And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tested by Satan, and he was with the wild beasts, and the angels waited on him.
Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the good news of God and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”
Mark 1:12-15
I’m about to give you quite a counter-intuitive sermon this Sunday, because what I’m going to ask you to do this lent is “less.”
As a priest, it’s very easy to think it’s all down to you. In every church I’ve found that there’s a person who things are left to, and that mythical person is called “somebody”. Somebody will put the tables out, somebody will wash up or hoover the floor. And if you’re not careful, as a priest, you can end up feeling obliged to become that person and more. You can end up, if you’re not careful, running around all the time meeting people and putting on services or funerals or endless admin or training days. It’s easy to convince yourself that everything is down to you, being busy and working hard. It’s very easy, if you let yourself, to work God totally out of the equation. I know people who have exhausted their ministry because they stopped relying on God and started pushing and pushing themselves, as if the world will only come to know Jesus if they send off that last email about flower arrangements.
We all know what it’s like when we just want to make something happen or we just want to get somewhere, don’t we? Have you ever been in a traffic jam when you really needed to be somewhere, thought yourself a genius, tried to take a shortcut and found yourself more stuck than before and cursing every person who slowly walks past your car? It’s that same feeling, the feeling that we need to solve the problem ourselves, so we jump in and try to make it right.
We can think that it’s all up to what we can do.
And the same can be true of our faith, can’t it? We think that forgiveness and a good relationship with God is dependant on how well we behave, that we can work ourselves into heaven. We can trick ourselves into thinking that if we work harder and harder on our relationship with God then we can end up being perfect, like Jesus, but that is not the point of our faith.
If you imagine a cosmic whiteboard like we used to have in school (or a blackboard, for some), we tend to make the mistake of imagining that being a good Christian as getting a smiley face next to your name on the whiteboard, with lots of ticks and no crosses, as though Christianity were about being a part of some gigantic scoreboard. And that’s how many other religion work around the world, they ask how well you can stick to the rules, whether the Torah or the Five Pillars, but what Christianity does is totally different. Or rather, what Christ did on the cross is totally different.
When God died for you on that cross, he didn’t just give you some values or a few new laws to live your life by, though there’s much we can learn from the cross. What God did when he died on the cross, wasn’t stick another way to get a tick next to your name. When he died for you, he wiped the board clean and called an end to keeping score for everyone who trusts in him and turns back to him, away from the sinful, abusive ways of the world.
Point scoring is over. Working your way into heaven is a foolish impossibility. Sooner or later we all make mistakes, we’re not good enough for perfection. But in our faith, it’s not about how hard we work, all we have to do is trust in the God who died on a cross.
Jesus starts his ministry, in Mark’s gospel as we read today, knowing it would end in the cross. He starts his ministry by being tempted and tested, and then by calling for others to repent, for the kingdom has come near. The journey to the cross starts with testing and repentance, with spending time with God and wrestling with difficult questions and then with a call for others back to him.
Well, brothers and sisters as we go through lent this year, we also journey towards the cross. And on that journey we could try to do it all ourselves, or we could stop and recognise that God is at work in us. We could try to be that ‘somebody’ who does everything, or we could let God do his work in us as we simply turn back to him once more, repenting of the things we have done wrong.
Now, of course, there are some things we can do over lent. Over lent we can pray more, we can read the bible more and spend more time with God, we can be more generous and have special devotions, but what we shouldn’t do is think that our work is more important than God’s work in us. In all the work the we do, what we should be doing is allowing space for God to work in our lives.
Sure, you can spend more time with God this lent, sure you can give more generously than ever before but only do that if you are willing to allow more space for God to be at work in your life. Repent. Say sorry. Then spend allowing God to do the work in you.
I’m not a baker, as the multiple people who came away with food poisoning over the years will tell you, but I do know that when you make bread, you put the ingredients in and you follow the process but if you don’t let the yeast do the work, if you don’t let the bread rise, it won’t turn out right.
Well brothers and sisters, this lent, yes, put the ingredients in. Pray more. Read the bible more. Spend more time with God. Repent of your sins. But then make sure that you let the bread rise. Make sure than you let God go to work in your hearts.
So what does that mean?
It means believing that God has done the work needed to forgive you. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done. God can forgive you if you turn back to him and you’ve done that.
But it also means that you can be at peace this lent. Yes, repent and deepen your relationship with him but also, as in a marriage, a deeper relationship shouldn’t mean you end up doing absolutely everything, a deeper relationship is a partnership. Try listening to him and knowing that he has got you in his hands. Repent and spend time with him, knowing that you are forgiven, not hating yourself for being imperfect.
God, who wiped the whiteboard clean at the cross, doesn’t care about the imperfect score, he just cares that you trust him and that you have turned back to him once more in faith.
So this week, why not try to spend time ‘resting’ with God instead of ‘doing’. Why not just listen to your favourite hymn on the internet and rest with him. Why not remind yourself of the forgiveness of sins and the love of God, as we prepare for Easter.
Amen.
All Saints Church Chorley 