Reflection for the First Sunday of Lent
First Sunday of Lent: Reading I, Year C
Deuteronomy 26:4-10
Moses spoke to the people, saying:
“The priest shall receive the basket from you
and shall set it in front of the altar of the LORD, your God.
Then you shall declare before the Lord, your God,
‘My father was a wandering Aramean
who went down to Egypt with a small household
and lived there as an alien.
But there he became a nation
great, strong, and numerous.
When the Egyptians maltreated and oppressed us,
imposing hard labor upon us,
we cried to the LORD, the God of our fathers,
and he heard our cry
and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression.
He brought us out of Egypt
with his strong hand and outstretched arm,
with terrifying power, with signs and wonders;
and bringing us into this country,
he gave us this land flowing with milk and honey.
Therefore, I have now brought you the firstfruits
of the products of the soil
which you, O LORD, have given me.’
And having set them before the LORD, your God,
you shall bow down in his presence.”
Paired with Christ’s temptation in the desert where we see Our Lord choosing to worship God alone, the first reading from Deuteronomy also aims to direct us in right worship. Here, Moses instructs the people what they are to do when they finally occupy and settle the land. Like a parent educating his children who receive the greatest gift in the world, lest they immediately start playing with the toy and forget to acknowledge the giver, Moses reminds them to thank their benefactor.
Although certain parts of the Torah are legal ground for a headache, the laws that God commands Moses to tell the Israelites are above all concerned with maintaining the people in justice—loving their neighbor and the aliens who live among them and preserving right worship with the one, true God. In this reading and throughout the Torah, God demands their first fruits.
Does God just like the nicest things? Why else does He want first fruits and unblemished animals? In contrast to mid-harvest, potentially overripe fruit that has already fallen to the ground, first fruits might be the only fruit the plant gives if the rains don’t continue or a plague of locusts arrives. Giving the first and best requires both belief to acknowledge and thank God who gave it to them in the first place (not themselves or some other god) and trust that ultimately He is the one who will continue to provide. By demanding their first fruits, God teaches that right worship consists in remembering what He has done for us and returning what is due—thanks, praise, justice, and love.
The first of these two aspects—remembering what God has done—receives even greater emphasis with what the Israelites are instructed to say when they offer the first fruits: a poetic enumeration of the things the Lord has done for them. He heard their cry, saw their affliction, brought them out of Egypt, and gave them a land full of good things. By prescribing this remembrance of what He has done, God is strengthening their belief and hope in Him and thus helping them to make the offering. Just like the Israelites could not enter the Promised Land on their own, we cannot learn how to worship, and thus live, fully without God’s help.
When we read Scripture or when we remember the good things that the Lord has worked in our lives, our hope grows so that we can detach ourselves from the things of earth and trust that He will fulfill His promises. Hope give us the perspective needed to reject the supposed power and pleasure that the world offers. God asks for their first fruits and we offer our Lenten penances recognizing that not only is He the one who gave us the goods we offer but that He is bigger and more important than anything we could give. Our Lord takes this further by His example in the desert where He demonstrates that God must come before even what we think necessary: one does not live on bread alone. Only by a firm hope in God can we face temptations so that we might trust in Him alone, offering Him our worship by placing Him above all else.