1st Sunday of Lent

By Rev. Nick Walters

1st March 2020

In the name…

They never stood a chance:
A young couple, having led nothing but a sheltered life
They’ve known only bliss and a loving guardian to make sure that bliss continues
They’ve never wanted for anything, they’ve never had to think about anything…
Until now.
We know that privilege can bring innocence, and with innocence, naivety, and with naivety, danger.
If that’s true, then Adam and Eve are the most naïve two people ever to walk the earth. And behold the danger they meet:
The serpent. The serpent is everything Adam and Eve are not.
Where they have only known comfort, he has spent a lifetime looking up in envy
Where they have had a loving parent in God, he has gone his own way. He is alone.
Where they have never had a dilemma, he has only known scheming for his own ends.

I look at things in this light and think to myself, God must have known things were going to go wrong – spectacularly wrong.
No way was Eve ever going to withstand the serpent’s entreaties.
No way was she or Adam ever going to resist that apple.
And in light of this, isn’t it all the more shocking that God allows this to happen?
In other words, isn’t it all the more shocking that we have so much freedom.
We could almost say, humanity and freedom are synonyms for each other.

If we look at today’s world, it’s all too clear to see how humans exploit that freedom for dark purposes. Money, power and greed often seem to be the guiding rules for many.
And it’s not just a problem with people in positions of power. Our planet faces an unprecedented crisis. Our children’s futures appear all the more bleak.
Society feels more polarised than in many living memories.
Extreme voices around the globe sound louder now than since the 1940s.

In face of all this – easy to feel powerless, without hope.
Tempting to look after our own interests, and pray the rest might disappear.
How often have we heard the phrase, ‘I just want it all to go away’?

Well I’m afraid today is not a day for cheap comfort. Because that’s not what Jesus does or say in our Gospel.
Let’s begin by pointing out what we might easily miss. He’s famished. He’s been in the desert fasting, and for a long time.
This is not a man with many creature comforts.
And at his most vulnerable, he’s confronted by the serpent once more, the figure of darkness we meet in Genesis.
And like in Genesis, Jesus is challenged, he’s tempted 3 times.
If you’re so great, then prove yourself; if that God is so great, then prove him; I’m so great, believe in me.
But Jesus’s answer No couldn’t be clearer.
Jesus doesn’t just wait for it all to go away, he doesn’t bury his head in the sand.
He stands up and he chooses. He chooses to trust.
He trusts in God, in the goodness of others, and in himself.

 What does this mean for us?
Let’s be frank: we’ve all faced temptation, and we still face temptation.
We face temptation every day.
Sometimes we have the resilience of Jesus; sometimes we have the naivety of Adam and Eve.

Meanwhile, Scripture can offer little comfort:
The very story of Adam and Eve is probably a myth – so what truth remains?
The writings of Paul are so confident that he can come across as one of the most arrogant apostles the world has ever known;
And Jesus – well, he’s Jesus!

Meanwhile, what of us?
We are real, we’re not a myth
We often struggle with doubt, we’re hardly St Paul
And we’re imperfect, we’re not Jesus.

But we are something: we are our own people.
We are individuals, we are our families, we are a community.
We have choice. We always have choice.

Lent is often a described as a season of ‘self-examination’, of ‘penitence, of ‘preparation’.
Personally, I find those words difficult to understand, a bit churchy.
So today let’s be frank, because Lent is the time of year to be frank. 

I think Lent is a season of choices. A time of year when we ask ourselves, what is really important in my life? Why?
What choices do I make to bring those things to the foreground?
What choices do I make to put them in the background?
When do I celebrate what’s important; when do I put them in danger?

Earlier this week on Ash Wednesday we were ashed on our foreheads. We make the sign of the cross, and remind ourselves that we’re dust.
To be clear: Lent isn’t a season of self-humiliation, of mistaking that we are nothing, nor that we are powerless.
It’s a season when we remember that we are human. That we have choices. We have those choices not in spite of the fact that we are loved, but because we are loved.
We make the sign of the cross, because it’s the best sign of love that we know.

So, this season, remember you’re human.
Remember you have a choice.
And never forget how deeply you’re loved.