Sunday 10th February 2008 – First Sunday in Lent

As you can imagine, I’ve been preparing this sermon for some time. I have to admit that it was already ‘in the can’ when all of a sudden, our church – or the temporal leader of our church, Archbishop Rowan, hit the front page of our newspapers – indeed he’s been on page 1 for several days in some papers, and he is again today, I understand. I would be a poor preacher if I didn’t mention it.

I won’t try to comment in detail: I would say, however, that it seems that few of the people who have got so hot under the collar seem to have actually read what Archbishop Rowan had to say.

If you do, you’ll find that he didn’t advocate the replacement of the English legal system by Sharia law. What he did do was to produce a learned and thoughtful analysis of the issues which arise when people have strong religious views which cover the same area as the secular law of the land.

It is the same point which has arisen when Catholic doctors refuse to perform abortions which would be perfectly lawful. As I said, I’m not going to give you a second, bonus, sermon about it: but what I have done is to bring with me a few copies of Dr Williams’ paper, which runs to 7½ closely-typed pages of A4, and if anyone is interested, please take a copy as you leave, and read it.

You’ll find it much more stimulating than the front page of most of the newspapers this week.

Now I go on to the bit which I prepared earlier.

I’m not going to speak today about giving up chocolate! [Waves large chocolate bar] Since Wednesday – which was Ash Wednesday – we have been in Lent. And indeed I am going to talk about giving something up – but I hope that, this year, Lent will be a bit more serious for you than just giving up chocolate.

Whether you are Moslem, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, or Christian, you all believe in God, in a divine power; all-powerful, all-knowing, the creator and sustainer of all known life. But as Christians we go a stage further.

The difference for us is the story of Jesus, and the way it has seized us, confronted us, and changed our lives; this is the reason why we’re Christians. The season of Lent leads up to this supreme defining moment, the amazing story of God’s sacrifice, the story of Easter. ‘God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, to the end that all that believe in him should not perish, but have everlasting life’.

The beginning, our first reading today, was the story of the Fall, of Adam and Eve. It is a story of temptation. Eve was tempted to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, by the serpent, which ‘was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made’. It wasn’t that Adam and Eve were particularly weak. Temptation was too strong, and they succumbed.

By the way, I’m not going to get involved with questions whether Adam and Eve really existed, and if so when and where this encounter took place. You don’t need to take something literally in order to take it seriously.

The Adam and Eve story is about ordinary human beings, getting to know the difference between right and wrong, and becoming mortal, no longer living in blissful ignorance.

It may be no more than a picturesque way of telling how this came about – but we do know the difference between right and wrong, and still go on doing wrong - and we will all die at some time.

Then we look at what St Matthew, in today’s gospel reading, tells us about how Jesus coped with temptation. Of course Jesus did a much better job than Adam and Eve.

He was taken out into the wilderness – into the desert – by the Holy Spirit, for the express purpose of being ‘tempted by the devil’. I’m not sure we would recognise the devil today. Pictures of nasty-looking creatures with horns are a bit fanciful, aren’t they?

But again, if we look at St Matthew’s story, just because we may not take some parts of it literally, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t mean anything. Jesus did face serious temptations. He was tested. How was he going to undertake his mission? Was he going to be like Superman, leaping off the top of tall buildings? ‘If you are the Son of God …’ was the taunt.

The first test, the first temptation, was very tough indeed. Jesus had fasted – and I’m getting nearer to the chocolate, but this isn’t it – for 40 days and 40 nights. Even in a biblical world where people often fasted, this is one of only three 40-day fasts mentioned in the whole Bible.

After 40 days’ fasting, as it says, ‘… he was famished’. Actually after 40 days, medically Jesus would have been well into the so-called ‘starvation phase’ where the body starts to feed on itself. Jesus was 2/3 of the way to starving himself to death.

The temptation to say the word, and turn the stones into bread, must have been overwhelming.

But he didn’t. He resisted the temptation.

He said, ‘It is written, “Man shall not live by bread alone,”’ which is a quotation from the Old Testament, from Deuteronomy 8:3. The gospel account links back to the Old Testament teaching about the Messiah. Jesus speaks the words which in Deuteronomy had been said by God himself.

As well as looking back to show how he was the Messiah, as had been forecast in the Old Testament, in his reaction to these temptations Jesus clearly looked forward to the rest of his mission.

So, when he was challenged to jump off the top of the temple, and the devil said that angels would rescue him, he rejected help from said angels.

His answer, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test’, is like what he went on to say just after he had been betrayed by Judas, and someone had cut off the ear of the high priest’s slave.

Jesus said then, just before his Passion, ‘Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than 12 legions of angels? But how then would the scriptures be fulfilled, which say that it must happen in this way?’

St Paul encapsulates the significance of all this in today’s passage from his letter to the Romans. On the one hand, in the Fall, Adam, the archetypal human, by a single mistake, has ruined the whole of humanity; on the other Jesus, the son of God, has given a ‘free gift’ of himself, despite our having done nothing to deserve it; ‘one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all.’

Just how this happened, how we got from the Fall to Jesus’ ultimate gift, and what it means today, is what we should be concentrating on during this Lent period of reflection and prayer. We should be preparing for the great events of Easter by following Jesus through the challenges of the forty days and forty nights.

Bishop Christopher has suggested a way in which we can do it. He has issued a Lent Call. It came too late for the 200th edition of our Family magazine, which we’re celebrating after this service, to have as a stop-press item, but you can get copies of his hand-out at the door on your way out after the service.

But this is what Bishop Christopher says. ‘In 2008, my Lent Call takes a radical new form. It is not to be a purely monetary appeal.’

‘I am calling on the people of our churches during the season of Lent to pray, to fast, and to give.’

‘In this biblical way, we will try to come close to Jesus for the forty days in the wilderness and close to the suffering world for which he died on the first Good Friday.’

‘I am asking everyone to pray each day for closer communion with Jesus Christ as he looks with compassion on our broken world.’

‘I am inviting everyone to fast – an important emphasis in the New Testament – by giving up one meal a week, and to give what they save to international and local Christian outreach.’

It reminds me of a very good idea which the then Lord Mayor of London had when I was first working in the City. He called it ‘The Absent Guest’ scheme. The idea was that when you went out for a business lunch, you would book an extra place at the table, (or at least imagine that there was another person there) and pay to the Mayor’s charity the price you would have paid if you had had that other guest.

So let’s try to respond to Bishop Christopher’s Call. As well as praying to get closer to Christ, give up a meal a week, and give the price of it to a charity or to St Andrew’s. You can of course give up chocolate as well.

Amen.

Hugh Bryant