Sermon: Lent I - RCL A - "Forgiven?"

Matthew 4:1-11

After Jesus was baptized, he was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. The tempter came and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread." But he answered, "It is written,

'One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"

Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written,

'He will command his angels concerning you,' and 'On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'"

Jesus said to him, "Again it is written, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; and he said to him, "All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me." Jesus said to him, "Away with you, Satan! for it is written,

'Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'"

Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.

It was several weeks back that we began working our way through Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Anyone remember how that one begins? The Beatitudes. Blessed are the poor, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, peacemakers, and finally the persecuted…. I recall.. before fully understanding what Jesus was saying.. that I was so going to Hell. I saw myself as a miserable Christian.. with no chance of getting into heaven, because I am none of those things… The only thing I had to look forward to was purgatory and hell – My one consolation is that I can look around the congregation and know that I’ll at least have several friends with me!

This notion of going to hell was only confirmed when I worked through that list on the front of your bulletin today.. The seven deadly big ones! The seven deadly sins. We saw how we would do while trying to live up to the Beatitudes, so let’s see how we measure up to this list….

Pride.. how could I possibly be prideful when I’m the humblest person I know? Greed? Yeah. Here’s a good one… The LUSTFUL!.. you know what I think of when I think of being lustful? Roy Orbison… No. Not Roy himself, but that song, “There she was just walking down the street.. Singing do wah diddy diddy down diddy do… She looked good, she looked fine… And I nearly lost my mind” – What is wrong with me? Sloth? Wrath? Gluttony? Please! Just look at me…. I couldn’t come close to measuring up to a single one of the Beatitudes, but give me the seven deadly sins and I’m batting 1,000.

In our Gospel today Jesus was able to overcome all the temptations that the Devil threw at him – worldly pleasures, fame, power, everything – but if you were to set a double beef cheeseburger, large fries and an ice cold Coca-Cola down in front of me.. I’m fairly certain that I would commit at least half of the seven deadly sins… And if you set that same double beef cheeseburger, large fries, and ice cold Coca-Cola down in front of somebody else, I would probably break the other half.

Now – I know it is Lent and we aren’t suppose to be having any fun in Church, but I’m sure you see the point as it would apply to a wide range of sinful activity that’s a bit more serious than a double cheeseburger.

St. Peter implores us, “Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.”… As a Christian people.. that is the goal, but so often we end up in the same boat as St. Paul, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.”

Pride is at the top of the list of the seven deadly sins, because it takes a great deal of humility to admit that we have sinned. Think how difficult it is to go to confession.. how much humility it takes to confess your sins to another - many can’t even make themselves practice this sacrament, but if we do humble ourselves, we can recognize that we have sinned.. that we have broken God’s commandments.

But do you want to know what the saddest part of all of this is? We can discuss the fact that we have sinned. We can identify times in our lives that we committed horrible acts. We can identify times in our lives when someone committed horrible acts against us. We will gladly beat ourselves up time and time again for something we did wrong.. even if it was years ago… I can stand up here.. point you out.. and say, “You are a sinner.”.. and in humility you will hang your head in agreement and defeat…

The Psalm.. 51 .. from the Ash Wednesday liturgy struck home with me… “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight… Indeed, I have been wicked from my birth, a sinner from my mother’s womb.”

But you know what?.. That’s not the sad part. The sad part is that in the next sentence after I have said you are a sinner.. in the very next sentence I can tell you that you are forgiven – you are forgiven – and.. the sad part.. in so many cases.. you will not believe that you are forgiven.. you won’t.

Jesus said, “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.”… again Jesus said, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’.. and again, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”… Peter declares, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.”… St. Paul writes, “Blessed are those whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.”… St. John confirms, “I am writing to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven on account of [Jesus] name.”… All that.. and you still won’t believe…

Not only that.. but believing that we are forgiven is almost as difficult as it is for us to forgive others.. that whole bit about “forgive, that you may be forgiven.”… “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive others.”.. Yeah, there are days when I definitely don’t want to pray that!

The thing is.. forgiveness – in every form – is big in the teachings of Holy Scripture. We know that it is a large part of our Christian identity, but what does it really mean? I should probably spend Lent beating your over the head with your sins, but instead, I’ve decided that we should look at this rather illusive topic. So we are going to spend these weeks of Lent looking at the various aspects of forgiveness..

So to begin with.. you have an assignment for this week – Think about forgiveness. No. Not about who you should forgive or anything like that, but ponder your ideas about forgiveness. What do you think Jesus means when he says we should forgive? How can I forgive myself? … Next week we will begin with many of the myths out there about what true Christian forgiveness is all about and see if what we believe is right or wrong.

Let us pray. Happy those whose offences are forgiven, whose sins are remitted. O happy those to whom the Lord imputes no guilt, in whose spirit is no guile. We kept it secret and our frames were wasted. We groaned all day long, for night and day your hand was heavy upon us. Indeed our strength was dried up as by the summer's heat. But now we have acknowledged our sins; our guilt we did not hide, we said: "I will confess my offence to the Lord." And you, Lord, have forgiven the guilt of our sins. So let faithful men and women pray to you in the time of need. The floods of water may reach high but they shall stand secure. You are our hiding place, O Lord; you save us from distress. Rejoice, rejoice in the lord, exult, you just! O come, ring out your joy, all you upright of heart. Amen.