• Deuteronomy 26:1-11

After a casuistic review of the Law, the writer/editor of Deuteronomy institutes/describes a liturgical rite for an individual to renew personally her commitment to the Lord’s covenant with Israel.  At a harvest time, the faithful are to bring “some of the first of all the fruits of the ground” in a basket to a priest “in office at that time” and make this confession of faith: My ancestors were wandering, homeless Arameans who went into Egypt as alien immigrants and were eventually enslaved but were delivered out of slavery by the Lord in a “terrifying display of power, signs and wonders,” bringing us into a “land flowing with milk and honey.”  She continues: “So now I bring the first fruits of the ground that you, O Lord, have given me.”  After this confession of faith, a celebration follows.

• Psalm 191: 1-2,9-16

The psalmist opens with a testimony of personal faith: The Lord is my refuge in whom I trust.  Today’s appointed verses (9-16) continue in two voices.  One addresses the person who has made the confession of faith (10-13), saying, No harm will befall you, the Lord’s messenger will guard you.  Then the Lord speaks (14-16), confirming that when the person of faith called, the Lord heard and granted “honor” and “rescued him.”

• Romans 10:8b-13

Paul provides the most basic confession of faith: “Jesus is Lord…[and ]that God raised him from the dead….”  If one believes this in his heart and confesses with his mouth, he will be saved.  There is no human-made barrier; anyone can make this confession.

• Luke 4:1-13

After the baptism of Jesus by John when a “Voice” from heaven declared him to be “My beloved Son,” Luke inserts a genealogy of Jesus, back to Abram, “the son of God.”  Having elaborated on the identity of Jesus in this genealogy, Luke expands on Matthew and Mark and says that Jesus was “full of the Holy Spirit” when he was led into the wilderness for forty days of testing and temptation by the devil.  After fasting, Jesus is tempted by the devil to turn stones on the ground into bread.  Jesus quotes scripture (Deuteronomy 8:3b): that human beings do not live by bread alone.  Next, the devil takes Jesus to a mountaintop from which the devil shows “in an instant all the kingdoms of the world.”  The devil offers a deal: he will give all the kingdoms of the world if Jesus will worship him.  Again Jesus quotes scripture (Deuteronomy 6:13): Only “worship the Lord your God….”  Now the devil takes Jesus to the pinnacle of the Temple and dares Jesus to throw himself to the ground.  “If you are the son of God, throw yourself down from here….” For God’s angels will protect you, as it is written; (the devil quotes scripture, Psalm 91:11-12!)  Jesus responds with a saying, “do not test the Lord.”  For now, the devil gives up and departs, “until an opportune time.”

Carl Jung advised that one ought to have a healthy awareness of his or her own capacity for evil.  That we hurt one another– whether unintentionally or intentionally or are even aware  or not– is inevitable.  And then there are also those times when we know for certain that we have hurt or damaged someone.

Biblical narratives take human evil as a given.  But they also wondrously insist on the memory of One whose perfect love/justice always supersedes the worst aspects of our humanity.   The writer of Deuteronomy recognizes the need for an individual to establish in her personal calendar occasions to renew personally her allegiance to the sweeping story of God’s creation, protection and salvation for a people who were a conduit of God’s love for the whole world.  The psalmist presents a three-way conversation between a person who confesses her faith, another who hears her confession and the Lord who confirms the validity of her trust.  Paul provides the most basic confession of faith of the church and then writes explicitly that no one is excluded from making this confession.  Although the conversation between Jesus and the devil is surreal, the point is clear: Even Jesus, in the flesh, knew temptation and testing.

In his full frontal confrontation with Western habits of thought, Martin Heidegger in his great work, Being and Time, painstakingly took apart some  of the most established assumptions, including the belief that human beings could disengage from the world and our complex relations with it; a notion which he traces back to Plato.  He pursued the implication that this assumption could/does delude us into underestimating or even disowning our inescapable and inevitable capacity for harm to others.  Because we are finite, there is always a gap between what we want/ought/can do for others and what we actually accomplish.  It is not that we just slip occasionally.  Going about our routine, daily lives each person impinges on others.  Heidegger calls this inescapable circumstance, “primordial Being-guilty.” (pp 331/285-332-286)  Even with Heidegger’s neologism-laden writing, his follow-up conclusion to this realization is powerful.  Acceptance of this situation for ourselves personally can lead to a “resoluteness” that pushes us “into solicitous Being with Others;” making us a “Concernful being.” (344/298).  Alternative strategies– such as trying to achieve the impossible quest for a clear conscience or remaining intentionally oblivious to the harm we invariably cause– can only be checked by certain moves.  First, we must articulate– say out loud, “confess”– some specific, concrete actions we are willing to take to address/redress this indebtedness to others.  Then, we have begun to lead what Heidegger calls an “owned life,” not in some general sense but as a “factical ideal.” (358/310)  These steps, in turn, make us innately attuned to the “call” of others.

Lent can be an annual reminder that we finite beings never escape temptation and actual harm to others; this “confession” ought to lead to specific actions to ameliorate our inescapable indebtedness to others.  But that is only half of the story.  It is also the beginning of a forty-day journey that starts in “wilderness,” but comes home to God’s “terrifying display of power, signs and wonders;”  this time an empty tomb!  We are not meant to stay stuck in self-recrimination, but we are meant to start with sincere, self-awareness of the actual harm we intentionally and unintentionally commit daily and move on to an alternative ending, which we could not have figured out on our own.  We learn the story by doing it!