March 9, 2014 – First Sunday of Lent
Readings:
Genesis 2: 7-9, 3: 1-7
Psalm 51: 3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 17
Romans 5: 12-19
Matthew 4: 1-11
This year’s Lenten calendar coincides with the aftermath of the buzz created by the just-concluded Oscar movie season.
Surely the Church never planned it that way. Yet today’s first Lenten Sunday readings brings to mind one of this year’s Best Picture nominees, director Martin Scorcese’s “The Wolf of Wall Street.”
Scorcese’s film, staring Leonardo DiCaprio, offers three hours of a langorous look into the sins of Wall Street manipulator and fraud Jordan Belfort. Some critics argue that it is overly long, and, yes, the depictions of crudeness and sexual exploitation are well over even the top of Hollywood’s usual standards, setting a cinematic record for 500 plus times usage of a common street verb, noun and adjective.
Scorcese, a Catholic school graduate, is said to be estranged from the Church yet his vision of sin is as clear as can be. For three hours with the “The Wolf of Wall Street,” viewers are confronted with massive doses of greed, lust, and addiction, all in Cineplex glory.
The Church’s readings for this important Sunday, setting the stage for our Lenten observance, also has much to say about evil.
Evil comes into the world right from the beginning, says the Genesis reading about the temptation of the serpent in the Garden.
“You certainly will not die,” the serpent tempts Eve.
The reading from Romans reminds us that “sin entered the world” via Adam, and has comfortably made itself a permanent home ever since. Even Jesus is not immune from temptation.
The temptations he confronts in the desert described in Matthew’s Gospel bring to mind the seeking out of comfort and power, superseding all other values. You can have all the kingdoms of the world, the devil says, a sentiment echoed by Wall Street’s Belfort.
In the final scenes of the movie, Belfort has had his comeuppance, having spent a few years in prison for stock manipulation. One is tempted to think that once evil has been defeated, through the work of a dedicated FBI agent, the cycle would be broken.
But not so fast, Scorcese warns. Evil remains seductive, as much on a Judean mountaintop as in an antiseptic modern hotel conference room, the ones with garish lighting and ever-present water jugs. The final scene of “The Wolf of Wall Street” is set with Belfort/DiCaprio preaching a get-rich-quick gospel to a packed house seeking something for nothing, coaxing with the promise that riches are just around the corner if they would only follow the program. His gaze extends beyond the room right to the movie audience.
You can live forever. These stones can become loaves. All the kingdoms of the world can be yours for the taking.
By contrast, Jesus proclaims, “Get Away, Satan.” And so Lent begins.
Peter Feuerherd is director of communications for the Diocese of Camden.
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