First Sunday in Lent – Cycle A

Reflecting on Gen. 2:7-9; 3:1-7

What is it about a lie that is so much more comfortable than the truth?  I think any lie that corroborates our own secret desires―which eventually kill us, by the way―will always find a welcome home with us.

The Enemy starts with a lie by suggesting to Eve that God has forbidden her all the trees in the garden.  Oh no, she says, just the one in the middle. 

Seriously? (says the Prince of Liars), I can’t believe that.  I’m outraged for you.  Why SHOULDN’T you have it all?

And you know what?  There is some part of us that thinks that we should.  Just give me a reason, any reason, why I should get to consume far more than my share of the world’s resources and I’ll breathe a huge sigh of relief.  No opposing viewpoints will find such an attentive ear.

Or suggest, as the serpent did, that I should be suspicious of others, that I’m being purposely left out of things, or that my experience is more exquisitely painful than all the rest of humanity, and I’ll lovingly nurture that lie for the rest of my life.

That Original Lie, that we are being secretly excluded by a conniving God―insert parent, or teacher, or coworkers, or friends―is our Original Wound.  And we willfully break that wound open, over and over again.

A million years later the Tempter tried the same lies on Jesus.  But the new Adam rejected Satan, and all his works, and all his empty promises.  And at the end of these forty days we will gather at the Easter Font, renew our baptismal promises, and reject the Liar once again.

What lies do you resolve to reject this Lent?

Lent - Cycle A