Lectionary blog for March 9, 2025
First Sunday in Lent
Deuteronomy 26:1-11; Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16;
Romans 10:8b-13; Luke 4:1-13
My father-in-law just retired, and we hosted a banquet to celebrate his career. As part of the festivities, I interviewed him for several hours, and we made a video of the highlights. It quickly became clear that the time spent remembering his career, all the people he worked with and all the ways he saw God directing him was a blessing to him—and to me. When else do I get the opportunity to hear the repeated memories of someone talking about their struggles, triumphs and the ways God guided them through both? Well, all the time, actually. That’s the core of Deuteronomy, a collection of speeches that reflect on Israel’s past and plan for their future.
This week’s lectionary passages reflect on the importance of Deuteronomy and of repeating what we already know.
If you’re not totally into a reflection on Deuteronomy, I understand. But let me try to interest you in three ways. First, in the Gospel reading this week, Jesus quotes Deuteronomy three times:
- Humans shall not live on bread alone (8:3).
- Worship the Lord your God and serve him only (6:13).
- Do not put the Lord your God to the test (6:16).
When the devil uses money, power and fame (and psalms!) to tempt him, Jesus goes straight to Deuteronomy.
Second, when Paul seeks support for his claim that Jesus is present and available, he goes directly to Deuteronomy 30:12-14 to argue that the Word is not up in heaven or down in the depths but it is in your mouth and in your heart (Romans 10:8).
And third, we have just entered the season of Lent, when we intentionally prepare ourselves to repeat the central claim of our faith: Christ died for sinners. Repetition is essential for continuing and deepening our faith.
At last, we turn to the reading from Deuteronomy, and it will be no surprise that the text is concerned with repeated words. In the celebration that became Shavuot/Pentecost, all Israelites were to bring their firstfruits of wheat and fruits (the barley was already offered at Passover) to the sacrificial center. While there, each Israelite presenting an offering was to recite the salvation history of God.
Repetition of history is important because we forget all too often and all too easily. The Israelites needed to be reminded that they had experienced abuse and injustice as foreigners so they would practice love and kindness to the foreigners in their midst.
The salvation history begins by remembering an experience of being a racial minority and immigrant: “My father was a wandering Aramean.” Then the ancestors went down to Egypt where they multiplied for a time (Deuteronomy 26:5). But eventually they were mistreated and abused as a racial minority and foreign people. But God rescued the Israelites from Egyptian slavery-as-genocide (Exodus 1:10). Finally, after centuries of suffering displacement, landlessness and discrimination, God brought the chosen people to the promised land. That isn’t the end of the story, however.
After remembering and reciting the history of God’s salvation of a wandering and abused people, the Israelites were to share the produce of their land with the Levites, who were prohibited from owning land, and with the foreigners living among them (Deuteronomy 26:11). The whole point of repeating the experience of landlessness of ancestors was to prepare the Israelites for a feast in which they were commanded to welcome the foreigner and party with them.
Holidays and holy time are specifically established to remind us of an event, experience or emotion. Thanksgiving is for gratitude. Christmas is for Jesus’ birth. Lent is to prepare for the experience of Jesus’ arrest, torture, death and resurrection. Deuteronomy is setting up Shavuot/Pentecost as a holiday that uses firstfruits as an occasion to remember what God had done in redeeming a mistreated minority group in a foreign land, and to make sure that the Israelites practiced redemptive empathy with those who were suffering in the present what the Israelites had experienced in the past.
What does this mean? Jesus, Paul and Moses all thought a refresher on Deuteronomy was necessary. Repetition of history is important because we forget all too often and all too easily. The Israelites needed to be reminded that they had experienced abuse and injustice as foreigners so they would practice love and kindness to the foreigners in their midst. Christians will, of course, recognize themes of in-gathering and welcome in the Pentecost narrative. Although it is the beginning of Lent, we need this reminder now, maybe more than ever, that the work of the people of God is always welcoming the foreigner, because we were once foreign to God’s family.
