Sermon for
First Sunday in Lent 2012
Genesis
9:8-17
Psalm 25
1 Peter
3:13-22
Matthew
4:1-11
Through Lent as the Body of Christ
“Man does not live by bread alone,
but
by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God”
As I
sincerely hope you’ve noticed, we have re-introduced the Psalm into our morning
worship. [Funnily enough, given what I’m about to say, I began by typing out ‘I
have re-introduced the Psalm . . .’ J] The Psalms have been the root
prayers of the people of God down through three thousand years. They are
prayers that are well tested as sources of comfort and hope, as well as giving
us space to vent our spleen before God should we need to do so. And there is
only one safe place to vent our spleen!
On the whole,
those of us who like myself grew up within the Anglican church and perhaps had
little by the way of Private piety would have come across the Psalms in public
worship and may well have thought that that was where they belonged – but in
truth the Psalms have been used every bit as much in private devotion over the
centuries, and indeed they generally read best in that regard. However, there
is a small group of Psalms written precisely to be said together. You may have
noticed them in your Bible, psalms 120-134 – they are called ‘The Psalms of
Ascent’. They were the sequence of Psalms traditionally said in sequence as the
Jewish people went on Pilgrimage up to the Temple in Jerusalem on Mount Zion.
I wonder if
we have the imaginative capacity to find ourselves in the scene – a group of people
– going up together on this journey, three times a year, chanting these old
songs of faith. A Powerful communal practise.
I want now
while we hold that picture to imagine something else. Last Sunday evening, the
last before Lent in many many churches something happened which I guess none of
us here have experienced in our church life. As part of the liturgy everyone in
church went to every other person and asks them for forgiveness for any wrong
they have done them. Why do these Christians do this? Well we might say,
‘because it is good to forgive and be forgiven’ and that is very true – yet it
is not something which we have practiced in our tradition, perhaps ever.
Actually these Christians do this as preparation for Lent. They are Christians
of the Orthodox or Eastern tradition of the church, comprising at least 1/3 of
all the Christian in the world today.
I will return
to the Orthodox Lent in a little while, but for now just sit for a moment or
two with those two images – the community of believers going up to the Temple
and chanting the Psalms and The Orthodox believers creating absolute mayhem I
guess as they all make the effort to seek out everyone else to seek
forgiveness. What a way to go to church, what a way to start Lent.
What both
epitomize, is a Truth that many many Christians in the Western tradition have
lost – that the Life of faith is Primarily something we do together. Last week when I described the idea
of Covenant I took us back to one of the older covenants – where God in
Covenant Love takes hold of the people of Israel in slavery in Egypt, the whole
people – All of them. Our reading from Genesis speaks also of God’s covenant,
this time with the whole earth “When the bow is in the
clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and
every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” Taking hold of Israel is awe inspiring,
but the rainbow was given as a sign that God in Covenant Love took hold of All
Creation. (btw I know that some folk would like me perhaps at some stage to
preach on Creation and matters to do with the Environment and I shall do so –
but for now I want to build some theological foundations as most sermonizing o
these topics has little to do with the faith as revealed thru the prophets, Scriptures
and Apostles). God takes hold of all creation.
The
writer to the Colossians says of Christ, in Him all things hold together - people pilgrimaging together chanting Psalms – people going
to everyone else to seek forgiveness – all things holding TOGETHER in Christ.
All of these are ringing Rebukes not to the rampant individualism of the world,
but of the rampant individualism of faith in the Western Church – For The
Church, the faithful people of God are called to reveal AMONGST themselves, the
truth of the penultimate Psalm of Ascents, just Before they reach the
Temple , How good and
pleasant it is when God’s people live together in Unity.
It is the Common
life of the people of God which is given as a light to the nations- YOU says Jesus are the Light of the
world. And here we hit a difficulty for us, for in the English language, we
cannot tell the difference between you and you, that’s not You and You, but you
(singular) and you (Plural). Christ addresses his Disciples YOU are the light
of the world. And it is re-inforced in other ways – Some of you May have
flinched a little when I deliberately used non-inclusive language in the
reading from the gospel. I very much understand what is at stake here, but
unfortunately we can miss something important – there is a Very Significant
difference between “Man does not live by bread alone” and “One does not live by
bread alone” The former moves us towards a hearing that is corporate – the
latter moves us Strongly towards a hearing that is individual. God spoke these
words through Moses Remember the long way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness,
in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether or
not you would keep his commandments. 3He humbled you by letting you
hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your
ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not
live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. God Leading his people 40 years in the
wilderness to teach them Faith. He took Everything away – Quite literally,
apart from the clothes on their back and the shoes on their feet – he taught them Faith. This was a lesson of faith,
for the People, not individuals. The Life of faith is Primarily something we
do together
And Now in
Lent, the Lesson is the same – Learning faith is the point of Lent for
the people of God
as it was for Jesus in the desert. God takes his people into the wilderness for
forty years, he takes Us into Lent for 40 days each year. Only One does he take
alone – Matthew tells us Jesus was Led by the Spirit into the wilderness to
test him, to tempt him. Henri Nouwen puts it well when he says that Jesus is
tempted to be relevant, spectacular and powerful “Feed yourself!!” ‘feed the
world, everyone will believe in you then – yet he feeds them and as John
records they started to desert him – Do something Spectacular!! – Throw
yourself down from the temple. They’ll all believe in you then – but he did not
even throw himself down from the Cross – Or tempting him with Power - Worship
me and I will give you all the power you need.
We live in an
age when most of the western church has either disappeared or succumbed to the
devils blandishments – it chases after relevance – We Must be relevant to
people’s lives and so to some it seems we are like the leader of the French
revolution sat at the sidewalk café as the mob rushes by who cries – there are
my people! I must follow them!! Or we must be spectacular – building mega
churches, having the best technological tools, - Or we must be powerful – well
by and large that one has expired J but it supposedly served the church
well for over a thousand years and thus remains a deadly addiction should any
opportunity arise – secretly we long for the church to be powerful again and
seek ways to make it look so.
But Jesus rebukes The Satan with regard to these
temptations, and what strikes me is this – he does not suggest another way – he
never says, I’m not going to do it that way, I’m going to do it this – because
the way of Jesus is simply Naked faith in God – this is what the Spirit leads
him into the wilderness to learn as it had led the people of Israel into the
desert for 40 years. So
he fasts that he Might Learn it really Is True – man does not live by bread
alone. Jesus discovers this truth in the Wilderness – Truth Laid bare.
Even the Son
of God must learn FAITH and it takes him 40 days – it took Israel 40 years and
even then they forgot.40 days for Jesus, 40 years for Israel. How easily we say, “I have faith”. Yet can I go
without food for even a day? Can I sell even a tenth of my possessions and give
to the poor? Can I lose a tenth of my dignity and associate with the outcasts
of society and be known as their friends? Can I turn from the demands of the
world – in trust that the world will continue to turn, and spend one brief hour
a day in prayer? Oh how many many books are printed now to tell us how to get
along on ten minutes a day because we are SO busy. But we are busy because we
have little faith.
40 days – 40
days of Lent. And we look at Lent and wonder how it can help and often we do
little about it - I mean we are
very well accustomed to perhaps having shared study, but that is pretty much it
– we may as Individuals come up with bright ideas. How can I sustain something
for 40 days, and what is more as Jesus tells us to, without looking miserable
about it? Yet The Church into which we are all baptized has told us what to do
in Lent – Pray, Fast and Give Alms – common practices, meant to be done
together.
I said I was
going to come back to the Orthodox Church. We left them last Sunday evening –
gathered together for the Vespers of Forgiveness – going round forgiving and
asking for forgiveness from everyone else. Imagine that as a Start to Lent. I
have said a little in the week about a Joyful Lent and Lent in the orthodox
church is Very joyful – BUT we might look at it and wonder – How can they be
joyful when they do THAT!! Here for example is the prayer book they use in Lent
– All 700 pages as the services for Every Day are set out (without all the
Psalms by the way which they recite in their entirety twice a week :) ) – and then there is the fasting –
this begins two weeks before Lent with a prohibition on any meat – then the
Sunday before all dairy products are ruled out. In the first week – ONLY TWO
MEALS, one on Wednesday and one on Friday – after that it is eased and there so
you can have one uncooked meal a day J And I could go on (by the way as is
the rule with all Fasting - NEVER
ON A SUNDAY!! Sunday is the day of New Creation, not the old :) ) Well we might ask, how can this be
Joyful????
And the
answer – because they are all in it together – praying regularly together,
encouraging one another each day – they go about it Cheerfully – which is a
Good Biblical Word :) Lent is Hard, if not impossible Alone – but
Together it can be a journey of Joy
Through Lent
as the Body of Christ. This is the title for this sermon. And so may I encourage us to recapture some of that sense of being a community of faith, sharing in
faith, growing in faith, together this Lent. You may wish to come to a Lent
course – we shall be exploring this theme of Life together through the
Practices of faith and I hope that we shall learn far more than I have prepared
through sharing our Lenten journey together.
But if you
cannot make it, then there is still one thing we could Easily all do together
which the Orthodox do. Every week the focus of worship is the Gospel for the
coming Sunday. On your news sheet is the Gospel for next week – Let us do this
one thing together – each day in preparation for next Sunday, let us read the
Gospel – for this is the message of Life, for us all as the Body of Christ
here. We go through Lent that we might better know Easter Joy – we go through
Lent because All of Life is a preparation for Resurrection Life – and know it in our midst, together.
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