1st Sunday in Lent 2020

So we find ourselves once more at the beginning of Lent. I’m going to be completely honest- I love Lent. It’s probably my favourite part of the liturgical year. Maybe because I like routine and orderliness. I love structure and Lent gives us structure – a structured way to enter into the wilderness (like Jesus in the gospel reading), which is anything but orderly; yet Lent gives us a way of entering the wilderness with Jesus and a way to confront what we find there.

We start on Ash Wednesday with a service that moves us to ask ourselves “who am I?” by exploring our choices, the things we’ve done and thought and said, and examining which of those choices didn’t come from a place of Godly love. We also confront our inevitable death, and if we’re going to die how then do we want to live? Who are we and what are the things which have the capacity to draw us away from God?

We have readings this morning all about temptation, and a reminder of the things which do have the capacity to draw our eye from God and move us out of or away from our relationship with God.

There’s been a shift in our language in that we often talk about sins, plural; individual activities or acts which are bad or wrong and by these actions we ourselves become sinful or have committed a sin. Jesus (and Paul) most usually talks about sin, singular, no s on the end, which Sarah Heaner Lancaster defines as anything which takes us out of relationship with God.

This much broader understanding I feel is perhaps a more helpful thing to take into the wilderness with us during Lent. 

I said on Wednesday in that solemn Ash Wednesday service of remembering that one of the things we remember and apologise for are the times we forgot we aren’t alone, because they're the times, when we forget that God is with us - the very meaning of the word Emmanuel – that’s when we fall out of relationship with God, and make the choices that don’t mirror God’s love that is very much within us.

So maybe a question to ask ourselves at the beginning of our wilderness journey this Lent is what are our temptations? And by that I mean the things which run the risk of taking us out of our relationship with God. Lent gives us a safe space to give space and time for these questions and explorations, knowing that like Jesus it’s the Spirit who leads us and sustains us in the wilderness. As we work towards Easter Day we can use Lent as a safe space to explore who we are and how we want to live our lives, hopefully in a way which mirrors Gods love to those around us.

Based upon Genesis 2.15-17; 3.1-7, Romans 5.12-19 & Matthew 4.1-11