Pastoral, Liturgical, Teaching, and Social Justice Moments brought to you by DignityUSA.

Breath of the Spirit is our electronic spiritual and liturgical resource for our members and potential members. Nothing can replace your chapter or other faith community but we hope you will find further support here for integrating your spirituality with your sexuality and all the strands of your life.

As we begin Lent, Jesus’ temptation offers us a meditation on being whole. In a world that communicates we are only worth the sum of our “stuff,” and in a Church that officially teaches any sexual minority is damaged, Jesus’ reminder that each of us is called to love with our whole selves may provide a welcome frame for our Lenten practice – and a welcome reminder of the wholeness we are given and called to share!

February 26, 2023: First Sunday of Lent, Year A

Genesis 2:7-9, 3:1-7

Psalm 51:3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 14, 17

Romans 5:12-19

Matthew 4:1-11

The Temptation to Love With Less Than All of Me

A reflection by Ragan Schriver

Any loyal Jewish person in the time of Jesus could have easily answered the question “what is the greatest commandment?” They knew that it was the command to love God with heart, soul, and strength (Deuteronomy 6:5). Diving deeper into the Hebrew context of each of these aspects in which the person is commanded to love, we see that heart represents the human person’s deepest hungers, the soul indicates a whole human life, and strength means all a person uses to fortify themselves, such as, possessions that keep them safe, like body armor or a home.

In the scenario described by Matthew in today’s gospel, we find Jesus in the midst of temptation. Not just any old temptation, but temptation to violate the greatest command, to not love God with all his heart, soul, or strength. The first temptation is that Jesus fill his hunger with a bunch of rocks. In so doing, Jesus would satisfy his deepest hunger, not with God’s presence but with something meaningless like stones on the side of the path. So often, we are tempted to fill our deepest hunger, not with the Spirit of our living God but with temporary fixes of empty calories, mindless television, vapid social media scrolling, etc. Jesus turns from this temptation to focus on Love’s capacity to satisfy his needs. Today, we are called to embrace our hungers and fill them with the presence of God manifested all around us.

Secondly, Jesus is tempted to throw himself off a cliff. Jesus knows he is commanded to love God with his whole soul/life and not to just give his life away to chance. You and I can follow this example by recognizing the gift of life we have been given. We can embrace the challenges of life and face our own reluctance to fully experience the gift of life by taking special days away from work with friends and family or by embracing special moments alone or with others where we can discover God’s Spirit in even the simplest aspects of our lives. Jesus gives his soul to God through intentionality. He will entrust his life and death to God, not on a whim but when the time is right.

Lastly, Jesus is tempted to trample on the relationship he has with the All-Loving God to receive wealth and property. We may feel particular solidarity with Jesus in this temptation these days,  when even our most basic needs come at such a high price. We might consider doing anything to have the resources to meet our financial goals. In the midst of this temptation, Jesus’ actions remind us that our integrity and dignity are not found in the value of our “stuff,” or strength, as the great command calls it. Our value is in the breath God breathed into our nostrils at the beginning of creation. In the presence of the Spirit, we find our true dignity, and in that dignity, all the strength we need.

In the gospels, Jesus leads us through word, deed, and just his presence in the world. Today, Jesus’ example reminds us how to refute our temptations. Knowing the greatest command is to love with all we have, the greatest temptation is to avoid that love. Jesus doesn’t run away from or deny the temptation he experiences but considers its validity and is able to move through and beyond to a fuller expression of the divine Love. As members of the LGBTQ+ community, we may be particularly tempted to love with less than our whole selves – especially since the Church has communicated to so many of us that we are not whole and that parts of our selves are not lovable. But in refuting these temptations, we can also refute the lies that we are less than whole in our loving. We can refuse to be satisfied with less than authentic connection to others, intentional life decisions, and the generous sharing of our gifts – even the gifts that others might not recognize.

As we begin this year’s Lenten journey, it is most important that we recognize the temptation to avoid loving God with our whole heart, soul, and strength, and to acknowledge the distractions of our appetites, whims, and fears. However, by hungering for God’s Spirit, using every gift in our lives to intentionally reflect the divine presence, and sharing what we have with others, each of us can overcome temptations to be less than our true selves, and to love with anything less than all our whole heart, mind, and strength.