The Lord be with you.
A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Luke.
Glory to you,
O Lord.
Filled with the Holy Spirit,
Jesus left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit through the wilderness,
Being tempted there by the devil for forty days.
During that time he ate nothing,
And at the end he was hungry.
Then the devil said to him,
If you are the Son of God,
Tell the stone to turn into a loaf.
But Jesus replied,
Scripture says,
Man does not live on bread alone.
Then leading him to a height,
The devil showed him in a moment of time all the kingdoms of the world and said to him,
I will give you all this power and the glory of these kingdoms,
For it has been committed to me,
And I give it to anyone I choose.
Worship me then,
And it shall be all yours.
But Jesus answered him,
Scripture says,
You must worship the Lord your God and serve him alone.
Then he led him to Jerusalem and made him stand on the parapet of the temple.
If you are the Son of God,
He said to him,
Throw yourself down from here,
For Scripture says,
He will put his angels in charge of you to guard you,
And again they will hold you up on their hands in case you hurt your foot against a stone.
But Jesus answered him,
It has been said,
You must not put the Lord your God to the test.
Having exhausted all these ways of tempting him,
The devil left him to return at the appointed time.
The Gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you,
Lord Jesus Christ.
How are we tempted today,
These days?
Maybe we are not taken into the desert for forty days,
And being promised all of these beautiful,
Beautiful things.
But we are tempted in our own ways.
How do we respond to these temptations?
And I am not talking about the usual things,
Food,
Sex,
Drugs.
Today,
The temptation that is standing out for me is that of apathy.
Have you noticed that it is so easy to witness a nation in despair?
To witness a group of people who are being chased out of their homes,
Who are being bombed and shot with the blessing of the church,
A church.
And when we see these things,
We are horrified,
And we are shocked,
And it makes us sick to our call.
And maybe we will discuss it with our neighbors and our friends and our families.
And then,
An hour later,
We find ourselves watching Happy Kitty videos on YouTube.
The temptation of apathy,
Of being moved,
But not enough.
Of sensing this great fear that people are feeling,
This great terror,
This sadness.
I struggle with the words.
And we do nothing.
We pray.
That's good.
And I'm not saying at all,
Don't pray.
Please pray.
Don't stop praying.
But are we aware of this fact that we have become so desensitized to trauma and to other people's pain and anguish that we empathize with them for a moment,
And then we shift over and then we are happy.
Is that right?
I don't know.
Is it okay to watch on television or read on the news about people not having food to eat,
People who have been injured,
Families who need to band together and suddenly become soldiers to fight and to protect their homes from invasion.
And 10 minutes after that,
We go to the shop or we go to a restaurant and we have the most delicious meal and we forget all about that because it's not happening to us.
What has become of us as human beings?
Have we watched so much on television and have seen so many war movies that it doesn't make an impact on us anymore?
Isn't that the way or a way that we are being tempted to not care for our fellow human being?
Christ,
Jesus,
Came to teach us and give us two new commandments.
And Jesus said to us,
Love God and love each other.
Love God and love each other.
And when we are very honest with ourselves,
We realize that at Pentecost,
We were given the Holy Spirit.
God came to reside in each of us as human beings,
Which means that love God and love each other basically becomes more or less the same thing.
Because God is inside of us.
We all have holiness inside of us.
And then is it right when we look at our fellow man and we see God hurting?
We do nothing about it.
What can we do?
We can't all get on a plane and take up guns and go and fight.
I don't know what the answer is.
I really don't.
But it is something that is riding me,
Seeing myself going out with friends.
I had lunch with friends today in my family and some way a family is lost.
Some way a home is lost.
And we can't all sit and mourn the whole time about that either because God has a plan.
And I'm not going to say to anybody who is in that situation,
Oh,
Just trust God.
When the Jews were in Egypt and they were slaves,
We couldn't have said to them then,
Oh yes,
Just hold on,
God has a plan.
So what can we do?
Pray.
But not with the idea and the consciousness of prayer now and then I stop and then I carry on with the rest of my life.
And then maybe I'll do another prayer tomorrow and then maybe another prayer the day after.
What if we can start living consciously in prayer?
And not just for the people in Ukraine,
But what if we can become linked to this godliness that is inside of us?
And we can ask God,
Help me to become silent.
Help me to let all of these thoughts of influences and the things that keep me away from you,
From your love and your mercy.
Help me to let go of all of that and then reside in that silence.
Because then when I'm in that silence,
I can hear your voice,
Lord.
And when I can hear your voice,
I know what to do.
And that will be my prayer this week.
This will be my ongoing prayer to ask God to help me enter that silence,
That beautiful,
Beautiful silence where all is holy.
And God isn't out there and God isn't a part of this picture of somebody in the sky,
But God is inside of me and where I can then connect with that divinity.
From there you say,
Lord,
Send me.
Make me your vessel.
Make me your instrument.
And even if I don't pick up a gun and I go help people in a country that needs it,
Maybe your plan for me is to pray and to help somebody here.
Maybe your plan for me is to look at a stranger and recognize that they are also in need,
That they also have God inside of them.
And when I recognize that in that stranger,
I can maybe do something about it,
Something small.
I can smile at them.
Because maybe that is all they need.
We don't need these grand gestures.
We don't need to post what we do on Facebook and TikTok and Instagram and wherever on social media if we do good,
We can do it in the silence.
And that is when we join Jesus.
Filled with the Holy Spirit is what we read in the Holy Gospel.
Filled with the Holy Spirit,
Jesus left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit through the wilderness.
So can't we then become filled with this Holy Spirit and become like Jesus?
And we know what to do and we know what to say when the devil,
When there's less than light being that wants to keep us away from unity with God,
Tempts us with pretty pictures and tempts us with information overload.
And we can say,
Let me be.
For I will enter the silence that God gives.
Amen.
