Lectionary Readings: Year A – First Sunday in Lent
A while ago, I ran across a picture of a “motivational calendar.” One of the days on the calendar had the words, “All these I will give to you, if you will fall down and worship me.” At first reading you may think that this is a wonderful promise of God to bless you financially. A blessing that just requires you worship God.
But, after today’s Gospel reading, what had seemed at first glance to be something motivational now turns out to be something rather more sinister, since it is the Devil who says the words to Jesus. I’m sure we can all understand the need for context when quoting from the Bible.
But let’s get back to the scripture here, where Jesus is in the wilderness, being tempted by the Devil. The first question that usually comes to mind for people is why Jesus was being tempted in the first place. The bible tells us that Jesus was fully man, and fully divine.1 And he was tempted in every way as we are, as it says in our Eucharistic prayers,2 and in the letter to the Hebrews.3 He was tempted in every way so that he could show the power of God that is available to all God’s children. It was to give us all hope in a world full of struggles.
Imagine for a moment that you are in a desert. Not just what we experience outside of this town we live in, but an emotional and spiritual desert in which you feel isolated from others. Where you feel that you are alone, with no one to talk to, and nothing that feeds your soul with freshness or joy. Imagine that you are in this place, and now think of what would be your biggest desire.
For most of us, it would likely be that we would want to be anywhere else but that desolate space. We would believe that what we are experiencing now is not what we should be experiencing. That anyplace other than this desolate wilderness is better than where we are now.
Take a look at the temptations that Christ endured. He was hungry. Famished. He was weakened by his fasting. And the first thing that the Devil says to him is, “Hey, if you’re hungry, make bread from these stones. You’ve got the power. You can do what you need. Do it.” The Devil was essentially telling Jesus to use his creative power to create something – to transform something – because what he had at that moment wasn’t good enough. “Make it better. Fix it. You’re the son of God.”
The second thing was that the Devil told Jesus to throw himself off the top of the temple, because the angels would catch him and keep him from harm. This is kind of a variation of the same thing. The Devil is saying, “Make a spectacle. Do something fantastic. Do something different and amazing.” He’s basically telling Jesus that the plain, the ordinary, the stead-fast and non-miracoulous is not good enough. “What the world needs is pizazz. Who you are now is not good enough. You need to be better.”
And the third temptation is also similar. The Devil takes Jesus to a very high mountain, and waves his hand over the wide expanse of land, and tells Jesus, “But wait, there’s more! All this can be yours!” And then he pauses, a twinkle in his eyes, “All you have to do is bow down and worship me.” This too is saying to Jesus, “What you have now is not good enough. What you need is more. Much more. Because more is better.”
Just recently I was watching a comedian poking fun at “how people really are.” The whole point of his joke was that we don’t do well with what we have, because we are hard-wired to want, and not to have. We tend to look at things, and it looks wonderful, and we want. And we keep thinking about this thing until we get it, and we hold it for a bit and wow! And then, “Meh.” And then we begin looking at something else, and we keep looking and keep wanting until we get that thing next. And then we are overjoyed, until, once again, “Meh.”
We are driven by our wants. We are rarely driven by what we already have. And so it is the wanting that motivates us. It is the wanting that drives us. And it is the wanting that drives us because we feel that what we have now just isn’t good enough. We need better.
And while our lives are often motivated by this wanting, that’s not all that this wanting does for us. This wanting is also often what drives our moments in the wilderness – moments where we feel like we are in a deep and dark pit. This wanting is also the cause of our own suffering. Because we focus not on what we have now, but instead focus on all that we do not have now. Another word for that is worry.
One priest that I knew would often say that when we are feeling our worst, when we feel like we are nobody, doing nothing, and going nowhere, it means that God will soon break through into our darkness. It was intended to be an encouragement. Just like it is always darkest before the dawn of a new day, we are in our worst state before God breaks through and offers transformation and light. And while this can be helpful in some situations, it still focuses on the fact that we think that the grass is always greener somewhere else. It was basically saying, “You might feel terrible right now, but God is preparing you for something greater, something bigger, something better.” Sometimes what we need is not the promise of a better future, but an understanding of how to adequately deal with the present realities. Sometimes all it takes is someone saying, “I may not understand your situation, but tell me more.”
In this passage in Matthew’s Gospel, the word for the Devil is “diaballo,” which literally means “to throw across,” “to send over,” or “to pierce through.” But it is used figuratively as “to mislead,” “to deceive,” “to slander,” and “to divert.” And, as we see, it is personified in the work of the Devil, who is attempting to mislead and deceive Jesus here in the desert, to slander the name of God, and divert Jesus from focusing on God – and God alone.
Temptation is often nothing more than that. A desire to take our eyes off of God, and put the focus elsewhere. On a shiny new object. On a shiny new person. On a shiny new anything. Something that outshines the light of God in our lives.
Our job is to see through – to pierce through – the misleading talk, the deceptive ideals of the greener pastures, and the diversions to our focus so that we are not the ones who end up slandering and discrediting the name of God. Jesus managed this in the desert, as he faced misleading claims and deceptive tactics from the one who stands in opposition to God. And he managed to avoid all these temptations.
Can we do the same?
Just to be clear, that’s a rhetorical question. The answer is that we cannot always resist temptation. We might resist a lot, but we are not perfect. And we will still fail.
Earlier, I mentioned that at times, this drive in us to want something other than what we have can put us into what feels like a wilderness, a darkness. We feel like we are “nobody, doing nothing, and going nowhere,” and we are told that God will soon break through into our darkness. That there will be something better on the horizon.
This may at times be true, but it is not always about God providing something better for us. In fact, it may be that God gives us the grace to see that the way we are looking at life, the way we are looking at what we have now is what needs changing. Are we being misled? Are we being deceived? Or worse, are we deceiving ourselves?
Sometimes, the night is darkest just before dawn, not because God is about to provide something better, but because God has allowed our minds to pierce through the misleading talk, the deceptive ideals of greener pastures, and all the diversions at our fingertips. The night may well have been the darkest just before the dawn of a new day broke through, and the light that breaks through into the darkness is the understanding of how to be content with what we have now.
That’s really what this is about. Realizing that what we have now is, in fact, what God has provided. And that what God has provided is what we are supposed to have now. And that God will provide what’s next whenever we are meant to have it.
Some of you may remember, from television, the name Fulton Sheen, the Roman Catholic Bishop of the Diocese of Rochester. For twenty years, he hosted The Catholic Hour radio show before moving to television, and hosting a show called Life is Worth Living. He also wrote a little book called The Guide to Contentment, a collection of essays and short writings intended to get people to understand this very concept that what we have now is what God has provided.
In an essay titled, “Freedom and Independence,” he says:
How many mortals there are in the world who are one kind of character in need, and another kind of character in plenty, who grumble amidst the uncomfortable, and who become possessed by possessions. … When is a man free? … he is free when he is not determined by outward circumstances, for example, when he is not in chains among prisoners, when he is not downcast with the despairing … [what gives him] this psychological independence of the external, of maintaining an even spirit in the world of constantly changing lights and shadows? It comes from dependence on God.4
If these temptations of Jesus in the desert by the one who wished to mislead, to deceive, and to provide diversions of greener pastures teaches us anything, it is to remind us that what we have now is what God has provided. And that we must remain completely dependent upon God for everything. Or, in the words of Jesus, we should “Worship the Lord our God, and serve only him.”
Contentment requires trust. It requires that we trust that God provides. And trust that God always provides what we need to have when we need it.
Imagine this type of freedom. Imagine being free from the temptations of greener pastures, of shiny objects, or shiny people. Imagine what our lives would look like if we could look at what we have now and trust God to take the reins for all we need now and in the future. Imagine the freedom not being chained up in wanting, and being content even in the midst of a dark and dreary wilderness.
Maybe God has brought you into a wilderness at this moment. Maybe you’re feeling like you’re nobody, doing nothing, and going nowhere. Maybe it feels dark, and maybe you wish there was something better. I pray that God will provide the people who say to you, “Tell me more,” and the grace to trust what God is doing in your life. That God will gift you with the light that pierces through the darkness so that what you have now doesn’t seem so dark.
[This sermon was delivered at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Wickenburg, AZ on February 22, 2026.]