Musical Prelude and Service.

Matthew 4:1-11
So, we are in the season of Lent. I suspect there are more than a few people out there who wonder about all these different seasons in the Christian calendar. What’s the point of this?
Well like so many things, it is not a mandate from God. I am even hesitant to call it a mandate from the church. At least, not the United Church of Canada; although it is certainly strongly recommended that we observe, or at least acknowledge this is Lent.
But these various seasons, Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter and Pentecost and also ordinary times, provide some rhythm and direction to our worship and our reflection. It breaks up the year into sections and helps us to recall and relive the life and ministry of Jesus, the church and ancestors of our faith.
It’s a significant response to the question of how we remember and retell the story of our faith. It provides the groundwork for how we position ourselves within this story.
In a podcast I listened to recently, Diana Butler Bass – yes, her again – and theologian Trip Fuller discussed the importance of Lent. Bass notes that it is the season in the Christian calendar when our focus is not on the life and ministry of Jesus, but is instead directed at ourselves and our response to his teaching and life and death and resurrection.
Yes, to a significant degree we consider our response and our discipleship by reflecting on his story, but Lent is about our journey with Jesus to the cross.
On this first Sunday in Lent, we hear the story of Jesus in the wilderness. We hear that Jesus experiences temptations in the wilderness, but resists these by remaining focused on his faith, his commitment to God, his father.
The wilderness: that place not controlled by the forces of civilization, where Jesus is left pretty much alone is a recurring theme in Hebrew scripture. Upon escaping slavery in Egypt, the Jews wander in the wilderness of 40 years. It is widely accepted that Jesus spending 40 days in the wilderness is a way of linking Jesus to his ancestors.
For both the Jews returning home and Jesus heading out on his ministry, the time in the wilderness is a time of preparation. It is a time of difficulty, of hunger and loneliness. A chance to reflect and find focus on what is truly important.
The tempter, or Satan, encourages him to create bread out of rocks. He encourages him to test God’s devotion and then offers Jesus great power.
I find myself asking a few different questions about God’s involvement in Jesus’ wilderness time. The passage begins with the words the Spirit led Jesus out into the wilderness. Jesus is not alone in his wilderness time. God in the form of the Spirit walks with him. And yet the conversations between Jesus and the tempter do not include any interventions from God the Spirit.
Does God require that Jesus spend this time in the wilderness? Or is it something Jesus needs to prepare himself for what is coming? And what can, or what should we learn about ourselves from this story and what it tells us about ourselves?
I wonder if we, (and when I say we, I am talking about the Christian church as a whole, not the individuals within or a particular denomination or congregation), I wonder if we have failed our own particular wilderness temptations at various times throughout history.
When the emperor Constantine made Christianity the religion of the empire, the church grasped that privilege with both hands, and it didn’t take long for the Christian church to become the most powerful institution in the Roman empire and then the Holy Roman Empire. It didn’t take long for the church to accumulate great wealth and embrace the trappings and bureaucracy of the Empire that condemned and executed Jesus and so many of his followers a few centuries earlier.
But I won’t go into detail of the ways that the institutional church abused and exploited its power and wealth over the years. And I want to be clear, this is not just an accusation levelled at the Roman Catholic Church. The number of times churches, be they Catholic, Anglican or United have linked themselves to political power and committed evil acts or been complicit in atrocities is too numerous to count.
We find ourselves at a time when we as a church do not enjoy a close connection to that type of power. I personally think that is a good thing. We struggle with the question of how we will continue to feed ourselves, so to speak figuratively. I don’t have a pithy answer to that question. But I don’t think we can expect a great answer if we intentionally try to do ourselves harm in the expectation of God rushing to our assistance.
I believe we find ourselves in a wilderness time. I believe I said this a few years ago. I now think we are still in that wilderness time. It would be nice to think we have come in from the wilderness, but I do wonder if perhaps we are still in a time of preparation. If we are still trying to answer the questions that get posed in this time.
Questions such as, who are we? What are we being called to do in this community and the world? What are our strengths and where is the spirit leading us?
These are questions for a great many churches both large and small. They are questions for denominations such as our own. We may find ourselves exhausted from so much that has been forced on us in recent years. We may find ourselves feeling lost and alone, beset by so much negativity and heartbreak. I get it. I really do.
But I want to share something from this past week.
On Wednesday I led worship at the hospital. I decided to preach a brief sermon on last week’s scripture about the Transfiguration. Quite often this passage of scripture becomes an encouragement to not let yourself be tempted to remain in your mountaintop mystical experience. There’s work to be done and a journey to get to. That’s all true.
But as I prepared for this time of worship in the hospital; having just taken a week of time away, I found myself reconsidering that time on the mountain. Jesus needed that time on the mountain. Jesus and his disciples needed an escape from their ministry and the work to remind themselves of who they are and what they are doing. They needed to be restored; to be reconnected with their history and their heritage.
Wilderness time or mountaintop time can feel like hard work. They can be frightening, and all too often associated with sacrifice and fasting.
But they are also times to reconnect; to restore; to reorient. To remember who we are; remember who we follow, and the remarkable things that have been done in our community in the past.
So let us welcome this season of Lent. Let us use it as a time to reflect on who we are, where we find our strength. Who do we put our faith in and to really ask, where is the Spirit leading us next?
Thanks be to God.

Music provided with permission through licensing with CCLI License number
2701258 and One License # A-731789