Gospel: Matthew 4:1-11

Sermon

Lent IYear A

13/3/11

Booval

Readings

OT:Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7

Psalm: Psalm 32: 1-12

NT: Romans 5:12-21

Gospel: Matthew 4:1-11

+FSHS

We're going on a bear hunt,
We're gonna catch a big one,
What a beautiful day,
We're not scared.
Oh ,oh!
Grass,
Long, wavy, grass.
We can't go over it,
We can't go under it,
We've gotta go throught it!
Swishy swashy, swishy swashy.

We're going on a bear hunt,
We're gonna catch a big one,
What a beautiful day,
We're not scared.
Oh ,oh!
Mud,
Thick, oozy mud.
We can't go over it,
We can't go under it,
We've gotta go throught it!
Squelch squelch, squelch squelch

As with this children’s song, some things in life we can't avoid... Can't go over it, under it, but have to go through it. Choice - to turn away, or to face our fears and shadows and head into the wilderness.

Today being the first Sunday in Lent we face the shadows and head into the wilderness with Jesus. Our gospel reading tells the story of how Jesus heads into the wilderness, there to face his own shadows. The questions about his deepest identity as Son of God. Jesus has just been baptised by John in the Jordan river. When he was baptised, as he came up out of the water he saw the Spirit like a dove descending on him and a voice from heaven declaring "You are my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased." And so he is driven by the same Spirit into the wilderness to wrestle with what this identity meant, to face the shadows.

Why shadows? The three temptations he faces after forty days and nights of fasting are all about his identity. "IF you are the Son of God," "If YOU are the Son of God," "If you ARE the Son of God," the devil says from the shadows, use your power to feed yourself. Use your identity to test out whether God is worthy of your trust. And the last temptation, "Here's a shortcut to glory, Jesus. You've got the power to lord it over all the nations right now - just say the word." Let's think about this for a moment. Jesus is facing shadows which impinge on his identity. He, the Son of God, is tempted to be other than himself, other than God. That's a huge risk: God risking God's own identity in the midst of human weakness. "Who are you? Are you really God's Son? What does that mean, anyway?" says the voice from the shadows.

Jesus clings to his identity through all of this. He shows what it is to be God's Son, God. He puts his trust, using quotes from scripture like a well-trained rabbi, in God's provision. He refuses to test his Father's faithfulness by throwing himself off the temple. And as for glory... Well, for Jesus to jump up and demand the worship of the nations would have been to set himself up in opposition to the God who willed the incarnation. The same God whose way of operating is usually to choose the inconspicuous, the poor and weak. If Jesus had succumbed to the temptation to take control immediately as Lord of all, he would be a tyrant, unable truly to empathise with those he was sent to save: the poor, lame, blind, sick, etc. In the wilderness, facing his shadows, Jesus grasped that the kingdom of God is about faith lived in obedience and trust in God. This is his true identity. In accepting this, Jesus accepted the consequences: that there are no shortcuts, couldn't go over it, couldn't go under it, but that he had to go through it. And what he had to go through in order to redeem the world and everything in it, was death. There is no resurrection without facing death, just as there is no peace within until we have died to ourselves, and faced our fears and shadows.

The wilderness of Lent gives us an opportunity to do exactly this: to face the shadows that question who we are, our identity as Jesus' disciples. Some of those shadows are the things we have done wrong which weigh us down and dog our steps. Some of those shadows are like those that Jesus faced: the temptation to doubt God's provision, the temptation to test God's faithfulness, the temptation to take the easiest possible road and avoid pain and conflict. As Jesus' disciples, following his steps, we also learn that we can't go over it, we can't go under it, but we have to go through it. The path to healing sometimes lies through the pain. Conflict can only be resolved by facing it head on and resolving it. The darkness in ourselves, anger, mental distress, the things we've done wrong, whatever - will continue to distort our worlds unless we face the shadows and deal with or walk through them. There is no glory and resurrection without first facing the darkness in ourselves, in others, in our church, in our world.

Just as Jesus faced the shadows, and we also face the shadows as individuals, so also the church is often it seems swamped with the clamour of voices from the shadows, tempting it to be other than what it is. We are the body of Christ, and so the body of Christ is tempted to despair - to think that God has abandoned it. One of the temptations we face is failure to trust God's faithfulness - we're too tired, we're too old, we're too few, we've too little money, we're not relevant to young people. Do we really think God doesn't see things for what they are? Do we really think God is going to let the church die? Well, if we listen to the voices from the shadows we will cease to be who we are. We could choose to do that. We could choose to focus inward and shrivel up in the shadows. If we make that choice, God will still not have abandoned us - for there is nowhere God is not. But we will have abandoned ourselves and our own identity.

Our choice must be to trust the God who calls us to be Jesus' disciples, sons and daughters, and to be faithful. This choice is a costly choice, because it means passing through pain, conflict, facing the problems, change and possibly even death. It is the choice, though, that Jesus made, and we therefore do not make it alone. Following his example, our choice must be to trust God's provision - God will give us what we need, and to trust God's faithfulness - for God will not abandon us, and to choose the better albeit harder path of being faithful and obedient to God's calling... Like Jesus, we become ourselves in relationship with God; it is God who gives us our identity, and declares us loved, forgiven children of God, disciples of Jesus.

So this Lent we go into the wilderness - gotta go through it - with Jesus, to face some of our shadows which question who we are. Whether that's sin, the things we have done which hurt us, hurt others, hurt God, or doubts about God's love, provision and faithfulness for us. We have 40 days to reflect, to turn again to God and seek help to hold on with both hands to our identity as Jesus' disciples, God's chosen beloved ones. Traditional ways of doing this have been through fasting, or giving something up, or taking on a new discipline or making a resolution, or making amends with someone we've hurt, or facing up to the truth about some aspect of our lives.

Some of the ways we mark this is through: church decoration, the use of the Great Litany. Ashes of Ash Wednesday. All these things are to remind us of our identity - to remind us to face the shadows, and turn again to be God's beloved sons and daughters, Jesus' disciples.

The Lord be with you

And also with you.

We're Going on a Bear Hunt

(children repeat each line after adult)

We're going on a bear hunt,
We're gonna catch a big one,
What a beautiful day,
We're not scared.
Oh ,oh!
A river,
A deep, cold river.
We can't go over it,
We can't go under it,
We've gotta go throught it!
Splish splosh, splish splosh.

We're going on a bear hunt,
We're gonna catch a big one,
What a beautiful day,
We're not scared.
Oh ,oh!
A forest,
A big, dark forest.
We can't go over it,
We can't go under it,
We've gotta go throught it!
Stumble trip, stumble trip.

We're going on a bear hunt,
We're gonna catch a big one,
What a beautiful day,
We're not scared.
Oh ,oh!
A cave,
A scary, dark cave.
We can't go over it,
We can't go under it,
We've gotta go throught it!
Tiptoe, tiptoe.

(say the following verse all together and quickly)
OH NO IT'S A BEAR!!!
Quick!
Through the cave, tiptoe, tiptoe,
Through the forest, stumble trip, stumble trip,
Through the river, splish splosh, splish spolosh,
Through the mud, squelch squelch, squelch squelch,
Through the grass, swishy swashy, swishy swashy.
Run to the house, run up the stairs,
Oh oh forgot to shut the door!
Run back downstairs, shut the door,
Run back up, to the bedroom,
Jump into bed, pull up the covers,
WE ARE NEVER GOING ON A BEAR HUNT AGAIN!!