“The angels led him into the desert
where he was tempted by the devil.”
We don’t much talk about the devil these days do we?
Years ago, when I was growing up,
we heard “the devil did this, the devil did that”
and gosh, we had devil language all the time.
We rarely use it now because I suppose
we sort of blame the devil for everything
and then we don’t have to take responsibility.
The devil is called by many different names.
In today’s scripture passage we hear four names for the Evil One.
The devil, Satan, the tempter, and then the ancient serpent.
Pope Francis refers to the devil regularly.
He uses it all the time and he refers to him with different names
but his one favorite name for him is the father of all lies.
It is an ancient term referring to the evil one.
And I like it a lot.
It’s actually very powerful
because it is really the truth of who the devil really is.
He is a deceiver. He is a liar.
He is a complete and absolute liar to us and to others all the time.
That is the only way that you see the mark of the devil
is how much a person lies.
The more a person lies, the more they are in line with the devil.
That is just the way it is
because the devil is the father of all lies.
Henri Nouwen, a great theologian, and Catholic priest wrote about this.
He said there are three foundational lies,
which the father of all lies bases all the other lies on;
and those are the three that come from today’s gospel.
These are the foundational lies.
It is not just that Jesus is tempted with them
but every single one of us gets tempted by these three foundational lies;
all the other lies are built on top of these three.
And here they are:
*We are what we do:
Jesus, turn these stones into loaves.
*We are who other people say we are:
Let me bring you up to the top of this parapet,
throw yourself down and look at how
everyone will marvel about what you just did.
*We are what we have:
He takes Jesus to the top of the mountain
and offers him everything if he will come and worship me.
Those are the three foundational lies.
They trip us up almost all the time
and they come in different forms in different eras;
different generations experience them in different ways.
Let’s just go through the three.
We are what we do:
Now whether we are a CEO or a janitor
we all talk about what we do;
our language betrays us.
When we introduce each other for the first time,
what is the first thing you say?
“What do you do?”
You know if I’m not wearing the collar, people say what do you do?
I say, “I’m a priest.” “Ahh.”
Conversation comes to a halt.
But you’d say,
“I’m a CEO; I’m a software engineer;
I’m in marketing; I’m a finance person; I’m a student.
I do this in college. I do that.”
It is all about what we do.
Now, again I’m not knocking what we do
but it does not define who we are.
That’s the lie.
That’s the lie.
Catch the lie.
It’s very subtle and you’ve got to catch it.
The lie is we are what we do.
But we are not what we do.
Here’s the part where it gets better;
if we do more, we’re better.
If we do more and more, we’re even better again.
If we do more good stuff, we’re better.
If we do less bad stuff, we’re not as bad.
Now those are all subtle, but they creep in.
I’m going to say something now that is really hard to hear
but we need to hear it: God loves us completely.
There is nothing that we can do
that can make him love us any more.
That’s really hard to hear.
That means if you come to Church;
or you don’t come to Church, God loves you either way.
That is not an excuse to not come to Church,
that’s for the young people,
but it is just a reality.
God loves me no matter what.
Here is the even harder part for us who come to Church
that God loves us no matter what we do
even if we do not do what he wants us to do.
God still loves us.
You see, the love is what is consistent
not what we do or not do.
Now, why is that so transformative?
Because the lie is that we must earn God’s love.
I’ve got to do this.
I’ve got to do that.
I’ve got to do this and that.
And then God will love me;
or God will have to love me
because I have gone to Mass;
I’ve said my prayers;
I’ve done this.
Then God has no choice.
We control God.
That is not the way it works.
You see, God loves us no matter what.
Out of that love, out of that realization of his love,
we respond by doing good; and by loving others;
and yes, by coming to Church and saying our prayers
because that helps us to internalize the love
so that we can then pass that love to others.
We are who other people say we are:
The whole of social media is built on this.
This is the greatest lie of all.
I mean you do understand the inventors of the social media
knew exactly what they were doing when they were building it.
They were not building it on virtue.
They were building it on vice because they know we are vain.
Even the founder of LinkedIn, Reid Hoffman says
“Yeah, we built it on vice
because that is the only thing that sells.”
Virtue doesn’t sell.
We built it on that because we want to be liked;
we want to have friends;
we want to get those little thumbs up;
we want to get those little hearts.
And it’s all a lie because they don’t really like you.
It has nothing to do with you.
That is a shock to the young people, but it is irrelevant.
They won’t even remember what you put up there.
The greatest lie of all in this modern age that
somehow those “likes” matter.
They don’t matter a dime.
But we buy into the lie and
we will suck ourselves into the darkness of that;
it is a huge lie.
Our generation had something else.
We worry about what other people say
so we wear certain clothes;
we wear certain shoes;
“Oh, you’ve got Lululemon.
Oh, oh, oh, oh, I like that bag. What’s that bag?
Oh, that’s a fancy bag. Oh, dear oh.”
We want people to like us.
That’s the unfortunate part.
Every generation has its own belief.
Young people, it’s not just your challenge.
We had our challenge.
Just know that the father of lies is doing this
and he is using whatever we have for his benefit not for our benefit.
We are what we have:
You’ve got a Tesla.
You’ve got the latest cars.
You’ve got the latest watches.
You’ve got the latest phones.
Which one do you have? iPhone 13
Oh, is that all you’ve got.
You don’t have the 14?
When the 15 comes out, we’ll be talking about the 15.
And then the 15s or whatever the heck they call them now.
And the pixel 1, 2, 3. I don’t know what number we are on now.
What number are we on now in the Google world?
Who cares? The point is it doesn’t matter.
It is not about what we have
but again we go back to
it’s not just about how we look
or what other people say,
we want to have the best.
None of these things are bad in and of themselves,
just know that they do not define us.
Yes, to have a phone or a watch
that helps you do what you need to do. Great!
And you’ve got social media accounts. Great!
Just do not believe that all of that defines us.
It does not.
We are a child of God, first and foremost.
Nothing else changes that.
That is why all of these are foundational lies
because if we buy that lie then we think we are not a child of God.
We think we are not loved unless we have, do,
or believe what other people say.
That is all a lie.
And all the other stuff just gets built on those three lies.
Just understand that.
I could spend an hour and a half talking about all the other lies
that the devil does but those are the three foundational lies.
So, what are we to do?
As a Church we know something about this;
whether these are the new three,
they are the new renditions of these three lies.
Every year, we all purify ourselves in a journey called Lent.
We pull back and we say:
“Do I need to have all this stuff?
Do I need to own this?
Do I need to really care all about what people are saying?
Do I really need to do all that I do?”
Because I am not getting loved any more because of all those things.
Lent is a time when we pause.
We bring it all back down and we pray a little bit more.
We fast to do away with some of those things
so that we can understand how it works.
And then we give alms. We give stuff away.
Give ourselves away so that we can reset ourselves on the right path |
and we fundamentally tell the devil,
the ancient serpent, the tempter, Satan
“Not today!
Not today, you are not having me.
Today, I’m the Lord’s.”
We do that for 40 days, hoping by the end of the 40 days,
we have renewed ourselves for another year.
We don’t get lost.
We don’t buy into the tempter’s lies.
Today, when we come to the table,
we are smashing those lies;
we are not going to believe them;
and we are going to hear what the Lord says,
“You are my precious child. I created you.
I sustain you. And I alone will complete you.
Focus on me. Look at me.
And I will always, always love you.
Do not believe the lies.”
