CAVEAT EMPTOR !

A SERMON FOR THE 4th SUNDAY IN LENT

Today’s Gospel describing the feeding of the five thousand reminded me of something Our Lord said just three weeks ago in the Gospel of the First Sunday in Lent.  He was being tempted by the Devil who offered him a loaf of bread.  This Our Lord rejected, sternly admonishing Satan that “Man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that cometh from the mouth of God.”  And yet now, just a few Sundays later, we see the same divine Savior himself offering bread to the hungry multitude.  Why this apparent contradiction?  Why didn’t Our Lord simply preach to the people, and remind them that his Word alone sufficeth.

There are several lessons to be learned from this.  The first distinction we must make is in the person who is offering the bread.  In the first case, on the Mount of Temptation, it was the devil who offered the bread.  This week in the wilderness it is the Son of God.  Big difference!  Christ refused bread from the hands of Satan, and yet of course it was perfectly acceptable for the people to accept bread from the hands of Our Lord.  From this we can clearly see that we may take the things given to us by good and holy people, but we should not take the things that evil men offer us.  It’s a distinction which often gets blurred, or which we forget, seeing instead only the thing offered which is in itself good, in this case the bread.  But look to the motivation of those who offered the bread.  Our Lord multiplied the loaves and fishes because he was concerned for the health and safety of the poor people who had followed him into the wilderness to hear him preach.  He was motivated out of divine charity for his children.  In the case of Satan, however, the motivation was to corrupt this holy man who had been fasting for forty days in the wilderness.  Or at least to see how corruptible he was.  It was an evil agenda that Satan had that day, and Our Lord saw through it and rightly rejected the bread. 

The moral to this story is that we should not automatically trust people that want to give us something.  There are plenty of them in this world.  Look at all the free samples that are advertised for example, whose purpose is to hook you into some long-term commitment to spending your money on a product or service you never knew you wanted.  You can’t walk through Kroger’s today without some nice old lady offering you a taste of this or that, with a napkin and a nice little plastic spoon for your convenience.  Or look at the politicians today on the far left, who are falling over each other to see who can give away the most free things to the ever grasping multitude.  Our Lord didn’t promise free food stamps or welfare checks out in the wilderness, he simply fed the multitude because they were starving and might die.  He didn’t promise them free education, he simply taught them.  It’s the difference between having an agenda, and simple charity.  The good Christian gives without expecting anything in return—remember the words of St. Paul: “Charity seeketh not her own.”  We are not looking for payment, not seeking someone’s vote.  We are simply giving.

So if someone offers you something you’d like to have, like food or money, or even something you need, like a job, first try and identify his motive for doing so.  Is the offer designed to corrupt you?  Or to make you beholden to him so that you feel you can’t refuse him something in the future?  Is that job he wants you to do for him something illegal for instance?  Be careful, and read the small print.  Know what you’re getting into. 

Know too who you are dealing with because the devil loves to make deals!  Let’s be clear, there’s nothing wrong with making a deal with someone.  You should certainly negotiate and bargain with them to your advantage, whether it’s buying a used car, or asking for a higher salary.  But don’t deal with the devil!  He’s far cleverer than us, and will get the better of us if we try.  Watch your own motivation, that you’re not tempted by any inordinate attraction to whatever is being offered to you.  And whatever you do, don’t find yourself in a position where you desperately need something to get out of a situation of your own sinful making.  Remember the story of Rumpelstiltskin in Grimm’s Fairy Tales?  A miller lies to the king that his daughter can spin gold out of straw.  The king locks her up with a bunch of straw, threatening her with all kinds of bad things if she doesn’t spin it into gold for him.  Of course, she doesn’t know how.  Then a nasty little goblin appears and offers to spin the straw into gold in return for a necklace.  She agrees, and he keeps his promise.  A second night the king locks her up with more straw.  This time the little imp demands her ring as a trade for his spinning talents.  On the third night the king gives her a whole roomful of straw, promising to marry her if she turns it into gold, or to execute her if she doesn’t.  She has nothing left to trade, and the demonic Rumpelstiltskin offers his services in return for her first-born child.  This is how the devil works, gradually drawing us into his trap, through easy imperfections, then venial sins (“they’re not so bad!”), until finally we can find no way out of our predicament except by committing mortal sin.  The only way to beat the devil at this game is by not playing it with him in the first place.

Secondly, let’s take a look at the bread itself.  Nothing wrong with bread is there?  No, of course not.  There’s nothing essentially wrong with bread.  But is there something about the bread that would make it wrong for us to take it?  How about that free sample the little old lady is offering us at Kroger’s?  Her motives are not evil ones.  But what about the sample itself?  Would it break our Lenten fast perhaps?  That’s another reason Our Lord refused bread from the Devil, that it would break his fast.  Or what about that little morsel of pepperoni pizza the nice old lady is pushing at you? It would be okay to take it today, but what if it were Friday?  It’s the same pepperoni today and Friday, and yet there’s something that prevents us from taking on it at certain times and not others.

The example is trivial, but it points to more important matters.  For example, the Communion they hand out at the Greek Orthodox Mass is just as valid as our own here.  Both are the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord.  And yet when we receive Holy Communion here at St. Margaret Mary Chapel we receive all the graces of the Sacrament.  But if we, as Roman Catholics, were to go to an Orthodox Liturgy and receive Communion there, we would be committing a mortal sin against the First Commandment, which forbids us to participate at non-Catholic services.  So while the Host we receive is essentially the same, there is something about it which makes all the difference in the world as to whether it avails us unto eternal salvation or unto our condemnation.

Basically, we need to remember the old saying, “Caveat Emptor!”—Let the buyer beware.  Always know exactly what’s being offered, and whether you can trust whoever is offering it.  There are plenty of traps for us out there, not only in the world of commerce, but also in the world itself. Let’s never forget that the world is a very important part of that wicked trinity of temptation, the devil, the flesh and the world.  And the other two elements, the devil and the flesh, will cooperate very nicely with the world in dragging us down.  Remember instead that “all good things come from above.”  Ask God for whatever you need, even for the things you don’t really need but would just like to have.  Leave it up to him and his divine providence to give us what is best for our salvation.  Whatever he gives us, especially in graces, will be more than enough for us, with enough left over to fill many baskets.