lenten blog | March 5 2025

Where is your treasure?  Where is their God?

Throughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches.  These are the suggested readings for March 5th:  Psalm 51:1-17; Joel 2:1-2, 12-17; 2 Corinthians 5:20b—6:10; and Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

For the past few days we have been puppy sitting my daughter’s dog.  Our dog is nine years old.  When it comes time to feed the beast and mini-beast, the puppy gets puppy chow and our dog gets his adult dog food.  Both are plain old dog food, nothing exceptional.  Each time we fed them, though, the puppy would walk away from his food and our dog from his.  Unexcited.  But man they loved the other’s food.  Wolfed it down like it was filet mignon.  The two dogs in our house wanted what the other had.  I doubt that one was better than the other, but the other was different.
 
I think this can be an analogy for temptation.  Jesus counters temptation with treasure.  What does this mean?

Today we begin the Season of Lent.  These 40 days are given to us as an intentional time to refocus our attention on our spiritual selves and our relationship with God through Jesus, and also, and essentially, cumulatively as a society.  Like Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness, Lent is a time to explore what it means to count God as essential in our lives, and this then as preparation for how to live our lives as part of the world.  Today’s Gospel passage ends with Jesus saying, “‘For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.’”  Do we treasure God, Jesus is asking.  Elsewhere in the Gospels Jesus teaches that everything else can be sacrificed in order to attain the treasure that is being a part of the reign of God. (Matthew 13:44-46)  Do we look upon our faith in such terms?  If we don’t, are we willing to ask why we are tempted by the other whatever it may be?  This question is the work of Lent. 

The Gospel ended with treasure.  The Joel passage ends with “‘Where is their God?’”  As mentioned, Lent’s 40 days are based on Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness.  What we traditionally refer to as Jesus’ temptation is the time when Jesus refines His expectations of His calling.  How will He serve God in His life?  What does God need Jesus to do?  The 40 days are not akin to single-cell bacteria; rather, the 40 days are one cell in the larger body.  They came about as a reaction to Jesus’ earlier life and they influence the rest of Jesus’ life.

Jesus flees into the wilderness after His exposure to John the Baptist’s message of judgment.  In the wilderness, Jesus is tempted by traditional expectations of what the Messiah should be and do.  Then Jesus emerges changed, and that change results in the lived and proclaimed gospel, the good news that God loves more than God judges.  The 40 days of introspection led Jesus to the treasure of His new faith, and that led to a ministry that literally altered the world.

Lent is most definitely about introspection, but it leads to changes in how we should live our lives.  It is not a single-cell bacteria; Lent is part of the spiritual body of each of our lives and of our lives lived together.  It should result in our closer imitation of Jesus’ gospel and result cooperatively in a deeper appreciation of the treasure of the reign of God on earth of which we are “ambassadors for Christ.”  If, however, the world grows increasingly self-centered and cruel, unconcerned about the welfare of others whomever they may be, then Joel’s question becomes our own: “‘Where is their God?’”  (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/02/health/usaid-cuts-deaths-infections.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare)

On this first day of Lent, I invite you to our Mid-Week Pause Prayer Service on March 19th at 7:00pm at the Hatfield Church for a time to look inward, and to our Lenten Retreat “Christ and the State / Christians and the State” on April 6th from 2- 5:00pm at the Sunderland Church to look outward.

If you would like to join us for our online Bible study, please send an email to [email protected] for the Zoom logins.
​
If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule:  www.sneucc.org/lectionary.