First Sunday of Lent: Jesus was driven into the desert by the Spirit

Jesus was driven into the desert by the Spirit.  In that dry place, a place where only the strong survive, Jesus survived Satan’s temptation.  Jesus rejected the notion that only strength would insure survival. He rejected the notion that only the powerful and mighty would be rewarded.  Rather than taking on the narrative of the status quo, Jesus rejected self-survival and embraced the Kingdom. He emerged from this trial with clarity: “Repent and believe in the Good News.” He called people to repent.  Lent is an opportunity for us to repent and confront the common narrative where the strong win everything and the weak have nothing.

Pope Francis said that the root of all social evil is gross inequality.  Let’s take a look at Silicon Valley as a case and point of inequality. We may not think that we’re different than the South of the 1950’s, but we have a lot in common with Mississippi, a society deeply divided by race and economics.   

In Silicon Valley software developers and engineers make around $64 an hour and 94% of these engineers are mostly white and Asian. A mere 3% are Latino, 1% African American and 2%,“other.”   When we look at the tech companies, janitors, security guards and grounds and maintenance workers are overwhelmingly Latino and African American. Their salaries are between $11-$14 an hour. This imbalance has resulted in climbing numbers of poverty and suffering. 16% of working adults are are considered “working poor.” That means they receive food stamps and qualify for other forms of public assistance.  Inequality has resulting in sky high rents, thus unless you are working in tech or making a minimum of $30 an hour, you are living with multiple families, in a garage, a car or on the street.

Just as segregation was sustained in the 1960’s, Silicon Valley’s economic system is sustained by lies and violence. In 2008 1 out of every 31 adults in the United States was behind bars or on probation or parole. Since then the rates of incarceration have risen and most of those incarcerated are Brown folk and Black folk.  More than half of California adult male prisoners are Latino!  While our community has long understood the scourge of racial profiling, the recent “Black Lives Matter” campaign has opened our eyes to the plight of young African American youth being treated brutally by law enforcement. 

We cannot return hate for hate. We must overcome social sin with love and non-violence.  Mahatma Gandhi was raised in a society that was forged under the boot of British occupation.   The British reaped the fruits of the labors of the Indian people for hundreds of years. Indians worked long, hard hours and if they dared to protest their exploitation, they were tortured and jailed. The British overlords lived in absolute splendor.  Gandhi knew that he could not turn violence for violence.  The only way to overcome such injustice was with love. 

His experience of the British occupation was the inspiration for his reflection on sin.  He wrote sin is:

Wealth without work.                    Riqueza sin trabajo

Pleasure without conscience.                    Placer sin consciencia

Knowledge without character.       Educación sin carácter

Commerce without morality.                   Comercio sin moral

Science without humanity.             Ciencia sin humanidad

Worship without sacrifice.             Religión sin sacrificio

Politics without principle.               Política sin principios

This list of sins spoke to how privilege, wealth, and pleasure contributed to the oppression of his people.  Gandhi and other advocates for independence also knew that people also contribute to their own exploitation. Apathy and indifference clearly set the stage for allowing bad things to happen, but particularly grievous are those who work against their own self interest, those that collaborate with their oppressors, like the infamous Malinche. Cooperating with our own oppression is clearly a sin not only against God, but a sin against ourselves.

The flood story from Genesis is an example of God trying to set the world aright. The reason God set the flood against the world was because the human race began to co-mingle with the “Nephilim,” a mythical race of giants. While this seems like a fairy tale, there is a deeper truth to the story. The word, “Nepihlim” in Hebrew can mean “ones who have fallen.” Some Christian scholars think that it refers to “fallen celestial beings.” Some Jewish scholars, on the other hand, see the interpretation as referring to “those that cause other people to fall” or “those that fall upon others,” implying that the “Nephilim” were a strong people that overcome others with brute strength. Other scholars simply interpret “Nephilim” as meaning “violent ones.”  So when scholars read the story about why God punished the people, the interpretation isn’t simply that God was punishing sinful people, but rather God punished the human race because the human race decided that strength and brutality are more important than mercy and that the law is written to protect the one who carries the biggest club and weapon. The society of the “Nephilim” has no laws that protect the widow and the orphan and in a lawless society, the defenseless lose and the meek will never inherit the land.

Like Jesus we must resist Satan. We cannot contribute to our own oppression. When we fail to stand up to violence and brutality without becoming violent and brutal ourselves, we perpetuate the system that exploits us and this is an affront to our God.  Is it any wonder that God wanted a fresh start for the human race?  The flood simply washed the sins of the entire system and in its place, the rainbow. The rainbow was a sign of the covenant between God and the people.  No longer would God ever punish the people.  God ushered in a new era of hope and forgiveness. Community and the common good would overcome greed and mercy would overcome violence.

When we enter the desert of Lent, we will not find ourselves alone.  We will be with Jesus, the Son of God who stood up to Satan in the desert.  We will stand with Jesus, the Son of Man, the Suffering Servant who rejected the notion that only the strong, not the righteous, shall inherit the land. And so I pray that Lent will be a time in which we join Christ in the Desert and repent and believe in the gospel.