Sermon for Lent 1 Year A
Knowledge is power. Or is it?
In the case of Genesis, it can be really helpful to have one particular piece of knowledge, and that piece of knowledge is that there are several words for ‘knowing’ in Hebrew.
'Yodea' – meaning to know through experiencing, tasting, touching, feeling, embodying, being with, the kind of knowledge that we apply to couples, families, friends, even to God through the Holy Spirit. Yodea becomes a euphemism pretty quickly to tell us when two people have got “up close and personal”.
And other words, like 'Shomer', meaning to know through observation, through watching, to be taught or to learn, it’s the kind of knowledge that takes in information, but doesn’t necessarily get its hands dirty. Shomer is where we get the word ‘watchmen’ from. Someone who looks on, like Zeccharias in the tree, watching on over the crowds, never thinking that he might really know Jesus but wanting to learn more of him.
Jesus Christ knew our humanity because he took it onto himself. He knew temptation in the desert, because he experienced if for himself. He knew some pretty notorious sinners, but he also knew no sin, because he never sinned.
The tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil is the first kind of knowledge, ‘yodea’, the knowledge through action, experience, tasting, doing, living and breathing good and evil. And regardless of whether we read Genesis three as a parable, or a beautiful story, or as a factual account of pre-historic humans, it presents us with a conundrum that every human being faces on a daily basis. Will we choose to embody both good and evil, will we choose to know them intimately, to live with the constant battle between them in our lives. Or will we choose the tree of life, will we resist temptation as best we can, will we turn to God in prayer, will we surrender those things that creep up on us like the serpent approaches eve and whisper ‘am I really so bad for you, why not try me’ into our minds.
Lent is a time of preparation, through prayer, fasting and almsgiving. It’s not a time of self-discipline for discipline’s sake. It’s not a time of being deliberately miserable, and if you’re dieting through lent because you want to lose weight, or look good, then remember that Lent is not about me, myself and I. Lent is a time of preparing ourselves for Easter, by stepping fully into God’s love and by stripping off those things that put layers of separation between our heart and God’s call. Think of Adam and Eve, suddenly feeling ashamed of their nakedness, even though the only other person to see them was their creator, and so putting a leaf, a barrier, between themselves and God, between themselves and each other. The first sign of sin is separation - A step away from God’s love, no matter how desperately we desire it, because something temporal seems so much lovelier to us in the moment.
On Ash Wednesday, those who were able to do so received the sign of the cross on their foreheads. You were marked, at your baptism, with a cross on your forehead and the words ‘Christ claims you for his own, receive the sign of the cross’. No matter what life throws at you, no matter what you do, or what is done to you, nothing, absolutely nothing, can take away that baptismal promise made over you by God, you are now and forever will be God’s beloved, precious child.
At your death you may also receive a cross of healing oil on your forehead. It’s a mark of a new beginning, a renewal of your baptism as you step across the threshold into heaven, into a new creation, as someone who can fully know what it is to be a child of God, without any barriers.
And so each lent, we start by standing in between those two signs of the cross, mingled with a cross of ash, recognising our mortality, not in misery, but in joy, as we celebrate and give thanks for this extraordinary gift of life that we have been given. And as we walk towards the Easter feast, we prepare our hearts and minds and bodies to celebrate the resurrection, we think about what our lives will be like in heaven, without all the clutter and chaos of today, and we throw off all of those things that so often get in the way of our living life in all it’s fullness. We throw of the things that tempt us, the chocolate that we run to when we’re anxious, rather than sharing our worries with God or a friend or priest, the booze that we have just a little too much of on a Saturday night, the rich food that satiates our appetite, leaving us feeling bloated and without need of God’s provision, the money that we hoard or spend without care, that could benefit someone else a hundred times more than our latest amazon impulse purchase will benefit us. It’s a time, not of control, or of great sacrifice, but of love, of reckless abandonment into the arms and the care of God, which should lead us to spend more and more time with God in prayer.
Jesus knew what it was to live in our world. He may not have had amazon or social media, or even a bank account, but he lived in an occupied country, he moved about eating and drinking with fishermen, tax collectors, pharisees, and extremely wealthy women. And in our gospel reading, we see him facing temptation willingly, immediately after his baptism, on his own, in the wilderness. And once again that crafty adversary sneaks up on him, just as he did to Eve, and tempts him three times, with scriptural reasons to give in to three universal temptations:
Food
immortality
worldly Power
These are the same things Eve was tempted by, but the real temptation Jesus faces, comes right at the start. ‘If you are the Son of God’ says the devil. Jesus is being tempted to prove the words spoken over him just moments earlier at his baptism ‘this is my son, the beloved’. Weaker people would fall for that trap, but Jesus rebukes the devil three times, responding to his distorted scripture with more scripture.
We see that sort of temptation, too, all the time in the church. A distortion of scripture telling us that it’s ok to hate our brother or sister, saying ‘you do you’ when our actions or purchases might contribute indirectly to someone else’s harm, or enslavement, telling us not to question the authorities placed over us by God, but forgetting the call to protect the needy, the widow, the foreigner and the orphan. The commandment is not ‘love God, love yourself’, but ‘love God, love your neighbour as yourself’
So what temptations are we facing, that cause us to place layer upon layer of metaphorical figleaves between us and God?
As we embrace this time of worship together, as we gaze at God in the Eucharist, can I invite you to put aside the routine habits, and just take a moment longer to ‘be’ before God without having to ‘do’ anything. See if you can open your heart, just a little further, to God’s irreversible, inestimable, uncorruptible, love, and notice what gets in the way, and what falls away as your draw nearer into God’s love.
Amen.
Genesis 2: 15-17 3:1-7
The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You (2ms) may freely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you (2ms) eat of it you shall die.”
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You(2mp) shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We (1np) may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You (2mp) shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you (2mp) touch it, or you shall die.’ ” But the serpent said to the woman, “You (cons 2mp) will not die, for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.
Matthew 4: 1-11
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tested by the devil. He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterward he was famished. The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ” Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’ ” Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ” Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’ ” Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.
