St Matthew 23: 13 – 22
 
‘But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in, you stop them. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.
 
‘Woe to you, blind guides, who say, “Whoever swears by the sanctuary is bound by nothing, but whoever swears by the gold of the sanctuary is bound by the oath.”  You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the sanctuary that has made the gold sacred?  And you say, “Whoever swears by the altar is bound by nothing, but whoever swears by the gift that is on the altar is bound by the oath.”  How blind you are! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred?  So whoever swears by the altar, swears by it and by everything on it; and whoever swears by the sanctuary, swears by it and by the one who dwells in it; and whoever swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God and by the one who is seated upon it.
 
Reflection
Look: I’m a Children and Youth Development Officer. And I’m a Woke Lefty Liberal to boot. You already know what position I’m taking on this passage.

You can guess the questions I’m going to be asking; the thinly veiled accusations, posed as reflections, that are intended to make you feel guilty about how your actions and practices act as a barrier rather than an encouragement to children and young people coming close to Jesus and developing a personal relationship with the God whom we all worship and serve.

You’ll assume I’m probably going to bang on about how much time and effort you spend making your church buildings fit for purpose – but that purpose doesn’t seem to include bringing children and young people closer to the Kingdom.

The chances are, you’ll reckon, I’ll mention, in a passive-aggressive way, the number of meetings you have to make you feel that you’re busy doing God’s mission but then I’ll wonder how often children and young people feature on those agendas and, if by chance they do, how high up the agenda they are.

And, of course, you’ll be right.

I’m a Children & Youth Development Officer. It’s my job to ask these questions and make these points. So consider them asked and made.

The only question remaining is: are you able to put me in my place by responding positively? I hope you can. For everyone’s sake.

Prayer

Lord Jesus,
You call out the hypocrisy that hides behind empty words
and remind us that faith is more than appearances.
Forgive us when we focus on looking good
instead of truly following You.
Fill our hearts with honesty,
our words with truth,
and our actions with love that reflects Your kingdom.
Help us to live with integrity,
so that what we say matches how we live. Amen

Dear <>,
 

The URC offers the following prayer for personal and public use as we reflect on and pray for all caught up in the escalating violence in the Middle East.

Eternal One,
we remember before You 
the people of Iran, Israel, Abu Dhabi, Oman, and Bahrain 
and those sailing through the Strait of Hormuz:
all places of pain and division where the nations rage furiously together,
where drones and missiles fly overhead, children cry in bunkers, 
and the bodies of the dead await funerals.
We remember the Earth, herself, 
longing for redemption from humanity’s cruelty,
where every drone and missile wreak havoc and fear
even as they further despoil the earth 
and add to the climate change which brings yet more death and destruction.
We grieve a world where there is neither peace nor justice,
where divisions are made into weapons
and where ideology is used to maim. 
We bitterly regret the failure of diplomacy,
and wonder if it was designed to fail. 
 
Guide now, Prince of Peace, 
those who dare to work for peace, 
those tending the injured,
those seeking to change our world,
those working for democracy and human rights,
and those who advise our political leaders;
that Your wisdom may shine through,
Your compassion be a watchword,
that consequences of our actions may be acknowledged,
and the cries of the children may ring in their ears.
 
Most Holy Spirit,
breathe Your peace to our troubled world,
comfort the parents of the girls killed at the primary school in Minab,
the relatives of those killed in Beit Shemesh,
and all who mourn in these days filled with war.
Inspire Iranians longing for a free and fair society, 
and those who must now lead and guide its future.
Inspire, too, Israelis working for peace and justice,
longing for security and the chance  to finally turn
swords into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks. 
 
Eternal Trinity of Love,
Source, Guide, and Goal,
help us to work for peace even in a world at war. Amen
 

St Matthew 23: 1 – 12
 
Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, ‘The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practise what they teach.  They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them.  They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long.  They love to have the place of honour at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues, and to be greeted with respect in the market-places, and to have people call them rabbi.  But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students. And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father—the one in heaven.  Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah.  The greatest among you will be your servant.  All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.
 
Reflection

Sometimes it can seem that no-one else does anything.  We can feel that we have far too heavy a burden and it is impossible to continue.  We probably can do little about these burdens but what we can do is make sure that we are not the people laying burdens on others.  Before we ask someone else to do something we should prayerfully consider if we could do it ourselves. 

Sometimes I hear about people who do so much and do it quietly so very few people know what they have done, these people are nothing like the scribes and Pharisees that Jesus criticised.  They quietly use their time and skill to do things that need to be done, it might be making the tea and coffee after a church service, it might be polishing the brass around the pulpit, it might be visiting a sick person or sending regular “thinking of you” cards to a housebound church member.

We have one true teacher and He is Jesus.  We need to rely upon Him to guide and direct us.  Others might criticise us for what we do, or fail to do, but as long as we know we are doing what Jesus wants us to do we are doing well.  We need to listen to our one teacher who is our Messiah.
Let’s do what we know we need to do quietly and humbly, not looking for praise or thanks from anyone except Jesus who sees exactly what we do and think.  Let us be humble and work as well as we can, doing what we know we should be doing and knowing that even when we do an apparently trivial task, as long as we are obeying Jesus we will be exalted.

Prayer

Loving God, I thank you for all you do for me
show me what you want me to do
and what you want me to leave undone.
Help me to serve you as I should,
in Jesus’ name,
Amen

St Matthew 22: 41 – 46
 
Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them this question: ‘What do you think of the Messiah? Whose son is he?’ They said to him, ‘The son of David.’  He said to them, ‘How is it then that David by the Spirit calls him Lord, saying,
 
“The Lord said to my Lord,
‘Sit at my right hand,
    until I put your enemies under your feet’”?
 
If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be his son?’  No one was able to give him an answer, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.
 
Reflection 
 
Which child is your favourite? There are any number of attempts at forced choices that don’t lead anywhere. The classic conundrum….. Wordplay, whataboutery, riddles…. They are all here in this little passage highlighting the age-old play on words that so often results in misunderstanding, misdirection, or, heaven forfend, fake news!!!
 
In today’s social media world the dualistic/reductionist questions asked are making a comeback. Too often literalism rules, when what is required is the time and nuance to ease out of them in a similar manner, add one little stretch. The subtle response probably won’t be caught, but will aid folks hear a new story in just a little bit. As it did for Jesus listeners in his to and fro with the Pharisees, hearing him ask question after question of them.. 
 
The great sadness here is in the last line, “nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.” 
 
We seek to know the boundaries, to establish the limits and practice the restrictions, exploring safely the Spirit’s expectations. We are not prepared for the shock of her inclusivity. We resist a universal acceptance, irrespective of another’s social, ethnic, religious, political, financial standing. 
 
“Insiders” and “outsiders.” That’s what we understand. That’s what we want to assess. A person’s skills, her language abilities, his cultural customs, her values and beliefs, his readiness to assimilate, her commitments….. to make sure they are on the same page as us.
 
Asking questions is directly related to good. It is in the interplay of question and response, and question of a response, etc. that we test for the common good. When economic theories trump questions about same, we are in deep difficulty. This is the real world equivalent of not asking religious questions – when they stop we are in deep difficulty.
 
Testing questions, helpful questions, require that everything be up for grabs. They also respect provisional responses knowing that they will be tested in time to come.
 
Prayer
 
The Holy Spirit is an unrestricted ocean of compassion,
always moving, patient with the questioner;
seeing the hidden agenda a question reveals,
never demeaning the one who asks.
Insiders. Convenient, comfortable, acceptable, safe.
But then the Holy Spirit shatters our conventions,
breaking our traditions, smashing down our barriers.
In the power of love the gift of grace allows 
a flood of compassion to cascade justice
on all who are in Her way

St Matthew 22: 34 – 40

When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him.  ‘Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’  He said to him, ‘“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.”  This is the greatest and first commandment.  And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.”  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’

Reflection

Wouldn’t life be simpler if this was the only rule that we needed to follow?  To love God with all we have and to love our neighbour as ourselves.  Yet we have libraries full of individual laws and rules that need to be remembered and followed and enforced and punished.

Even our creeds have got longer and more detailed since their inception.  The first creed “My Lord and My God” (John 20:28) has been expanded to a full page of text with almost every detail spelt out.

I wonder if this is a reflection on our ability to “follow the rules” and “sing from the same hymn sheet” or an attempt to install and maintain control over what is done and believed.

The God we love cannot be contained into a box or a rule book or a creed, and I wonder if that is what scares us into writing prescriptive statements to cope with that awesomeness?!

If only life required the rule of love to be the only rule, and all our actions were borne out of that, then wouldn’t life be simpler?

Maybe I’m a dreamer, but we run the risk of making our God too small and our faith too restricted if we try to dot every i and cross every t in our attempt to understand what is beyond comprehension.

With love as our motive, everything else is done through that love and, in an ideal world, everything works to the benefit of all.  Until that ideal world exists, I guess we’ll just have to keep following the rules!

Prayer

God of love, we try so hard to understand you by reducing you to a list of rules and regulations.  Help us to see beyond our limitations to see your wonder.  Help us to use your love as the foundation for everything we do and say and so allow our understanding to go beyond the written word.  With love as our guide show us how to live by loving you and each other with all that we have. Amen

St Matthew 22: 23 – 32

The same day some Sadducees came to him, saying there is no resurrection; and they asked him a question, saying,  ‘Teacher, Moses said, “If a man dies childless, his brother shall marry the widow, and raise up children for his brother.”  Now there were seven brothers among us; the first married, and died childless, leaving the widow to his brother.  The second did the same, so also the third, down to the seventh.  Last of all, the woman herself died. In the resurrection, then, whose wife of the seven will she be? For all of them had married her.’ Jesus answered them, ‘You are wrong, because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God.  For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.  And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God,  “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”? He is God not of the dead, but of the living.’  And when the crowd heard it, they were astounded at his teaching.

Reflection

The Sadducees in our passage sound more like bad stand-up comedians than theologians. A woman marries seven brothers, each one dying in turn. “So,” they ask the audience, “in the resurrection, whose wife will she be?” 

They’re mocking the whole idea of resurrection because they were the theological conservatives of their day believing only in the five books of the Pentateuch – where resurrection is not mentioned.  Jesus, like the Pharisees, accepted more writings – in what we now call the Bible – as authoritative hence his scathing reply:

“You are wrong,” he says, “because you don’t know the scriptures or the power of God.”

This moment in scripture doesn’t tell us what heaven is like — it tells us what it’s not. It’s not a place where patriarchy persists. It’s not a continuation of our unjust social systems. It’s not about ownership or status or who belongs to whom. Jesus says, in the resurrection, people are “like angels” — not locked into old categories, but free.

So maybe now we feel we can heckle these mirthless minstrels, who misunderstood heaven, but are we any clearer?  Do we picture a VIP lounge for the saved? Angels, harps and pot plants?  Somewhere where people understand the rules and do it our way? Somewhere just like here but better coffee?

But Jesus says no. That’s not the point.

God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. Heaven isn’t a reward we wait for — it’s a reality we’re called to reflect. Paul wrote that now we “see through a glass, darkly” — we don’t get the full picture. But we see enough to know heaven has nothing to do with possession, patriarchy, or pious exclusion.
It’s about justice. Liberation. Resurrection life that starts now.
So let’s look for the places where resurrection is breaking in — where the living God is calling us to raise the poor, the excluded, the broken systems.

Heaven is not about who gets what when we die. It’s about what love does while we live.
 
Prayer

God of the living, 
strip back the myths we sell and buy,
of harps and mansions in the sky.
Replace it with something
real, living and now.
Amen.

St Matthew 22: 15 – 22

Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words. They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. “Teacher,” they said, “we know that you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are. Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not?” But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, “You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me?  Show me the coin used for paying the tax.” They brought him a denarius, and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?” “Caesar’s,” they replied. Then he said to them, “So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away.

Reflection

The Pharisees ask Jesus what seems like a simple question: “Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not?” The problem is: if Jesus says “yes,” ordinary Jewish people would see him as a traitor. How could he tell them to pay their money to their Roman oppressors? But if he says “no”, the Romans would see Jesus as a revolutionary to be removed. So Jesus does what he often does, and answers their question with another question. He gets them to bring him a denarius – the equivalent of about 10 pence – and asks them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?”

The image on a denarius was of Tiberius Caesar, and it said “Tiberius Caesar, son of divine Augustus.” In other words, “Tiberius Caesar, Son of God.” And on the reverse it read, “pontifex maximus”, which means “High Priest.” It was also well known that the coins – regardless of who’s pockets they were in – all ultimately belonged to the Emperor.

Compare this with what the Bible teaches about human beings. We are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). We are not gods, but in and through Jesus, his death and resurrection, we can be adopted into God’s family as sons and daughters (Ephesians 1:5). We can become royal priests (1 Peter 2:9) – those able to approach God and to hear from Him – with Jesus as our great High Priest (Hebrews 3:1).

‘Can it be any clearer?’, Jesus seems to be suggesting. Give Caesar back his worthless silver coin, and give to God what is God’s – your very life, made in His image.

Prayer

Creator God, you made me in your image.
Loving Christ, you restored your image in me.
Holy Spirit, you sanctify and empower me to live for you.
Help me to give you my all, today and every day.
To love you with all my heart, soul, mind and strength, and to love others as myself.
Amen.

St Matthew 22: 1 – 14

Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying:  “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son.  He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.  “Then he sent some more servants and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’  “But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business.  The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them.  The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.  “Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come.  So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’  So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests. “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes.  He asked, ‘How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?’ The man was speechless. “Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ “For many are invited, but few are chosen.”

Reflection

A friend invited me to the Stewards’ Enclosure at Henley Regatta to watch him row for Jesus (The Cambridge College!). Henley is a posh gig. But he didn’t tell me about the dress code. On a boiling hot day, I turned up without a jacket. I was refused entry. It was humiliating and brutal.

There is something brutal about Jesus’ words in this parable. A man strays into the wedding banquet, dressed improperly. He is unceremoniously ejected.

But the parable is about grace isn’t it? Part of a string of Passover pronouncements, when Jesus upends self-righteous morality. Those who initially were not invited to the feast, find themselves attending. Those on the A-list didn’t notice the groom arriving and missed the party.

Jesus is uncompromising about the self-righteous who ignore his dress code. They have no place in the kingdom – unlike the sinners, failures, and outsiders clothing themselves in a righteousness that is not their own. So we need to be very careful about our own goodness.

Grace is seen as soft and comfortable, but this is a tough morality – something uncompromising forcing us to make hard choices: to stand alongside the unlovely. Jesus talks about both the bad and the good coming to the feast. This suggests to me that, in His Kingdom, there will be people that we like and people who are harder to love. But they are also invited and chosen. It seems that some unsavoury characters are entitled to carry the Cross of Jesus. They are our family too.

Jesus’ tough morality goes further. Some moral choices are the province of worldly Caesars and it seems we have to let them have their due. But not with total passivity – we are called to get on with the tough things that are God’s due also.

Prayer

Lord, give us strength
when making difficult decisions that You call us to address.
Give us grace to love all those that You call into Your family,
remembering that we, also, are called by your grace.
Amen.

 
Today’s service is led by the Revd Dr Lance Stone

Introduction  
 
Hello!  My name is Lance Stone; I am a retired minister who has served both the United Reformed Church and the Church of Scotland.  I am currently live in Glasgow.  A very warm welcome to this service.
 
Call to Worship 
 
Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Happy are those to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity and in whose spirit there is no deceit.
 
While I kept silent, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.
 
Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity;
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and you forgave the guilt of my sin.  
 
Hymn       Jesus Lover of My Soul
Charles Wesley (1707-1788) Public Domain BBC Songs of Praise
 
Jesus, lover of my soul,
let me to thy bosom fly,
while the nearer waters roll,
while the tempest still is high;
hide me, O my Saviour, hide,
till the storm of life is past;
safe into the haven guide,
O receive my soul at last!
 
2 Other refuge have I none,
hangs my helpless soul on thee;
leave, ah, leave me not alone,
still support and comfort me.
All my trust on thee is stayed,
all my help from thee I bring;
cover my defenceless head
with the shadow of thy wing.

3 Plenteous grace with thee is found, grace to cover all my sin;
let the healing streams abound, make and keep me pure within.
Thou of life the fountain art; freely let me take of thee;
spring thou up within my heart, rise to all eternity.
 
Opening Prayer of Approach, Confession and Pardon
 
O gracious and holy God, eternal Trinity of glory,
dwelling in love and joy and peace, before time and beyond time
and far above and beyond us;
in Jesus Christ you have laid aside that glory and come amongst us,
become vulnerable, living life in our shoes,
exposed to hunger and pain and to temptation,
feeling our joys and sorrows
and holding fast and faithful to the one who sent you.
We praise and worship you and rejoice in your solidarity with us.
For we live in this troubled world,
where we find it hard to distinguish what we can do
from what we should do;
and in seeking life we make foolish choices
and fall far short of who we truly are.
So we come seeking forgiveness and grace to emend our lives. 
 
Assurance of Pardon
 
Lord Jesus Christ, second Adam come to undo sin’s curse,
assure us that we are beloved and forgiven
and give us grace to walk your way,
for we pray in your name and in your words,
saying together…Our Father…
 
Prayer for Illumination
 
Living God, open our ears and our hearts to your Word,
that we may not live by bread alone
but by every word that proceeds from your mouth. Amen.
 
Reading   Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7
 
The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.  And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You may freely eat of every tree of the garden;  but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.’  Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God say, “You shall not eat from any tree in the garden”?’ The woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden;  but God said, “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.”’ But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not die;  for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’  So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate.  Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.
 
Reading   Romans 5:12-19
                  
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned— sin was indeed in the world before the law, but sin is not reckoned when there is no law. Yet death exercised dominion from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who is a type of the one who was to come. But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died through the one man’s trespass, much more surely have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many.  And the free gift is not like the effect of the one man’s sin. For the judgement following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brings justification.  If, because of the one man’s trespass, death exercised dominion through that one, much more surely will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness exercise dominion in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. Therefore just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all.  or just as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.
 
Hymn       Seek Ye First
Karen Lafferty (born 1948) © 1972 CCCM Music OneLicence A-734713  
Performed by Joy and Ruth Everingham and used with their kind permission.

Seek ye first the kingdom of God,
and His righteousness,
and all these things shall be added unto you.
Allelu, alleluia.
 
2 Ask and it shall be given unto you,
seek and ye shall find;
knock and the door shall be opened up to you.
Allelu, alleluia.

3 We shall not live by bread alone, but by every word
that proceeds from the mouth of God. Allelu, alleluia.
 
Reading   St Matthew 4:1-11
 
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.  He fasted for 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 splendour; 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.
 
Sermon 
 
So it’s the first Sunday of Lent, that season of the Christian year leading up to Easter, when the church focuses on sin, the flesh and the devil. And so what’s different, some sceptics might ask – isn’t that what the church is always on  about? Well, hopefully not, but this Lent season does give us a chance to ponder what the world often prefers to ignore: the dark side of human nature. And as is traditional on this first Sunday of Lent, we turn to the account of Jesus in the wilderness at the start of his ministry – when he was assaulted by this unholy trinity of sin, the flesh and the devil and where he had to hold firm and resist at all costs. 
 
Jesus has just been baptised by John in the River Jordan, where a voice form heaven declares: this is my Son, my beloved…’ This is the great divine disclosure of Jesus’ identity, who Jesus is. But from there he is led into the wilderness and then comes the probing: ‘if you are the Son of God…’; ‘If you are…’; ‘If you are who the voice at your baptism has declared you to be then what? You are famished, the pangs of hunger are gripping you –  see these stones? Well, if you are the Son of God, give in to the flesh and turn them into bread!’ And then, ‘You are vulnerable, at the mercy of a violent world. Well, if you are the Son of God, give into sin by putting God to the test and leaping from the parapet of the temple so that he must dispatch a squadron of God’s angels to catch you!’ And then, lastly, ‘if you are God’s Son, God’s rightful ruler, give into me, the devil, by bowing down and worshipping me and all the world will be yours.’ These are the temptations that come with the revelation of Jesus’ identity as God’s beloved Son. 
 
And we could ponder at length these temptations, but I want to use this opportunity to explore a little bit what we mean by sin and what it is. I wonder how you would define sin. What do you think it is? One answer we might give from the Bible would be breaking God’s Law. Is sin primarily disobedience? The writer Francis Spufford in a book defending Christianity defines sin as the human propensity to mess things up, only that’s a rather sanitised version of what he actually says. So what is sin? Well, there is a verse to be found in the New Testament which tells us that ‘all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God’ and it is that idea of sin as falling short that I would like to consider today. Think for a moment of today’s Old Testament reading from the Book of Genesis, the story of Adam and Eve’s disobedience to God. They, like Jesus, are tempted – tempted by the serpent to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and so become like God. And there are many ways of interpreting this story but traditionally what happens here has been described as ‘the Fall’, and this an appropriate enough description. If we had read on in the story after they have eaten the forbidden fruit we would have found God walking in the garden in the evening, and Adam and Eve hiding from God. They are naked and ashamed and there follows recrimination and blame and estrangement and curses and surely they have indeed fallen here, fallen far short of what they were created to be, fallen far short of the glory of friendship and peace with God and with one another and with their world. Yes, Adam disobeyed God – disobeyed a direct command, as Paul puts it in our Romans reading – but in so doing he is diminished, short-changing himself and God.
 
If today’s reading from Romans invites us to turn back to Adam in order to interpret this story of Jesus’ temptations, there is however another more important Old Testament reference. Think again of Jesus. He has just come through the waters of baptism and now he finds himself in the wilderness, tempted. And what does that remind us of? Why, the people of  Israel of course, in their journey out of Egypt! They too passed through the waters and they too were led into the wilderness and there they too were tested and tempted, only they moaned and complained and longed for food, crying out for the flesh-pots of Egypt: they yearned for the security of captivity. And there too we see sin as falling short. To return to Egypt is to fall far short of God’s purposes for this beloved people, and indeed a whole generation of Israelites never did make it to the Promised Land but perished in the wilderness. They fell short! And now in this chapter Jesus is in a sense Israel once again, coming through the water to be tested and tempted in the desert. Only where his ancestors disobeyed and fell short, he is obedient and goes the distance.
 
And how very subtle the devil is. Jesus’ temptations could be said to be all about means and ends – seeking the right ends but  by the  wrong means. Think of it: feeding famished bodies with bread; demonstrating God’s protective care of his beloved by entrusting himself to |God’s angels; being declared ruler of the nations: all of these are worthy ends but when  sought by the wrong means they fall woefully short of God’s glorious plan for Jesus’ ministry. Giving in to these temptations would have yielded a lesser salvation because it would have by-passed the cross. 
 
The fact is, Jesus’ sights are on something bigger, something higher, something wider. His salvation is so much more than what the devil was offering him. I love the language of that passage we read from Romans this morning contrasting Adam and Christ. It is language that is bursting at the seams in trying to describe what Christ has achieved. Adam represents us as sinners, people who fall far short of God’s purposes for us, people who make foolish, destructive choices which diminish life and bring death to the world. And Jesus comes to do so much more than just undo Adam’s sin. Paul writes, ‘But God’s act of grace is out of all proportion to Adam’s wrongdoing. For if the wrongdoing of that one man brought death upon so many, its effect is vastly exceeded by the grace of God and the gift that came to so many by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ.’ Jesus came to expand the horizons of Adam’s shrunken world. Jesus came to open up glorious new vistas and possibilities, where the devil would seek to narrow them and to limit life. To be God’s beloved, God’s delight, is to have his eyes on a bigger prize, a bigger salvation than the devil’s cut-price offering. 
 
I wonder how you react to sin as falling short. What I think is interesting is that the whole notion of falling short lies at the very heart of our culture today – people are constantly being made to feel they are falling short. If you do not have the perfect body – especially if you are a woman – you are falling short. If you are not having great and very frequent sex, you are falling short. If you are ageing and showing it you are falling short and you must resist it at all costs. And capitalism of course feeds on creating a sense of falling short, creating felt needs that can only be met by buying more, consuming more, possessing more for otherwise you are missing out. 
 
Nowadays there is a whole industry of self-help books which suggest that in some way you are under-achieving, falling short, that you could do better. I decided to check them out on Amazon and there are stacks of them – titles like ‘Self Help: this is your chance to change your life’; or ‘Love Better, Feel Better, Live Better’, or ‘Think Faster, Talk Smarter’. And who knows? Maybe a bit of self-help can improve the quality of people’s lives and who would begrudge that? But the trouble is that having diagnosed our sense of falling short, these remedies too often fall short! What the self-improvement industry offers is salvation for a secular age, and  what that often amounts to is more productive lives, more efficient lives, more successful lives – the very terms the devil offered Jesus in the desert. Here is instant, cut-price salvation but not the life in all its fulness of the Gospel.
 
That brings us back to Jesus and back to sin. If I’m honest, I find it hard to imagine what sinlessness would look like. But when I look at Jesus what I do see is a life that did not fall short. Here was a man who loved God and loved people all the way to the edge and beyond. Here was a man who in his ministry revealed the full dimensions of what it means to be human, the true Adam. Here was a man who realised that life bought on the cheap soon wears thin and that eternal life comes with a price-tag.
 
This season of Lent that we have begun this week is a season of self-examination. We are invited to take time to take a long, hard look at ourselves. Before we do that let’s take a long, hard look at Jesus and a life that did not fall short. He knew himself to be God’s beloved and he lived as God’s beloved.  So examine yourselves  and ask where you are you falling short, where the world is short-changing you, and pray for grace to learn from him.  Amen.
 
Hymn       Before The Throne of God Above
Charitie L De Chenez (1841–1923) Tune: © 1997 Sovereign Grace Praise (BMI) (adm at IntegratedRights.com). Text: © 1997 Sovereign Grace Praise (BMI) (adm at IntegratedRights.com). OneLicence A-734713
Sung by Michael Lining and used with his kind permission.

Before the throne of God above
I have a strong, a perfect plea:
a great High Priest, 
whose name is Love,
who ever lives and 
pleads for me.
My name is graven 
on His hands,
my name is written 
on His heart;
I know that while in 
heaven He stands
no tongue can bid me 
thence depart.
2 When Satan tempts me 
to despair,
and tells me of the guilt within,
upward I look, 
and see Him there
who made an end of all my sin.
Because the sinless 
Saviour died,
my sinful soul is counted free;
for God, the Just, 
is satisfied
to look on Him 
and pardon me.

3 Behold Him there! the risen Lamb!
My perfect, spotless Righteousness,
the great unchangeable I AM, the King of glory and of grace!
One with Himself, I cannot die; my soul is purchased by His blood;
My life is hid with Christ on high, with Christ, my Saviour and my God.
 
Prayers of Intercession
 
Living God, your love for us, your children, is far beyond our understanding. You have created and fashioned us in love, and set your holy image upon us, and exalted us to  be your Beloved in whom you delight. And yet we have fallen, and continue to fall so far short of what you have made us to be.
 
We think today of all that diminishes and demeans human life: the curse of war that shatters people’s lives; the horror of poverty that leaves people struggling to live; the outrage of injustice that allows the powerful to prey on the powerless; the relentless greed whereby some hoard while others are left to fight for the crumbs from under their tables.
 
O God we pray today for those in positions of power and authority: for rulers and governments, that they might strive for the common good and to create a society where all may flourish. 
 
We pray for those who are held back by their upbringing, or constrained by their circumstances and by forces over which they have no control. We pray for those whose lives are blighted by addiction, who have lost the strength to resist things that destroy them.
 
We pray for your Church throughout the world and especially in our own country, asking you to bring renewal. May your church be a place where people hungry for the bread of life are fed; where people whose lives are diminished find their worth; where those who have fallen short are raised up and find strength to live well.
 
Hear us as in a moment of silence we name before you nay who  are on our hearts today…
 
We pray all these things in the name of the One who came that we might have life, and have it abundantly – Jesus Christ or Lord. Amen.
 
Offertory Prayer
 
For all that blesses and enriches our lives,
we give you thanks.
May our gratitude be expressed 
in lives of trust and obedience:
Take us and all that you have given us
and use us in the service of your Kingdom.  Amen
 
Hymn       Guide me, O thou great Redeemer
Arglwydd arwain drwy’r anialwch William Williams (1717-1791), tr Peter Williams (1727-1796) and William Williams (1717-1791) or John Williams (1754-1828) Public Domain BBC Songs of Praise

Guide me, O thou great Redeemer,
pilgrim through this barren land;
I am weak, but thou art mighty,
hold me with thy powerful hand:
bread of heaven,
feed me now and evermore.
 
2 Open now the crystal fountain
whence the healing stream doth flow;
let the fire and cloudy pillar
lead me all my journey through:
strong deliverer,
be thou still my strength and shield.

3 When I tread the verge of Jordan bid my anxious fears subside;
death of death, and hell’s destruction, land me safe on Canaan’s side:
songs of praises I will ever give to thee.
 
Blessing
 
May God be above you,
and God beside you,
and heaven all around you
as you journey on;
and may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
and the love of God,
and the fellowship of the Holy spirit,
be with you all, today and always.  Amen

St Matthew 21: 33 – 46

Jesus said: “Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place.  When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit. “The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way.  Last of all, he sent his son to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said. “But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance.’  So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. “Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end,” they replied, “and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.” Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:

“‘The stone the builders rejected
    has become the cornerstone;
the Lord has done this,
    and it is marvellous in our eyes’?

“Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit.  Anyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; anyone on whom it falls will be crushed.” When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables, they knew he was talking about them.  They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet.

Reflection

Jesus was a master storyteller and a part of his gift was to draw people into his tales with images that appeared gentle, familiar and attractive but then, being parabolic, they’d curve back to bite. I sometimes think of them as ‘boomerang stories!’

Picture their faces at the end of the story of the man beaten and left at the side of the road when the punchline was that a hated Samaritan was the neighbour! Ouch!

And here, the familiar is there to start with. They all know about vineyards and all the hard work involved in preparing, maintaining and nurturing the crop. But even more cunning is that, somewhere in the back of their minds (especially the religious leaders who were already suspicious of him) was something else familiar? 

And as the story unfolded, the memory of Isaiah’s prophetic image of Judah as God’s beautifully prepared vineyard … and the dreadful judgement that was threatened (and as they understood, later delivered) if they didn’t follow their God’s ways. 

This prophetic Jesus was in the line of wonderful boomerang storytellers indeed – and with no less harsh and threatening a warning being delivered.

And yet, simultaneously Jesus is offering a promise too? That image of a cornerstone is attractive, suggesting that if, instead of rejecting it, there is a foundation stone being proffered, with all the possibilities that come with a new, exciting development, built upon it?

I wonder if we might learn new ways of tapping into the familiar images, memes and/or themes of today to somehow draw in and attract new believers? 

What is the modern equivalent of a vineyard and a cornerstone I wonder, that we can use to entice folk to learn of the wonders that are inherent in being a part of our glorious God’s family?

Prayer

Christ who has indeed done what is marvellous, amazing and apparently impossible, we wonder at the foundation stone that you placed down for us to build our relationship and lives. 
Teach us new ways to log on to your program as we use the password Jesus-the-Cornerstone. Amen