1st Sunday of Lent Homily

I grew up in an over two hundred year old center chimney colonial home. Like most old houses it had some quirks. One was how two doors came together to form a three foot square dead corner in the dining room. This space couldn’t really be used for much. We used it as a sort of closet. It was where we stored the extra leaves for the dining room table. Occasionally, my mother would tell us to go hide something she wanted out of sight between the doors in the dining room. 

On a winter day when we would play hide and go seek inside the house it would be the first place we tried to hide. It was the best hiding place in the whole house. It was also the best place to hide it you were in trouble. When I felt the hammer was about to fall that was where I would run and get out of sight.

To hide from trouble is an easy and common reaction. After Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden tree in today’s First Reading, their first reaction was to hide from God.

When they heard the sound of the LORD God 

walking about in the garden at the breezy time of the day,

 the man and his wife hid themselves from the LORD God 

among the trees of the garden.

Lent is the season we are summoned out of hiding. The first thing God wants from us this Lent isn’t drastic changes in our habits. Before any major behavior adjustments, God asks us to come out of hiding. God wants us to abandon the shadows and confront who we are as individuals, where we are in relationship to Jesus Christ the Son of God, and what sin we are carrying in our souls that hampers us from becoming the disciples Jesus call us to be.

Throughout this Lent we’ll listen to scripture reading at Masses that draw from some of the most basic of human instincts, temptation, sin, and our inclination to try to hide from God. We’re calling our Lenten homily series, From Hiding to Healing. The readings this Lent help us see that God doesn’t want us to hide in shame but to step into the light of God’s mercy. God wants to be reconciled with each of us. 

Reconciliation through the Sacrament of Penance will be the focus of our homilies this Lent. The rate of Catholics participating in Confession has seriously declined in recent decades. It is happening throughout the Church, but I’ve noticed it to be particularly serious in this parish. 

Anticipating this series of homilies, several weeks ago, I sent out an email asking parishioners why they thought the use of Reconciliation was so low. A few dozen people responded. Some told me they weren’t regular participants because of the anxiety of confessing sins, especially ones they struggle with. Many admitted to being lazy and afraid to face up to their sinfulness. Some admitted to an imperfect understanding of sin. A few related bad experiences with a priest in Confession earlier in life. For that I want to apologize and ask them to consider giving the Sacrament another chance.

Several related to me they had been away from Confession but have come back. They feel a tremendous relief, healing and fresh feelings of grace in life. Returning to Penance has brought them spiritual growth. I got a few suggestions about helping parishioners to better understand the sacrament. I plan to adopt some of them this Lent. I’ll try to encourage everyone to come out of hiding and celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation. 

Today’s reading from Genisis is very familiar to many. It is the story of the creation of Adam and Eve and their fall from grace. In it the serpent sows doubt in the minds of Adam and Eve about God’s faithfulness. He makes them wonder if God is truly on their side. The serpent makes them wonder if God is holding back on them and if God can be trusted. He causes them to doubt God is concerned about their happiness and wellbeing. The serpent encourages them to take matters into their own hands. 

Adam and Eve disobey God and then try to hide among the trees of the garden. Our first reaction to sin isn’t usually fear of punishment but regret and we try to hide. Adam and Eve try to hide after they sin. First, they try to hide from each other. Sin makes them recognize their nakedness. In their guilt they sow loincloths to hide from each other. They try to cover themselves up physically and emotionally. Adam and Eve try to blame each other for their sin.

Sin always promises freedom but ends up delivering division and distance. Sin claims we will become more in control, fulfilled, and alive but actually causes us to become more guarded, isolated, and afraid. We want to hide.

Like our first parents, sin sends us into hiding rather than seeking God’s mercy. We claim we are too busy; our sins are only small or too big for God’s mercy. Rather than celebrating the Sacrament of Reconciliation we hide behind excuses like we aren’t prepared and will go when things are less messy or more under control. Sin thrives in hiding while mercy requires truth and an openness to God.

In today’s gospel, before Jesus begins his public ministry, the Holy Spirit drives Jesus into the desert. Jesus goes there not to hide or out of shame but in obedience. Jesus is both fully divine and fully human and God leads him there to test him with temptations. Jesus proves faithful but the Evil One won’t let go. Evil tries to tempt Jesus to save his own life, take control, to prove himself by trying to rely on himself. 

In the desert Jesus proves he is the opposite of Adam. Adam grasps but Jesus trusts, Adam hides, Jesus is firm, Adam doubts God but Jesus clings to the Father. Jesus’s forty days in the desert proves he is with us to support us as we face temptation not to shame us but prove temptation doesn’t have the final word. Reconciliation comes about when truth calls us out of hiding. To confess our sins isn’t to admit defeat but to proclaim, “Lord, I can not save myself, I need you.” 

The tragedy of sin isn’t that we fail but that we hide and try to stay hidden. We believe in a merciful God in theory but struggle with it because we aren’t merciful, we are judgmental, we fail to show compassion. 

Reconciliation isn’t a sacrament of punishment but healing. God isn’t out to shame us but restore us. God already knows our sin so we have nothing to hide. The priest that hears our confession has experienced the temptation to hide from sin himself. He has heard your sin before.

Back in Advent, I told you the new Order of Penance allows for a Service of Reconciling Several Penitents with General Confession and Absolution. It is not General Absolution like might be given to soldiers entering battle. It is meant to absolve only VENIAL sins, the smaller sins we commit. If you are aware of grave or mortal sin or become aware of them, those still can only be forgiven through individual confession with a priest. 

Next Sunday, March 1, at 3 pm (I’m sorry about the mix up in the bulletin where I say it is this Sunday) we’ll be holding such a Reconciliation Service. My hope is that parishioners who might have been away from the Sacrament of Reconciliation for a while will come out of hiding and have some of their anxieties overcome by participating in this service. Later in Lent we’ll have another Reconciliation Service with a couple of other priests for individual confessions. 

Throughout Lent I will be setting aside some additional time for Reconciliation. In addition to the usual time for Confessions on Saturday afternoons from 3-3:45 pm, I’ll be in the Reconciliation Room at the back of the church on Friday afternoons from 3:30-4:30 before the Stations of the Cross at 4:30 pm. 

After they had fallen into sin, God called out to Adam and Eve, “Where are you?” God calls the same message to us this Lent. He calls to us not because he can’t find us but because he want us to reflect and answer Him. This Lent don’t settle for just giving something up. Instead step out of hiding and let God help us become the people God wants us to be. Stop carrying sinfulness on your own. Jesus wants to help.

Over the next few weeks this series of homilies will help us along a journey to God’s deeper mercy. They will call us to become closer to Jesus who knows our story, wants to give us new sight, help us out of our bondage and raises us to new life. If you know people who you feel would benefit from this series be sure to invite them with you to Mass this Lent.

Our season of Lent doesn’t begin when we have everything figured out. It begins when we step out of hiding and let God find us and forgive us.