Readings: Psalm 91:1-4, 11-12 Deuteronomy 26:1-11 Luke 4:1-13
We pray: may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be
acceptable in your sight O God, our rock and our sustainer. Amen.
Today our three readings from the bible: the psalm, from Deuteronomy and
from Luke – all of them speak of our response to the grace of God in our lives
– the sense of belonging, of power to transform, the gift of faith and the
strength to endure. They encourage us to
celebrate God with us – to respond with delight at the gift of a faithful and
loving God.
At the end of the reading from Deuteronomy, we have these words: ‘Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among
you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the LORD your God has given to
you and to your house.’[1]
This concludes a
passage which tells the people of the exodus that they are to celebrate God’s
abundance to them – as wandering Arameans often confused in their direction, as
aliens in a strange land, as an oppressed people and as a minority people they
are to give praise for God’s abundance of blessing to them – for God’s
provision never abandons us on the journey and is always bountiful. And so they are to give thanks and celebrate
the faithfulness of God – by remembering all that God has been to the people of
Israel.
Here at the
beginning of Lent before we get into reflecting on our response to God’s grace,
before we try and figure out a way we can be better Christians, pre-empting any
practice of self-restraint or spiritual discipline, before all of this we
celebrate and praise the presence of God in this world, in the lives of the
people of God throughout time and in us.
So you could say
that Lent begins with singing, with offering praise to God, confessing our
faith by confessing that we are loved, giving thanks for the extravagant,
unwarranted, ever-surprising self-giving of God – to the people of the exodus
and to us.
Strange that the
lectionary should then couple this reading with that of Jesus’ temptations is
it not? It can be hard to find
celebration in the midst of temptations in the desert – it seems such a brutal
story, a story of hardship and battle, victory and defeat.
I love the image
that Gregor has used on the front of the service sheet – to me it evokes the
isolation, the danger, the harshness of Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness. You can see that some gigantic struggle has
taken place – exhaustion, barely surviving maybe.
Yet when I look
more closely, there is also a sense of rest, of peace and calmness, of a
presence that is immovable, rock solid despite the deeply disturbing things
that are going on around him. Is the
scorpion threat or friend, source of reflection or too tired to respond?
Am I reading too
much into it – I don’t think so – you may see different things but whatever is
found, I believe it offers an insight that goes beyond the stark conversation
of Jesus with the Devil.
Temptations are so
called because, despite ourselves trying not to, we give them a moment’s
consideration. Is that a robust
definition? If they don’t appeal even
slightly to us, there is every chance that we don’t recognise them as temptations. So they are very personal – and Satan we
hear was adept at choosing both the moment and the content.
Led into the
desert full of the Holy Spirit, no food for forty days, the devil comes to play
with Jesus mind. And as for the
temptations themselves – so clever – to feed the hungry, to rule the world with
justice and to show the world how much God loves him by putting that love to
the test. A subtle change of
positioning - loosen the ties a bit –
make some of his own decisions, do things his way in his own time. Take the glory on himself.
That was the
struggle that Jesus engaged in, and emerged from with, we might say, his
integrity intact. Guided by the power of
the Holy Spirit, and made strong through the unfailing love of his Father that
surrounded him he emerged we won’t say unscathed but we can say victorious.
But it is more
than that, isn’t it? For Jesus does do
just these things - but in God’s time and to God’s purpose – Jesus does feed
the hungry, does proclaim justice and peace, does go to the cross in the
confidence that God’s will for life will take precedence over the world’s
decision to execute him. One could say
‘Game, set and match to Jesus!’
But the other
thing that this narrative does for us is actually to give us cause for
celebration, for praising God for in it we can see that Jesus in all his
humanness, in all his spiritual struggles and physical hardship, holding strong
in his trust that God’s gracious love will see him through.
This reading also
encourages us to recognise when a bit of desert dust is clouding our
relationship with God, to be alert to the times when our own egos or agendas
intrude, drawing us into times of clever temptation – things where there might
be only a small shift away from faithful living, a slight blurring of the
clarity and integrity and courage that it takes to be the faithful people of
God.
We too are invited
into a profound belief that in all we go through we are held in God’s gracious
love as we do our best to respond with integrity. This is a real gift for us as we struggle to
be the best we can be, as we deal with the temptations that are often ours
alone to confront, as we dig deep into our hearts, searching for honest
responses to troubling times.
We can be sure
these times of struggle, temptation, blurred vision are not going to go away –
remember that in the reading the devil departed from him until an opportune
time - and in fact dare we say that we
are glad that they are there. And we give
thanks to Jesus for showing us the way through the challenges to our faith and
that we can emerge stronger for the experience. He went into desert full of the
Holy Spirit and would not be swayed by worldly temptations.
So it is not that
we avoid these places but that we stand strong in our belief that God is
in-dwelling in them, Jesus teaching and living is showing us the way and the
Spirit is walking with us – in all these times.
I want to finish
with a piece of writing be Carolyn Smyth[2]
It reminds us, at this Lenten time of
reflection, that without lament there is
no joy, without the cradle there is no cross, without struggle there is no
arriving, without temptation in the desert times, there is no chance of tempering
the steel of who we are in Christ.
Carolyn says it so well;
Arise within me, Holy mystery, Holy friend
keep danger near enough for the summoning of
protection
keep doubt strong enough for the deepening of trust
keep despair near enough for the stirring of hope
keep darkness strong enough for the glimmering of
light
keep hostility near enough for the sustaining of peace
keep fear strong enough for the arousing of love
keep greed near enough for the lavishing of generosity
keep uncertainty strong enough for the bolstering of
courage
keep surprise near enough for the gifting of grace
keep chaos strong enough for the flowering of
creativity
keep divinity near enough for the perfecting of
humanity
Arise within me, Holy mystery, take me to hallowed
ground.
Margaret Garland
[2] in “Bare Feed and Buttercups: Resources for Ordinary Time” edited by
Ruth Burgess, published 2008 Wild Goose Publications
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