It’s not about chocolate cake

Sermon March 6th Engadine Uniting Church

ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF COUNTRY

We gather for worship this day on Dharawal land which was never ceded or paid for, it was just taken because our ancestors could and did. We acknowledge this part of the history of this place and acknowledge also the Dharawal elders past and present as we pledge to work together with them in reconciliation and justice-making.

LENTEN CANDLE LIGHTING

Darkness draws near. We will not be afraid. Evil is strong. Goodness and faithfulness are stronger.

Jesus draws ever closer to Jerusalem. Will we draw ever closer to Him? We light our Lenten candle.

PRAYER OF INVOCATION

God of creative wisdom, we have come from all kinds of places ; each of us carries our own story, our own cares, and concerns; and yet we gather here with a common purpose to encounter the One we know in & through Christ Jesus. Be with us and meet us here as bread is broken and wine is poured.

HYMN TIS 141 vs 1-4, 7 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAAz_iWp6vE

Praise to the Holiest in the height
And in the depth be praise
In all His words most wonderful
Most sure in all His ways.

O loving wisdom of our God
When all was sin and shame
A second Adam to the fight
And to the rescue came.

O wisest love that flesh and blood
Which did in Adam fail
Should strive afresh against the foe
Should strive and should prevail.

And that a higher gift than grace
Should flesh and blood refine
God’s presence and His very self
And essence all-divine.

Praise to the Holiest in the height
And in the depth be praise
In all His words most wonderful
Most sure in all His ways.

CCLI Song # 3294028 John Henry Newman Public Domain

NT READING Peter / Ross

ROMANS 10: 8 – 13 The word of faith that we proclaim is on your lips and in your heart” because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved. The scripture says, “No one who believes in him will be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. For, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

PRAYER OF CONFESSION Rev Paul

Let’s be honest about our lives in the broad light of day and in the dark of night and let us speak of what tempts us, besides the usual chocolate cake, potato chips, or just one more sweet.

Let’s speak of the hunger that reflects our insecurities and deep longings that are hidden deep within;

Let’s speak of our deep hurts that daily affect the way we live and interact with others;

Let’s speak of our pre-occupation with self and our immediate family;

Let’s speak of our wish for faith to just be a private thing lest it change us from within;

Let’s speak of our prejudices and disinterest in the world beyond our shores, and Lord

Let’s speak of what you want for my life and for our lives in this faith community as if it were the only group of your disciples on the Earth. Let’s be open and honest knowing that this above all else is what you want us to share with you – our very selves. Then your transformation of the world can begin.

(Hold a period of silence)

WORDS OF ASSURANCE

Temptations will always be around, just as surely as you Lord are always around. When we hold on to what is divine, we manage the things that tempt us differently, and we find ourselves immersed in Your abundant, overflowing grace, and this becomes more than enough. In Jesus’ name we pray.

SONG TIS 745 ‘Seek ye first’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HniSUB3Qh0

Seek ye first the kingdom of God
And His righteousness
And all these things
Shall be added unto you
Allelu alleluia.

Ask and it shall be given unto you
Seek and you shall find
Knock and it shall
be opened unto you
Allelu alleluia.

We shall not live by bread alone
But by every word
That proceeds
From the mouth of the Lord
Allelu alleluia.

Universal Music – Brentwood Benson Publishing (Admin. by SHOUT! Music Publishing Australia)

GOSPEL READING Peter / Ross

LUKE 4: 1 – 13 (NRSV) Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished. The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’” Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said to him, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.”

Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’”

Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’” Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.

Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ, flesh of our flesh, brother, Lord and Son of God. Amen

MESSAGE It’s not about chocolate cake!

In the 1^st world, temptation often seems to be equated with issues of over indulgence that may affect our waistline or our liver. Or those terrible ads on TV that call on us to pamper ourselves because ‘we’re worth it’ or so that we can ‘spend the kids inheritance’ – so we can look a million dollars or just live for today.

Only Matthew & Luke give any significant detail to the Temptation of Christ. It’s radical in the extreme that at the beginning of the Gospels such human temptation is front and centre in a Greek world where suffering and temptation are for mortals not for the Son of God. Luke’s one difference in his Gospel is that at the end the Evil One leaves Jesus until ‘an opportune time’ . The temptations Jesus will face don’t end at Luke 4 vs 13. While Mark who makes the barest mention of Jesus’ Temptation record that the HS drove (not led) Jesus into the wilderness. We hear nothing of such early wrestling in John.

If Yeshua of Nazareth had been just another flash in the pan messiah with pay-back on his mind against Rome or the religious power-brokers of his day or if he’d sold his soul to achieve his aims, then Holy Week would never have happened. And we would not be here on Sundays and death would be final!

But Jesus came not just to refresh our individual lives but to change the world, to bring in a new order.

And he was able to do that by being ‘full of the Holy Spirit’ which he received in his baptism where we hear ‘this is my Son…listen to him’, and similar words were heard last week in the Transfiguration.

At another time we might explore the 30 years Jesus lived before that encounter with John in the Jordan and how he may have understood his unique identity that led him to that river on that day.

To be full of the Holy Spirit I believe means that every nook and cranny of Jesus’ life was touched by God’s life transforming presence. And that presence was tested and grew as he encountered life in ministry especially culminating in what we now call Holy Week.

Jesus is secure in the knowledge of ‘who and whose he is’ and what his ministry will and must be – serving others with tender compassion and a heart of justice that seeks to transform the world.

Let me give you an example of what I believe is Jesus’ broad agenda by telling you a story from Rev CT Vivian who was one of the Rev Martin Luther King’s lieutenants.

When CT Vivian visited Sydney in 1982 and spoke at out Theological College he told a story I’ve never forgotten. You’re at home at night and you hear a car crash. You might do one or more of 4 things:

You turn over and go back to sleep; you get up look outside to see what has happened and ring 000; you go outside and offer whatever comfort and practical support you can; or you do all you can to make sure that that dark street corner has a light put over it so this sort of thing can’t happen again. Many people will do 2 or 3 but very few will think to do No 4. However, that is also a key part of our calling he said.

This is the sort of ministry Jesus had and invites us to have. I’ll give you a couple of Biblical examples.

When Jesus spoke with the Samaritan woman at the well, he not only transformed her personal life he then went into her village of Sychar and in effect worked on transforming the lives of those who had in part made her life hell. Jesus goes to the root of the issue.

He also didn’t just heal the woman who had been bleeding for many years & who also by nature of her sex was excluded from leadership in the Temple and the Synagogue – he included women as his disciples. Many financially supported him and were his most loyal Good Friday followers (none of the men are there on Calvary on Good Friday) and it is the women who are his 1^st resurrection witnesses!

To turn Jesus’ invitation in LENT of a transformed life into a purely personal and internal one: forgets that the ‘you’ in Greek in the Scripture is most often plural (i.e. addressed in community); forgets John 3:16 ‘for God so loved the world…’ and; that the 3 temptations of Jesus, while beginning with personal hunger (stone into bread) finished with the temptations of playing to the crowd (adoration) & world dominion (at a price). Today there are still some who seek such dominion!

When Jesus could have felt so ‘blessed and special’ after his baptism, God the Father like Malachi’s reference to the refiners fire seeks to test Jesus’ metal, not once but several times throughout his ministry. Look at how many times Jesus went off alone to pray for refreshment and to fine tune his mission and ministry. Very few of us welcome such constant testing.

But all of us in our own lives have experienced such times whether personal or in our faith journey. More often than not, we grow at such times however painful, however much we might wish our particular ‘cup of suffering’ might be taken from us. If you’ve loved deeply you know that. Most of what we experience isn’t a deliberate test to see how we’ll go but part and parcel of every human life.

It’s how we can respond, the choices we do have, that can set us apart in His service.

Today, Jesus the carpenter, Mary’s son, God’s Son wrestled for 40 days in the wilderness so that Good Friday and Easter Day might be possible; for you and I the stakes are not so ‘extreme’ but without our own Lenten journeys we and our world will be the poorer – compassion and justice are still the gifts of God, they are still our Lenten calling, which can transform and change the world God so loves. Amen

PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE Jan Cooper

OFFERING

HYMN TIS 499 TUNE WAREHAM (TIS 124)

Lord Jesus, joy of loving hearts
true fount of life, our lives sustain
from any bliss that earth imparts
we turn unfilled to you again.

Your truth unchanged has ever stood
you save all those who on you call
to those yet seeking you are good
to those who find you, all in all.

We taste you, Lord, the living bread
and long to feast upon you still
we drink of you, the fountainhead
and thirst our souls from you to fill.

For you our restless spirits yearn
whatever comes, until the last
glad when your presence we discern
blest when our faith can hold you fast.

For ever, Jesus, with us stay
make all our moments calm and bright
chase the dark night of sin away
shed on this world your holy light.

HOLY COMMUNION

The Lord be with you and also with you.

Lift up your hearts. We lift them to the Lord.

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. It is right to give thanks and praise.

Because we often forget, we now remember and recall all that Jesus did on that night, the night before he died gathered with those whom he loved in a small room, he took bread and wine…

For us, in this place we gather to eat and drink and to proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Lord, by your cross and resurrection you have set us free. You are the Saviour of the world.

Lord of all life, help us to work together for that day when your kingdom comes and justice and mercy will be seen in all the earth. Look with favour on your people, gather us in your loving arms and bring us with Mary the mother of God, and all the saints to feast at your table in heaven. Through Christ, and with Christ, and in Christ, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all honour and glory are yours, O loving Father, for ever and ever.

DISTRIBUTION

FINAL HYMN TIS 755 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivfUKd6AFXw

You shall go out with joy
And be led forth with peace
The mountains and the hills
Will break forth before you
There’ll be shouts of joy
And all the trees of the field
Will clap will clap their hands

And all the trees of the field
Will clap their hands
The trees of the field
Will clap their hands
The trees of the field
Will clap their hands
While you go out with joy.

CCLI Song # 20546 Steffi Geiser Rubin | Stuart Dauermann © 1975 Lillenas Publishing Company (Admin. by Music Services, Inc.) For use solely with the SongSelect® All rights reserved. www.ccli.com CCLI Licence # 31951

BLESSING & BENEDICTION

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