RCL Readings Sunday 21 February 2010 (First Sunday in Lent)

Deuteronomy 26:1-11

Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16

Romans 10:8b-13

Luke 4:1-13

This Sunday is the first Sunday in Lent. Lent is now a period of 40 days (excluding Sundays as they are weekly reminders of the Resurrection) and dates back to the 3rd century. It began as a 40 hour fast for those who were to be baptised on Easter Day and represented the 40 hours Jesus spent in the tomb. Over time it embraced all believers and not just those preparing for baptism and expanded to the 40 days of Lent beginning on Ash Wednesday. During Lent any fasting and/or ‘giving up’ needs to be in order to aid our focusing upon God – any other purpose must be merely secondary.

Deuteronomy 26:1-11 in its present form probably dates from the Babylonian exile period (587-515 BC) but refers back to the exodus from slavery in Egypt 700 to 900 years earlier (dating is a little difficult!). The reading reminds the people of the exodus period and all subsequent generations to offer the first fruit to God – an act of acknowledging both the salvation that God has wrought and the provision of God. The people were also commanded to recite the history of God’s saving action – this was vital to a much later generation when in exile for it was the source of their hope. They were also instructed to celebrate, a celebration which was inclusive of “the Levites and the aliens who reside among you” (v.11). In this season of Lent this passage reminds and encourages us to:

• offer the first fruits and not the leftovers to God;

• as we enter into God’s new future for us to recall and remind ourselves of God’s saving acts;

• to be an open and inclusive celebratory community.

Let these three things shape your prayers and your actions during Lent.

The gospel reading (Luke 4:1-13) recalls Jesus’ 40 day period of temptation and testing in the wilderness. Jesus here wrestles with his calling as God’s Son and the how of his ministry. Meet your own needs (turn this stone into a loaf of bread); to depend on a power and authority that comes from a source other than God (worship me and it will be yours); produce impressive irrefutable evidence of who you are (throw yourself down from the pinnacle of the temple). We may be tempted in all sorts of ways but the fundamental temptations are to do with our calling by God and the how of our mission. It is so easy to get side tracked into allsorts of other things and when we are we loose sight of who we are in God and his calling. Lent is a time when we need to wrestle with our calling to be God’s children and what it means to live in faithful dependence upon God. In your prayers seek to understand what it means to be a child of God and to live in the ways of God. That doesn’t mean it is a call to an austere life, Deuteronomy reminds us to “celebrate with all the bounty that the LORD your God has given to you and your house” (26:11). That celebration embraces those who have no tribal lands (the Levites) on which to raise their crops and offer the first fruits and the “aliens” who live among us – a real challenge in today’s world! Our prayers for others should lead us to celebrate with them.

A final thought and one where my Sunday sermon might go! For me there is a disturbing question to wrestle with. Are we the tempter of Jesus? Are we ‘Satan’?

Let me explain.
Do we want bread on the cheap?
Do we want the needs of humanity to be met without any real cost to us?
Do we demand/tempt Jesus to produce the bread without any real impact upon us and our ways of living and our consumer habits, and our ways of trading?

Do we want and use power and politics to say we will not sign up because it is not in our interest, we will do it our way? Are our politics the politics of self-interest whatever colour they are wrapped up in?

Do we want spectacular signs and demonstrations of power to try and force allegiance and compliance?

In Matthew & Mark's pre-transfiguration accounts at Caesarea Philippi Jesus turns to Peter and says: "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling-block to me; for your are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things." (Matt 16:23 & Mark 8:33).