Sunday 22 February 2026 | The Rev’d Diana Rattray
Sermon based on:
Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7
Psalm 32
Romans 5: 12-19
Matthew 4:1-11
We continue to live with the impact of the
extreme weather events, the terrible impact of floods and cyclones.
Homes red stickered, communities cut off and tragically loss of lives in slips and flood water.
As floodwater recedes and local government and national government respond with emergency packages, there is a call from environmental groups and academics for more money to be spent on planning ahead – as it costs so much more reacting to physical disasters than funding towards climate adaptation and planning for resilience.
We need to address land use over vast areas of steep hill country, returning it to permanent forests as well as restricting where and how we build and re-build.
Some of the destruction is due to poor land management and human greed.
We have some really hard choices to make. There will be a financial cost and a physical cost as we move forward.
What might this have to do with the first Sunday in Lent? Well in our readings we hear of Paradise and plenty in one and desert and scarcity in the other.
Lent is all about choices – hard choices. And no I don’t mean giving up alcohol, chocolate or coffee – although that is fine if you have decided to do that.
As a world, as a nation, as individuals we are going to have to make some hard choices if we are serious about the survival of many species and the planet.
The forty day journey of Lent is about deciding over and over about what we do and how we choose to live.
It is about our relationship with the sacred and the divine and our relationship with each other and the land.
The reading from Genesis is sometimes referred to as “The Fall”.
Episcopalian Bishop and Philosopher Jake Owensby uses the term “thrownness” when thinking about human choice. He talks about each of us being thrown into a world not of our own making. We didn’t choose our parents, or DNA, nation of birth, economic class, or political system we were born into. We are thrown into injustices, absurdities and ongoing catastrophes not of our own making.
He suggests the idea of ‘thrownness’ as a helpful way to talk about the story of Adam and Eve. It is not about parents who made lousy choices, it is not the Augustinian notion of sin passing from parents to children because of sex.
Rather and I quote Bishop Jake “ the fall is the idea we are free to make choices in a world shattered in ways not of our own making, a world that is at once breathtakingly beautiful and hideously scarred. Our spiritual challenge is to walk in love in a way that might heal, mend, and even transform our circumstances.”
Three years ago, following Cyclone Gabrielle Rev Canon Christopher Douglas-Huriwai, preached powerful words on Ash Wednesday. Addressing the flood stricken people of Te Taitokerau, Te Tairāwhiti and Te Matau a Maui, he reminded them and us all of the three pillars of Lent
Whakawhirinaki – love towards God expressed in prayer
Whakamārie love towards others expressed through charity
Whakapūmau – love towards self – expressed in fasting
We seek to be closer to God, closer to our neighbour and closer to ourselves.
The three traditional pillars of Lent, Prayer, Almsgiving and Fasting are three actions deeply rooted in the idea of love.
Love towards God – can be seen as a prayer opportunity to sit with the reality we are facing. We can be open about all the difficult things that we are facing in our lives and our need for the divine. An action to lead us away from distractions of the world into an awareness of the One who is love
Love towards other – charity – an opportunity when we can and where we can, to manaaki one another.
Almsgiving allows us to see others, to love others and to listen to others as well as the giving of time and possessions to help in times of need or distress. The true meaning of charity is to love God and others.
Love to ourselves – fasting – feel the deep grief and emotion of the time, the loss of property, livelihood and sadly lives. Permission to be gentle and gracious with ourselves- Fasting may be taking a rest from things that prevent us from keeping in right relationship with each other. To help us increase our spiritual awareness
A tall order. We don’t always get it right.
We continue to fall short of the ideal, to mess up, in our own lives as individuals and also collectively when it comes to economic inequality, impact on the environment and human rights for all regardless of gender, sexuality or any other point of difference.
Yet even the One who came in response to humanity’s mess was tempted. Not tempted in the sense that we might say we are tempted to have just one more potato chip and then scoff the whole bag.
Rather temptation here is the testing of integrity and purpose. An examination of the soul.
The book some of you will be using for your Lent study is written by the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. “In Discovering Christianity” he talks about how having faith stops you ignoring things. The test of true faith is how much more it lets you see.
The world cannot be fully seen through one set of eyes or a mass of eyes. May our faith journey, and the choices we make this Lent, continue to open up and increase our vision and passions so that we really see.
Faith leads us into a bigger world, not a small narrow bigoted world that some right wing Christian fundamentalists want to push on the world.
The time in the wilderness gave Jesus the insight and the courage to surrender, and so to depend, not on his own best efforts, not on his own world view, what he could see, but rather depend on an emptiness that can only be filled by a gift of grace.
At the end of the day, the spiritual life is never about us, about what we can and cannot do. At the end of the day, it is always about the divine, and about God’s gifts—grace and love will not fail.
That is the hope we hold onto as we journey through Lent, through tough times, through Holy Week, Good Friday and as we look towards the hope of Easter.
So may it be.
Amen.