First Sunday In Lent
Preaching
Lectionary Preaching Workbook
Series VI, Cycle A
COMMENTARY ON THE LESSONS
Lesson 1: Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7 (C); Genesis 2:7-9; 3:1-7 (RC); Genesis 2:4b-9, 15-17, 25--3:7 (E)
What profound poetry, capturing the essence of humanity's wistful desire to know why life is like this. Why must we labor in order to be happy and to have the things we require to live? Why must we have great patience as the growing things mature at their own rate? Why must there be deserts where people must live? Why must women bear the children? Why in pain? Most of all, why must we age and die? Why is there hatred in the world? Why, why, why?
We, as much as ancient people, ponder these profundities. Philosophers have struggled to comprehend the same questions which troubled the ancients. We can picture the people who must roam the deserts, barely surviving at times, hoping to make their way to yet another oasis. We can understand the night dreams of thirsting men: a gloriously fresh garden of green trees and plants, of fresh water springs and singing birds. What a paradise, to wander there with one's pure love, to eat fresh fruit, to drink pure water, to be free forevermore of pain and fear.
Yes! But what about those questions? If only we could control this world, make those fresh fruits grow as desired by us, have pure water when it's time to pitch tents and rest for the night. If only we controlled the world.
There's an ancient story about the time God was confronted by a man who argued, "It's easy for you, God. You tell us we must do this and we can't do that. What do you know of the struggles of people like me? You are God. It's easy for you." But God argued, insisting that being God was no picnic either. "You only have to look after your own little self," said God. "I have to look after the entire world, and it isn't easy. In fact," said God, "just to show you, I'll change places with you for 24 hours. You'll see then." So God gave the man one day to see what a hard job it is to run the world.
Twenty-four hours later, God returned and said, "You see? It wasn't as easy as you thought." Then God prepared to be God once more. But the man wouldn't give God back his power. He found he liked playing God. Since that time, man has played God. That's why the world is as it is today, so the legend goes.
The story of our text was an ancient legend written by a genius poet, symbolizing the human dilemma and the human dream. That one tree, proscribed by God, was not a tree -- it was the answer to all those questions. Or so Adam and Eve thought. They disobeyed God. That is, they tried to take the place of God, thought to learn the answers to the universe, even to control it. And so, their paradise was gone and they found themselves once more back in the desert, destined to struggle throughout eternity with the questions the answers to which it is not given us to know.
Adam was not a character in history. He was me. And he was you. Eve was not a woman, companion to Adam. She was me. She was you. Every time we disobey the will of God, every act of selfishness, every unloving moment of our lives, we relive again that moment of The Fall.
Lesson 2: Romans 5:12-19 (C, RC); Romans 5:12-19 (20-21) (E)
Paul, of course, was a product of his time. Whether he understood the story of Eden literally or not isn't certain. He appears to have done so. No matter, as far as we're concerned. With some complicated reasoning, Paul has simply held Adam against Jesus as opposites. Adam symbolizes disobedience to God's will. Therefore, as Paul saw matters, sin came into the world and became the potential for our destruction. But Jesus came into the world to overcome sin, "so that just as sin exercised dominion in death, so grace might also exercise dominion through justification leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."
Gospel: Matthew 4:1-11 (C, RC, E)
Temptation. Jesus faced it, just as we do. In this story Christians may find themselves divided on many issues. How literally, for instance, are we to understand these references to a devil and to angels? Was the duration of Jesus' time in the desert really forty days, or is that another use of traditional symbolism meaning a long time?
Clearly, Jesus faced a terrible time in his life. His quotations are from Deuteronomy. He was immersed in prayer and scripture. You and I think of the Jesus we know, the victor over temptation, the son of God in whom was no sin. We may find it hard to take the thought of Jesus facing temptation seriously. But this was surely one of the fires he had to endure to become God's true son.
There's a new book on the market by a man who served as an eighteen-year-old soldier during the fighting in Europe during World War II. He tells how his platoon was annihilated, he the only survivor, during a terrible battle. Yet many years later, when he began to research wartime history, the battle received only brief mention and was treated as a small encounter quickly won. It was frustrating to realize that such a brutal, deadly fight was all but brushed aside in history as an easy victory. So with this story. It seems easy, now. Yet Jesus was assaulted by his own inner temptation, perhaps the realization that his gifts and his spreading fame might be used in selfish ways. Perhaps the "Devil" refers to that all too human drive for power. Perhaps the angels symbolize the glory of God's rejoicing Spirit. Through prayer and scripture, Jesus won out against terrible temptations.
SERMON SUGGESTIONS
Title: "The Answer Is Faith"
Text: Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7
Theme: It is our destiny to live with mystery. There are questions about the universe for which we are simply not to receive answers. To be human is to face this fundamental ambiguity of life.
1. All of us must learn to face a life which lacks the answers we wish we had. Why is there suffering? Why does a small child die while the ninety-year-old gentleman next door still mows his lawn? Why does one family seem to have tragedy after tragedy while another family seems to live a charmed life? Why do many dishonest people seem to prosper while other people, scrupulously honest, live in want? Why is a baby born deformed? Why terrible diseases? The list goes on. Like Adam and Eve, we yearn to know how and why our universe works.
2. To live with any semblance of peace of mind, we must accept the universe as it is. As Thomas Carlyle replied when a lady was quoted as saying "I accept the universe," "Gad, she'd better." Healthy-minded people learn to press on with life, realizing that there are no promises of fairness or equality of life. As Rabbi Kushner observed, "Bad Things Happen to Good People."
3. Jesus brought the only answer: Trust God, through faith. To some, this sounds naive, a cop-out. To those who know Christ, this makes good sense. There is promised a time when we will understand. Now we see darkly, then we shall see face to face. A strange and wonderful inner peace is available to those who can face each day with courage, realizing that bad things can happen, but having learned to trust in prayer, in the Spirit which walks with us. Then we need not fear.
Title: "The Better Way"
Text: Matthew 4:11; Romans 5:19
Theme: "Adam" symbolizes sinful humanity unredeemed. Christ brought redemption. In his temptation in the wilderness, Jesus led the way for us lesser souls who also must cope with temptation every day, perhaps every hour. The humorist who said "I can resist anything but temptation" expressed what we all sometimes feel.
1. Temptation is the common fate of us all. Without a strong moral foundation, few can last for long without falling. The felt need for recognition, for power, for immortality, how we wish for these. Yet by light of day, we learn that all these have a painful price.
2. That indispensable moral foundation is to be found in religious faith. Our Jewish friends have a strong moral vein throughout their religion, so we cannot assume Jesus is unique in that regard. Yet for those of us who derive our moral values from Jesus, he is our foundation.
3. To forego what seem, at times, to be the advantages to be obtained by cheating, lying, stealing, or the pleasures we sometimes associate with an affair, or alcohol and drugs, requires a strong faith in something higher. It requires belief that the better way is, in the long run, indeed the better way. It is to recognize that God has created a natural law of the spirit which ordains that wrongdoing can never, finally, issue in happiness.
4. Belief, at times, may not be strong enough. Faith, a more powerful force, will be. That is not an attitude achieved by effort of the will. Faith is a gift, given by God's Spirit, received through prayer.
ADDITIONAL ILLUSTRATIONS
A distinguished judge in a nearby community, past seventy and facing retirement, took some money which wasn't his. Since it belonged to the government, it seemed fair game, so after years of worthy public service he took it. Of course, it then became necessary to lie in order to cover up the crime. He was caught. In an emotional hearing before another judge, he threw himself on the mercy of the court. Tearfully he confessed. His sentence was short, and he resigned in disgrace. Now his children, instead of remembering Dad as a much-admired jurist, will always remember him as a convicted crook. Now those retirement years which were to be filled with happy memories will now be bitter days because a man who was tempted did not listen to the "angels" in his life.
____________
"As individuals, men believe that they ought to love and serve each other and establish justice between each other. As racial, economic and national groups they take for themselves whatever their power can command."
-- Reinhold Niebuhr in Moral Man and Immoral Society
____________
Dr. Howard Thurman, when dean of the chapel at Boston University, suffered several tragedies in his life. One day he was asked how he managed to continue on in life so effectively with unbroken spirit intact. He said that for a long time he would go home each evening, fill his tub with hot water, and slide down into its warmth. He would then allow himself a period of time in which to feel sorry for himself. He would cry out against God, immerse himself in self-pity, declare his outrage. Then he would finish bathing, get dressed, and go on about his business. This was how he managed to accept his world the way it is.
____________
E. Stanley Jones one day visited the Garden of Gethsemane. He knelt where Jesus knelt. As he arose, he plucked a twig from a thorn bush in order to have a perpetual reminder of his Gethsemane experience. He placed the twig between the pages of his Bible for safekeeping. Imagine his amazement when upon opening his Bible a few days later, he discovered that the thorns had blossomed into a flower.
____________
Psalm Of The Day
Psalm 32 (C) -- The glad consciousness of God's forgiveness.
Psalm 51 (E) -- An individual lament because of sin.
Prayer Of The Day
We confess that deep ambitions and desires are harbored in our hearts. These we cannot erase, as well you know, O God, for you have made us. Grant us, then, strength in our integrity, that we may not be tempted into those actions which may injure others or dishonor thy son who dwells within us. Amen.
Lesson 1: Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7 (C); Genesis 2:7-9; 3:1-7 (RC); Genesis 2:4b-9, 15-17, 25--3:7 (E)
What profound poetry, capturing the essence of humanity's wistful desire to know why life is like this. Why must we labor in order to be happy and to have the things we require to live? Why must we have great patience as the growing things mature at their own rate? Why must there be deserts where people must live? Why must women bear the children? Why in pain? Most of all, why must we age and die? Why is there hatred in the world? Why, why, why?
We, as much as ancient people, ponder these profundities. Philosophers have struggled to comprehend the same questions which troubled the ancients. We can picture the people who must roam the deserts, barely surviving at times, hoping to make their way to yet another oasis. We can understand the night dreams of thirsting men: a gloriously fresh garden of green trees and plants, of fresh water springs and singing birds. What a paradise, to wander there with one's pure love, to eat fresh fruit, to drink pure water, to be free forevermore of pain and fear.
Yes! But what about those questions? If only we could control this world, make those fresh fruits grow as desired by us, have pure water when it's time to pitch tents and rest for the night. If only we controlled the world.
There's an ancient story about the time God was confronted by a man who argued, "It's easy for you, God. You tell us we must do this and we can't do that. What do you know of the struggles of people like me? You are God. It's easy for you." But God argued, insisting that being God was no picnic either. "You only have to look after your own little self," said God. "I have to look after the entire world, and it isn't easy. In fact," said God, "just to show you, I'll change places with you for 24 hours. You'll see then." So God gave the man one day to see what a hard job it is to run the world.
Twenty-four hours later, God returned and said, "You see? It wasn't as easy as you thought." Then God prepared to be God once more. But the man wouldn't give God back his power. He found he liked playing God. Since that time, man has played God. That's why the world is as it is today, so the legend goes.
The story of our text was an ancient legend written by a genius poet, symbolizing the human dilemma and the human dream. That one tree, proscribed by God, was not a tree -- it was the answer to all those questions. Or so Adam and Eve thought. They disobeyed God. That is, they tried to take the place of God, thought to learn the answers to the universe, even to control it. And so, their paradise was gone and they found themselves once more back in the desert, destined to struggle throughout eternity with the questions the answers to which it is not given us to know.
Adam was not a character in history. He was me. And he was you. Eve was not a woman, companion to Adam. She was me. She was you. Every time we disobey the will of God, every act of selfishness, every unloving moment of our lives, we relive again that moment of The Fall.
Lesson 2: Romans 5:12-19 (C, RC); Romans 5:12-19 (20-21) (E)
Paul, of course, was a product of his time. Whether he understood the story of Eden literally or not isn't certain. He appears to have done so. No matter, as far as we're concerned. With some complicated reasoning, Paul has simply held Adam against Jesus as opposites. Adam symbolizes disobedience to God's will. Therefore, as Paul saw matters, sin came into the world and became the potential for our destruction. But Jesus came into the world to overcome sin, "so that just as sin exercised dominion in death, so grace might also exercise dominion through justification leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."
Gospel: Matthew 4:1-11 (C, RC, E)
Temptation. Jesus faced it, just as we do. In this story Christians may find themselves divided on many issues. How literally, for instance, are we to understand these references to a devil and to angels? Was the duration of Jesus' time in the desert really forty days, or is that another use of traditional symbolism meaning a long time?
Clearly, Jesus faced a terrible time in his life. His quotations are from Deuteronomy. He was immersed in prayer and scripture. You and I think of the Jesus we know, the victor over temptation, the son of God in whom was no sin. We may find it hard to take the thought of Jesus facing temptation seriously. But this was surely one of the fires he had to endure to become God's true son.
There's a new book on the market by a man who served as an eighteen-year-old soldier during the fighting in Europe during World War II. He tells how his platoon was annihilated, he the only survivor, during a terrible battle. Yet many years later, when he began to research wartime history, the battle received only brief mention and was treated as a small encounter quickly won. It was frustrating to realize that such a brutal, deadly fight was all but brushed aside in history as an easy victory. So with this story. It seems easy, now. Yet Jesus was assaulted by his own inner temptation, perhaps the realization that his gifts and his spreading fame might be used in selfish ways. Perhaps the "Devil" refers to that all too human drive for power. Perhaps the angels symbolize the glory of God's rejoicing Spirit. Through prayer and scripture, Jesus won out against terrible temptations.
SERMON SUGGESTIONS
Title: "The Answer Is Faith"
Text: Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7
Theme: It is our destiny to live with mystery. There are questions about the universe for which we are simply not to receive answers. To be human is to face this fundamental ambiguity of life.
1. All of us must learn to face a life which lacks the answers we wish we had. Why is there suffering? Why does a small child die while the ninety-year-old gentleman next door still mows his lawn? Why does one family seem to have tragedy after tragedy while another family seems to live a charmed life? Why do many dishonest people seem to prosper while other people, scrupulously honest, live in want? Why is a baby born deformed? Why terrible diseases? The list goes on. Like Adam and Eve, we yearn to know how and why our universe works.
2. To live with any semblance of peace of mind, we must accept the universe as it is. As Thomas Carlyle replied when a lady was quoted as saying "I accept the universe," "Gad, she'd better." Healthy-minded people learn to press on with life, realizing that there are no promises of fairness or equality of life. As Rabbi Kushner observed, "Bad Things Happen to Good People."
3. Jesus brought the only answer: Trust God, through faith. To some, this sounds naive, a cop-out. To those who know Christ, this makes good sense. There is promised a time when we will understand. Now we see darkly, then we shall see face to face. A strange and wonderful inner peace is available to those who can face each day with courage, realizing that bad things can happen, but having learned to trust in prayer, in the Spirit which walks with us. Then we need not fear.
Title: "The Better Way"
Text: Matthew 4:11; Romans 5:19
Theme: "Adam" symbolizes sinful humanity unredeemed. Christ brought redemption. In his temptation in the wilderness, Jesus led the way for us lesser souls who also must cope with temptation every day, perhaps every hour. The humorist who said "I can resist anything but temptation" expressed what we all sometimes feel.
1. Temptation is the common fate of us all. Without a strong moral foundation, few can last for long without falling. The felt need for recognition, for power, for immortality, how we wish for these. Yet by light of day, we learn that all these have a painful price.
2. That indispensable moral foundation is to be found in religious faith. Our Jewish friends have a strong moral vein throughout their religion, so we cannot assume Jesus is unique in that regard. Yet for those of us who derive our moral values from Jesus, he is our foundation.
3. To forego what seem, at times, to be the advantages to be obtained by cheating, lying, stealing, or the pleasures we sometimes associate with an affair, or alcohol and drugs, requires a strong faith in something higher. It requires belief that the better way is, in the long run, indeed the better way. It is to recognize that God has created a natural law of the spirit which ordains that wrongdoing can never, finally, issue in happiness.
4. Belief, at times, may not be strong enough. Faith, a more powerful force, will be. That is not an attitude achieved by effort of the will. Faith is a gift, given by God's Spirit, received through prayer.
ADDITIONAL ILLUSTRATIONS
A distinguished judge in a nearby community, past seventy and facing retirement, took some money which wasn't his. Since it belonged to the government, it seemed fair game, so after years of worthy public service he took it. Of course, it then became necessary to lie in order to cover up the crime. He was caught. In an emotional hearing before another judge, he threw himself on the mercy of the court. Tearfully he confessed. His sentence was short, and he resigned in disgrace. Now his children, instead of remembering Dad as a much-admired jurist, will always remember him as a convicted crook. Now those retirement years which were to be filled with happy memories will now be bitter days because a man who was tempted did not listen to the "angels" in his life.
____________
"As individuals, men believe that they ought to love and serve each other and establish justice between each other. As racial, economic and national groups they take for themselves whatever their power can command."
-- Reinhold Niebuhr in Moral Man and Immoral Society
____________
Dr. Howard Thurman, when dean of the chapel at Boston University, suffered several tragedies in his life. One day he was asked how he managed to continue on in life so effectively with unbroken spirit intact. He said that for a long time he would go home each evening, fill his tub with hot water, and slide down into its warmth. He would then allow himself a period of time in which to feel sorry for himself. He would cry out against God, immerse himself in self-pity, declare his outrage. Then he would finish bathing, get dressed, and go on about his business. This was how he managed to accept his world the way it is.
____________
E. Stanley Jones one day visited the Garden of Gethsemane. He knelt where Jesus knelt. As he arose, he plucked a twig from a thorn bush in order to have a perpetual reminder of his Gethsemane experience. He placed the twig between the pages of his Bible for safekeeping. Imagine his amazement when upon opening his Bible a few days later, he discovered that the thorns had blossomed into a flower.
____________
Psalm Of The Day
Psalm 32 (C) -- The glad consciousness of God's forgiveness.
Psalm 51 (E) -- An individual lament because of sin.
Prayer Of The Day
We confess that deep ambitions and desires are harbored in our hearts. These we cannot erase, as well you know, O God, for you have made us. Grant us, then, strength in our integrity, that we may not be tempted into those actions which may injure others or dishonor thy son who dwells within us. Amen.
