1st Sunday of Lent – morning
Sunday 10th March 2019
Lent 1 – morning
Deuteronomy 26. 1-11
Luke 4.1-13
Revd Preb Maureen Hobbs
Temptations.
Something that all human beings are prone to. I know I am and I am reasonably sure that all of you are too! Oh, I don’t mean the temptation of taking the last roast potato at your Sunday Lunch, or choosing the gooey creamy desert over the plain fruit salad.
No I mean the temptation to cut corners. To get to the end by any means possible and with the least amount of effort. To do the right thing, if you will, by the wrong means. And when we choose this route to achieve our objectives, we are very good at convincing ourselves that we have been smart or clever. And when things go wrong – we do anything rather than admit our own liability
‘Cheats never prosper!’ my granny might have said – but all too often, if our newspapers and the TV are to be believed, (and it’s a big ‘If’ these days), cheats prosper all too easily. So it’s not surprising that we fall prey to the temptations around us in our own daily journey through the wilderness of life.
The story in our Gospel comes not long after Jesus has had direct affirmation from God that he is his beloved Son and that God is pleased with him. Now the Devil comes along with his “IF …. you are the Son of God” statements. It is a tactic designed to sow doubt in Jesus’ mind. Maybe you think that Jesus was following some predetermined plan, but that doesn’t seem to square with the intense self-questioning and tortured prayers that mark the key points in his life.
It takes a real effort of will on Jesus’ part to hold to what he truly believes; we cannot be surprised if it takes a real effort of will on our part to resist doing things – with the best of motives – but for all the wrong reasons. Maybe there were other ways that Jesus could have chosen to fulfil his calling… but none of them would have led humanity back into reconciled love and relationship with our loving Creator.
The first temptation is for Jesus to be an Economic Messiah; feeding his people by turning stones into bread. The Russian author Dostoevsky, in his novel The Grand Inquisitor, points out that it is very difficult for people to live by the word of God if they are weak from physical hunger. Christ should have taken the bread option and given us freedom from hunger rather than freedom of choice.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have world hunger obliterated? Why can’t God act in this way?…
Except God has already ensured that this world can produce enough food to feed all its children. We have simply failed to ensure that it is distributed properly to those who need it most. The rich countries of the West and increasingly those countries where prosperity is growing fastest, now suffer from problems of obesity : of too much food. While the poor – shamefully in this country as well as in the developing world overseas – go hungry. It is an indictment on us all.
The temptation miraculously to produce bread would distract from the miracle that could come when God’s spirit creates a generosity for the needy that will bring about a redistribution of human resources.
The second temptation, gives us a political Messiah. Christ should have taken power says Dostoevsky’s Inquistor, but since he refused, the church has now taken it in his name in order to convince us that security in an institution is preferable to freedom of choice….
Well, that has gone well, hasn’t it?! We are all too aware how damaging it can be when people assume the institution and by implication its representatives, can do no wrong. How power can be abused and taken to force the vulnerable to serve the perverted desires of the strong. The reality that we in the Church of England as well as in the other great Denominations are now having to pour so much time, effort and money into safeguarding issues demonstrates how well we have done with that!
And in the secular world the rise of populist politicians in so many countries is a sad reflection of what happens when democracy gets twisted so that it is no longer government of the people by the people, but government of the people by the mob.
The third temptation is for Jesus to be a celebrity or miracle-giving Messiah, someone who will play to the gallery.
The Inquistor says that Christ should have given people a miracle, for most people need to see the miraculous in order to be convinced about the truthfulness of the Christian faith.
“If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself; Come down from the cross.”
Yes, spectacle, entertainment, photo opportunities sell, and if there are images of Jesus that fit with someone’s marketing campaign, they can be used, and no-one need worry if they are divorced from what we actually know of his philosophy and teaching. Appearances, images, matter more than substance; what we do and get credit for doing comes to matter more than what is actually achieved. But that leaves no room for Faith…
The temptations tell us that Jesus refuses to be the Saviour we want him to be, made in our image. He turns away from the path of short-term gain, in the interest of preserving his integrity and his true ministry.
So as we continue our journey through Lent with him, so we will try to identify the choices and strategies that he repudiates, and keep faith with him in our own wilderness wanderings.