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A sermon preached in Salisbury Cathedral by The Very Revd June Osborne, Dean on Sunday 21 February 2010
Romans 10 vv 8b-13 and Luke 4 vv 1-13
"1ST SUNDAY IN LENT"
Romans 10 vv 8b-13 and Luke 4 vv 1-13
If I understand it rightly Stacey was raped by Archie but she must have had sex with someone other than her husband Bradley because Archie couldn’t have fathered her child. The result is that Archie and Bradley are now dead and Stacey has confessed to murdering the one and feels responsible for the death of the other. An East Enders tale of temptation and woe for last Friday evening.
Not many of us are Archies or Staceys wanting to rape or murder but even in our relatively good and ordered lives we still pray each day:
‘Give us this day our daily bread...forgive us our trespasses...And lead us not into temptation.’
In one sense that’s a curious prayer isn’t it? We’re all of us tempted, routinely and daily.
Far from being led into it you could say that temptation is commonplace:
Speaking for myself every moment of my day there’re temptations to do things which betray what I believe and to let myself down. The temptation:-
• Not to do the loving thing,
• To speak more than I listen,
• To be cynical or distrust others,
• To give in to my temperamental flaws,
• To put the urgent before the most important,
• To please the strong or the loud instead of protecting the weak,
• To blame others as a way of neglecting the work I have to do in myself.
As I say, each day such temptations are endless but it mostly isn’t about doing evil: it’s about what is attractive to us in the short term. What do we desire, what do we need in that moment of time. Even in the conscientious life – perhaps especially in the dutiful life – we’re tempted by what appears to be good and find ourselves falling short of the best.
But then we have to add into the picture of temptation our addictions:
I suppose we’re most aware of temptation in areas where we’re obsessive.
Most of us are dependent on something, and I’ve no doubt that such obsessions can bring life to us, acting like oxygen which gives us breath. I hope he’ll forgive me if I use him as an illustration but take my colleague the Canon Treasurer, who’s the celebrant today. Amongst his obsessions there’s golf. Lest you don’t know it, Mark Bonney is a very fine golfer. I don’t understand all the stuff about handicaps but I do know that when the Cathedral community or the Church of England clergy have a golfing competition everyone wants Mark on their team. He tries to keep at bay commitments on a Saturday morning so that he can begin at least one day a week on the golf course and this week we sent him off to play in the President’s Putter, the annual match of the Oxford and Cambridge alumni. But I wouldn’t describe golf as an addiction of Mark’s because it only brings good things to his life. Indeed I wish he was tempted more often to put work aside and practice his swing or his putting. He’s a better colleague for being obsessive about golf.
No, it’s when obsessions become a destructive force in our life that we describe them as addictions and we battle with temptation. It’s then that giving way to short term pleasures takes away our longer term liberty. We’re familiar with the misery caused by being addicted to alcohol or gambling, drugs or pornography or eating; but what about being obsessive about a destructive relationship, what happens when we’re destructively obsessive about a pursuit such as a football team or the internet, or even when we’re addicted to work or duty? It’s here where we need the emotional and spiritual power to break free. Lent is an opportunity to find out just how dependent we are on something and whether it brings life to us, or whether we’re addicted.
Just before I move into the temptations which Jesus experienced let me just for the sake of completeness add one more dimension of our experience of temptation. In several Christian prayer books the translation of the Lord’s Prayer offers us Luke’s original phrasing - ‘do not bring us to the time of trial’. We pray that the realities of heaven may be realized in our time: ‘thy kingdom come’. But between us and the final revelation of the Kingdom of God lies all that thwarts us living out the daily power of that Kingdom. ‘Do not bring us to the time of trial’ may not be our familiar way of praying but it does remind us that temptation isn’t just about too much chocolate or controlling our temper but it’s about the ultimate battle with the enemies of God’s intention for our world, and for that we need God’s protection.
All that is about establishing that temptation is a constant and complex companion for each of us: in practical daily living and in our ultimate destiny.
Meanwhile our gospel reading crystallises Jesus’ experience of temptation into a single period of forty days, though we’re told by Luke that the voices of self-assertion, voices prompting him to act in contradiction to being the Son of God, stayed with him throughout his life, and we’ll meet his struggle with them again of course in five weeks in Gethsemane.
What inspires me about the temptations described here, before Jesus sets out to proclaim his message, is that it’s all about him facing the conflict of good things. It recognises that most battles aren’t between the obviously good and the obviously evil but they’re about what looks attractive and easy, and what achieves greater things. The salutary fact is that what is good can be our enemy. For instance:
The first of Jesus’ temptations is precisely about allowing the good to usurp the place of the best in our lives.
Jesus was immensely compassionate and he cared deeply about the hunger he saw around him. People needed feeding in his world. His own hunger at this point must’ve forced his attention on the immediate, physical and material need of those he was going to live amongst. Was it not God’s will to provide them with ‘bread’?
How was Jesus going to win people for God? Was becoming a one-man World Food Programme part of being the Son of God? But he knew that if he’d left the path of obedience and instead opted for dramatic demonstrations of meeting physical need then in the very act of claiming his Sonship he would have destroyed it.
In the same way we have to ask ourselves: when does doing good in our life usurp the place of the best we can do? I spoke recently to a woman who’d poured out her life, and that of her husband and children, in the care of her mother. They’d even sold their house and moved in to take care of her. But she’d just come to the point where she’d realised that she’d sacrificed the best they could be as a family for the good of caring for her mother.
The second of Jesus’ temptations, as Luke has it, is the devil showing Jesus the kingdoms of the world and offering him power and authority in return for his allegiance. This plays not to Jesus’ compassion but to his commitment. He longs to see God’s purposes achieved but the temptation is to seek God’s ends by means which are alien to God’s character.
The clever thing is that Jesus isn’t being asked to abandon God’s mission; on the contrary he’s being offered the means to gain power - ‘it will all be yours.’ It’s the temptation to compromise on our methods: to betray the God who is merciful, gracious and holy. In the same way I often speak to people who’re troubled not by what had to be done to them but the way someone went about it.
And the third temptation sees Jesus being invited to throw himself off the pinnacle of the Royal Porch of the Temple into the Kidron Valley to provide a spectacular proof of his faith; to offer people sensation. To force God’s hand by taking short cuts to success is what this is about. It’s so very tempting to take the easy route, the short cut which offers us quick satisfaction.
Can you see how each of these tests Jesus not at his point of weakness but at his greatest strength – his compassion, his commitment and then his faith? The question was how should he use those strengths: how would he win people for God but in a way that God would recognise?
In a sense I don’t think we should worry much about identifying temptation. Jesus knew full well when he was being asked to betray himself and usually so do we. But amidst all that language of the devil testing him there’s still a message for those of us with ambitions to be good: our strengths, our compassion, commitment and faith can themselves be acts of self-assertion and the pleasures of the short term can triumph over God’s eternal plan for us.
In the face of temptation let’s try not to be content with what looks good if what is better is on offer.
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Not many of us are Archies or Staceys wanting to rape or murder but even in our relatively good and ordered lives we still pray each day:
‘Give us this day our daily bread...forgive us our trespasses...And lead us not into temptation.’
In one sense that’s a curious prayer isn’t it? We’re all of us tempted, routinely and daily.
Far from being led into it you could say that temptation is commonplace:
Speaking for myself every moment of my day there’re temptations to do things which betray what I believe and to let myself down. The temptation:-
• Not to do the loving thing,
• To speak more than I listen,
• To be cynical or distrust others,
• To give in to my temperamental flaws,
• To put the urgent before the most important,
• To please the strong or the loud instead of protecting the weak,
• To blame others as a way of neglecting the work I have to do in myself.
As I say, each day such temptations are endless but it mostly isn’t about doing evil: it’s about what is attractive to us in the short term. What do we desire, what do we need in that moment of time. Even in the conscientious life – perhaps especially in the dutiful life – we’re tempted by what appears to be good and find ourselves falling short of the best.
But then we have to add into the picture of temptation our addictions:
I suppose we’re most aware of temptation in areas where we’re obsessive.
Most of us are dependent on something, and I’ve no doubt that such obsessions can bring life to us, acting like oxygen which gives us breath. I hope he’ll forgive me if I use him as an illustration but take my colleague the Canon Treasurer, who’s the celebrant today. Amongst his obsessions there’s golf. Lest you don’t know it, Mark Bonney is a very fine golfer. I don’t understand all the stuff about handicaps but I do know that when the Cathedral community or the Church of England clergy have a golfing competition everyone wants Mark on their team. He tries to keep at bay commitments on a Saturday morning so that he can begin at least one day a week on the golf course and this week we sent him off to play in the President’s Putter, the annual match of the Oxford and Cambridge alumni. But I wouldn’t describe golf as an addiction of Mark’s because it only brings good things to his life. Indeed I wish he was tempted more often to put work aside and practice his swing or his putting. He’s a better colleague for being obsessive about golf.
No, it’s when obsessions become a destructive force in our life that we describe them as addictions and we battle with temptation. It’s then that giving way to short term pleasures takes away our longer term liberty. We’re familiar with the misery caused by being addicted to alcohol or gambling, drugs or pornography or eating; but what about being obsessive about a destructive relationship, what happens when we’re destructively obsessive about a pursuit such as a football team or the internet, or even when we’re addicted to work or duty? It’s here where we need the emotional and spiritual power to break free. Lent is an opportunity to find out just how dependent we are on something and whether it brings life to us, or whether we’re addicted.
Just before I move into the temptations which Jesus experienced let me just for the sake of completeness add one more dimension of our experience of temptation. In several Christian prayer books the translation of the Lord’s Prayer offers us Luke’s original phrasing - ‘do not bring us to the time of trial’. We pray that the realities of heaven may be realized in our time: ‘thy kingdom come’. But between us and the final revelation of the Kingdom of God lies all that thwarts us living out the daily power of that Kingdom. ‘Do not bring us to the time of trial’ may not be our familiar way of praying but it does remind us that temptation isn’t just about too much chocolate or controlling our temper but it’s about the ultimate battle with the enemies of God’s intention for our world, and for that we need God’s protection.
All that is about establishing that temptation is a constant and complex companion for each of us: in practical daily living and in our ultimate destiny.
Meanwhile our gospel reading crystallises Jesus’ experience of temptation into a single period of forty days, though we’re told by Luke that the voices of self-assertion, voices prompting him to act in contradiction to being the Son of God, stayed with him throughout his life, and we’ll meet his struggle with them again of course in five weeks in Gethsemane.
What inspires me about the temptations described here, before Jesus sets out to proclaim his message, is that it’s all about him facing the conflict of good things. It recognises that most battles aren’t between the obviously good and the obviously evil but they’re about what looks attractive and easy, and what achieves greater things. The salutary fact is that what is good can be our enemy. For instance:
The first of Jesus’ temptations is precisely about allowing the good to usurp the place of the best in our lives.
Jesus was immensely compassionate and he cared deeply about the hunger he saw around him. People needed feeding in his world. His own hunger at this point must’ve forced his attention on the immediate, physical and material need of those he was going to live amongst. Was it not God’s will to provide them with ‘bread’?
How was Jesus going to win people for God? Was becoming a one-man World Food Programme part of being the Son of God? But he knew that if he’d left the path of obedience and instead opted for dramatic demonstrations of meeting physical need then in the very act of claiming his Sonship he would have destroyed it.
In the same way we have to ask ourselves: when does doing good in our life usurp the place of the best we can do? I spoke recently to a woman who’d poured out her life, and that of her husband and children, in the care of her mother. They’d even sold their house and moved in to take care of her. But she’d just come to the point where she’d realised that she’d sacrificed the best they could be as a family for the good of caring for her mother.
The second of Jesus’ temptations, as Luke has it, is the devil showing Jesus the kingdoms of the world and offering him power and authority in return for his allegiance. This plays not to Jesus’ compassion but to his commitment. He longs to see God’s purposes achieved but the temptation is to seek God’s ends by means which are alien to God’s character.
The clever thing is that Jesus isn’t being asked to abandon God’s mission; on the contrary he’s being offered the means to gain power - ‘it will all be yours.’ It’s the temptation to compromise on our methods: to betray the God who is merciful, gracious and holy. In the same way I often speak to people who’re troubled not by what had to be done to them but the way someone went about it.
And the third temptation sees Jesus being invited to throw himself off the pinnacle of the Royal Porch of the Temple into the Kidron Valley to provide a spectacular proof of his faith; to offer people sensation. To force God’s hand by taking short cuts to success is what this is about. It’s so very tempting to take the easy route, the short cut which offers us quick satisfaction.
Can you see how each of these tests Jesus not at his point of weakness but at his greatest strength – his compassion, his commitment and then his faith? The question was how should he use those strengths: how would he win people for God but in a way that God would recognise?
In a sense I don’t think we should worry much about identifying temptation. Jesus knew full well when he was being asked to betray himself and usually so do we. But amidst all that language of the devil testing him there’s still a message for those of us with ambitions to be good: our strengths, our compassion, commitment and faith can themselves be acts of self-assertion and the pleasures of the short term can triumph over God’s eternal plan for us.
In the face of temptation let’s try not to be content with what looks good if what is better is on offer.