LENT 1

Matthew 4: 1-11 (Sermon 1: “The Worst Temptation.”}

Romans 5: 12-19

Genesis 2:15-17 & 3:1-7 (Sermon 2: “The fall”)

Psalm 32

PREPARATION

On this first Sunday of Lent we get serious about our human predicament.

We face up to the fact that humanity is a sorely tempted and gravely corrupted species of life, and that any evil which is not honestly confronted and dealt with, will do anything to exclude God from its sphere of influence.

We also acknowledge One young man from Nazareth, who fought temptation and the source of evil without compromise, and by his efforts opened up an avenue of liberation for humankind.

The rescuing, healing, love of Christ Jesus be with you all.

And also with you.

OR -

Grace to you and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen!

Lent is an opportunity for honest self assessment and penitence,

for coming clean and accepting the loving discipline of Christ Jesus.

Amen!

Many are the problems of those who are unrepentant,

but steadfast-love enfolds those who trust in God,

Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, you people of faith!

Shout for joy all you who stand tall by God’s grace!

PRAYER

Most holy God, most faithful Friend, look with compassion upon each member of this congregation as they come before you now. Override our ignorance, undercut our arrogance, scatter our indifference, and infiltrate all thoughts and feelings with your own Spirit. Please set us free from anything that might demean or diffuse this hour of worship.

Enable us to put down our roots into the immovable, fertile ground of your eternal goodness. Through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen!

CONFESSION

Sisters and brothers in Christ, long ago a singer of psalms said:

“When I refused to admit my sin, my life was wasting away,

I groaned and complained all day long.

When I acknowledged my sin to you, holding nothing back,

you forgave my sin and removed my shame.”

Let us acknowledge our complicity in the world’s evil. Let us pray.

God our Creator and Redeemer, we confess to you and to each other that we are

people who often fail in the hour of temptation.

Sometimes we put up a worthy fight, only to lose the ground in an unguarded moment

while we are licking our wounds.

Sometimes we slowly win the struggle, only to fall into the same trap as we come from

another direction.

Sometimes we think the issues are so trifling that they are not worth the fight, and so

we corrupt our true selves in a dozen mini betrayals.

Sometimes we do not even realise that we have wandered until we look around and

find ourselves on the wrong path.

Sometimes we believe the Tempter when he says that your ways are unfair, and so we

rebelliously turn our backs on you.

Most merciful Friend, please reclaim and forgive us. Remove not only our guilt but also those mental subterfuges through which we have sought to justify ourselves. Give us a new start. Keep us alert without anxiety and courageous without overconfidence in our own wisdom. Through Jesus Christ our Saviour.

Amen!

FORGIVENESS

My sisters and brothers in Christ Jesus, it is written: “While we were still sinners, Christ Jesus died for us.”

Most happy are they whose transgression is forgiven;

whose sins are covered by God.

Be glad and celebrate, all you recipients of grace,

shout for joy all you who hearts are fully open!

PRAYER FOR CHILDREN

Dear God,

please help us

not to give in to temptation.

Whenever we are tempted

to be greedy,

or hurt others,

or to lie or cheat,

or to be big-headed,

or to be lazy,

or any other bad stuff,

please come to our assistance.

Put your Spirit

in charge of our thoughts and feelings,

and train our good ideas and habits

be like archers guarding a castle

from attacks from evil

In the name of Jesus, we pray.

Amen!

PSALM 32

Happy are they whose wrongs are forgiven;

whose sins are covered by God.

Happy are they who a free from God’s frown,

in whose souls there is no subterfuge.

When I refused to admit my sin, my life was wasted,

I groaned and complained all day long.

By night and day your hand felt heavy

my energy was sapped as in a heatwave.

Then I openly admitted my sin to you,

holding back nothing at all.

I confessed everything to you, my God

and you forgave me and removed my shame.

Therefore let every believer pray to you

in the time when they need your help.

Then the mighty torrents of evil

shall not submerge and drown them

You, God, are the hidden secret of my life,

keeping me secure from disasters.

It is you who completely surround me

with the cheering sounds of liberation!

You nurture me and enlighten me,

you show how to choose the best way to go.

You are the good Counsellor,

your eye is always upon me.

You don’t want me as stubborn as a colt,

or as a mule of very little brain.

You do not curb me with bridle and bit

but show me how to do the right thing.

The wicked cause themselves much pain,

but believers are always encircled with love.

Loving souls, enjoy your God and be happy!

True souls, sing your heart out for joy!

© B.D. Prewer 2001

COLLECT

Loving God, through your full affinity with Jesus of Nazareth, you know what it is like to be badly tempted. Through our affinity with him, we know that you are not oblivious to our difficulties.

Pity us as we try to live faithfully and lovingly in this world of incessant temptation. By your Word sustain us, in your Word secure us, through your Word deliver us, and with your Word send us on our way rejoicing. Through Christ our Lord.

Amen!

POEM

See after the sermon.

COLLECT

Loving God, your True Son, Jesus, knows all about temptation. Please may we have his Spirit when we are sorely tempted? By his grace, may we neither surrender to base enticements nor allow our gifts to be corrupted by the subtleties of evil. Continue to be our health and our liberation; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit are worthy of love, adoration and praise, now and forever.

Amen!

SERMON 1: THE WORST TEMPTATION?

Matthew 4: 1-11

What is the worst temptation that can torment a Christian? Give that question a churn in your brain and see what spins to the top!

I would surmise that some of you would come up with a sexual temptation; there are, as you well know, plenty of variations in that field.

Maybe others would suggest it is being corrupted by money or power.

Some might reckon it is insincerity or betrayal.

Perhaps others put self righteousness on top of the list.

And so we could go on.........................

ONE TEMPTATION OR THREE?

Today I want to suggest to you that the worst temptation for a believer today may be the same one which Jesus faced when he spent his forty days in the wilderness.

Did I say the one temptation? I certainly did. The alert among you (dare I say awake?) immediately want to remind me that Jesus endured not one temptation but three:

Turn stones into bread.

Leap from the tower of the temple.

Worship the devil and rule the world.

You are right in that those three things are mentioned in the Gospel story of our Lord’s temptation. What I going to suggest to you is that those three things are all about the same one temptation.

But before I enlarge on my suggestion, I put it to you: If the temptations of Jesus do revolve around turning stones into bread, jumping from a tower, or ruling the world, then his temptations are rather exotic and unreal compared with mine; or, I suspect, compared with yours.

For example: I don’t think a police officer faced with the lure of a large bribe would find much affinity with Jesus’ kind of temptations. Nor would the forty year old family man when confronted with a femme fatale while interstate on business. Nor would the young nurse being pressured to cover up some medical malpractice upon which she has stumbled. Nor would the Christian who is tempted to betray the faith in order to be popular with work mates.

Frankly, I have never been tempted to turn stones into bread, nor jump from a temple, or bow down to the devil and rule the world. My temptations are a very common, home grown variety.

You might be wanting to retort: “Of course not, preacher! The temptations of Jesus were tailored to his unique, amazing gifts.”

I certainly agree with you about his unique gifts. But I think we are missing the point when we get caught up with the idea that there were three different, special temptations. I believe his temptations were really just one, coming from three different angles. What is more, I think that his temptation was, in truth, very much like ours.

In fact, his one temptation is the one which I fear most in my own life.

THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS

Let’s look at what happened to Jesus in the wilderness. The clue, I believe, is in the small little word “if” which occurs in the first two episodes. The ‘if’ calls Jesus’ faith in to question; his belief that he is the Son of God.

The first episode: And the Tempter came and said to him: If you really are the Son of God, order these stones to change into loaves of bread. (Matthew 4:3)

The barb of the temptation is in the “if”. IF you really are the Son of God. This taunt lays siege to the very basis of Christ’s faith in his status as the Son of God. Doubt is the issue. Remember that this temptation followed directly on Jesus’ baptism when the Spirit rested on Jesus and the heavenly voice said: This is my dearest Son, with whom I am very pleased. Was that Voice real? Was his faith real? Jesus is tempted to prove his faith instead of simply trusting God.

The second episod

: Then the devil took him to the holy city, stood him on the tower of the temple, and said: If you are the Son of God, jump off, for the Scripture says ‘He will give his angels to care for you.... lest you strike you foot against a stone’. Once more the clout of the temptation is hidden (like some diminutive plastic explosives) in the insidious little “IF”.

IF you really are the Son of God, jump off. Prove yourself as the Son of God, perform a mighty miracle. Again the temptation strikes at the faith of Jesus; calls it into doubt. Are you really the Child of God?

The third episode is more complex but I see it as hinging on the same point. The devil took Jesus to a high mountain, and showed him all the glory of the kingdoms of the world. He said: ‘I will give you all of these, IF you will bow down and worship me.’

The devil argues: Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you, Jesus, could rule the whole world and bring universal peace and justice? If you were really the Son of God, surely you would be able to do that? Face it Jesus, you are not God’s child but mine. Your faith is unreal. Forget it; mate! You are a son of this soiled earth not the Son of heaven.

There is one temptation at the core of each episode. It is a faith crisis. Jesus is tempted to doubt his status as God’s true Child.

OUR TEMPTATION

What about us? What about our temptation? I put it to you that we can identify closely with Jesus at this point. I regard the insidious “IF” as the most dangerous of my temptations. It is especially dangerous because in many ways it sounds most reasonable.

Does this situation sound familiar to you? A nagging inner voice addresses you personally: “If you really are a Christian, why don’t you and your fellow Christians feed all the hungry people of the world? Or do more for the street kids? Or do much more to help the alcoholics and drug addicts? If you truly are a Christian, you would have to be achieving greater things than you are.”

Or perhaps the temptation comes in this form: “If you really have been saved, why can’t your prayers stop bushfires, break a drought, deflect a child from the path of a speeding car?” If you truly are saved, there would be no limit to the suffering you could alleviate.

Maybe it’s a third variation on the theme “If you really are a child of God, as the Bible says, why haven’t you and your fellow children of God done more to bring justice and peace to the world? Or even peace to the divided churches? If you truly are God’s child, there would be much more reconciliation around.

In each of these cases we are taunted in a way which hits at our faith, the core of our religion. It strikes at our status as those who follow Christ Jesus. The Tempter says: As a Christian, as a saved person, as a child of God, proves your status. Prove it!

I could add alternative phrases that might ring bells with some of you. “As one who is born again”, or “as a charismatic,” or “as one who eats the holy bread and drinks the sacred cup”: why aren’t you lot performing more wonderful works? If you are what you say you are, then work some miracles, even a few minor ones will do!

The moment we fall for this temptation we are in big trouble. If we begin to doubt our God-given status, the devil can walk us into a quagmire of guilt, frustration, and finally into the depths of faithless despair.

Our Christian status is God-given, not something we need to prove or earn. Jesus knew himself as God’s Son by the word of God, not by his own works. In his desert temptation, again and again he turns to the Scriptures in answer to the devil. In order to know himself as God’s Child, he does not have to turn stones into bread, or give dramatic signs like jumping from the temple tower, of by ruling the world. He just has to have faith, to trust the God whom he calls Father.

So it is with us. As St Paul put it: By God’s grace you are saved, through faith. This faith is not your work but it is a gift from God.

God loves us in Christ Jesus and names us his children. That is all that ultimately matters, God’s love, outpoured to the uttermost on the Cross, not our smidgin of love and good works. God’s gift, not our performance.

SOME IMPLICATIONS

Perhaps you now understand why I regard the insidious little IF as the worst temptation. Fall for that and we lose everything. Defeat it and we can cope with anything.

Some examples.

Suppose that I should be stupid enough to bust up my marriage by falling for a femme fatale. That would be a sorry mess, but my situation would not be hopeless as long as I still trust the saving love of God in Christ Jesus.

Supposing you in a moment of weakness embezzle some money and get caught. Publicly disgraced you would be, with you name in the papers and your ashamed face on TV, but as long as you trust God as your father and yourself as his child, your situation is not hopeless.

Or let’s say in the workplace, or in your social activities, you deny the Lord Jesus just as badly as Peter the Apostle did when taunted by a servant girl. Then you would indeed have much grief and shame to deal with. But as long as you retain your Christian faith, your fall shall not leave you hopeless.

On the other hand, if we were to allow the Tempter’s IF to undermine us, then we indeed put ourselves in a hopeless situation.

Once we build our lives on the grace of God, God alone for our health and salvation, then we can cope with anything. Even if we should break under every other temptation that afflicts our brittle humanity, yet if we retain our simple faith as God’s children, as those for whom Christ died, then God can still make something worthwhile and beautiful from our lives.

No fall is irreversible, no life is ruined, as long as we defy the insidious IF. Remember and cling to the words from the Letter of John: Dear friends, see what kind of love the Father has shown us: we are called God’s children and such we really are.

Thanks be to God!

HOOKED ON ‘IF”?

Matthew 4: 1-11

The Tempter is an angler

with a covered hook,

he’ll hang around your little faith

and quote you the Good Book.

Watch out when he’s as plausible

as a most wise pontiff,

he’s covering with some bate

a barbed, and cruel “if”.

If you really are God’s child,

show me your prayer skill.

If you have the true faith,

mountains should move at will.

If you really are a Christian,

your love will be aglow.

If you truly have the Spirit,

your godliness will show.

Yes, Satan is an angler

whose if is a keen hook,

he tried it on with Jesus

with a swami look:

“If you really are God’s Son,

turn these stone into bread.

If you are the Chosen One,

you’ll jump and not be dead.”

The Tempter is a loser

whose logic’s out of place;

we do not have to prove a thing,

our status is by grace.

It’s written, for our freedom,

that God owns us by name.

Accept you are a child of God

and spoil the angler’s game!

Ó B D Prewer 1993

# Shorter version.

SERMON 1: THE WORST TEMPTATION?

Matthew 4: 1-11

What is the worst temptation that can torment a Christian?

Some of you might answer (if your were very honest!) with a sexual temptation; there are, as you well know, plenty of variations in that field.

Maybe others would suggest it is being corrupted by money or power.

Some might reckon it is insincerity or betrayal.

Perhaps others put self righteousness on top of the list.

And so we could go on.........................

--------------------------------------------------------

Today I want to suggest to you that the worst temptation for a believer today may be the same one which Jesus faced when he spent his forty days in the wilderness.

Did I say the one temptation? I certainly did.

Let’s look at what happened to Jesus in the wilderness. The clue, I believe, is in the small little word “if” which occurs in the first two episodes. That pernicious “If” challnegs his belief that he is the Son of God.

The first episode: And the Tempter came and said to him: If you really are the Son of God, order these stones to change into loaves of bread. (Matthew 4:3)

The second episod

IF you really are the Son of God, jump off. Prove yourself as the Son of God, perform a mighty miracle. Again the temptation strikes at the faith of Jesus; calls it into doubt. Are you really the Child of God?

There is one temptation at the core of each episode. It is a faith crisis. Jesus is tempted to doubt his status as God’s Child.

OUR TEMPTATION

Try this one for size: A nagging inner voice mocks, “If you really are a Christian, why don’t you and your fellow Christians feed all the hungry people of the world? Or do more for the street kids? Or do much more to help the alcoholics and drug addicts? If you truly are a Christian, you would have to be achieving greater things than you are.”

Or perhaps the temptation comes in this form: “If you really have been saved, why can’t your prayers stop bushfires, break a drought, deflect a child from the path of a speeding car? If you truly are saved, there would be no limit to the suffering you could alleviate.”

In each of these cases we are taunted in a way which strikes “below the belt” of our faith. It hits us in the guts of our belief. It weakens our confidence as followers Christ Jesus. The Tempter says: As a Christian, as a saved person, as a child of God, prove yourself or shut up!”

Many var iations. One tempatation. “As one who is born again”, or “as a charismatic,” or “as one who eats the holy bread and drinks the sacred cup,”: then why aren’t you lot performing more wonderful works? If you are what you say you are, then work some miracles, even a few minor ones will do!

The moment we fall for this temptation we are in bi-i-i-g trouble. When we begin to doubt our God-given adoption as God’s children, then we step us into a quagmire of guilt, frustration, and finally into the dark-deeps of faithless despair.

Our Christian status is God-given, not something we need to prove or earn. Jesus knew himself as God’s Child by the word of God, not by his own works. In his desert temptation, again and again he turns to the Scriptures in answer to the devil. In order to know himself as God’s Child, he does not have to turn stones into bread, or give dramatic signs like jumping from the temple tower, of by ruling the world. He just has to have faith, to trust the God whom he calls Abba, Dad.

So it is with us. As St Paul put it: By God’s grace you are saved, through faith. This faith is not your work but it is a gift from God.

SOME IMPLICATIONS

Perhaps you now understand why I regard the insidious little IF as the worst temptation. Fall for that and we lose everything. Defeat it and we can cope with anything.

Some examples.

On the other hand, if we were to allow the Tempter’s IF to undermine us, then we indeed put ourselves in a hopeless situation.

Thanks be to God!

SERMON 2: THE FALL

Genesis 3: 1-7

The story of the GARDEN OF EDEN is extremely powerful. It power does not lie way back near some f abled of creation. Its opowwer opreceds ceration abnd will succed it.

That story is as contemporary as the news you read in your Sunday papers, yet as ancient as that hour when men and women first knew they were persons. It cannot be dated. We do ourselves and tgher faith a grave diserseicve if we try to date it.

Like the profound parables of that man of the East called Jesus of Nazareth, Genesis speaks to my deepest being. It gets past my defences and reverberates within me in way that the cold, and often pedantic, arrogant prose of the Western culture can never do.

With all my heart I say: thank God for the opening Chapters of the Book of Genesis.

Nevertheless, I must say that the story has been misused in sad and dangerous ways

In this sermon I will attempt to sound three warnings about the misuse of the Bible story of the fall of man and woman from grace, and then proceed to put to you three positives involving this story and the person of Christ Jesus.

THE NEGATIVES

1/ Used against women.

Pre-eminently I lament the way the story has been used through thousands of years to justify the oppression of women.

Because Eve, as the story goes, nibbled the forbidden fruit first, and then offered it to Adam, she has been held responsible for the degradation of man. Women are condemned as the lesser breed who fall easily to temptation and drag the more noble men (sic) down with them.

This distortion of truth is not merely implied in much of Christianity, there are numerous surviving manuscripts where we find it explicitly propagated. Women are denigrated as the foolish but beguiling creatures that corrupt the affairs of men.

In some monastic establishments femaleness is regarded as dangerously evil. There are even monasteries where male cats are welcomed but female cats are banned.

St Paul, who through the impact of Christ on his life, in theory broke through the cultural brain-washing and declared that in Christ there is no such thing as male or female, nevertheless in the hat of his management of churches, slips back into negative discrimination. Paul in practice resorts to Genesis to buttress his prejudice against the fitness of women to play leading roles in the church.

Some feminists have labelled Paul a misogynist. I am not sure that is fair. I believe he was less so than most of men of his era. But it is true that he slips sideways, edges back into pre-Christ ideals. Compare him with Jesus, who included women in the company of followers who journeyed around the land on mission with him, and Paul’s his bondage to old discriminatory ways, becomes clear.

2/ Against sexuality.

The second danger in the way the story of the fall has been misused is in the area of our sexuality.

It has often been assumed that the forbidden fruit that Eve offered Adam was sexual intercourse. The knowledge of good and evil is assumed to be the experience of sexual intimacy. This assumption has at times been made openly, sometimes subtly. Even today a group of adolescents males in a classroom may snigger if asked: “What was the forbidden fruit that Eve gave to Adam?”

Maybe this has been wrongly deduced from the segment that tells us that after eating the fruit, Man and Woman realised they were naked and hid their nakedness under fig leaf skirts.

Or maybe the idea stems from the fact that sexual drives and feelings constitute one of the most powerful and turbulent forces with which we have to deal. Therefore, the one thing Satan might use to temp humanity away from obedience to God would be a sexual transgression. So it is assumed that Eve is used by Satan to seduce man away from his supposed male purity.

Maybe it has been buttressed by that verse which cries: “In sin did my mother conceive me.”

Whatever the causes, there is a perverse strain in Christianity which has a distaste for the sexuality of our nature. Sexual feelings are depicted as something essentially dirty. The Genesis story has been co-opted into this perverse way of looking at human nature.

3/ That Adam and Eve are the cause of our problems.

You don’t have to teach a child to be naughty. It can do that very well on its own. Why is there within us a natural inclination towards evil? Why do we give in to temptation so easily?

The explanation, according to a major stream of Christian doctrine, was that we inherited from Adam and Eve the corrupt, fallen nature. Corruption is passed on through the generations the original fall from grace. So the responsibility is not basically ours but our first grandmother and grandfather, Eve and Adam. They started life without corruption, blissfully good and innocent, then rebelled against God and brought the virus of evil into the human genetic bank forever.

I am not stupid enough to deny the flow of much evil from generation to generation. I am not naive enough to pretend that babies are born blissfully good and perfect. Nor am I silly enough to pretend that it is not often easier to do evil than to do good. But I know it is a cop-out to blame it all on Adam and Eve.

I stand with those believers, both Jews and Christians, both ancient and modern, who maintain that every individual becomes the Adam, or Eve, of their own soul. The story of Adam and Eve is not talking so much about what happened in the distant past but what happens here and now. Right now, we are either standing with God or moving away from God. Right now we either yield to temptations or stand firm on that which we believe to be good. Today we either add to the contagious powers of evil and add to the power of goodness.

We have to accept the full responsibility for the decisions we make, the temptations to which we yield. It is significant that in self-enabling groups like Alcoholics Anonymous, one of the essential steps towards healing is accepting responsibility for what we do.

THE POSITIVES

Enough of the negatives. Now let us look at 3 of the many positives in this remarkable story of Man and Woman, Adam and Eve.

1/ To be human is to be tempted.

An essential part of the meaning of being human is that we are creatures that are capable of being tempted. It is not because we are sordid, little creatures that we can be tempted. Rather is because we are glorious beings. As psalm 8 puts it, we are only a little less than gods.

It would seem likely that on this planet, we may be the only creatures capable of this miracle. We are self conscious beings, aware of ourselves, aware of our neighbours as unique beings, aware of our possibilities. We can reflect on our past and plan for the future. We can feel shame and exultation over ethical issues. Like God, we see the difference between good and evil.

Therefore, to be human means being open to temptation. It is a part of our glory.

The practical side of this means that we are not dirtied by temptation. Far too many Christians have tortured themselves for experiencing temptation. Sadly, as a pastor I have seen numerous people laden with guilt simply because they are tempted. It is a burden no believer should have to carry.

Jesus was tempted. That does not mean he was a depraved soul. It does mean he was human. Truly one of us.

2/ To be human is to have fallen short.

The second truth that emerges from the Adam and Eve story is that to be human as we currently know it is to be fallen. I repeat: humanity as we presently know it is fallen.

Genesis sets the stage for an understanding of the glory and shame of humanity. All of us have fallen short of the glorious possibility that is ours.

It is not so much a matter of having fallen out of paradise somewhere way back in the past, but of having fallen short of our potential, here and now.

That means all of us. In Christianity there is no room for the game of goodies and badies. Biblically speaking, all self-righteousness is out. We live by grace. God’s grace for us, we live with grace for each other.

All self-righteousness is a plague. That applies to secular self-righteousness as much as it does to religious self-righteousness.

At this point the Old Testament story of the fall of Adam is balanced with the New Testament gospel of the rising of Christ. As in Adam all have fallen, so in Christ all shall rise.

3/ In Jesus we see what completely human can mean.

The Genesis story must be read in juxtaposition with the Gospel. In the Garden of Eden story, Adam and Eve are humanity as it is meant to be. And what is that like?

Attempts to depict historical unfallen beings, has in some literature and art end up with a sense of unreality. Adam and Eve become a couple of benign, a-sexual, ‘Winnie the Pooh’ type characters, living in a pretty garden.

The real answer is Jesus. We are to be like Jesus. Jesus is what human beings are meant to become. If we had not fallen short, then that is what we would be like.

Humanity as we know it is fallen. Yet we are gloriously raise up with the risen Christ Jesus. By the grace of Christ Jesus, such we surely becoming and shall be fully become little Christ’s.

This is our future. Adam and Eve show us our past and present falling short. Jesus shows us the future which has already arrived within the present. It is impossible to fully describe what God’s future for us will be like, but it will be with Jesus and like Jesus. “Dear friends, the shape is not yet clear.... but we know that when He does appear, we shall be as he is.” So wrote the apostle John.

As with Adam all fall, so in Christ all shall rise and stand tall.

Thanks be to God!

THANKSGIVING

Let us thank God for the awesome privilege of being human; for our self-awareness and high spiritual potential, for being made in a likeness to God.