Let us pray:

Gracious God, in your abundant mercy be patient with each of us these forty days of Lent, teaching us how to number our days that we may obtain a heart of wisdom, and come to know more fully on Easter Day the wondrous gift of new life you seek to give us in Jesus Christ, our risen and reigning Lord.  Amen.

In our Gospel reading of the morning we find Jesus in the wilderness.

Saint Matthew tells us: “Then Jesus was led by the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. . .”  Tempted has become a weak translation, because the way the word is used in our modern language.  “Please, don’t tempt me with another piece of pie or cake or whatever.”  Tested, consequently, captures better the essence of our Lord’s experience.

Temptation also implies a choice between right and wrong, good and evil.  Jesus was tested.  Jesus was forced by the evil one to choose the better over the best, to resist the good rather than to be unfaithful to God.

When first century folk heard this story of Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness, they thought immediately of Adam and Eve in the garden – Paradise Lost – and their tempting/testing by the evil one in the form of a serpent.  Jesus is better prepared.  Jesus is full of the Holy Spirit.  Jesus prevails in an encounter, which could have turned out as badly as the first.  Consequently, eventually, Paradise is regained !

It has been an eventful time in Jesus’ life.  A rush of events, one tumbling over another.  At the age of thirty Jesus has decided to close his carpenter’s shop.  He has worked there ever since Joseph died, supporting his mother and younger brothers and sisters.  One day Jesus locked the door, threw away the key, stopped doing what his family and friends could understand and support, and began doing what they could never fully comprehend.

Imagine the weeks and months and even years which led up to this decision!  We know that Mary was a ponderer. When the angel appeared to announce the birth of Jesus, Saint Luke tells us “. . .she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what they might mean.”  And when the shepherds arrived at the Bethlehem manger and told Mary what the angel had said to them, again Luke tells us, “. . .Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.”  Eventually she shared all these things with her boy Jesus, as she tucked him into bed and heard his prayers – as he grew into adulthood, I can see them sitting around the kitchen table, after the dishes had been cleared and the young children sent off to bed, pondering what all this might possibly mean.

Jesus had a lot to ponder those forty days and forty nights, alone in that barren place, with the evil one working him over.  There were those words he heard after his baptism, climbing up the slippery banks of the River Jordan: “. . You are my son, the beloved, with you I am well pleased.”  Jesus, there in the wilderness pondering God’s call, trying to see more clearly what it was God wanted him to do with his life.  I think sometimes that the greatest gift of all is knowing what your life’s work is to be and then having the privilege of being able to do it.

The decision about what to do with your life is one of the most important decisions you and I will ever make.  There are many of us here this morning who can identify with Jesus’ pondering there in the wilderness.  For some way, sometime, somehow, we’ve been there ourselves.  The decision about what to do with your life isn’t made once and for all.  There is a sense in which we each make it over and again: sometimes dramatically, but more often, routinely, daily, when we decide to do this instead of that; to go there rather than here.  There are people I know who live lives of aching unhappiness because the decision about what to do with their lives turned out not to be a good one.  They don’t know how to unmake it, or for a variety of reasons cannot unmake it.  They feel trapped and there can be a lot of unhappiness around this subject.

The decision about what to do with your life, for the Christian, is a theological decision, a religious decision whether or not you think of yourself as a religious person.  It is a spiritual decision.  Because the decision about what you are going to do with your life is about values, ultimate values and commitments, it is about belief, about who God is and who you are, and about the real and final meaning of this thing we call life.

Jesus pondered all this in the wilderness.  We’ve been there ourselves. And the good news is that it is never too late for any one of us to decide what it is all about and to do it.  It is one of the most important decisions you will ever make: what to do with your life, how you choose to handle your weaknesses and dedicate your strengths, how you decide to use your gifts of time, talent and money; what causes you will support and champion and which ones you will say “no” to.  Few decisions are more important.  Sometimes the hour for that decision comes suddenly and dramatically.

More often, the decision comes slowly. Sometimes forces beyond us shape and direct our lives.  I think of this in my own life.  Della and I were married when we graduated from college.  Our plan was she would continue to teach in Newton and I would go to Seminary and then to graduate school and get a Ph.D. and teach.  You probably know the saying: “If you want to see God smile, tell God your plans.”  Our son Mark was born and I had a family to support. Fortunately, I was called to be minister with youth at a church in Melrose. Can you picture me in that position with a large group of Junior Highers and some 50-60 Senior Highs?

I went to seminary full time, spent twenty-five hours a week at the church, and worked noontimes at a Jewish delicatessen in Newton Center.  Best job I ever had, other than being your Interim Senior Pastor.  In the midst of all this I fell in love with the parish ministry, forgot all about the Ph.D., though I did graduate first in my seminary class.  I have never wanted to do anything with my life save pastor a church.

How do you process all of this?  Simply chance?  Good luck?  The grace of God?  God’s purpose and plan for my life?  Now I need to affix the appropriate warning label, for I would not want to be the cause of your embarrassment at your next social gathering.

Stephen Carter, Yale Law School professor and author of the best seller “Emperor of Ocean Park,” says, “One good way to end a conversation . . . is to tell a group of well-educated professionals that you hold a position. . .because it is required by your understanding of God’s will.”  Nonetheless, I am persuaded that what we choose to do with our life, our gifts, our talents, our time, is for the Christian a theological and spiritual issue.

I had a plan.  You know: Plan the Work, Work the Plan.  God had a purpose and God always has the power!  As someone had observed (Frederick Buechner), “The Gospel story often whispers like a song of healing through the babble and drone of our own story, our lies are threaded through with blessings known and unknown, remembered and forgotten.  There is the story of God’s amazing grace and our own story.  In the end, if we are blessed, they intersect and touch each other.”

Often though, our culture does not help, either in the discovery or the doing of our life’s work.  The message the media tries to seduce us with day after day is: “Be successful, be happy, be wealthy.”  It drowns out the message of the Gospel, which is that God does not call you to be successful; God calls you to be faithful!

You see, this is the way the devil tested Jesus . .  “. . .Turn these stones into loaves of bread.  Be popular Jesus, folks are hungry, give them something to eat.”  Jesus answered, and many of us still have not gotten hold of this truth, “. . .no one lives by bread alone, but by every word that comes from God.”  “Jesus,” said the evil one, “fall down and worship me, and I will give  you the kingdoms of the world.”  Jesus replied, “Worship the Lord your God.  “Jesus, throw yourself off the top of the temple,” said the devil.  “Stage a spectacular media event, get on the evening news, and I will be there to catch you.”  Jesus responds, “Life is too short and too serious to be fooling around with God.”

Old South sits in the shadow of great towers of commerce and consumption.  Over and again I am struck as to the profound difference between the message proclaimed in this sanctuary and the message proclaimed by the streets around us. . .  The philosophy of recent years in American society can be summed up in the words, “I want more and I want it now.”

The most important message this church has to proclaim is that you cannot live by bread alone and that God alone is to be glorified and not the self, for we are not the center of the universe.  The meaning of our lives at the end of the day will be found in giving, not getting, in serving, not in being served.  There is great wisdom in the words of G. K. Chesterton, “There are two ways to have enough. The first is to accumulate more, the second is to desire less.”

It is important to see that in Jesus’ third and final testing the devil plays the trump card: the devil says to our Lord, “If you are the Son of God. . .”  If only the evil one could get Jesus to question and doubt the voice he heard at his baptism, his relationship with God which he and Mary had pondered on so many evenings, then all would be lost, as it was in Eden’s garden and Satan would again be the winner.   If you are the Son of God. . .if, if, if. . .

That ancient voice continues to whisper in your ear and mine each day:  “If you are a Child of God. . .if. . .if…if… forget all that pious talk, be successful, grab all you can, while you can.  Look out for number One.”  If you do not know to whom that voice belongs, then read the Gospels again.  Then tell the devil to get lost, as Jesus did, and decide what you will do with the rest of your life and your gifts.

Use these days of Lent to struggle with God’s call in your life.  Expect great things from God and from yourself.  The Gospel writers tell us “Then the devil left him and suddenly angels came and ministered to him.”  I love that verse. . .let the angels of God minister to you these days of Lent. . get in closer touch with your guardian angel. .   ‘Then angels cam and ministered to him. . “

As our nation stands on the brink of war, in these days of heightened security alerts, God grant that such an experience be yours and mine.  And may the Peace of Christ be with you.

Amen.

Scripture Reading
Matthew 4: 1-11

Then Jesus 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.