Sermon for March 1, 2020 - Lent 1A - The Rev'd Elise A. Feyerherm

 Matthew 4:1-11

This gospel story for the first Sunday in Lent always sounds to me like it came from Marvel Comics, or Star Wars. Our hero, Jesus, is challenged by his arch-nemesis, the devil, who, like Darth Vader looming over Luke Skywalker, tries to lure him to the dark side. Will he or won’t he? Is he strong enough and clever enough to resist the pull of temptation, the lure of comfort and safety and power? Will he still be our superhero? Will he save the world?

And with an opening story like this, it’s no wonder that our approach to Lent follows a similar plot. Will we persevere to the end? Will we be faithful in our discipline? Are we strong and clever enough to resist the pull of temptation, the lure of comfort and safety and power? Will we prove ourselves to be Lenten superheroes? Will we send the devil packing?

I love a good superhero story – I really do. It’s all very good for entertainment – but as a paradigm for our Lenten journey, I’ve come to realize that it’s just plain exhausting, and bad theology as well. Jesus as superhero doesn’t inspire me – it just makes me feel inadequate and tired.

But the experience of being tempted, especially when we’re hungry and tired and not at all sure where we’re going, is one we can all relate to. It was very real for Jesus, and his adversary knows it. What’s a superhero to do? The only thing she can do: pray.

I can’t imagine that Jesus would have been able to make it those forty days in the wilderness without praying. As Jesus faced the taunts and temptations of the Adversary, I imagine that what got him through was not so much willpower as it was a steady prayer.

During this Lenten season, we are continuing our journey through the Way of Love by exploring the practice of Pray – dwelling intentionally with God each day. When I want to know about prayer I often turn to people in our past tradition who have shown wisdom. To learn about prayer, one of the people I turn to is the 17th century Anglican priest and poet George Herbert. Many of his poems are actually prayers to God, and have been set to music, including the hymn, “Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life.” It’s number 487, and I invite you to open your hymnal now to that hymn – and yes, we’re going to sing during this sermon.

Although Herbert’s poem was written sixteen centuries after Jesus faced his adversary in the wilderness, let us imagine that this was Jesus’ prayer in the midst of his temptations. Let us wonder how a prayer such as this might have upheld Jesus in his trials. Let us imagine how such a prayer might do the same for us. Let’s go back to the story.

One of Jesus’ temptations is to throw himself from the pinnacle of the temple, because of course, if he is the Son of God, the angels will save him from harm. I know this temptation. Sometimes it seems as if the only way to know if we’re worth something is to go into freefall and see if God or anyone else notices.

How do we respond to the lure of self-sabotage? With harsh discipline? Or with a cry to the One who made us and called us good? Might our Lenten practice be to meet this self-loathing not with more condemnation but with a prayer to God to come and remind us that every breath is God’s love sustaining us? Come, O God. Be our way, our truth, our life. Remind us that you think we are worth something, maybe even everything.

So I’m wondering what it would be like, this Lent, to practice this steady prayer to God to be our way that gives us breath. Let’s try it now, singing the first verse of Herbert’s hymn together:

Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life: 
Such a way as gives us breath;
Such a truth as ends all strife;
Such a life as killeth death.

What happens within us when this is our prayer? Can this possibly be the prayer of a creature who is worth nothing?

Our wilderness journey is not always about self-loathing. Sometimes it is about deep hunger and sheer exhaustion. Remember, Matthew tells us, that Jesus fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. Not just a little peckish – but really, deeply, hungry. He has no fuel left, not only for his body, but I suspect for his soul as well.

When I am hungry, I tend to get very anxious, and I start strategizing about how and when I can scrounge some food. When I am spiritually hungry, I do the same – I start to strategize. What should I read? What can I do to fill the void?

Jesus has a somewhat different approach – he reminds his adversary that our food, spiritual or otherwise, comes from God. Do we always need complex strategies for filling our hungry souls, turning ourselves inside out trying to turn stones in bread? Or might it be as simple as turning our hunger into a prayer? Lord, I am famished and weary – I need you to come. We could even sing the second stanza of Herbert’s poem:

Come, my Light, my Feast, my Strength: 
Such a light as shows a feast;
Such a feast as mends in length;
Such a strength as makes his guest.

I am all for carefully thought-out plans for spiritual growth, but this Lent I think I will pray my hunger and my exhaustion, praying for light to see the feast that meets every hunger with what it needs. Come, my Light, my Feast, my Strength – come, because I can’t do this on my own. I need you, God, each and every day.

Jesus’ final temptation in the wilderness shows him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor, and the adversary promises them all to him if he would only bow down and worship. No one has offered these things to me the last time I checked, but I have my own versions of them. The praise and adoration of my colleagues; scholarly fame; financial security and freedom; all these things at one time or another compete with God for my worship. My heart is too small – as of now – for the joy that God would give me if I allowed it. My heart cannot yet imagine what it would be like to, as Jesus says, “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only God.”

My heart cannot yet fully imagine it, but I can ask. I – we – can plead. We can, as our Eucharistic prayers bid, lift our hearts to the Lord. When God doesn’t seem like enough, we might sing, until it is true, the third stanza of George Herbert’s hymn: 

Come, my Joy, my Love, my Heart: 
Such a joy as none can move;
Such a love as none can part;
Such a heart as joys in love.

This, I think, is what Jesus was searching for in the wilderness. This is what the Adversary’s temptations were designed to squash – a joy as none can move; a love as none can part; and a heart as joys in love. Isn’t this, in the end, what we all long for? All our Lenten disciplines, whether or not we engage in them this year, they are but means to the goal, which is communion with the God who is love. But prayer – it’s both the journey and the destination, the hunger and the food together. God is already our Way, our Truth, our Life; our Light, our Feast, our Strength. As we journey in the wilderness, each prayer of longing is already a foretaste of a Heart that Joys in Love, and for now, it is enough. If we do nothing else this Lent but pray our longing, it will be enough.