Lenten Detox

A Homily for the 1st Sunday of Lent 2025

“It is easier to throw stones than to search one’s own soul.” That quote, I think, gets at a fundamental human conundrum with which, I would imagine, we are all familiar. I believe it gets at our own human experiences of alienation and shame that might lead us to cast stones or to hide ourselves behind Power, Pleasure, and Prestige.

The way I see it the alienation, at the heart of the human condition, is fueled by a basic shame we all share. The shame of being limited, mortal, and too often weaker and more vulnerable than we would like to admit. So rather than look at that, as honestly as we can muster, we pick up those stones, so easily at hand, and fling them with force… the strength of the force that keeps us from examining our own soul’s alienation and shame is equal to the force by which we fling our stones. It is the same force by which we grab at Power, give over to Pleasure, and seek to dress ourselves up with Prestige.

But St. Paul says clearly and unambiguously: “No one who believes in Christ will be put to shame!” Take that in a moment: “No one who believes in Christ will be put to shame!” If I believe in Christ then there is no shame in me. And if no shame then there is no alienation. Christ, as Paul tells us elsewhere, has healed that enmity within us and between us once for all through the cross.

One of my favorite theologians is James Alison and he writes eloquently about how Jesus’ going to the cross, in complete freedom, is also God saying to us: I am going to occupy the place of shame, the place of alienation. I am going to do it completely for you. With no rivalry, retaliation, or revenge. So the place of shame is transformed into a place of new life and we no longer need to fear the power of shame or alienation, nor let it drive us. So what happened? The alienation and shame that fuels the force by which we throw stones or hide behind Power, Pleasure, and Prestige is not there! By the cross God has occupied and healed the toxic place of shame and alienation that haunts us. So, really we are throwing stones and hiding behind illusions, quite literally, for no reason at all!

Now, don’t get me wrong, real elements of alienation and shame still haunt us; that’s why Lent is such a great opportunity, because it invites us, in an annual fashion, to enter into the kind of detox we each need to get free from the fear that fuels the force by which we too easily throw stones or dive behind the bushes of Power, Pleasure, and Prestige like Adam and Eve. If we choose to look at the state of our own soul and resist casting stones or hiding out, we come to see that Christ has already healed the deepest alienation and shame in us, which means whatever remnants of remain in us can also be healed. We just need to freely choose to lay down the stones and come out of our hiding places. As Thomas Keating once wrote: “Repentance means changing the direction in which you are looking for happiness.”

Jesus models for us once again in our gospel today how we can do this and how he can help us do this because he knows fully what it is like. We are told Jesus is driven into the desert by the Spirit. He fasts. He makes himself purposefully vulnerable to the temptations to come. And in that place of vulnerability, weakness, shame, and alienation, he freely chooses to reject the temptations to Power, Pleasure, and Prestige. The work that will be fulfilled on the cross is already begun. Jesus tells us: I know what it is like to be that vulnerable, that weak, to feel alienated and ashamed. I’m going to that place to heal it once and for all so you don’t need to be driven by fear of it anymore! But in our vulnerability we too need to make the free choice to examine the state of our own soul so we can fully realize: WE ARE FREE! And we always have been.

The remedy for all this is not somewhere out there in a book, a podcast, a therapy session, or a good spiritual director. All those things can assist us but only to see what has always already been true: Christ went to the place of toxicity for us. By his cross we are saved. By his wounds our wounds are healed! As Paul writes: this Word is already in you, in your heart, on your lips. It has always already been there!

So, in this Jubilee Year of Hope, let us grab hold of that most radical Hope that rests at the heart of our Christian faith. This Lenten Season let us be renewed by the Radical Hope that teaches us daily: There is no need to throw stones. There is no need to hide ourselves. For freedom Christ has already set us free!