Today’s Sermon

I was supposed to preach last week, but the Vicar of St. John’s asked me to put it off for a week. Sadly, I had already written the sermon. I’ve put it in the “bank”, and preached this week instead.

Sermon delivered at St. John the Evangelist, 13 March, 2011, 1st Sunday of Lent. Readings: Gen 2:7-9;3:1-7; Ps 50; Rom 5:12-19; Mt 4:1-11

In the name of God, the one, the undivided Trinity. AMEN

I don’t know whether it ever penetrated here, but in the 1980’s and 90’s there was a comic strip in American newspapers called Calvin and Hobbes. Calvin was a happy-go-lucky 6-year-old boy, and Hobbes was his stuffed tiger.

As in the world of comics six-year-old boys and stuffed tigers can not only talk but have rational conversations with each other, one strip has particular application to our readings today.

Calvin asks Hobbes: “Do you believe in the devil? You know, a supreme evil being dedicated to the temptation, corruption, and destruction of man?” Hobbes answers: “I’m not sure that man needs the help.”

Temptation in our readings today seems to be entirely instigated by the devil. The story of Adam, Eve, and the serpent is well known and ingrained in our memories and in our culture. We are also amazed that Jesus, the Son of God, could either be tempted by the devil or even in our wildest imaginations succumb to temptation by anyone, the Devil included.

Paul’s Letter to the Romans even shares the common theme of sin and temptation. This is out of the ordinary, as most of the time those who compiled the Lectionary pair the reading from the Hebrew Scriptures with the Gospel, while choosing another theme for the Epistle, in case the preacher isn’t sufficiently inspired by the other two readings.
So for the first Sunday in Lent we have a heavy message to hear. Sin began with the first stirrings of civilisation and self-awareness of the human race. It continues through Biblical times and even tests the humanity of Jesus, who was also Son of God.

In a religious organisation I was a member of in the United States, there was a weekly Eucharist put on by the local group. However, many in this group wanted to omit the penitential rite from the weekly Eucharist because they felt that people too often heard about sin and death when they attended church, and not enough about affirmation and eternal life. As I was in charge of putting together the weekly service, this idea remained just that: an idea.

Sin is a fact, say these readings. We have committed sins, we are committing sins, and we will commit sins. And, just as God does not directly will all things that happen in the world, good or bad, the Devil does not will every bad thing that happens or every sin that we commit. Hobbes is right: we need no help in committing sin—we do it all the time.

So why do we start out our Lenten Sundays with temptation? It’s always with us; we know that we are subject to it, we succumb to it, and we’re sorry for it afterwards.

I like to think that the Sundays of Lent tell a story of the history of sin, from the first sin through to the end of sin and death in the Resurrection. That history of sin is a pretty sordid tale.

The story in Genesis, taken allegorically, tells us that sinfulness stems from disobedience to God. It doesn’t matter what the sin actually is; it is more important to note that there are laws and norms in society and that transgressing those laws and norms carries consequences. The temptation doesn’t come from a snake, or from the Devil directly; I’m certain that the Devil has as much to occupy his time as God does.

Paul’s contribution is very interesting. We often think of sin as being the act of breaking some law or rule. Paul, on the other hand, says that sin existed before the Law—by which he means the Law of Moses or the Ten Commandments. To Paul, our lives up to the point at which Christ arrives on the scene are a constant judicial trial with a sentence of death. But Jesus is like the governor who sends a last-minute reprieve to the condemned prisoner. When he is incarnated, the death of sin turns to a life of grace, brought by Jesus Christ.

And finally we have the Temptation of Christ, where the devil tempts Jesus with all sorts of wealth and power. The sin that the devil is trying to get Jesus to commit is that of turning away from his mission on earth.

It is in human nature to sin and fall short of the expectations of God and ourselves as to how we will act. The serpent, far from being the Devil, is our own inner devil, urging us on to do things that we should not and must not do. We all have a serpent slithering around in our minds, and the challenge of being human is to ignore it.

The great concept behind Christ’s temptation is to show that he is not only fully God, but also fully human. For temptation is Jesus’s inner serpent. Along with the rest of us, he’s tempted to do what he ought not to do by that urge that we all share.

As we begin our Lenten devotions, we too should use our own strength of will, fed with the study of Scripture, to overcome temptation and become the better persons that God wants us to be. If Jesus, fully human, could banish the snake of temptation, we, fully human, can too. AMEN.

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