Cottesbrooke :  3rd Sunday in Lent.  28 Feb. 2016
“Help us Oh Lord to become masters of ourselves that we may become the servants of others. Take our lips and speak through them our minds and think through them, and take our hearts and set them on fire.” 
The cravings at sunset are, after 3 weeks of Lent are beginning to disappear.  A glass of cranberry juice is not quite the same as one of Merlot nor Ginger wine whisky: but you can get used it.  Admittedly,  assuming that you normally have your units under some kind of control, it’s not much of a hardship to give up alcohol for 6 weeks, more a gesture towards a bit of satisfying Lenten self - restraint,  and a gesture also towards health the doomsayers.   
But one has to be careful not to sound holier than thou, or priggish in warning friends who entertain you,  or waiters who offering the wine list, that “ I’m off it for Lent. “
When I was young, smoking was the most usual habit abandoned during Lent. My mother, I remember, laid aside her Craven A and got a bit irritable.  But nowadays with smokers in retreat anyway, and no smoking signs even in churches, you hardly ever hear of such abstinence.  .  I suppose in 20 years time, giving up alcohol will be no hardship either if the fulminations by professors and politicians in recent weeks, who appear to equate all drinking with binge drinking, mean they get their way with punitive taxes and yet more restricting legislation. 
Since we are often told, not least from the pulpit, that we live in a society where instant gratification is the norm, it must be good from time to time to exercise some self-restraint.  And Lent provides a good excuse for that.  
I confess that I am in two minds, however, about the biblical accounts on which Lent it is based.  The synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke all affirm that Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness in preparation for his ministry and it seems clear that Our Lord did indeed spend a prolonged period alone in prayer and contemplation before he began to teach.  
But there are allegorical touches to the story that we can’t ignore. 
First those 40 days.  It may be a co-incidence but the number forty – associated with sensational events - seems to crop up fairly regularly in the Bible. We start with Noah and the flood when it rained, of course, for 40 days   Then Moses spent 40 days on Mount Sinai, coming back with the tablets of stone; the Hebrews wandered for 40 years before reaching the Promised land.  Elijah, I discover, spent 40 days on a mountain, this time Mount Horeb and Jonah told the inhabitants of Nineveh to mend their ways in 40 days or else.  So there is then a certain quality of poetic licence, I can’t help feeling, about the Gospel Writers’ account Our Lord’s 40 days in the wilderness. 
The three temptations in themselves seem to me and to many scholars  – and I hope this is not too controversial – also to be allegorical.  They represent what Jesus himself felt in the form of a parable.  No matter: for the temptations represent three of the most common moral challenges for humankind, challenges that Jesus knew he had to face as he prepared for his ministry. 
Why should Jesus be tempted you might ask?   Wasn’t he above all that?  His human incarnation meant, however, that he had given up his divine prerogatives in order to live among us men and women and so be subjected himself to temptation and sin.  
So the overall message of this episode in the Bible is, it seems to me that we must not allow our lives to be controlled from outside [i.e. in the Gospels’ story by the Devil] and there are plenty of events in life – that is  temptations,  that can threaten to do that. And he who pays the piper that persuades us to give way to temptation, calls the tune in our lives. 
When the Devil says to Jesus “ if you be the Son of God” turn these stones into bread, he is subtly querying that fact of His divinity and, as I see it, trying to put Jesus in a position where he will feel obliged to do something sensational to prove it.  This, for you and me, is the temptation of pride – wanting to show off.  
The Bread itself is the representation of physical fulfilment: that instant gratification again. So this first temptation covers that as well.  All things come to him who knows how to wait, is an old Chinese proverb.  We need to wait for God’s word and try to find his way.  
Next, in the second temptation, we are on top of the mountain, the allegorical representation of the summit of worldly power and wealth.  How often have we seen, not least in recent years, the fulfilment of the first part pf Lord Acton’s famous dictum  “  Power tends to corrupt…”  ? Bankers misleading investors,  MPs misusing their expenses, the Mayor of Tower Hamlets buying votes … It’s back to self-gratification leading to cheating. Power in too many cases does tend to corrupt. 
In one way or another, I fear we are all exposed to this temptation at some time., bending the rules a little to suit ourselves.  We can, like Oscar Wild,  joke our way out of it as we pour a second glass of wine  “  I can resist everything except temptation “.  But Jesus did put that temptation behind him knowing that he had a long hard road to travel, involving humiliation and death, but he found power and majesty at the end of that road. 
Finally, the third temptation, we see Jesus invited to jump off the temple to prove who he is and be saved by angels- - a sort of celestial bungee jump.  This is, to you and me, the temptation to court popularity, notoriety, public recognition.    
But Jesus was able to change the world without any of that   He made himself, as St Paul puts it,  “ of no reputation and took on him the form of a servant …..and being found in fashion as a man became obedient unto death even death upon the cross. “ 
So much for the spiritual side of that famous story of what went on in the wilderness.  I haven’t touched on the difficult question, you may have noticed, of how the Gospel writers found out about it.  But then allegories are allegories.
Now let’s try to get a bit more practical.  For Lent is not just about giving up drink, chocolate or fags: it’s about prayer, contemplation and charity.  Here are a few random thoughts on those words to take away with us:
Anyone who has given up alcohol might like to work out how many bottles of, say, gin or wine they consume in six weeks and put the money saved into a Lent lunch.; 
) Spend five minutes looking up a clothing donation charity in the phone book. Spend 15 minutes going through your wardrobe and picking out clothes you could send them. 
Think how your Christian faith has been expressed in your life over the last 48 hours and if it hasn’t, do something to express it in the next 48. 
If you hear an ambulance, stop for a few moments and pray for the sick and injured. Even if in the case of the ambulance you heard, it’s only a call for the paramedics to move an overweight man out of bed,  the need for someone sick somewhere for your prayers is surely urgent 
Go on a brief pilgrimage to a church you haven’t visited for a while.   Ring a friend or relative whom you have not spoken to for a while. 
And finally you could buy yourself a box of pretzels.  They date from the Middle Ages apparently,  when people baked a biscuit in the shape of two arms crossed in prayer across the chest as a reminder of the need for prayer particularly, my research shows,  during Lent.  Come to think of it, they might be a useful addition to a Lent lunch 
 
So there we are:  some actions for the next three weeks to add to the sense of well being generated by the cranberry juice and make us feel that when Easter comes, we’ve achieved a bit more this Lent than mere temperance. 
Teach us Good Lord to serve thee as thou deservest………..
