First Sunday of Lent: March 10, 2019
The Gospel at Mass today is wonderful. It’s the story about
Jesus being tempted in the desert – the devil urging him to change stones to
bread, or jump off a cliff and let the angels catch him, or rule the world. He
says no to each.
I am convinced that hospitality is as significant in the
Gospel as truth and salvation and sacrifice. It’s not a decorative side issue;
it’s fundamental. And I think it’s worthwhile looking at this Gospel with an
eye on hospitality. This reading is multi-faceted, but one facet is about
hospitality.
The prototype of hospitality – the First Feast in Scripture
– is Abraham at Mamre. That story includes welcoming strangers, bowing to them,
offering shade and rest, washing their feet, providing a meal, serving them,
and talking about fascinating things after dinner. At the Last Supper, Jesus
follows the pattern set by Abraham: welcoming his disciples regardless of
whether they were friends or enemies, bowing, reclining, washing their feet,
providing a meal, serving, and talking about fascinating things after dinner.
The temptation in the desert includes three key details from
Mamre, distorted: it’s about food, feet, and bowing.
The devil suggests turning stones to bread. Jesus isn’t
interested, and in retrospect it’s easy to see why. He’s got his eye on the
Eucharist: he is planning to turn bread into himself, and planning to turn
stony hearts into hearts of flesh instead. Why turn a plastic ring into brass,
when you’re planning to turn a mountain into gold?
The devil suggests that he protect his feet miraculously.
Jesus isn’t interested, and in retrospect it’s easy to see why. He’s got his
eye on the Eucharist, and he’s planning to embrace and cherish bruised and
dirty feet. Dirty feet are natural; bruises are the common fate of humanity. He
embraces this, and plunges into the dirt and bruises. How else can we
understand what he’s doing (sort of) when he asks us to cherish each other, in all
our dirt and sin and bruises and weariness?
The devil suggests that he set up a power structure, with
himself near the top. Jesus isn’t interested, and in retrospect it’s easy to
see why. He’s got his eye on the Eucharist, and he’s planning to upend the
whole power structure. The priest and the victim are one; the host is the
servant of all; the One at the top of the power structure chooses to go to the
bottom; the Alpha is the Omega. A king who plans to be a slave really isn’t
tempted by a guaranteed slot as viceroy.
The Gospel today is about many things, hospitality among
them. The devil has no understanding of hospitality, and can only offer a
foolish caricature.