Worship on the Web  
STARTERS FOR SUNDAY
Date:	Sunday 21st February 2010
		1st Sunday in Lent; Economic Justice; Fairtrade Fortnight 
Readings:
      Deuteronomy 26: 1 -11
      Psalm 91: 1-2, 9-16
      Romans 10: 8b-13
      Luke 4: 1 - 13

Prayers:
Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy, but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Hymns and Songs:
		Forty days and forty nights (CH4 337)
		Seek ye first the Kingdom of God (CH4 641)
		Jesus tempted in the desert (CH4 338)
		O Jesus I have promised (CH4 644)
		I waited patiently for God (CH4 31)
      Inspired by love and anger (CH4 253)
		Jesus Christ is waiting (CH4 360)
		
Additional Resources:
	www.rootsontheweb.com
	
“One does not live by bread alone.”  The Gospel for the first Sunday in Lent is the story of Satan’s Temptation of Christ in the desert, and in Year C, we follow the version in Luke’s Gospel.  We may consider Satan to be the adversary of the Old Testament, or the slanderer (diabolos) of the New, and this episode as one of temptation or testing, perhaps according to whether we think that it is Satan or the Holy Spirit that initiated it.  We can perhaps imagine Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit, engaged in a (possibly internal) debate, about how to conduct his ministry.  His protagonist, like a wrestler, does not attack him at his points of weakness, but tries to turn his own strength against him.



The three proposals that Jesus refuses are: to demonstrate his command of the material world; to allow himself to be proclaimed God (effectively usurping his Father); and to test God’s love recklessly.  On each occasion, Jesus uses Scripture to survive the testing.  It is perhaps for that reason that the third test uses words from today’s Psalm.  But these are ripped from their context, and so do not divert Jesus from returning to Nazareth and beginning his proclamation of the Good News.

Today, it is unlikely that anyone is tested by being asked to turn stones into bread.  However, it is increasingly easy to believe that we have full command of the material world.  The church’s concerns about how we approach the end of life are particularly difficult to explain to people who treat their bodies as if they are machines that can be discarded as soon as they stop working properly.  Especially when accompanied by philosophical materialism, such beliefs idolize technology, if not humanity.  It is easy to believe that there is no problem so large that has no technological solution.  But even within the context of such beliefs, there is the possibility of science being ignored as its findings challenge us all to moderate our consumption.

Jesus survived his testing by asserting that the material world is not sufficient.  He turned to the word of God as his true bread.  He did not seek regal authority, until it was conferred by his Father.  Instead, he chose to enter into a loving relationship as a faithful son, perhaps remembering the command from Deut 6: 5, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might,” with which he might have overcome the third test (rather than Deut 6: 16).  

Our understanding of the material world is often narrowly economic.  The current financial crisis can be understood as a failure of testing: we all wanted to become a little richer than it turns out was actually possible.  Almost everyone benefited from the long period of growth that preceded it (what the Governor of the Bank of England has called the NICE – non-inflationary, continuing expansion – decade).  The nature of our economics is strongly materialist, with the interests of other people typically entering it only as they affect our own well-being.  Some critics, notably feminist theorists, have criticized economics on the basis that it reifies relationships and even people, potentially reducing them to being means of achieving the end of our own happiness.

Jesus proclaimed a different message.  The lawyer of Luke 10 knew the commandment, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself.”  Yet, Jesus had to teach him that his neighbour is not someone that is physically or emotionally close to him, but any human being that needed his love.  People of faith can challenge those for whom material success is important by asking them to talk not of their actions, but rather of their relationships.

Fairtrade:
www.traidcraft.co.uk/news_and_events/events/fairtrade_fortnight

Just Church:
www.church-poverty.org.uk/resources/just-church


Poverty and Homelessness Action Week:
www.actionweek.org.uk/html/home.html

Scottish Churches Housing Action:
www.churches-housing.org

Something for the Children

www.sundayschoolkids.com/activities-lent-easter/1-about-lent-instru.htm

A Word About the Author 

Church and Society Council:
www.churchofscotland.org.uk/councils/churchsociety/index.htm