Temptations Unravelling - A Sermon for the First Sunday in Lent February 26, 2023
GOSPEL: Matthew 4:1-11.
The holy gospel according to Matthew.
Glory to you, O Lord.
Jesus experiences anew the temptations that Israel faced in the wilderness. As the Son of God, he endures the testing of the evil one.
1Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. 3The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” 4But he answered, “It is written,
‘One does not live by bread alone,
but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ”
5Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, 6saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written,
‘He will command his angels concerning you,’
and ‘On their hands they will bear you up,
so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’ ”
7Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ”
8Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; 9and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” 10Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written,
‘Worship the Lord your God,
and serve only him.’ ”
11Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.
The gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you, O Christ.
You could say that the Christian church
is in the wilderness.
Jesus, immediately after his baptism,
is led or driven by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness
for 40 days and 40 nights.
It is preparation for the ministry that awaits Jesus
after the wilderness.
But, hold on a second.
Is Jesus not the same Word of God
who was in the beginning with God?
Through Christ all things were made,
eternally begotten of God the Father.
God from God, Light from Light?
True God from True God,
begotten - not made.
Of one being with the Father!
Yet Jesus needs the wilderness.
God’s Spirit seems to think so.
Jesus could have taken off
moved to the beach by the Sea of Galilee
and turned a bunch of water into wine every day
instead of fasting and facing temptation.
Even Jesus,
completely human,
yet also completely God
needs the wilderness to prepare for ministry
on the other side of the wilderness.
You could say that the Christian church
is in the wilderness.
And we need to be there.
The church is facing temptations,
not unlike what Jesus was tempted with.
I hear a longing from some Christians.
A longing for the church of the 50’s,
or the church of the 80’s.
I hear a longing to be like this congregation
or like that congregation.
I hear a longing for stores to be closed on Sundays
and sports to be prohibited until noon on Sundays.
I hear a longing for
the Lord’s Prayer to be prayed in public schools.
I hear a longing for our children
and their children to be siting in the pews,
just like we had to when we were kids.
I hear a longing
to keep things the way they have always been,
and a longing to just change anything.
I hear a longing for someone to come
and do something about all the problems
that the church is facing.
Wont someone come and save the church?
Forgive my crassness,
but, last time I checked,
Jesus already saved the church.
You could say that the Christian church
is in the wilderness… and we need to be there.
The church is tempted, I believe,
to focus on our problems.
Attendance is down across the board.
The future of the offering plate is uncertain.
Some children and grandchildren worship here,
and others do not.
Congregations are closing.
The Church seems less and less relevant in society.
The church is tempted to focus on our problems.
God is enough. God is enough.
And while the church faces temptation,
you and I face our own individual temptations:
tempted to ignore the pain in our hearts,
temped to escape when times get hard,
tempted to satisfy emotional hunger
with tasty carbs or self-medication
tempted to distract ourselves
with that website
temped to allow a little evil
or a little corruption
to help expedite our financial goals,
tempted to think we have it all together
when we don’t.
Temptation can be about seeking satisfaction
in ways that can be harmful,
rather than seeking satisfaction,
quenching thirst,
filling our hunger
with God.
Jesus didn’t focus on his hunger.
“One does not live by bread alone,
but by every word
that comes from the mouth of God!”
Jesus didn’t force some unnecessary sign
out of God.
Jesus didn’t allow a little corruption or a little evil.
God is enough. God is enough.
We, perhaps as individuals,
but certainly we as the church,
are tempted to focus on our problems,
rather than focus on the God
who is with us.
Many of us are living in the wilderness.
The church certainly is.
Yet this wilderness crisis
is a crisis of opportunity.
Imagine an old, favourite knitted blanket
that has been dragged around, day after day
by a young child around the house
for safety and security.
The child loves the blanket,
but it is becoming unravelled.
The material is still good.
it just might beed to be unbound and unravelled,
so that it can be knit together again
into something useful and beautiful again.
The church is unravelling.
The church has been dragged around, day after day,
old models kept around for safety and security.
The church is unravelling,
but the material is still good.
Maybe you are unravelling,
but the material is still good.
It just might need to be unbound and unravelled,
so that it can be knit together again
into something useful and beautiful.
The unravelling is not fun.
It is a lot of work to unbind and knit together.
But it is worth it.
The wilderness is a crisis of opportunity.
The material is still very good.
God is enough. God is enough.
Another temptation for Christians is
to look to some kind of saviour
who will save the church,
some kind of saviour
who will make the church relevant,
as opposed to trusting the Saviour of the world,
Jesus Christ,
who has already saved the church.
The world is changing,
The culture is changing
and it did not think to ask the church’s permission.
It is a crisis of opportunity.
The material is still good.
You could say that the Christian church
is in the wilderness… and we need to be there.
What happens in the wilderness?
Temptation, yes.
Like Jesus,
we might be tempted to find quick ways
to satisfy our hunger,
only to be hungry again.
Like Jesus,
we might be tempted to test God,
to force Got to prove how necessary we are.
We are not necessary,
we are chosen,
and we are cherished.
Like Jesus,
we might be tempted to give into a little evil,
to soften our morals,
to allow a little corruption
in order to attain our goals quicker,
only to realize that there is no place
for the liar, the tempter, the accuser
in the kingdom of heaven.
So what else can happen in the wilderness?
Trust in God happens in the wilderness.
Transformation happens in the wilderness.
We cannot save ourselves in the wilderness,
so we trust in the God who saves.
After the wilderness,
Jesus is ready for ministry.
After the wilderness,
the disciples of Jesus are invited to take up their cross
and follow.
For those who are in the wilderness,
in the dark valley,
for those who are unravelling,
trust that God is at work in the valley,
that as painful as the unravelling is,
God is not done with the material.
God is not done with you.
The church finds herself in the wilderness,
facing temptation,
and maybe this wilderness is preparing us
to be the church,
not necessarily how we’ve done it,
but how God wills it.
God is not finished with the church.
My question to you, those who love the Church;
are we in love with the mission or the model?
Do we love God’s mission,
or do we love the model of church we’ve known?
Are we in love with the mission of the church,
or the mission of God?
Because they are sometimes different.
Are we in love with the old blanket that is unravelling,
or are we ready for God to knit together
something new,
something useful,
something beautiful
with the material?
Like it or not, the church that we love
is the church in the wilderness,
and the whole point of the wilderness
is to prepare for what awaits
on the other side.
I believe that God is out ahead of us in the world,
that God is up to something.
God’s mission is the redemption and reconciliation
of the whole world,
of all creation,
of all people.
And if God is out ahead of us in the world,
if God is out ahead of us in our neighbourhoods,
then you can bet the farm that
God is out ahead of us inside the church too.
Amidst the unravelling,
I believe God is knitting together
something useful and beautiful
for the good of the world.
We are invited, this Lent,
to practice discipleship,
to practice listening to Jesus
to practice ways of following Jesus,
to repent - to return to the Lord.
As we seek to grow in discipleship,
as we examine ourselves,
for what tempts us,
for the sin that hold us,
as we pray and fast,
as we give sacrificially,
as we love,
radically and unconditionally,
I believe we can experience the life-saving Gospel.
In the wilderness, Jesus focuses on God.
Jesus prays.
Jesus fasts.
Jesus focuses on God’s Word;
and not the manipulative,
out-of-context bible reading
that the tempter offers.
Jesus focused on the God of scripture who is enough.
In our wilderness,
God is enough. God is enough.
May we be honest with ourselves,
admitting to that which tempts us,
and trust in God to satisfy.
May God be with us in our wilderness
to prepare us for what awaits on the other side.
May we hand our unravelling blanket to God,
trusting that God will knit it back together
into something useful and beautiful.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
