St Mary's

Terry Fitzpatrick 21st- Feb 2010 © Copyright belongs to author. This cannot be reproduced/published without author permission.

Luke 4:1-13

At the very core of what it means to be a Christian, a spiritual person, or
whatever term you would like to describe yourself, is a connection to an essence, an
awareness, a sense of other, something more – God.  Call it what you may.

Almost every religion, which has this at its heart, often has set Periods of time to encourage people to become more focused, more connected to this source.

•    Such times as Ramadan, people of Islamic faith,
•    Seasons of Earth/times of Equinox for people of Wicca and Pagan Religions
•    Dadirri – Miriam Rose Ungunmerr – Baumann
•    Time away as Bus/Women – Bus/Men
•    Lent and Advent for Christians.
•    The weekly Sabbath for the Jews, Sukkoth a week long
•    Yom Kippur – day of fasting and prayer, Jewish Day of Atonement.

It is connection to this source that makes sense of life, adds depth and meaning to
everything.  It is the epode (hymn of triumph) to move out, to serve, to connect.

•     “ the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, to bring good news to the poor, freedom     to captive”  (Isaiah 42)
•    “This is my Son the Chosen One.  Listen to him” (Lk 9:36)

In today’s Gospel Jesus is filled with this Spirit, this connection.
Jesus goes into the wilderness to strengthen this connection and it is here we learn of
the THREE  OBSTACLES to overcome in order to maintain this connection.
We see these obstacles in the three temptations of Jesus.

The first obstacle:

The devil, the personification of temptation, begins by trying to place DOUBT in the
mind of Jesus.  Doubt whether there is any connection to this divine essence at all.
He says, “If you are the one born of God, do ……” We can all recognize this doubt in ourselves.

We can all doubt our innate inbuilt goodness, the sacredness of our very being, always connected to the ONE SOURCE and hence our oneness with all of life. Something within the human “animal” forgets this, wants to separate off, be disconnected, or at least doubt the connection.

The essence of Jesus’ whole teaching about the Reign or Dream of God was to set
people free from thinking poorly of themselves in relation to God.  Yes, we are all
sons and daughters of God – however people imagine God.  Jesus’message was not
to fear God but to call God Abba “Daddy”.

All of us have equal access to God, there was no need for a religious middle management in order to access God.  This presence of God was not a commodity that

people with special religious powers could control, make possible, or deny.
It was this teaching that ultimately lead to his death.
The first obstacle for maintaining the connection is to get caught up in doing.
“If you are the one born of God, tell this stone to turn into bread…”.  What a spectacular feat to perform. The false self – marvelling at what it can achieve.  Getting lost in its achievements.  “Look at me, how good am I?  What an enormous trap this is for each of us, particularly in Western culture where we define ourselves by doing.
It is a big obstacle to maintaining our connection to our Source, our Divine Essence.

It is why as a Judeo Christian Culture we have in place a Sabbath Day, the 7th day, a Sunday, where there is an attempt to refrain from doing and to place this time
aside to nourish our relationship with the Source.  It is why we have Lent and Advent,
why we have a long tradition of Christian going on retreats, pilgrimages, to move away from the achieving, the doing, which gets in the way.

The second obstacle:

The tempter takes Jesus out onto a great height and shows him the world, that he
could have all this and give up this connection with the Essence.
In a culture which is so centred in consuming, where we have to define who we are,
where we get a sense of how important or non important we are and where our sense
of worth comes from, we say to ourselves “If I can only have this, this job, this
degree, this place of honour, this house, this car, if only I was in a better relationship,
then I would be complete, happy.

Everywhere we turn, another advertisement is re-enforcing this sense of incompletion. And completion will be achieved when I attain.  In our materialistic culture this obstacle is never ending – one where we have to be constantly on our guard.

The third obstacle:

In the third temptation Jesus is taken to the Holy City and made to stand on the very
parapet of the temple.  It is the position of social aggrandizement, social advancement, power, and a place where you will be looked up to and admired.  Who of us is not seduced by power, prestige and celebrity status, or simply concerned with what other people think of us?

This is most surely a trap for the false self.  Jesus refuses it.  He responds by saying
the angels of God will hold him up, being in the Presence of the Divine, being
connected, will hold him up and nothing he can do or what the tempter can offer him
can ever hold him up.  He says he has no fear of falling down, for he knows that it is
in falling down is where often our greatest lessons are learnt.

At the end of the gospel we hear  “Having exhausted all these ways of tempting Jesus,
the devil left to return.”

Emphasising that the temptations, these obstacles are always with us.  We need to
always be on our guard.

We need all the help we can get to support and encourage us.  Hence times of retreat,
Sabbath days, Lent and Advent. We begin this Lent with new resolve to place our relationship and connection to our deepest self, the Divine, the source of our being at the centre of our lives.  This relationship is the most important thing in our lives.

In a moment we will be invited to Ash ourselves and others.  We use Ash to remind
ourselves that all forms are temporary -  just passing… our bodies, our relationships,
our homes, families, friends, are all passing.

There is something beyond, something bigger than us, something eternal, forever
mysterious which holds us.

So let us Ash ourselves and one another to remind ourselves of all that is temporary and that we also inhabit an eternal world forever mysterious.