Led By The Spirit Sermon

Led by the Spirit – to prosperity or pain?

We’ve sung ... Lead us heavenly Father lead us.

We’ve prayed ... lead us not into temptation.

And there’s the rub. We’re caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. We want to be led but sometimes we need to beware of the siren voices that lure us from the narrow path. Like the footpath on the Island of Sark I have in my mind’s eye, with a precipitous drop down to rocky coves on either side of the walk to the south beach where there is sand and sun (on good days) and the security of shelter from the winds and the tides which buffet the island.

In Greek myth, the sirens were imagined as beautiful women. I remember at school reading Homer’s Odyssey (in translation mostly!), the story of how they lived on an island in the narrow straits between Italy and Sicily. They sang a beautiful song that was designed to tempt the sailors, distract their attention and lure them either on to the rock of Scylla or to be swallowed up by the whirlpool of Charybdis. As they sailed towards the straits, Odysseus stopped the ears of his boat crew with wax so that they couldn’t hear the tempting music. He had himself lashed to the mast. When Jason sailed with his Argonauts, they had the advantage of having Orpheus with his lyre with him. And that more beautiful song made sure that their attention was fixed on the boat and not the temptations and dangers that lurked beyond.

As we’ll sing later : “I see the sights that dazzle, the tempting sounds I hear.” The glittering images and siren voices of modern society are all calling us away from that voice of Jesus which says: “Come unto me and rest”. But he leads us not to a place of comfort and easy pleasure. He calls us to follow this Lent the way of the Cross, the way not to prosperity but a way often of pain and suffering that comes of living with difficult choices.

Where is God leading us? Well, our lessons this morning give us some guidance for the journey. In the OT, the Israelites were led by God through the desert, the wilderness. Through bad times, to better times. And our NT lesson says that after his baptism and before his public ministry, Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. - to temptations and the conflict with the powers of darkness. For both, for the Israelites and for Jesus then, it’s a time of testing. For some it will bring prosperity. For others, this journey will involve pain and suffering.

We’re now four days into the season of Lent. The forty days of Lent are of course modelled on Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness, a time when he was alone, hungry, and in danger of perishing. It recalled the words of Psalm 95 (which is often omitted from morning prayer now):

	Today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts : as in the provocation,
	and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness. When your fathers tempted me: proved me, and saw my works.

	Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and said : It is a people that do err in their hearts, for they have not known my ways. The reading from Deuteronomy reminds us that the experience of the Israelites is common to us all. Where is God leading us to? And why is he testing us so? It reminds us of the precarious journey their ancestors had made, out of the slavery of Egypt walking away from their captors, into the freedom of the Promised Land, a land flowing with milk and honey, a land of plenty which beckoned them and gave them hope to rely on the providence of God. And it challenged them to think – if our God is so great, what does he demand of us? The writer puts at the heart of their response the need to make an offering back to God, in thankfulness. What God has given first to them, now they are to offer back to God. During Lent we too have an opportunity, out of disciplined reflection and action and in a season between Christmas and Easter, of receiving gifts in celebration, to say “What shall we offer our good Lord?” in response to his boundless grace. What are the seeds we must sow? What are the fruits we bear for the life of the world and not for our own personal comfort and pleasure and enjoyment? As I shared with Methsoc on Ash Wednesday, it’s not to be a miserable time, a time of worrying about what we have to give up and the struggle to be disciplined enough to keep to the rules we set ourselves. No chocolates or sweets, no alcohol or luxuries , no more binge spending on the credit cards. It’s to be a happy time, of devoting extra time to reflect on God’s goodness and his purpose for us, an introspective time of personal examination and growth, maybe spending more time in reading the bible and engaging in prayer and/or in discussion with others. Getting to know God better through the study material our District Chair has offered as a resource for discipleship. And at the heart of all that is the question which we ask : “How have I been active in bringing God’s Kingdom to those around me through the offering up of some of the fruits of the abundance God has lavished on me?” For thanksgiving leads on naturally to generosity. It involves, as the Israelites were challenged to remember, even when they’d arrived at the Promised Land and thought they’d got it all for themselves, that it meant sharing with those who were the aliens and dispossessed in their midst. For they were once just in the same position. And God rescued them, lifted them up, and brought them through the Red Sea, across the desert, fed with manna, and into the land full of milk and honey. A gracious generous God did this. And all his people should be like him. For the passage reminds them, and reminds us, of the need to care for the outsider, the stranger who resided among them. To share their possessions, their food, wine and oil, their flocks and their first fruits, with others less fortunate. So in one sense they are led back to the place from which they’d come, just to bring them to their senses, out of their self-satisfied gorging on the plenty that had come their way, back to the wilderness of uncertainty and dependence on God, back to the abject slavery and oppression to remind them of the cruelty fellow human beings could inflict on each other. So lead us not into temptation .. as in the day of provocation in the wilderness ... The temptation to despair and give up when the going gets tough, to turn our backs on God The temptation to ignore the needs of neighbours and fend for No.1 when resources are limited The temptation to retaliate against those who seek to do us down and seem to oppress us The temptation to think, like some celebrities, that we are above the normal rules for living and that temptations of various sorts, sexual and financial, are there to be enjoyed for personal gain and gratification And Jesus too faces temptations. In the old Prayer Book, temptation was aid to come from the world, the flesh and then devil. We’re reminded of this in baptism services when we ask for the help of God’s Spirit to lead us in our lives in ways which reject these temptations: Of the world: as we try keep the sort of company which will encourage us and keep us out of harm’s way and not give in to the Of the flesh: as we eschew a life of complete self-satisfaction, like lying in a warm bath all day when there’s work to be done Of the devil who always seeks to present something which will stop us doing and being good, in big and small ways. And Jesus was tempted ‘in every way, yet without sin”. The Spirit leads him out into the wilderness to reflect how he way to set about the ministry to which he had been called, confirmed by the voice of God at his baptism. He too was tempted by the world, the flesh and the devil: Offered authority over all the kingdoms of the world Offered the chance to turn stones into bread when he was physically hungry Offered a marvellous photo-opportunity for the crowds to be dazzled by this miracle-worker who could jump off the Temple and survive Yes, it must have been hard to resist the temptations to feed the crowds, force them and fascinate them into believing in him. Social programmes to rid the world of hunger, raising armies to liberate the oppressed and have them put in charge, dazzling them with signs and wonders which left them full of adulation. But would these things point to God? Would these things lead them to our Heavenly Father? There was for Jesus and for us the danger that we use the wrong means to achieve good ends. God leads us on a narrow path, a difficult path, a path not necessarily of prosperity and position in society, but of pain and deprivation. Of self-giving and selflessness. So perhaps rather than giving something up (often things which we need to do anyway for reasons of health and well being) we could make more sacrificial offerings this Lent. Of time, devoting more time to prayer and study. We might want to pause and give thanks to God for our many blessings, “the inestimable benefits” as the prayer of Thanksgiving reminds us. Count your Blessings with the Action for Children worksheet and help others. Of our money, for this and for other concerns like the toilet twinning project the stewards are encouraging us to support this Lent. Of lifestyle, as we remember the needs of many workers in the Third World and support them through the purchase of Fair Trade products, helping them to flourish in their own communities so that they do not need to become migrants and wanderers The temptation is to try to avoid temptations. But we have to make choices, difficult choices, with the assurance that God is with us on our journey, as he was with the people of Israel tempted in the wilderness. As he was with Jesus led by the Spirit into the wilderness. Perhaps Lent is a time of training ourselves to overcome the little temptations and take positive action, so that later when the big temptations come along, we’re fit to say a firm ‘No’ when they attack us. Like Jesus, we can only overcome temptation by remembering that the joys of heaven come through death and resurrection, through travelling the Way of the Cross with him, joys which are deeper and more lasting than any of the transitory pleasures offered to us by the myriad siren voices that assail our ears and lure us to the rocks of life. Lead us heavenly Father, lead us. Lead us not into temptation but through the choices temptations bring to an affirmation of a world to be won for God against those temptations of the flesh and the devil. Amen.
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