Sunday 25th February 2007LENT 1
Fr Julian Browning
Deuteronomy 26 : 1 – 11 ; Romans 10 : 8b – 13 ; Luke 4 : 1 - 13
The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart. Romans 10.10
....joy and sorrow are the opposite of a stony heart.
All over England at this moment clergy are encouraging their flocks
to have a different Lent, a not giving up Lent, a being positive Lent,
welcome to the Love Life Live Lent website, where we are told to try
wearing a jumper indoors with the heating turned down. But why not have
a sorrowful, reflective Lent? Or a downright miserable Lent? In the
story of Christ, sorrow and joy are similar emotions. Laughter and
tears go together. We are free to suffer, indeed we need to suffer as
well as to rejoice. We are free to give up our life as well as to
embrace it. That is the Cross at the end of our Lenten journey. Joy is
not the opposite of sorrow. Rather joy and sorrow are the opposite of a
stony heart.
Lent brings us back to basics like that. Not to the easy stuff, but to
the bedrock of our faith, what is essential. We will find that the
Sunday readings in Lent force us to reflect on what is going to matter
in our life. What we say, what St.Paul says, that Jesus is Lord, are
not theories. They go with the real world, the all too real wilderness
of this world, where the innocent suffer and the guilty go unpunished.
Let's get closer, it's a world where we make others suffer, and where
we hope we go unpunished. A feel good religion isn't much use for that;
we need a religion for all seasons. Lent is a time in the wilderness
for Jesus, and it is a time in the wilderness for us as well. Jesus
lived in the wilderness not just to show off his strength against the
devil, but because a wilderness is often where human beings live. But
it's a good place to be. The wilderness, that barren place, is not
God-forsaken. It turns out to be the place of wisdom, a place of deep
seeing, just as in open countryside you can see further than in the
town. It is God who leads Jesus into this wilderness, this period of
trial, not the devil. The Spirit drives Jesus into the wilderness to be
tempted by Satan – because that is where he's going to find us.
That is where we live. You must know the marvellous anthem by
S.S.Wesley, The Wilderness. From Isaiah 35. The Wilderness and the
solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice,
and blossom as the rose. The wilderness, our Lenten time, is the place
of opportunity and growth and blossoming, it is where God comes to meet
us. And a highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called the
way of holiness.
But sure enough, there in the wilderness is the devil, tempting Jesus.
The temptations are all about the same thing, power and freedom and
their misuse. If you're the Son of God, then you can do this. Now hang
on, isn't this exactly what we say to God all the time? If you're God,
if there is a God, why not do this for me or for others, and I will
give you my kingdom, all I have will be yours. We do it all the time.
We put the son of God to the test. Jesus reminds us of Deuteronomy,
bits of which we heard this morning, You shall not tempt the Lord your
God. Power. That's what most sin is about, having our own way, and not
letting anybody or anything get in the way of that.
Repentance, penitence, penance. Make it simple. It's all about
conversion, a return, a conversion to God with all our heart. Then we
are free to do something useful with our lives. When our world
produces questions and no clear answers, as in the case of continuous
warfare, then we as Christians can show the world how God deals with
pain and suffering. He suffers too, he dies too. For Jews demand signs
and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified. But we
start with repentance, a new heart within us. Repentance is turning
again, being penitent means saying sorry and meaning it, but in the New
Testament it always means more than that. It means more than just
changing your mind. Repentance means conversion, the reorientation of
your heart and mind. Jesus says, unless you repent, you will all perish
as they did. To perish, in New Testament, means not to know eternal
life, never to return home to a loving God. This return home to God is
called repentance. Sin and penitence need not be a gloomy
subject. It's the start of the journey home.
The exciting part is that the devil hasn't gone away. He left Jesus for
a season, or as the RSV say, 'until an opportune time'. I like that;
the devil is great opportunist. He's such a showman. His timing is
perfect. The world, the flesh and the devil make a terrrific team. The
devil has all the best tunes, but one commandment drowns them all. Thou
shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. As
today's first reading tells us, that God has brought us out of
slavery, and given us a land, an inheritance to possess. It isn't the
kingdoms of the world, displayed by that carpet salesman, the devil.
The land God gives us is our wilderness, with its way of holiness. Here
in the wilderness we shall understand what we have to do. Here in our
wilderness we shall hear the call of Christ. Then we can follow him.
Then we can find him among those who suffer, suffering with them,
because there is now no distance between us. Then we can go with him to
Calvary, and die with him this year on Good Friday. And follow him
through death to eternal life.