How often we ask God for things that cannot be given.

This morning, we read the story of Jesus going into the wilderness and being tempted by the devil. The standard way of preaching about this is to speak about our own temptation and our own wilderness moments. We liken ourselves to Jesus ? ?Oh how hard it is to be a good person.?

?How hard it is to be holy when there is such wickedness which tempts us night and day ? how hard it is to be a good Christian when there is so much naughtiness in the world which looks so much more fun?.

If you have come looking for that kind of preaching, you have come to the wrong place and come to the wrong preacher. The story of Jesus in the desert is not to be dismissed with some camp exposition of how terribly hard it is to be lovely.
I am not sure how hard it is to be good person ? most of the people that I meet do not seem to me to be intrinsically wicked. What I want us to think about today is whether this story is told so that we would think that we are like Jesus, or rather whether our identity here is with the tempter.

Are we those who tempt the Lord?

It it we who throw these temptations at him. Bread. Power. Magic.

Or to be more specific, are we those who ask God for things that cannot be?

No-one knows what really happened to Jesus in the wilderness. This is not a story written by anyone who was there. What Luke is telling us is not a description of what happened but rather, his attempt to say something about who Jesus was. And who God is.

Like much in the bible, this kind of writing is what we might now call magical realism ? ways of telling us things that are important though the device of telling a story so strange and odd that we have to take notice.

All the gospel writers invite us to speculate that Jesus was indeed the Son of God. All four of them invite us constantly to make the comparison between the person of Jesus and the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who had been known to the Jewish people for generations.

The invite us to think about how Jesus fits in to the constant clamour of the prophets who tried and kept on trying to call the people back to God through the centuries.

The gospel writers make us dwell on Jesus and ask ? who is this? Who is the man Jesus who walked in wilderness and wasteland? Was he at one with God when he was there? Or was he troubled and tortured by the experience.

I?ve been to the desert places in the middle east and I know better to romanticise them. It is a harsh environment. We may find beauty there, but only if we know we are safe and have food and water and shelter.

My assertion this morning is that some of the things that Jesus is faced with in that harsh environment are the things that human beings routinely throw at him. No, I will be more specific ? he has to deal not only with the blazing sun but with the unreasonable expectations of the rest of us.

How easy it is for us to see prayer as a shortcut to what we want God to do for us. What a temptation though.

Prayer is not a shortcut to give us what we desire.

Maybe we want bread without having to work for it. Maybe we want power without authority. Maybe we want to believe that we can do the impossible and take to the skies and fly.

Well, if we ask God for these things the answer will be ?no?.

Notwithstanding the bounty of the sharing of the loaves and fishes, no amount of prayer alone will put bread on the table.

Notwithstanding the fantasy that we might have that if only we had power we would use it better than anyone else, God is not in the business of giving or withholding human power.

Notwithstanding the incredible potential we have for human achievement, there is nothing that we can do that will make us able to jump from temple towers and fly. And any altered reality which tempts us that we can ? whether it be drugs, religion or simply fantasy is merely that.

What Luke invites us to do is to recognise that we can only make progress in the spiritual life when we recognise the world as it really is and get a realistic sense of perspective on our place in it. (For those interested, I will be returning to this theme in the Lent course).

The invitation in Lent is to see things as they really are. It is an opportunity for honesty. The temptations thrown at Jesus are not shortcuts to a wholesome spirituality but are dead ends leading nowhere.

There is no magic shortcut to turn stones into bread.

There is no religious shortcut to political power that will ever benefit the world.

There is no shortcut that will enable us to overcome the limitations of being human.

Being human is incredible enough. Being human means to be one of God?s beloved children. Being human means having the chance to share bread; work for a better world and put whatever knowledge we might have of God to good use.

Prayer is not about making impossible demands of God. It is more, much more about seeing things as they truly are. Asking God for the miracle of sharing God?s perspective on things. To gain wisdom through understanding. Living with and in the world ? breathing in all the contradictions and sadnesses of human life and breathing out the love of God that turns sorrow into joy. That is prayer.

All the rest is temptation.

Being human is everything. And as we begin Lent, we are invited to reconsider the fact that we are human, just as Jesus was, with all the limitations that come from being born.

Seeing things as they really are is one of the messages that we reflect on for the 40 days of Lent.

It is all about being human; being whole. Knowing that there nothing more incredible, extraordinary or magical is needed, than being loved by God in the first place.

Amen.

I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?

We are allowed just one snippet of Joseph?s saga before Lent begins and it is the bit where he reveals himself to his brothers. ?I am Joseph? and reveals his longing for news of home. ?Is my father still alive??
Of all the bible stories, I think that Joseph?s tale is one of the very few that now has a currency outside church circles. It is one of the few stories which a lot of people could relate who never went to Sunday school and rarely see the inside of the church. It isn?t just a good Bible story but a stage show. Indeed, our friends up in St Mary?s Dunblane are putting it on very soon.

Unlike most preachers these days, I?m not a great one for story-telling. However encountering Joseph and reading of his troubles and eventual reunion with his brothers and his father, it is impossible not to recognise and applaud a master story-teller at work.

This is great story telling. However, this is story telling for a purpose.

The question that I want to pose for you this morning is to ask how Joseph reached this point in life. For this was a place of reconciliation. A place of peace. A place of brotherhood. A place of concern for family and generosity beyond what we might expect.

Joseph had somehow made a journey. He had travelled from Canaan to Egypt. From promised land to foreign land. From spoilt brat to superpower. From family fields, to the Egyptian court. But the journey that I invite you to think about this morning is the inner journey that Joseph made. A journey beyond resentment to generosity and love.

? How would you feel towards your brothers if you had been sold into slavery?
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? How would you feel towards those who had caused you to be banished from your homeland?
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? How would you feel towards the world if you had been shut in prison for no good reason?
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Joseph somehow managed to journey beyond the feelings that we would expect him to have. He managed to think of others when most would have expected him to be thinking about himself.

I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?

What was going through Joseph?s mind throughout his life. What was he feeling when he was rewarded with all that Pharaoh could give. When he donned the state robes of Egypt did his mind go back to the fine robe with long sleeves that his father had once bought him ? the robe that enraged his brothers? Or was he looking for a way to share what he had even then? Did he imagine? Did he hope for some reconciliation? Did the dreamer dream of a time when his brothers would find themselves in front of him. For how many years had that exclamation been forming in his mind.

I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?

There are two parts to that exclamation. Firstly. ?I am Joseph?. There is more here than mere identification. For Joseph really knew himself. Somehow, through all the troubles which life had thrown at him, he knew himself. And he knew that he would do nothing to harm the brothers. He knew he had riches to share. He had somehow reached beyond resentment to generosity.

I am Joseph.

Self-knowledge is something very current in our world. All kinds of self-awareness programmes and books are available. There is a whole industry of self-actualisation. And not all of it is spirituality-lite.

The spiritual journey is authentic when it enables us to grow in such a way that, like Joseph we can put resentment, even justified resentment aside. And with God?s encouragement we can reach out with open hearts and offer what we have to those in need with no motivation but love.

For that seems to be what Joseph managed to do.

I am Joseph. Is my father still alive.

Nothing had killed the hope that Joseph had that he would see his father again. Nothing had dampened his dream that one day things would be restored. Happy endings; miraculous happy endings have a way of happening in good stories. And sure enough, Jacob will come wending his way over the hills to see his beloved son once again.

Not all our stories have happy endings. Not all of us live in the middle of the miraculous. Not all of us will have all we hope for restored to us.

But we can dream.

We can dream like Joseph the arch-dreamer. And we can form our prayers and action out of our dreams. Dreams of a world restored. A world where generous hearts reach out beyond resentment and build the kind of world which all broken hearts hope for.

We can dream of a world where the brothers in the middle east are at peace once again. We can dream of a world where homes are free from the violence which Joseph knew. We can dream of a world free from false accusation. A world free from famine. A world free from all that keeps apart those who belong together.

Somewhere along his journey, Joseph realised that he was already loved. And that realisation allowed him to act beyond resentment. So free did he become that he was able to construct a means of being reconciled with his brothers ? acting out his forgiveness until they grasped that it was real.

And in that reconciliation, the desire to do violence between the brothers was overcome. In that love the desire for vengeance was quenched in love. In that moment when Joseph says, ?I am Joseph. Is my father still alive? the brothers finally get the message. All wrongs can be put to right.

When we hear Joseph?s saga ?whether it is told or whether it is sung from the stage, let us remember its message. Let us remember and let us dream. Let us dream the dream of reconciliation moment by moment and day by day.

Amen