First Sunday of Lent 2019

Deuteronomy 26:1-11 and Romans 10:8b-13 and Luke 4:1-13

This morning, I want to speak about confession. I think we are familiar with confessing our sins, the ways in which through negligence, through weakness, and through our own deliberate fault we have failed to love God and our neighbour as ourselves; the times when we have put ourselves at the centre, and viewed others as objects. But I suspect that we are far less familiar with confessing our salvation, of rehearsing the story of what God has done, and locating ourselves firmly within it. We have become detached from our story, our identity as those God has saved.

Our reading from Deuteronomy this morning centred on a confession of salvation. Did you notice how, in confessing what God has done, the words root the confessor within the people of God, and speak of the past in the present tense? In four verses, the confession employs ‘us’ six times; ‘we’ once; and ‘our’ four times (five if you include ‘our ancestors’—but that is speaking of the past as the past, not as the present). Only in the light of this does the confession continue, ‘I’ and ‘me’: grounded.

Listen again: ‘... When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labour on us, we cried to the Lord, the God of our ancestors; the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. The Lord brought us out of Egypt ... and he brought us to this place and gave us this land ... So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O Lord, have given me.’

The confessor is to fully identify themselves with events that took place long before they were born, to find themselves inside the salvation God has wrought. Centuries later, Jesus was one of the people whose lives were formed by this confession. This morning, our readings invite us to consider the temptations he faced against that backdrop.

First, the temptation to turn stones into bread—contrasted with experiencing ‘the harvest from the land that the Lord your God is giving you’. We can strive to meet our own needs, or discover God to be our provider; but not both. And we can shape society in such a way that work involves dignity, or desperation. In what ways does this part of the story resonate with you?

Next, the temptation to receive all the kingdoms of the world—contrasted with ‘the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess’. The history of God’s people is one of seasons of journeying beyond the known, and seasons of settling and being settled. Both are meant to be experienced with God. In what ways does this part of the story resonate with you?

And then, the temptation to ‘throw yourself down’ from the pinnacle of the temple—contrasted with the instruction, ‘you shall set [the basket] down before the Lord your God and bow down before the Lord your God’. Worship that is grounded in the rhythms of our lives and on the human scale, not in seeking to make an impression. Humbling ourselves, experiencing gratitude. In what ways does this part of the story resonate with you?

Thirty years or so after the resurrection, the church had spread across the Roman empire. There were several congregations in Rome itself, the very centre of all the kingdoms of the world. Moreover, the church had reached beyond the Jewish diaspora and embraced gentile believers. Rome was a mega-city, cut-off from farmland, in which grain was doled-out to every citizen. The emperor was the Lord, who provided bread to keep hoi poloi from revolting. Bread, and circuses: spectacular entertainment to distract and sate, and so control.

Paul wrote to those Roman congregations about what it meant to declare that Jesus was Lord. For the Jewish believers, it meant recognising that God willed this to be. For the gentile believers, it meant that Caesar was not lord after all. Moreover, believing and confessing are meant to be inseparable, working together as do breathing in and breathing out.

Some of us have been holding our breath for a long time. We took a big gulp of Jesus once, and hope that will get us over the finishing line. But it isn’t meant to be like that. The gift of the season of Lent is the opportunity to learn to breathe again. To release our breath, in confessing Jesus is Lord: the one who blesses, and settles, and receives us. And so, to be able to oxygenate every fibre of our being again, with fresh vision of the risen Jesus; fresh experience of being blessed, settled, and received. Breathe out. Breathe in. Confess salvation, receive salvation. Amen.