St Andrews Ealing, 1st Sunday of Lent March 9th, 2025 Sermon given by Revd Dr Elizabeth Welch
Theme: Walking in the Wilderness
Readings:
Deuteronomy 26: 1-11; Psalm 91: 1,2, 9-end
Romans 10: 8b – 13; Luke 4: 1 – 13
Introduction
Today is the first Sunday in Lent. Lent is a key time leading up to what lies at the heart of our faith, walking the way with Jesus to the cross and the resurrection.
It’s a time when we remember Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness and his wrestling with temptation.
In our urban age, the wilderness can feel very different from then. Wilderness can be places where we feel isolated, or times when we feel in despair.
At present, I’m very aware that we’re in a wilderness time when it comes to so many world events. What will happen next with regard to Ukraine and Russia, Israel and Gaza, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda? How come the political leaders in the USA have moved so far away from a Christian vision of peace and negotiation?
This season comes as a reminder that, as Jesus was able to enter the wilderness and be tempted and stay faithful to the end of his time there, so too we can endure.
The wilderness was a time of testing of who Jesus was and what his faith was. So, it’s helpful for us to test who we are and what our faith is.
Lent is a time for renewal and self-examination, focussing on where we are with God and what God is looking to from us.
It’s a time for us each to reflect on ‘where is the wilderness for me?’ And ‘what am I giving up for Lent, so that I may come closer to God?’
Sermon
Lent is a time of remembering – of what Jesus went through and of what the Jewish people went through. Remembering isn’t about just about re-visiting the past, it’s the starting point for deepening our spiritual lives, and living more fully as God calls us in the present.
One of the commentators writes: ‘the basic assumption is that the memory of the community of faith not only allows each generation of God’s people to relive God’s great deeds of redemption of the past, but opens them up to God’s continuing activity in their own lives.’
What is offered here is a contrast to much of today’s world, in which there’s an emphasis on living in the present moment, and saying that that’s sufficient, and we don’t need to remember the past.
When we look to Ukraine and Russia, or Israel and Gaza, it’s as if we’ve forgotten about the anguish of war and that working for peace across the world is a huge undertaking that needs to happen day by day, and be generously supported by the nations which aren’t actively involved in these wars.
The reading from Deuteronomy takes us back to what was a classic statement by the Jewish people.
It’s the story of their history and the way God had led them over the years. It reminds them of their own journey. They are invited when they come to worship to make a response before God, beginning with the words: ‘a wandering Aramean was my ancestor.’ These words would trigger off the verses that follow, verses which summarise in just a few words the whole picture of the way in which God has been with the Israelite people:
- during their suffering in Egypt
- in their liberation from suffering,
- when they wandered for forty years in the wilderness,
- and then at the brink of the Promised Land.
The story of this journey is told, not just to remind the Jewish people of the past, but, in order that, through the memories of all the ups and downs, they may encounter God again in the present.
The journey into the wilderness is not one Jesus chose. It’s one he was led into – by the Holy Spirit. In Mark’s Gospel, it even says that he was driven into the wilderness, not by some whim or fancy – wanting to spend a few days away from it all, but by the Holy Spirit.
For Jesus, it was a journey of testing – what did it mean to be the Son of God? He experiences three temptations.
These temptations are well known. They lead us into seeing who Jesus is for us, and help us to enter into our own time of self-examination as we look at the ways in which we and our world are tempted.
There’s a particular thread which runs through the temptations – the thread of power.
Each temptation opens up a different aspect of power and the way in which power can be used or misused. And in opening up different aspects of power, the temptations point us both to our inner struggles with power and take us to the kind of God in whom we can place our trust.
There are three temptations we’ll be looking at this morning.
The first temptation is about bread. The devil says to Jesus ‘turn this stone to bread’.
Jesus was hungry, after fasting for forty days. There would have been a real temptation to feed himself. But the temptation was wider than this. Why not feed the world? Wouldn’t it have been an instant success story if Jesus had been able to provide bread for everybody at the drop of a hat? Doesn’t God want people to be fed?
We see here the invidious nature of temptations. We can be tempted by those things which would seem to have a good outcome. Wouldn’t it be great if we could feed the world, just like that?
Jesus’ response is both about his own self and about the life he’s bringing for the world. Bread wouldn’t be sufficient to feed the whole of him. Feeding is about body and mind and spirit, not just one of these.
If he were only to offer the world bread, and not the nourishment of the spirit, he would be buying into a materialist agenda which ends up making us all consumers rather than persons.
Being offered bread, and offering bread to others, is essential, but it’s only part of the story. God engages the whole person, not just part of the person. Jesus quotes the Hebrew Scriptures ‘One does not live by bread alone’.
The second temptation is even more clearly about power – power over the nations of the world. Jesus could have thought – isn’t this what I’ve come for? If at a stroke, the nations are mine, I won’t need to do any more. But there was a condition – that for this to happen, Jesus would worship the devil.
The cost of this route would be the taking away of the nations from God and condemning them to a life of darkness and evil.
Jesus’ response again comes from Deuteronomy ‘worship the Lord your God and serve only him.’
The challenge is both personal and political.
On a personal level, the key question is ‘who do I worship?’ Who is at the centre of my life? What are my main priorities?
Lent is about reflecting on the grace and mercy of God as these touch our lives. It’s not a simple and straightforward matter. It involves struggles along the way, as we walk the wilderness road, wrestling with what is going on inside us, in our hearts and minds and spirits.
On a political level, the question in the 2nd temptation is about the way God exercises power. God’s power isn’t imposed on the world, forcing people to do what God wants. (unlike the power demonstrated by the American President) God’s power comes out of the relationship that is built with God’s people, through worship and service, through relating to each other, through working together.
In God’s world there aren’t easy options and quick fixes. There’s a long, slow steady work of building the kingdom. This work can go through many ups and downs and face many setbacks. For this work to move forward, it needs people who choose to live in God’s way, people who can resist the temptation for short term gain, in favour of a long term commitment to the one from whom real life comes.
As we face what’s happening to the people of Ukraine and Gaza, this question of power is even more to the forefront. It’s so sad to see leaders of nations committed to exercise power through war. It shows how the temptation Jesus faced is still writ large in our world. It points to the way we as Christians needs to demonstrate again what we believe about God’s power, and the need to be in peaceable relationships with one another, whatever struggles this might mean when we have different views.
The third temptation is again about power – the power of putting God to the test.
If I were to fantasise, I could see Jesus thinking ‘yes, I am the Son of God, why shouldn’t I just leap off the Temple? Then everyone will know who I am and what power I have.’
One of the curious aspects of faith in our present day is the tension between people wanting God to act and being disappointed when God doesn’t act in ways they think God should. It can be a real temptation to think ‘if only God would do what I want’. And if this God is a God that cares, shouldn’t God respond to my needs?
One of the commentators wrote ‘God’s all-encompassing care is not a commodity to be gained by human beings through wheedling’.
Walking the Lenten journey is about putting our needs in the context of God purposes. The relationship we have with God is not about us testing God, but about God testing us. Can we trust enough in God that we don’t need to think about leaping off high buildings to prove God?
Again, Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy: ‘do not put the Lord your God to the test’. In quoting from Deuteronomy, he is making it clear that his obedience is to the God who has, in fact, always nurtured and nourished his people. This is clear from the other quotes he gives, which come from the Psalm we read this morning, Psalm 91.
One of the commentators points out that in the Hebrew at the end of the Psalm, there are 7 first person verbs, representing the way God relates to God’s people. God says: I deliver, I protect, I answer, I rescue, I honour, I satisfy, I show. The commentator goes on to remind us that 7 represents completeness. So, these 7 verbs used of God, represent the completeness of God’s love for his people.
This is the God to whom Jesus is pointing in the battle with the devil. This isn’t a God who neglects the hungry or leaves the nations to walk in their own way. This isn’t a God who needs to be tested. This is a God who has already made himself known as full of mercy and grace, over many centuries with God’s people. And the Romans reading today points to the way in which God is here for all people, not just for some.
This is the God whom Jesus came to reveal – as he discovered for himself in the temptations.
This is the God in whom we can trust – even in the midst of the temptations that surround us.
Let us travel this Lent journey – together with those who are travelling across the world, in the sure trust in the God who is with us both in settled places and on our travels.
Let us take time again to see our own lives in the light of Christ’s life.
Let us take the risk of travelling with Jesus to a lonely destination.
Let us travel confidently, for we already know the life that is beyond death.
Let us live in hope, even when it seems that all there is, is despair.
Let us re-discover the courage God gives us to live in God’s way.
