chapter 8, a passage where Moses speaks of how God trained his children in dependence in the wilderness, by feeding them manna from heaven. And once they were settled in a fertile land, they were not to forget, not to allow themselves to be seduced by the idea that the abundant food they enjoyed was somehow no less than they deserved. It remains a vital lesson, for those of us who simply need to say the word and our weekly groceries are delivered at our door.

(It is salutary to see women and children pouring out of Ukraine; to see crowds of people turning up at the central railway station in Berlin to offer strangers room in their homes. We have seen nothing like that in our nation since the evacuation of women and children to the countryside, 1.5 million in the first three days of September 1939, with subsequent waves in 1940. Those who know what it is to be dependent on such provision do not quickly forget. But, eventually, over time, we do.)

Here is a question: How do you turn a stone into bread? The answer: You don’t.

In the New Testament reading set for today, Paul writes to the house churches in Rome that ‘if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.’ Immediately beforehand, he quotes from 2 Esdras (a book found in the Apocrypha, Jewish writings from between our Old and New Testaments; Paul quotes from 2 Esdras often, and here he references chapter 4, which concerns the limits of human knowledge) applying the reference to Jesus (as Paul does when he quotes from the Hebrew Bible, our Old Testament).

Paul’s purpose is to highlight the proper place of human beings as those called to live trusting in the wisdom of God and in dependence on the goodness of God. This, Paul proclaims, is for the Gentile peoples as much as for the Jews, and for the Jews as much as for the Gentiles.

How do you turn a stone into bread? You don’t. It is not our efforts, but God alone who changes death—represented by the great stone rolled across Jesus’ tomb—into life—fulfilling Jesus’ claim, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.’ (John 6:35). The stone does not become a loaf but is exchanged for a loaf. The gift of life. Will you receive that gift, for the first time or the fortieth (-plus) time, today?

The Extended Preface to the Eucharistic Prayer in the Season of Lent includes these words:

‘…For in these forty days
you lead us into the desert of repentance
that through a pilgrimage of prayer and discipline
we may grow in grace
and learn to be your people once again.
Through fasting, prayer and acts of service
you bring us back to your generous heart.
Through study of your holy word
you open our eyes to your presence in the world
and free our hands to welcome others
into the radiant splendour of your love.’

May it be so. Amen.