Sermon Lent 1 2013

Deuteronomy 26:4-10

Romans 10:8-13

Luke 4:1-13

There’s been a lot of testing going on this week, mainly of beefburgers, ready made lasagne, and the like. Testing means examining something to find out what it really is, in this case beef or horse. And when today’s gospel says that Jesus was “tempted” by the devil, that means the same sort of thing. The tempting of the devil is not just trying to induce Jesus to do something he shouldn’t, it’s also finding out who he really is, by the way he responds to the temptation. Is he the Son of God, or not?

What comes just before this scene of temptation in the desert is Jesus’ baptism in the river Jordan, when the voice from heaven had announced, “You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased”. And then Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit, was led by the Spirit in the wilderness. So this going into the desert to be tested is part of his calling, part of what the Father wants him to. Not a diversion from it, but how it begins to be worked out. 

Jesus, as well as being Son of God, is also Son of Man, the representative human. The ways in which he is tested are common to humanity, and he undergoes these temptations on our behalf. Jesus, says the letter to the Hebrews, was “in every respect tested as we are, yet without sin”. So these are representative temptations, of the representative human - Jesus is tested, as all of humanity is, in particular ways.

What these temptations have in common is that in all of them the Devil presents a false idea of God (and therefore of being the Son of God), to see if Jesus will fall for it.

The first temptation, command this stone to become bread. This is the temptation to self-sufficiency, I have all I need, I provide all I require, I’m in control, I’m not going to let go, I don’t need anyone else. It is the temptation to put ourselves at the centre, to make a god of our ego. 

But in truth it is God who is at the centre, God first, not me first. God creates and provides, and gives our being, entirely out of his own generosity. Everything we have is gift. So we don’t need to grasp and control. We do need to recognise our dependence. Letting go means opening my hands so that God can hold me, an act of faith and trust and worship. 

I was very moved this week by Pope Benedict’s unexpected resignation, and I’m sure christians from many different churches will feel the same. How easy in that position to buy in to the personality cult, to think that everything depends on you, that you must carry on at all costs. And what courage and humility and faith it must have needed to say, I can’t do this any more, you need to find someone else. But what an example of faithful, Christian, letting go. We of course don’t have such a burden to carry, but we can nevertheless be taken over by the ownership and control of what we have. Lent, the wilderness, is a place where we can examine ourselves, find out where we need to stop holding on, so that God can hold us.

The second temptation, the offer of all the kingdoms of the world. And in fact in Luke’s version this probably means the Roman Empire, because Luke is very conscious and critical of the political realities of his day. This is the temptation to see the way the world runs as god, the supreme truth, the way that life should be ordered. Violence, injustice, oppression, exclusion, might is right. And Luke simply assumes that the devil does actually run the political structures of the world. The devil personifies all that is destructive, the spiritual personality of the empire.

But the God of Jesus is the God who liberates, who is on the side of the victims of the world and its political structures. The Kingdom of God stands over against the Empires of this world. So we don’t have to collude with oppressive power and we can be called to make a stand against it - including in politics. Whoever says that the Church should keep out of politics hasn’t begun to take the Bible seriously. But also in the workplace, in the home, in our relationships - and recognising also the ways in which we ourselves oppress and exclude.

The third temptation is the most subtle: throw yourself down from the temple, and God will send his angels to protect you. This is the most subtle false idea of god, because it seems to be talking about God. But actually the god who is being suggested here is a god of control, a god on demand, a god who does what we want. This is a spiritual power that we can manipulate - so although the devil talks about “god”, look who is still at the centre - me and my demands. 

The true God does not intervene on demand to arrange the universe according to our whims. The true God allows us our freedom, because he has created us in love, to be free to love. The true God is not a controller, but a lover. His will is our greatest good and our peace. In abandonment to Divine providence we will find all we need. But we have to be free to choose his will, to say, as Jesus will say in Gethsemane, not my will but thine. And there is our true freedom - the freedom to love. 

Today there is so much idolatry even among Christians  - the prosperity gospel and miracle cults abound on the fringes of Christianity, but even in the mainstream churches Christians can be bewildered when they pray for something that seems to them to be good and it doesn’t happen. In God’s will is our peace, and our prayer is first of all aligning ourselves with that will: Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done - before we ask for our daily bread.

Jesus passes the tests. He recognises, and refuses, the false ideas of god presented to him. And therefore he is truly the Son of the true God. Jesus in these temptations represents humanity, and in him we are adopted as sons and daughters of God. We too are called to struggle with the same temptations, because we follow the path of Jesus, which is the way of being truly human. Unlike Jesus, we do not always pass the test. We are not without sin, but through forgiveness and grace we are called to continual conversion, to turn away from these false gods to the one true God.

Times of wilderness and testing do not mean that God has abandoned us. Jesus was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, and sometimes in our lives the Spirit will bring us to a place where all that is familiar and comfortable and safe seems to have been taken away. But this is so that the Spirit can free us from false gods and lead us to depend more faithfully and trustingly on our loving heavenly Father. And the abstinences and disciplines of this season of Lent can help make a space for this too, so that as far as we are able within the duties of our life we follow that path into the wilderness during these 40 days.

Lent is a time for the wilderness, for silence, space, prayer, self-examination. For the purification of the heart from false gods so that we can find our true peace and lasting joy in the true God who creates us, and loves us, and saves us.