1st Sunday in Lent
March 5, 2017
Matthew 4:1-11
Or watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpT6bSwqCdo
I
trust everything went well while I was gone. It was a wonderful time of rest
and renewal, and time apart for my husband and myself. Now I feel a bit more
ready for Lent, which can be a difficult season. In fact, before I left, I went
to the Bishop’s Pre-Lent Day Apart and the title of the day was “Lent and Other
Four Letter Words.” I don’t know about you, but there are times Lent feels like
a four letter word. Now, I’d already been planning to go through our membership
vows for the first five Sundays in Lent. I’ve now reworded each vow into a
four-letter word. To refresh your minds, those vows you made are “to faithfully
participate in the ministries of the church by our prayers, our presence, our
gifts, our service, and our witness.”[1]
Every time someone else joins the church, every time there’s a baptism, and
most recently two months ago when we remembered Jesus’ baptism, we promise
again. We frequently renew our vows, not just on special anniversaries that are
decades apart.
The
first vow is that you will participate in the ministries of the church through
your prayers. When you joined this church, no matter how long ago or how
recently it was, you promised to pray.
That’s the first vow, and that’s what we are focusing on today, in case you
didn’t get all the clues from the songs and sermon title. You vowed to
faithfully participate by your prayers. Turn prayer into a four letter word:
PRAY. Have you noticed it’s easy to talk about prayer? And it’s harder to
actually get on your knees and pray? And if you have arthritic knees like me,
harder to sit still and pray, or focus your thoughts and pray, or just be still
and pray. There’s something about turning prayer into a four-letter word, about
turning it into a verb, and then
intentionally doing it.
Of
course, we have different ideas about what it looks like to pray. Do you
usually put your hands physically like this, like the statue I showed the kids?
Some of us do; I don’t. I’ll hold my hands, I’ll keep them still. But even
before my wrists became arthritic, I still didn’t hold them palm to palm. I
remember groaning out loud when one of the kids on the TV show, “Seventh
Heaven,” knelt next to his bed and folding his hands just so to pray. It just
felt so cliché and there are so many other ways to pray!! You can walk, stand,
kneel, sit, lie down, drive, play, sing, be silent, sit in the back pew, sit in
the front pew, sit on a bar stool, stand at Camden Yards! Praying can happen
anywhere, and with just about anything! You can pray with your Orioles’ jersey,
pray with prayer beads, pray wearing a prayer shawl, pray while reading the
Bible, pray while talking with your family, pray while preaching on prayer! (Oh
Lord, don’t let me mess up!)
Now,
what’s this have to do with our lectionary reading this morning? Take another
look at that Gospel of Matthew we read. It comes at the end of Jesus 40 days in
the wilderness. 40 days being the same length as the season of Lent, which we
began on Ash Wednesday. The first verse says, “The Spirit led Jesus up into the
wilderness so that the devil might tempt him. After Jesus had fasted for forty
days and forty nights, he was starving. The tempter came to him…” I don’t know about
you, but when I get tempted, either I give in immediately and unwrap that
chocolate bar, or, I tell myself “no.” Yet sometimes that chocolate bar can
look pretty good, and then I’ve got to do something a little more drastic, like
hide it in a cabinet, or walk out of the kitchen and go find something else to
do so that I’ll forget about it. It works sometimes, right? But sometimes it
takes hold in your mind and you can’t forget it. What do you do then? Throw it
away? Give it away?
Look
at what Jesus does. Satan tempts him with food, and Jesus responds with
Scripture, “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from
the mouth of God.” Satan tempts him again, and this time quotes Scripture, from
Psalm 91, “For he will command his angels concerning you, to guard you in all
your ways.” And Jesus responds with an even older Scripture, from Deuteronomy,
“Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” Finally, Satan tempts Jesus with power,
and Jesus says, “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.” Would Jesus
have been ready to answer the tempter if he had not spent time praying in God’s
Word? Seeking to find a way through? When temptation comes, when you’re in the
wilderness, when you don’t know which way is up, when you’re overwhelmed, when
you don’t know what to pray, go spend time in the Bible. Pick a favorite verse
or just open it randomly and start reading. All praying is, is talking with
God. And when you don’t know what to
say, let God go first. Prayer should be a conversation, which means both people
get to talk and both get to listen.
One of the funnier points the presenter at the Bishop’s
Day Apart made was a gentle reminder that we are the children of God. God is our parent. God is not our child and we the parent
of God. We are not even the teenager
of God. You are a child of God. And
as children, our conversation with God, our prayers, are going to reflect that.
Sometimes, like stereotypical teenagers, we do ask things from God, like God,
can I have some money? Other times, though, it’s simply bringing situations to
God. Telling God about your day. The ancient prayer of examen is done at the
end of the day, looking back over the day, and looking to see where God was in
each thing that went on. Or you could be a child asking God about something,
you know, tell me about sunsets, tell me about how the world works, just like
children do. Now, I suspect God gets as tired of all the why’s as any parent. But
not all conversations are asking for something, and not all prayers should be
asking for something, either.
I once heard the types of prayers put into the acronym,
ACTS. You know, like the book in the Bible, A-C-T-S. A is for prayers of Adoration,
times when we praise God. Look at that beautiful sunrise! God, how great thou
art! I often choose a praise hymn to begin our worship service, because it sets
the tone and the reminder that this time of worship is about God. Let’s praise
God! C is for Confession, which we do at least once a month when we have
communion. I hope you do it more often and can own up to when you’ve messed up
and need to make something right. Since Lent is a time of repentance, we’re
going to have a prayer of confession in worship each week during this season. T
is for Thanksgiving, and this is probably one of the more common prayers we
give. Thank you, Jesus, for this food. Thank you, God, for healing. Thank you,
Lord, for a phone call from a good friend. Thank you, Jesus, for a close
parking space! Or any parking space at all in December! Finally, S is for Supplication,
which is a fancy word for ask, and something we do a lot, too. I remember a
bible study I was in a while ago when the teacher said, “God is not a vending
machine.” You don’t get to put your quarter in, or your dollar bill in, and
receive exactly what you want. God doesn’t work that way. We ask, and God tells
us to ask, to the point of even saying in the book of James, “You do not have
because you do not ask!” We are supposed to ask God for those things which we
need, those things which our heart most desires. But don’t be a teenager about
it. Rather than asking for things, perhaps ask God to show you more, to help
you understand, to gain in intangible things, like love and grace and
understanding and patience and peace. Those prayers become more conversations
with God, rather than a yes/no question.
So that prayer is more of a conversation and less talking
in your head, pull out your Bible. See what God has said in the past and what
God is saying now. Pray. Talk with God. You promised to do it, and you promised
by your prayers to faithfully participate in the ministries of this church. The
ministries are not the same as they’ve been before, and that’s good. If we’re
going to be around for another generation, then we have to focus on that next
generation. We’re not here for ourselves.
Cowenton: Remember our mission. Rooted in Christ, that’s what we’re doing here in worship, that’s
what we do in bible study, that’s what we do when we read the Bible, that’s
what we do when we pray, so that we can nurture the community. So
that we can share God’s love through ministries like Streets of Hope and
EIO. So that we continue our original
mission of providing Sunday school to children. The whole reason this church
came to be, right? The kids needed Sunday school. Support that through your
prayers and your other vows, which we’re going to talk about over the next four
weeks. You promised to be faithful, and the eleven
kids we now have in our children’s Sunday School need you to be faithful, and
need you to pray for them. And pray for their teachers and their parents, while
you’re at it.
Both: The future is going to look different than the past,
and that’s ok. One of the places I went last week in Zurich was to an old Roman
viaduct. As the Roman Empire spread throughout Europe 2,000 years ago, they
built infrastructure, like roads and viaducts, which were to transport water.
Well, there are still some remains of that 2,000 year old viaduct in Zurich,
and the Swiss have transformed it and used it and are still doing so. About a
hundred years ago, when they put their train system in, they put train tracks
right over top of the viaduct. Saved them from having to build a bridge, and
used an old thing in a new way. Recently, a few years ago, they starting filling
in the arches of the viaduct and the ground level is now full of stores and
cafes. Something old being repurposed. The original structure of the viaduct is
still there, you can’t miss it. Yet it has been transformed into a way that it
can be used now and not just remain
as ruins.
(I'm standing on top of the first row of arches, so that the stores are beneath me, as you can see in the distance, and the train tracks are on top of the second row of arches.)
It’s something to be in prayer about with God. Excuse me, it’s
something to pray about and talk
about with God. Even on some of the oldest buildings in Zurich, which go back
to the 1200’s, there are cranes and renovations as they preserve what’s good
about the structure and the unique designs and the cobblestone streets, and yet
they are renovating so that something new can happen. It’s pretty cool.
So, this week, your four-letter word is PRAY and your
challenge is to intentionally do it every day. If you already do that, make it
three times a day. If you need help, give me a call. Or if you need a Bible,
give me a call. There are lots of free versions you can download onto a tablet
or smartphone if you have one of those. Talk to God, listen to what God has to
say to you. And, it might help to write it down, or highlight it, or something
to remind you. Or write a bible verse out on an index card and tape it to your
mirror or your coffee pot or somewhere you’ll see it and remember.
Let us pray together…
No comments:
Post a Comment