Homily March 6 2022 First Sunday of Lent

[Music] returned from the jordan and was led by the spirit into the desert for forty days to be tempted by the devil he ate nothing during those days and when they were over he was hungry the devil said to him if you are the son of god command this stone to become bread jesus answered him it is written one does not live on bread alone then he took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a single instant the devil said to him i shall give you all this power and glory for it has been handed over to me and i may give it to whomever i wish all this will be yours if you worship me jesus said to him in reply it is written you shall worship the lord your god and him alone shall you serve then he led him to jerusalem made him stand on the parapet of the temple and said to him if you are the son of god throw yourself down from here for it is written he will command his angels concerning you to guard you and with their hands they will support you lest you dash your foot upon a stone jesus said to him in reply it also says you shall not put the lord your god to the test when the devil had finished every temptation he departed from him for a time the gospel of the lord who do we listen to who catches our ear we live in a world that is filled with noise sounds not just traffic and all the other noises but words speech people talking to us we carry things in our pockets that we can turn on and not just to listen to people who want to call us but videos and clips and podcasts and all kinds of things we can fill our ears with we turn on the television and similarly we have people talking at us 24 7 if we want our ears are filled with voices and we have to choose we have to choose who we listen to who we follow because there are so many voices in this world that echo the gospel in the wrong way they echo the words of satan to jesus they tell us seek security seek fullness seek to be satiated to be filled with food and wealth and all the things that you've ever desired seek power seek glory seek fame and accomplishments seek all those things that the world has to offer and make them yours take them if you have to be afraid be afraid of all that around you that is different all that around you that is strange all that around you troubles you we hear voices like this all the time constantly trying to tell us to seek only that what we want and desire to fear others to go for the most that we can seize from this world and these voices surround us constantly they just don't come to us when we've been lonely and hungry as jesus had to have been after 40 days in the desert although their most loudest when we're most weakest but even the gospel says the the devil leaves him for a time he didn't leave him alone he didn't go away forever he was like i'll be back there'll be moments there'll be times there'll be times when i will fill your ears with all the same temptations all the same fears all the same desires that i have been tempting you and everyone else with since the beginning of time and we are no different if anything we live in a world in which it's all amplified and available and surrounding us and so the question it leaves us is who do we listen to who do we follow how do we know what voice to listen to how do we know who to follow and it's easy just to fall back and say oh god jesus listen to the holy spirit right we're people who give us that advice a lot too but it's kind of empty if it doesn't have any guidance to it if it doesn't tell us how to recognize the voice of god how do we know that the voice we should be listening to the voice we should be following comes from god it comes because we know who god is god is not just you know some voice some presence right some power god is a person three persons one god we know through the scripture through jesus we know who god is and so to listen to the voice that we know that comes from the one who we know is the beginning of it all so many of the voices that we face in the world are people honestly we don't know right they're just sounds coming out of a speaker on our phone or on our television or somewhere or their gossip or rumor that somebody's kind of filling our head with we don't know the person that it comes from not really we know who our god is though because we have been told again since the beginning of time who god is god is the one who accompanies the wandering arab man in egypt who goes with the migrant and the refugee seeking shelter seeking peace seeking food in a place where they're going to be a stranger and have to trust on the gifts and the grace and the generosity of others god walks with the migrant the refugee the poor god is the one who visits the oppressed the enslaved who is with those like the slaves in egypt who comes to them with the promise of freedom and liberation the god who sets us free is the god that saint paul talks about the one who offers salvation but a salvation that is extended to everyone the one lord is the lord of all as paul says here jew and greek and he says over and over in so many of his letters right our god is is the one for whom jew or greek slave are free male and female make no difference all are one in christ jesus we know that when god speaks to us when god speaks to us about unity about being together about not being afraid of one another we know these are all coming from the same god because it's the voice that we hear that tells us to look out for those who are in need to look out for those who are strangers to look out for those who don't have family around them to look out for those who are enslaved and captive and oppressed and held down by so many things to look out and see people as all one within jesus as all one people no matter where we come from no matter what we think no matter how we are we are all one when the voice that talks to us tells us these things we know that they're from god because they are telling us who we know god is and when they don't tell us these things when they tell us to not take care of the people who are in need when they tell us don't worry about those folks somebody else will take care of it when they tell you that when you're lost and you're lonely and you don't know where to turn there's nobody there for you except yourself when they tell you that those people that are laboring and slaving away at jobs in ways that keep them from being who they really are we don't have to worry about solving anything for them just fix yourself when we hear that voice we know that's not from our god because that's not who our god is we've been telling these stories to ourselves since the first people who believed in the one true god since the time of abraham and we need to learn them again and again each generation each group of people because the devil's always with us he's not going away he'll be back and he's always going to try to fill our heads through all these other people with all these other words to break our relationship with our god we need to think about how god is how god speaks to us in ways that tell us the things we have always known about our god a god of love and compassion a god of mercy and forgiveness a god of freedom and liberation a god who is the god for all a god whose fervent prayer for us is that we should all be one i'll be one people one family all the children of god whoever and however we are together as one in jesus christ [Music] you

Channel: BuenaNueva TV English

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Id: cjIr6SFZi9k

Length: 11min 44sec (704 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 06 2022