Homily for the First Sunday of Lent, Year B

Unique Season to Confront the Tohu-Va-Bohu Around Us 

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the First Sunday of Lent, Year B

St. Alphonsus Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

Sunday, February 21, 2021

In the opening statement of the Bible, we read “In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless waste” (Gen. 1:1). The Hebrew phrase for “formless waste” is Tohu-va-bohu. Although scripture scholars disagree precisely what it means, the consensus is something like “watery chaos,” “the chaotic water.” Shortly after that the Ruah Yahweh, the Spirit of Yahweh (God) like a mother hen over her brood, hovers over the tohu-va-bohu bringing order and creation out of the primal chaos. The whole drama of the Bible is in this opening statement— forces standing against God, but God triumphantly bringing order, harmony and creation out of that chaos. And throughout the biblical narrative, tohu-va-bohu continues to reemerge and assert itself. Think of the waters of the red sea that has to part to allow the Israelites to escape. Think of the Jordan River that has to stop so that the Israelites can cross it to get to the promised land. Think about Jesus walking on the stormy water of the sea of Galilee. Throughout the biblical story, we see tohu-va-bohu threatening, and God finding a way to save the situation. Before the Fall, Adam was described as someone who walked with God. His wife Eve, also walked with God. But all of a sudden, they faced a moral tohu-va-bohu which overwhelmed them, broke apart God’s good order and broke down what God originally intended for the human race. With the passage of time the wickedness of the human kind was great upon the earth. It was so severe that God regretted creating human beings, so extreme that it awaken in God the desire to destroy the earth. Now, when you read those words, do not interpret it as God falling into a sort of psychological irritation or meltdown. What the writer of Genesis is talking about is a spiritual physics. If this happens, then that would happen. If you grab a red-hot object, it will burn your fingers. When we are cruel, violent, hateful, we break apart God’s good order. When we sin, the negative impact affects us all. There is nothing like “my little private sin.” My sin, your sin has the effect of breaking down and breaking apart what God intends for the human race. 

What did God do when moral, spiritual, and social tohu-va-bohu overwhelmed the human race? Genesis says “Noah found favor with the Lord.” Noah walked with God. To walk with God is to adjust your rhythm with his; it is to bring your mind and will into line with his. It is a a kind of spiritual choreography. So, in the midst of utter tohu-va-bohu of the world, God finds Noah who like Adam  before the Fall knows how to walk with God. Noah becomes God’s rescue operation team that saved humanity and creation. What did God tell Noah to do? What God said to Noah applies to everyone of us: “Build yourself an ark,” (Gen. 6:14). Apart from telling him to build an ark, God also instructs him how to build a strong ark that will allow him (Noah) to walk with God even in the midst of the primal chaos. This is why what God says to Noah applies to us all. But how do we build an ark to navigate the tohu-va-bohu (troubled waters) of this world?Tohu-va-bohu will always be with us, but if we don’t build s strong ship and don’t walk with God, we would be overwhelmed by it. 

Now, the rescue operation led by Noah, Moses, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Amos, and all the prophets was meant to steady the ship, but not to lead it to its shore, its destination. God’s most formidable and final rescue operation is done by the very incarnation of Yahweh, Jesus Christ. Only God who brought order, harmony and creation out of the tohu-va-bohu, out of the primal chaos is able to wage the final and definitive war against all that stands in opposition to God’s plan and intention.   

The liturgical week of Lent always begins with the story of tohu-va-bohu reappearing to bring down God’s final rescue operation. Immediately after the baptism of Jesus, shortly before he lunches his public ministry, tohu-va-bohu emerges to take him out and take him down. Jesus is tempted by the  devil in the desert. The singular purpose of tohu-va-bohu, i.e. the devil is always to move people off the path that leads to God and to order their desire in the direction of something else other than God. If devil succeeds in doing this, the primary desire of one’s life will become something other than the creator. So, after his forty days of fast and prayer, the devil confronts Jesus and gives him three basic temptations. The first temptation begins at a low level of the desert floor, a kind of basic floor temptation: “Command that these stones become bread.” This is the tohu-va-bohu of making sensual pleasure the center of his life, to make the satisfaction of bodily desire for food, drink, sex, pleasure the center of his life. Sensual pleasures are gifts of God, however when they become dominant, become lord of our lives, our deep desire for God will be compromised and not realized. When these desires become so pressing that we clamor for them ceaselessly, they will take over our lives. To that temptation, Jesus tells the devil “One does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” After the first temptation, the devil takes Jesus to a higher position, to the parapet of the temple. The temple in Jesus time was the very centre of the society. It was the economic center, the political, the cultural, and religious center of the society. To be at the parapet of the temple, the high point of the temple would be top of the society. Everyone can see you and admire you. This is the temptation towards glory, honor, esteem, and to be noticed. Some people can leave behind the low level temptation. They are not really enslaved to those desires. What they want is glory and the quest for glory becomes the center of their lives. Jesus has to resist that temptation too. The devil took him to the highest position, at one glance showed him all the kingdoms of the world, all the glory and said, “All these I shall give to you, if you will prostrate yourself and worship me,” (Matt. 4:9). That is the temptation of power. 

Of all the temptation we face, power is, in all probability, the greatest temptation we face. Some people can leave behind the low level stuff, they may not even be interested in glory, but they want power. They want to be able to manipulate others. And once they get power, they don’t want to let go of it. But the price they pay is to worship the devil in order to hold on to corrupt power. Having resisted the three temptations, Jesus is now ready to be the Messiah because he is now ready to make God the clear center of his life. In the season of Lent, that is what we are all doing. We are all meant to go into the desert, confront the moral tohu-va-bohu, confront all those temptations towards sensual pleasure, honor, power and glory. For if we make those the center of our lives, then we are no longer a fit bearer of God’s presence. But if we are able to rise above those te