Security: What Is Real?
“The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, order these stones to be turned into bread. But Jesus answered, “The scripture says that human beings can not live on bread alone.”
Pick up the newspaper and you see the president pushing his economic plan, listen to T.V. and you hear how poor people are, what a rough time they are having. We read of people with millions crying because they have lost a couple of million or of how they are going earn more money.
Listen to your TV advertisements and you hear that if you sell Avon products you will be in the money in no time. I have a friend, who is a retired school teacher who has been selling Mary Kay products for years. In all that time she was going to be rolling in the money but never has. Every where we look we see and hear the cry for more and more and more.
Today is the first Sunday in Lent, and our Gospel brings us to the temptation scene of Jesus and each temptation deals with a physical need and with gratifying those needs and Jesus rejects them. He does this through out his ministry–he rejects the offer of power, of fame, and of being accepted.
For he knew that wealth and power and security are the window dressings of life. They are those dressings that cover up our basic needs, they try to answer that inner need of security that only God can give. I have a friend who is retired, he gets over seventy thousand dollars in retirement a month, he has savings, he is very secure econmically, but he is always wanting more, he never has enough. Spiritually he is depleted.
There are times I look back to my days as a United Methodist minister, and long for them–I had a secure job, I had a pay check, and all I had to do was preach. I did not have to worry about health insurance, a place to live. But that security would have killed me spiritually if I had remained. I would be a fat little man with heart condition in all likelihood waiting for retirement.
For you see it is the things of the spirit–an awareness of the presence of God, deep faith in the midst of despair, a love of the simple things of life–that make us fully human. So let us enter into Lent in a deep faith in a caring God. Deo Gratias! Thanks be to God!
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