Finding Life in Lent
Gate Pa AGM – Year C 1st Sunday in Lent, 2022
Psalm Psalm: 91: 1-2, 9-16
First Reading: Deuteronomy 26:1-11
Second Reading: Romans 10:8-13
Gospel: Luke 4:1-13
As we prepare for the our AGM - to explore Luke’s version of the testing story – not as temptations but test of how Jesus will live out being the “Beloved Son”
Then look at how that flows into the sermon on the plain.
In all this Jesus in Luke is the fulfilment of Isaiah’s prophesy/dream of the restoration of life-giving community for all, for all like.
What kind of community are we invited to be?
· what is it you give thanks for?
The Sermon
1. Introduction:
Welcome
to Lent!
How
are you feeling about that? Excited? Ho hum? A little anxious maybe?
As
we do every year, we begin Lent by listening to the story of Jesus in the Wilderness.
It is usually entitled something like “the temptation of Christ.” Which to be
honest is a little misleading.
On
Friday I was tempted to have another peanut slab as I wrote this.
I
suspect that that is how we sometimes read this story. Jesus being tempted like
we are tempted to eat too much chocolate. But that is not what we are talking
about here.
Jesus
is not being tempted to do something.
He is being tested in his new identity as “Beloved Son of God”
2.
Baptism
If put this reading back, Jesus just been baptised. As he prays, he is filled with the Holy Spirit, and “there was a voice from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I dearly love; in you I find happiness.””.
Now
we need to note that Jesus is not the first. And he is not alone. Adam is named
the son of God. So is David.
Now
is he the only son of god in his world. Tiberius Caesar is entitled “son of god”.
Each
of these lived out being “son of god” in diverse ways. So how would Jesus live
that out? That is the question that is at the heart of this story.
First
thing to note about this story we heard today is that Jesus identity as Son of
God is not questioned. While the NRSV translates the Greek in the first
exchange as “if”, the CEB translation of “since” which is more accurate. These are
tests of how he is Son of God. At stake in this story is what it means for Jesus to be God’s Beloved Son.
And
so in the first test a starving Jesus is invited to turn stones into bread. Tiberius
would never have been that hungry, even when he led military campaigns. But we
can guess what he would have done. I wonder about David. And Adam, who knows. But
Jesus is not moved by these offers.
Í
think Tiberius would have taken all the Tester offered, even though they were
not the Satan’s to offer. And I am sure he would have been up for the fanfare being
rescued after he jumped off the temple pinnacle. Imagine the fame and glory. Tiberius
was all about power and glory. He was the Roman emperor.
But
that was not who Jesus was, or what he was about.
Each
of these tests show something of who Jesus is, and how he, filled with the
Spirit, will live as the beloved Son. Or at least, how we won’t live as the beloved
Son.
The rest of the gospel is about what it really means to be the beloved son. We need to read what comes next which acts as a contrast to what has just happened.
3.
What’s next
The
Spirit continues to lead Jesus on. On into Galilee. On to Nazareth where he
reads from the scroll of Isaiah
The
Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me.
He
has sent me to preach good news to the poor,
to proclaim release to the prisoners
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to liberate the oppressed,
and to
proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18 and 19)
finishing
by declaring it fulfilled.
This
is what it means to be the beloved Son -
to bring into being the vision of true community that is at the heart of Isaiah,
at the heart of all scripture.
Jesus
is to be the means by which God’s desire for all humanity is fulfilled: in life
giving community with each other, in ways that allow ALL people to thrive, and
all life to thrive.
As
I said a couple of weeks ago, this is what the word “shalom” means, which we
translate as peace.
ð When true community is established,
ð it is really about the wholeness and
completion
ð then there will be God’s peace on earth.
4.
Plain Reading
In contrast to the tests in the wilderness,
which invited Jesus to be absorbed by his own needs for food, power, and
prestige, and to give in to the powers that destroy
true community; this sermon lays out the value
system that lies at the heart of the year of the Lord’s favour and the way it
is to be lived.
It is the kind of community we pray for every time we pray the
Lord’s prayer
-
“Your
kingdom come; you will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
So here he is on this level place, a broken place, where no-one is
more elevated than any other person, Jesus
reverses his society’s reverence of the rich and powerful . He describes the
poor, the hungry, the homeless, and the grieving of utmost importance. That is
a very different vision from what the tester was offering in the wilderness. It
was a very different vision from how his society worked. And how our society
works.
Jesus
then goes on to describe how those who look to follow him were to join him
living in the reign of God, living as we pray “your will be done.” And as we talked
about two weeks ago this is the way of loving, doing good, blessing, praying
for our community. This is not being a doormat, but the way of non-violent
resistance as seen in the stories of Te Whiti Rongomai and Tohu Kākahi of
Parihaka in Taranaki, Mahatma Gandhi in India, and Martin Luther King Jr. in the
USA.
Then
last week we heard about the way of humility, being willing to acknowledge our
limitations and failings, acknowledging the log in our own eyes, rather than only
seeing speck in other.
True
community is not built from entrenched positions, ignoring the logs in our own
eyes and thinking that we are always right. It is s built from a place where I
can say I might not have this right, or simply don’t know.
When we look around the world we can see when people start from entrenched positions of self-interest with no humility. The absence of humility breaks community. The absence of humility and the use of violence is what the tester was offering Jesus in the wilderness. And Jesus was not having a bar of it.
5.
Lent
Ordinarily I might now say that Lent is a time for us to reflect
on how we fare with these tests ourselves. Because we are tested all the time. As
beloved children of God, who pray “your kingdom come, your will be done, on
earth as in heaven” how do we respond? Honestly, that just feels like hard
work.
The last two years have been
tough. I am not feeling that we need more to wear us down. This vision of
community was not something to wear people down with. It is life giving. It is filled
with the Spirit.
It is also our AGM today. A
chance for us to reflect on the year just gone and to give thanks for the life
that God has been working through this parish.
So I wonder this Lent
·
what
is it you give thanks for?
·
what
has been life giving for you?
·
what
has been life giving for us?
·
What
is it God might wish for this church community in the year ahead?
·
what
does this time of Lent offer you?
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