Lent I, Sunday 9th March, by Fr Jack

Deuteronomy 26.1-11
St Paul to the Romans 10.8b-13
St Luke 4.1-13

 

Introduction to the BCP, being used on Sundays in Lent:

In recent years we have come to use the BCP, the Book of Common Prayer, for most Sundays in Lent. The BCP is the English Liturgy, that came into being when Henry VIII took us out of Communion with the European Church. It finally came to settle in the form we have it today in 1662 after the Restoration of the Monarchy after the end of ‘our’ Oliver Cromwell’s Republic. 

(One practical point, apart from standing for the Gospel and for the Creed (and hymns), and sitting for the Epistle (and anthem), the Prayer Book assumes that you basically spend the whole of the service kneeling. Kneeling is a powerful and good posture for prayer, but I realise we may not all do that all the time. That being so, when the Prayer Book says kneel, don’t be tempted just to sit instead, like we’re watching telly. Worship isn’t a spectator sport. Standing and kneeling are equivalent ancient postures for prayer, and much better than sitting (which is also fine, but if we need to). And it doesn’t matter if some are kneeling, some standing, a few sitting because they need to. So be brave, and pray with confidence.)

Anyway, the language of the Prayer Book is beautiful, in its images and rhythms. It has helped the English people be before the Living God for half a millennium. It is also a political and historical text - it holds the space for the new emerging Protestant ideas of the Reformation period, within the Catholic continuity that the Church of England holds too. By using these words, which are still the normative liturgy of the Church of England, we stand in fellowship with the joys and sorrows and everyday of hundreds of years of Christian life in these islands. So whether you love it or loath it, whether you know it off by heart or have never used it before - step into the water of the BCP this Lent at St Giles’ and let it speak of God to your heart, and speak your heart to God.

Sermon: 

On this first Sunday in Lent, I want to help us engage with this season of preparation that the Church gives us by speaking about honesty. About honesty, about sin, and about prayer.

Prayer, fasting and almsgiving are the traditional three-fold practices for Lent.

Deuteronomy today points to the honesty that lies at the heart of almsgiving. God’s ancient people the Jews are instructed in the Law to offer generously of their bounty to God. Not as some great act of self-sacrifice and virtue, but simply because everything they have, everything they are (as a people freed form slavery and lead into safety and prosperity together) is a gift from the Lord. ‘All things come from you, and of your own have we given you’ (as the Book of Chronicles has it, and as the priest prays over the collection during the Parish Eucharist).

To give generously to church and other charities is a simple act of honesty, of recognising that life is never really an act of self-making, however hard we work or talented we are. That all things, including our talents and energy and will, are a gift from God to be grateful for, and to share.

Honesty with ourselves and God really is at the heart of the Christian life.

It’s the same spirit in which St Paul speaks today to the little fledgling church in Rome. What we confess with our lips we hold in our hearts. We don’t believe ‘these’ things over here, in this little box called ‘work’ or ‘church’ or ‘home’, and then live ‘these’ completely different realities over here, called ‘home’ or ‘work’ or ‘church’. No, we are seeking to live honest lives, whole lives, with integrity. And a part of that integrity is being honest about God and us. That life is a gift (as Deuteronomy says), and we are called to live that way, in the way we are generous, and in every other kind of knock on effect.

And that’s what Jesus is doing in the Wilderness today. He is showing us (and finding for Himself as He prepares to embark upon His public ministry) that integrity of belief of practice, that wholeness of being. In those threefold temptations, the devil tempts Him with comfort, power, and a lack of consequences. And Jesus says ‘no’ to all those. Instead, He chooses to face the reality of the road ahead, not those short-cuts of comfort, power and a lack of consequences. 

Honesty, integrity, wholeness. What we think life is, and how we actually live life coming together in a mutually supportive and illuminating whole. That’s the message of today’s readings, it is a very good charter for Lent I think, and indeed, its kind of what our whole lives are about. Who are we? What are we for? How then shall we live? And asking those questions with God bravely, with honesty and integrity.

And that brings me neatly to sin and prayer. 

Sin. Hellfire preachers who go on about sin. History has had its fill of those. And the trouble is, they’ve queered the pitch for the real thing. Because we are liable to flinch when we are talked at about sin. But its really important to speak of sin, we just have to reclaim it, for a deep, thoughtful, orthodox and ancient Christian faith. Sin is anything that separates us from love. The love of God, neighbour (and self, because we will not love our neighbours much, loving our neighbours as ourselves, if we cannot love our selves). Sin is anything that digs a ditch or builds a wall between us loving God, or what God has made. And the truth is that we are all sinners. Not just the people of C Wing of Wormwood Scrubs - we are all sinners. Ever since Adam and Eve, there is something inherent in the human condition that sees us put walls between us and our creator, and our fellow creatures. We can’t shake it, (that’s why we talk about ‘original' sin), but we can be honest about it as we live into and out of our Baptism. We can live with integrity. 

We can face up to those parts of ourselves (our fears or smallness or wounds) that see us build walls or dig ditches, to protect us from the consequences of God’s love, of life truly for and with others. And we are honest about it. That’s why every Eucharist on Sundays and midweek prepares us for Communion with confessing our sins. That’s why private Confession one to one is such a gift to every part of the church (not just Orthodox or Roman Catholics), that’s why we spend time in prayer before God. We carry the needs of the world and the church to God, who knows them already, but invites us to love them with Him. But in prayer we also bring ourselves, to be stripped back a little, like clay in the hand of a potter, to be formed and shaped, and made whole and honest and a little more our true selves before God. As Scripture says, like fire that burns away the impure base metals, leaving gold. That is Lent, that is life.

It’s honest. It’s real about sin. It’s prayer.

And that is the Jesus Prayer, with which I’ll finish. You have it on the Sunday sheet, in a moment we’ll hear the choir sing a beautiful new setting of it, by our own magnificent Amanda Dean, for our intercessions. This prayer is two moments in the Gospel chimera’d together: Blind Bartimeaus and the Publican: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

It has been called the whole Gospel in one line. This prayer honestly says who God is, and it says who we are. It isn’t a self-hating, revelling in sinfulness like some ugly Victorian bully. It is an honest, and freedom-bringing acceptance of our createdness, and our human condition. It honestly and wonderfully says to God, ‘God, I know I pretend to myself and others all the time, but actually, I do know that I cannot be my true self under my own power. I know that I cannot do life, by myself. I know that I cannot earn my way to heaven. I need you, help me. And I trust that you are with me. Thank you’. God’s mercy, His patient, loving, transforming life permeates us more and more every time these words pass our lips, or roll over the front of our minds. That’s why orthodox christians often mutter these words on loop, hour after hour. I’ve said it before, but neuroplasticity is our friend. The more we look at people suspiciously or possessively, in person or online, the more and more and more we will instinctively do that. The more we come honestly before God in prayer, the more we will find we strengthen those pathways in our brain, and those instincts in the way we live. We use habit to cultivate, like attending to a garden, that brings forth more and more and more fruit. 

Two final little thoughts, which I hope are helpful. Lots of people who use the Jesus Prayer find they sing it - as we will today. People also breathe it. Splitting the phrase into four: 1. Breathe in slowly ‘Lord Jesus Christ. 2. Breathe out slowly ‘Son of God’. 3. Breathe in slowly ‘Have mercy of me’. 4. Breathe out slowly ‘a sinner’. Try that for just a few minutes now.

And finally, as I said, the words of the Jesus Prayer are about honesty and liberation towards joy, not wallowing in self-hate. They are also not about ‘me’. The ‘have mercy on me, a sinner’ to our modern western eyes might seem a little self-regarding. But remember, these are ancient and eastern words. The Eastern tradition of the church is quite clear: whenever we pray, we bring the whole of the church, the whole of the human family, the whole of the cosmos with us before the Throne of Grace. The Jesus Prayer, is always an ‘us’ prayer, not a me, me, me, prayer 

So, the Jesus Prayer is an ancient gift which I commend to you this Lent, and for life. Take it with you into periods of silent prayer at home or in church, take it with you on the tube, take it with you into the transitions between meetings, or the snatched seconds between phone calls or zoom calls. It’s about honesty, about sin and about prayer. And it will change your life.