Psalm 51:10-12

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.

Create in me a clean heart (song)

Call to Worship

Bless the LORD! 
We bless God’s holy name.

Bless the LORD! 
We will remember all God’s blessings.

The LORD forgives all our sins,
and heals all our infirmities.

The LORD redeems our life from the grave;
and crowns us with mercy and loving-kindness.
So we gather in humble gratitude to offer God our prayer and praise.

Gloria (Taize)

Prayer

Light of true light,
Truth of deepest truth,
we find peace in your perfection
and courage in your strength.
You offer us wisdom in your Word
and hope in your mercy.
You are the redeemer of all things and all times.
With humble hearts, we worship you, 
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, 
our Creator, Saviour, and Guide,
one God, now and forever.

Loving and everlasting God, 
nothing is beyond the reach of your love. 
You offer forgiveness to all who turn to you in confession. 
So we pray together:

Forgive us the words we failed to speak
and the words we should not have spoken.
Forgive us the good we failed to do
and the evil we have done.
Forgive us the love we refused to offer
and the grudges we have held on to.
Create in us clean hearts, O Lord.
Forgive our mistakes and misjudgments,
amend who we are,
and direct who we can become with your love;
through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen

Scripture: 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10

We entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. As we work together with him, we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain. For he says, "At an acceptable time I have listened to you, and on a day of salvation I have helped you." See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation! We are putting no obstacle in anyone's way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, but as servants of God we have commended ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labours, sleepless nights, hunger; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; in honour and dishonour, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see--we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.

Sermon: Quest for a clean heart

Today we begin our forty days spiritual adventure with Christ. Jesus, after getting baptized, went into the wilderness for forty days to be tempted by the devil. Before we think we know what this passage is all about, I ask you to think about what you are hearing. Jesus did not go into the wilderness simply to pray in a secluded and quiet place. He was led into the wilderness by the Spirit to be tempted. Being tempted was the goal.

Why? Why did he need to go through the temptations? Temptations revealed who Jesus was to himself first and foremost. Through these three temptations addressing the very essence of what it means to be human we, too, are challenged to confess before God and to the world who we truly are as human beings.

It is important for us to go into the wilderness for forty days and be tested if we truly want to discover who we are before God and accept that we are called by God through Christ. These forty days are the gift where the Spirit leads us as the Spirit led Jesus to let God reveal to us who we truly are.

In a way, as Christians, we already know who we are. We are the people whom others speak of as the people who are known by our love. We love one another in ways others cannot. We always present ourselves as “servants of God” who “have commended ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labours, sleepless nights, hunger; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; in honour and dishonour, in ill repute and good repute.”

We humbly answer God’s call to be God’s servants in this world in the same way Paul described himself here in 2 Corinthians because the Spirit leads us and reveals us to ourselves by making us to be challenged by the devil in the same way Jesus was tempted. In this Lent, we face all three questions that were given to Jesus.

To serve God and people as God’s servants is indeed nothing less than being treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see--we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything. These are a very heady way of describing who we are as Christians. It is sometimes a bit easier to see a Chritian in action to realize what all these lofty words mean.

We know all this already. But in life we are tested constantly. The early Christians called what happened to Jesus in the wilderness “temptations.” They are more than temptations. They are the struggles to choose life over death. One false move and death grips us. Constantly we wrestle with questions to see if indeed with the help of the Spirit we walk with Christ. One sin that we take very seriously is the deathly effects of the knowledge of good and evil. We may think that this knowledge would help us greatly, but there is a reason why in Genesis 3 the very first sin of human beings was to eat the forbidden fruit that would make humans to be like God.

We can know all about how to be like Christ, but thinking that we can gain this knowledge and have mastery over it can indeed lead us to death. This is more than pride. The knowledge of good and evil easily misleads us. We see this all the time as many good Christian leaders who preach what Jesus taught falling into this temptation all the time. Christians struggle with this temptation of thinking we know what is good.

The 19th century Russian author, Leo Tolstoy, wrote a short story about two very devout brothers facing a choice. The story illustrates well how we are challenged each day in faith. The story displays how easily we can forget to serve God and others in our own smart ways because we are so devout and pius. If we fall into this temptation, we inevitably become imposters, instead of being treated as imposters, think of ourselves as rich in faith, instead of realizing how poor we are in faith and so on. Here is the story.

Once upon a time, in the days long since gone by, there dwelt at Jerusalem two brothers; the name of the elder was Athanasius, the name of the younger John. They dwelt on a hill not far from the town, and lived upon what people gave to them. Every day the brothers went out to work. They worked not for themselves, but for the poor. Wherever the overworked, the sick were to be found—wherever there were widows and orphans, thither went the brothers, and there they worked and spent their time, taking no payment. Thus the brothers went about separately the whole week, and only met together in the evening of the Sabbath at their own dwelling. Only on Sunday did they remain at home, praying and conversing together. And the Angel of the Lord came down to them and blessed them. On the Monday they separated again, each going his own way. Thus did the brothers live for many years, and every week the Angel of the Lord came down to them and blessed them.

One Monday, when the brothers had gone forth to work, and had parted their several ways, the elder brother, Athanasius, felt sorry at having had to part from his beloved brother, and he stood still and glanced after him. John was walking with bent head, and he did not look back. But suddenly John also stopped as if he perceived something and continued to gaze fixedly at it. Presently he drew near to that which he had been looking upon, and then suddenly leaped aside, and, not stopping for another instant, ran towards the mountain and up the mountain, right away from the place, just as if some savage beast were pursuing him. Athanasius was astonished, and turned back to the place to find out what his brother had been so afraid of. At last he approached the spot, and then he saw something glistening in the sun. He drew nearer—on the grass, as if poured out from a measure, lay a heap of gold. And Athanasius was still more astonished, both at the sight of the gold and at the leaping aside of his brother.

"What was he afraid of, and what did he run away from?" thought Athanasius. "There is no sin in gold, sin is in man. You may do ill with gold, but you may also do good. How many widows and orphans might not be fed therewith, how many naked ones might not be clothed, how many poor and sick might not be cared for and cured by means of this gold? Now, indeed, we minister to people, but our ministration is but little, because our power is small, and with this gold we might minister to people much more than we do now." Thus thought Athanasius, and would have said so to his brother, but John was by this time out of hearing, and looked no bigger than a cockchafer on the further mountain.

And Athanasius took off his garment, shovelled as much gold into it as he was able to carry, threw it over his shoulder, and went into the town. He went to an inn, gave the gold to the innkeeper, and then went off to fetch the rest of it And when he had brought in all the gold he went to the merchants, bought land in that town, bought stones, wood, hired labourers, and set about building three houses. And Athanasius abode in the town three months, and built the three houses in that town; one of the houses was an asylum for widows and orphans, the second house was a hospital for the sick, the third house was a hospice for the poor and for pilgrims. And Athanasius sought him out three God-fearing elders, and the first elder he placed over the refuge, the second over the hospital, and the third over the hospice for pilgrims. And Athanasius had three thousand gold pieces still left. And he gave a thousand to each of the elders that they might have wherewith to distribute among the poor. And all three houses began to be filled with people, and the people began to praise Athanasius for all that he had done. And Athanasius rejoiced thereat, so that he had no desire to depart from the town. But Athanasius loved his brother, and, taking leave of the people, and not keeping for himself a single coin of all this money, he went back to his dwelling in the selfsame old garment in which he had come to town.

Athanasius was drawing near to his mountain, and he thought to himself: "My brother judged wrongly when he leaped aside from the gold and ran away from it. Haven't I done much better?"

And Athanasius had no sooner thought this than suddenly he beheld standing in his path the Angel who had been sent to bless them, but now looked threateningly upon him. And Athanasius was aghast and could only say:

"Wherefore, my Lord?"
And the Angel opened his mouth and said:
"Depart from hence! Thou art not worthy to dwell with thy brother. That one leap aside of thy brother's was worth more than all that thou hast done with thy gold."

Athanasius began to talk of how many poor and how many pilgrims he had fed, and of how many orphans he had cared for.

And the Angel said to him:
"That same Devil who placed the gold there in order to corrupt thee, hath also put these big words into thy mouth.

And then the conscience of Athanasius upbraided him, and he understood that what he had done was not done for God, and he wept and began to repent.

Then the Angel stepped aside from the road, and left free for him the path in which John was already standing awaiting his brother. And from thenceforth Athanasius yielded no more to the wiles of the Devil who had strewn the gold in his path, and he understood that not by gold, but by good works only, could he render service to God and his fellow-man.

And the brethren dwelt together as before.
   
It is hard for us to stay on the road with Christ. We need to pray for the Spirit to lead us as the Spirit led Jesus. Without the guidance of the Spirit we fail as this older brother failed. It is so simple to have pride in our own faith and how accomplished we are in faith, rather than realizing we are nothing without our Christ.

This is the first lesson that helps us to walk with Jesus on the way to the cross. In humility we follow him.

Prayer

Holy and merciful God, 
we confess that the world is not as you created it to be. Hear our prayers for the world and for one another:

Human love is imperfect and often fails. 
Help us to love you with heart, mind, soul and strength, 
and to love our neighbors as ourselves in our words and our actions. 
Lord, in your mercy, 
Hear our prayers.

We have been deaf to your call to serve others. 
Strengthen us to reach out to those in need and share what we have to offer. 
Lord, in your mercy, 
Hear our prayers.

Anger, pride, and impatience hinder the life-giving relationships we long for.  Restore our broken souls and mend hearts and homes in this suffering world.
Lord, in your mercy, 
Hear our prayers.

All around us, selfishness, envy and greed cause harm to others 
and to the earth itself. 
Show us how to live with kindness and generosity in the world you love.
Lord, in your mercy, 
Hear our prayers.

Each day prejudice and contempt for others cause violence and loss. 
Open our hearts with your Spirit to see every person as precious to you
and find the face of Jesus in each one.
Lord, in your mercy, 
Hear our prayers.

Earth, sea and sky ache under the impact of human actions. 
Fire and storm destroy homes and habitats. 
Move in us by your Spirit to change our ways
and care for the earth you entrust to us.

These things we pray in the name of Jesus, our redeemer and friend who taught us to pray:
The Lord’s Prayer

Guide, O Great Redeemer

Benediction

*Prayers are taken from The PCC Worship Resource